Christoph R. Horstel, government consultant and publicist, based in Germany, discusses the situation in Ukraine.
On June, 20 Ukraine’s recently elected president, Petro Poroshenko, ordered a unilateral ceasefire between government-backed forces and independence supporters in the east until June, 27 to defuse the crisis in the country, promising amnesty for all independence defense forces not involved in grave crimes and willing to lay down their arms.
Pro-independence forces in the South East said they do not believe in the goodwill of the Kiev authorities, and that Poroshenko is not in control.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has pointed out that Poroshenko’s peace plan bears no mention of a nationwide dialogue.
Says Christoph R. Horstel, government Consultant and publicist, Germany:
“In fact, if you offer a peace plan, that plan should address the problems which have lead into a violation of peace. But the Poroshenko’s plan has never addressed anything, except for one point – complete obedience, subordination of all the Ukrainian people under the rule in Kiev, which is the result of the coup d’état – the second in ten years – a strange kind of election where a majority was no longer necessary, and meanwhile we had rumors that there were frauds all over the place with the presidential election and the government is still in the interim regime.
I think Poroshenko is a deeply criminal person and that is a big trouble for Ukraine. He is just walking after Washington and that’s a very bad story now.
What now? What could be the implications for Poroshenko?
And if I were a citizen of that area, I would never drop my arms, of course, because that is the only chance I have. Otherwise these people would be just an easy prey for whoever comes and tries to destroy homes or take away the men, and what else has happened in the past – all these kinds of atrocities.
Could it be that the Western media eventually stops to overlook how things really are in Ukraine?
What we have is a general line. The general line is not friendly to Russia.
But what we also have is so much information on the Internet about things contradicting the Washington policies and so much unhappiness among the European politicians with the same Washington policies, that in fact the media are now in a very awkward point. If they continue publishing the official stuff coming from Washington via the Western capitals to the big media, then they will lose the credibility with the population to such an extent, that their economic survival would be endangered even more than now.
You know, we have a reduced circulation number of major papers. The interest in the Internet versions of these papers is so weak, in fact, that they cannot sell their content. This is another problem of this big media. And that is what would aggravate very quickly, if they continue lying in the same fashion and strength that they had in the past.
You’re also saying that politicians are getting increasingly unhappy with the current situation?
Yes, a huge scandal has broken open in Poland. [The scandal erupted last weekend, when a Polish news outlet Wprost released a transcript of an excerpt from secretly recorded conversations involving Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski who was describing his country’s security relationship with the United States as “worth nothing.” ]
And that is in fact shaking Europe, because Poland was always considered to be the mainstay of the American interests, especially against Russia. And now the Foreign Minister, being married to an American national, he himself spoke out in such a brutal blunt way, that everybody is in fact shocked. And that makes waves in Facebook and all the alternative media in the Internet. People are crying “hoo” and “wow” and think that is very interesting, and they are very happy, and they are rejoicing it and things like that. So, in fact, they treat him as a hero. He is a hero, Mr. Sikorski.
In Germany we have a former member of the Foreign Committee of the German Bundestag, Mr. Gauweiler, who is an important person in the Conservative Party in southern Germany, saying that this is all going wrong regarding Russia and Ukraine and he is opposed to it. We have the former politicians speaking out in large numbers. And we know that the whole German Government is very uneasy. The economic circles are up in arms in an unprecedented way since the WW II. So, if that is not enough, I don’t know what is.
But does that imply that perhaps we are going to see a change of heart and a change of course in the West?
I think something is still missing. And I’m wondering myself what that could be. We have so terrible pictures from Ukraine. You cannot in this 21st century oppress people like we have see in the Middle Ages, that this is crazy.
In fact, if we look at the details, we see that the real terror operation by Kiev. We have heard that the professional killers trained by the CIA in Poland are used in Ukraine to kill their own people, their own brothers and sisters, so to say, in such a fashion. This is something terrible. The European people may be corrupt, there may be bad governments, but they are not stupid. And they have open eyes, they see these realities themselves, even if they push their media to publish otherwise. That is the situation. It is a complete hypocrisy phenomena we have there in politics today.
But, at the same time, if Russia actively intervenes, Russia would be there to blame.
Of course! And I’m quite sure, if that happens, if Russia takes out a big stick, that is something Washington is hoping for all the time. This is why they are going so hardcore and push Ukraine to execute these wishes. They hope that Russia would be unwise and come in with big troops, and take up the battle. And I don’t think Russia will do that.
It drives the Western politicians nuts. They get crazy over the fact that Russia is patient, very constructive, all the time talking to everybody explaining exactly what they are doing and the Western side is looking like a warmonger all the time. That cannot continue that way for a long time in the West.
And there is another aspect to that, as far as I understand, shares of leading Western companies are going down. And that is a brilliant chance for the Chinese.
Germany, yes, is doing quite well, but all the other countries in Europe are further and further down the road. These are huge inroads also on the technological advantage of the Western countries, which is diminishing day by day, because they have to simply sell their nuggets to the Chinese in such a bad situation.
So, in fact, one of the big winners keeping out of most of the trouble is China right now.
What we have is that all of these countries – Russia and China, and others – investing a lot of money into armament, and this comes only because of these Washington hegemonic terror policies.
Which means that Washington’s policy is reinforcing China, which Washington sees as its biggest adversary. Where is the logic?
There is no strategy anymore. There is no plan reaching beyond a few months. That is very bad. We have all kinds of plans, of course, of interference and scenarios by the military, and these things. But what we do not have is a real policy – policy planning, policy strategy to go ahead constructively. What Washington is doing, is isolating itself as if it was its own arch enemy.
Source: VoR
