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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Siding With Ukraine's Far-Right, US Sabotaged Zelensky's Peace Mandate</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Aaron Maté - April 17, 2022.</div></div><div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<h2>In 2019, Zelensky Was Elected On An Overwhelming Mandate To Make Peace With Russia.</h2>
<p><strong>As Stephen F. Cohen Warned That Year, The US Chose To Side With Ukraine’s Far-Right And Fuel War.</strong></p>
<p>On a warm October day in 2019, the eminent Russia studies professor
Stephen F. Cohen and I sat down in Manhattan for what would be <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/13/ukrainegate-impeachment-saga-worsens-us-russia-cold-war/">our last in-person interview</a> (Cohen <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/stephen-cohen-ukraine/">passed away in September 2020 at the age of 81</a>).</p>
<p>The House was gearing up to impeach Donald Trump for freezing weapons
shipments to Ukraine while pressuring its government to investigate Joe
Biden and his son Hunter. The Beltway media was consumed with frenzy of
a presidency in peril. But Professor Cohen, one of the leading Russia
scholars in the United States, was concerned with what the impeachment
spectacle in Washington meant for the long-running war between the
US-backed Ukrainian government and Russian-backed rebels in the Donbas.</p>
<p>At that point, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was just months into an
upstart presidency that he had won on a pledge to end the Donbas
conflict. Instead of supporting the Ukrainian leader’s peace mandate,
Democrats in Congress were impeaching Trump for briefly impeding the
flow of weapons that fueled the fight. As his Democratic allies now like
to forget, President Obama <a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/urging-regime-change-in-russia-biden?s=w#:~:text=When%20it%20became,the%20president%20opposed.%22">refused to send</a> these same weapons out of fear of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/defying-obama-many-in-congress-press-to-arm-ukraine.html">prolonging the war</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/us/politics/obama-said-to-resist-growing-pressure-from-all-sides-to-arm-ukraine.html">arming Nazis</a>. By abandoning Obama’s policy, the Democrats, Cohen warned, threaten to sabotage peace and strengthen Ukraine’s far-right.</p>
<p>“Zelensky ran as a peace candidate,” Cohen explained. “He won an
enormous mandate to make peace. So, that means he has to negotiate with
Vladimir Putin.” But there was a major obstacle. Ukrainian fascists
“have said that they will remove and kill Zelensky if he continues along
this line of negotiating with Putin… His life is being threatened
literally by a quasi-fascist movement in Ukraine.”</p>
<p>Peace could only come, Cohen stressed, on one condition. “[Zelensky]
can’t go forward with full peace negotiations with Russia, with Putin,
unless America has his back,” he said. “Maybe that won’t be enough, but
unless the White House encourages this diplomacy, Zelensky has no chance
of negotiating an end to the war. So the stakes are enormously high.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">In October 2019, Stephen F. Cohen (RIP) implored DC to support Zelensky’s peace mandate.</p>
<p>“His life is being threatened by a quasi-fascist movement,” Cohen
said. “He can’t go forward with full peace negotiations unless America
has his back.” Siding with fascists, DC chose war. <a href="https://t.co/hXkq270Shs">pic.twitter.com/hXkq270Shs</a></p>
<p>— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1513158738961707012?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">April 10, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p>The subsequent impeachment trial, and bipartisan US policy since, has
made clear that Washington has had no interest in having Zelensky’s
back, and every interest in fueling the Donbas war that he had been
elected to end. The overwhelming message from Congress, fervently
amplified across the US media (including progressive outlets) with next
to no dissent, was that when it comes to Ukraine’s civil war, the US saw
Ukraine’s far-right as allies, and its civilians as cannon fodder.</p>
<p>The Ukrainian battle against Russian-backed rebels, State Department
official and opening impeachment witness George Kent testified, was
being waged by the “Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen of 1776.”
In his opening statement at Trump’s trial, Democratic impeachment
manager Adam Schiff approvingly quoted another Kent line: “The United
States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over
there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">If you don’t want Russia to fight Ukraine over there, don’t use Ukraine to fight Russia from here.<a href="https://t.co/6B4QVFSZvV">pic.twitter.com/6B4QVFSZvV</a></p>
<p>— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1497602531467403270?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">February 26, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Although Trump’s impeachment failed to remove him from office, it succeeded in cementing <a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/urging-regime-change-in-russia-biden?s=w">the proxy war aims of its chief proponents</a>: rather than support Zelensky’s peace mandate, Ukraine would instead be used to “fight Russia over there.”</p>
<p>In using Ukraine to bleed Russia, the US has showcased its contempt
for everything in Ukraine that it claims to defend, namely its democracy
and security. By treating Ukraine as a depot for US weapons, the US has
joined Ukrainian fascists in sabotaging the 2015 Minsk accords that
could have put an end to the civil war <a href="https://mate.substack.com/p/by-using-ukraine-to-fight-russia?s=w">triggered by a US-backed coup the year prior</a>.
Minsk called for granting Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population in the
eastern Donbas limited autonomy and respect for their language. This
prospect was a non-starter for the far-right nationalists and Nazis
empowered by the 2014 US-backed Maidan coup.</p>
<p>“The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion of Kiev’s current
government — and the protesters who brought it to power — are, indeed,
fascists,” two specialists with prominent Western think tanks <a href="https://archive.ph/lFRVs#selection-8505.0-8507.1">wrote in Foreign Policy in March 2014</a>, one month after the coup.</p>
<p>The fascists have blocked peace in the Donbas at every turn. When the
Ukrainian government voted on a “special law” advancing the Minsk
accords in August 2015, the Svoboda party and other far-right groups <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34105925">led violent clashes</a> that
killed three Ukrainian soldiers and left dozens wounded. Then-Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko, who had signed Minsk at a time when
President Obama was resisting heavy bipartisan pressure to arm Ukraine,
got the message and refused to uphold Ukraine’s end of the bargain.</p>
<p>In April 2019, Zelensky was elected with an overwhelming 73% of the vote on a promise to turn the tide. In his <a href="https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/full-text-of-volodymyr-zelenskyys-first-speech-as-president-of-ukraine">inaugural address the next month</a>,
Zelensky declared that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my
ratings,” and was “prepared to give up my own position – as long as
peace arrives.”</p>
<p>But Ukraine’s powerful far-right and neo-Nazi militias made clear to
Zelensky that reaching peace in the Donbas would have a much higher
cost.</p>
<p>“No, he would lose his life,” Right Sector co-founder Dmytro
Anatoliyovych Yarosh, then the commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer
Army, <a href="https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/zelensky-and-the-fascists-he-will-hang-on-some-tree-on-khreshchatyk.html#more">responded one week after Zelensky’s inaugural speech</a>. “He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk – if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War.”</p>
<p>Along with the threats to his life, Zelensky experienced direct obstacles to his peace mandate on multiple fronts.</p>
<p>When Zelensky travelled to the Donbas in October 2019 to promote elections for the rebel-held areas, <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/im-not-a-loser-zelensky-clashes-with-veterans-over-donbas-disengagement.html?__cf_chl_tk=SbolmTBS6QnjMnPJLiQEsivGNnuW6T4od28tzMOrEM0-1646110945-0-gaNycGzNCJE">he was confronted</a> by
angry members of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion rallying under the slogan
of “No to Capitulation.” In one exchange caught on video, Zelensky
sparred with an Azov member over the president’s calls for a military
drawdown. “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a
loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons,” Zelensky
pleaded.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UkraineRussiaWar?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#UkraineRussiaWar</a>:
This video is from 2019. It shows a confrontation between Zelensky and a
member of Azov battalion in the Donbas region. Zelensky demands that
the neo-nazis lay down their arms. The fighter refuses.<br>
Zelensky is NOT running the show. The neo-nazis are. <a href="https://t.co/738NMFyIY3">pic.twitter.com/738NMFyIY3</a></p>
<p>— Denis Rogatyuk (@DenisRogatyuk) <a href="https://twitter.com/DenisRogatyuk/status/1510419008457039874?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">April 3, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p><br>
But Zelensky met continued defiance. The same far-right forces set up an
armed checkpoint to delay a Ukrainian military pullback. Thousands of
far-right and nationalist protesters, cheered by the liberal
intelligentsia and carrying flares as torches, also <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-14/ukraine-protest-zelensky-peace-plan">marched in Kiev.</a></p>
<p>When Zelensky’s press secretary, Iuliia Mendel, “drew attention to
the prevalence of civilian casualties” in the Donbas, “which she blamed
on government forces’ injudicious use of return fire,” she was greeted
instead with “a prosecutorial summons,” Katharine Quinn-Judge <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/peace-ukraine-promise-yet-be-kept">of the International Crisis Group reported</a> in
April 2020, one year after Zelensky’s election. Mendel’s recognition of
the suffering in the Donbas, Quinn-Judge observed, resulted from
“Zelensky’s campaign pledge to treat residents of Russia-backed enclaves
more like full-fledged Ukrainians,” – a non-starter for the US-favored
far-right nationalists, who harbored no such interest in Ukrainians’
equality.</p>
<p>Although Zelensky dithered on Minsk, he nonetheless continued talks
on its implementation. The far-right continued to express its violent
opposition at every turn, such as in August 2021, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-right-protesters-zelenskiy/31410694.html">when at least eight police officers were wounded</a> in armed protests outside the presidential offices.</p>
<p>The far-right threats to Zelensky undoubtedly thwarted a peace
agreement that could have prevented the Russian invasion. Just two weeks
before Russia troops entered Ukraine, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/world/europe/ukraine-nationalism-russia-invasion.html">the New York Times noted</a> that
Zelensky “would be taking extreme political risks even to entertain a
peace deal” with Russia, as his government “could be rocked and possibly
overthrown” by far-right groups if he “agrees to a peace deal that in
their minds gives too much to Moscow.”</p>
<p>Yuri Hudymenko, leader of the far-right Democratic Ax, even
threatened Zelensky with an outright coup: “If anybody from the
Ukrainian government tries to sign such a document, a million people
will take to the streets and that government will cease being the
government.”</p>
<p>Zelensky has clearly gotten the message. Instead of pursuing the
peace platform that he was elected on, the Ukrainian President has
instead <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/">made alliances with the Ukrainian far-right</a> that
violently opposed it. As recently as late January, amid last-chance
talks to salvage the Minsk accords, Zelensky-appointed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-russia-france-germany-europe-d9a2ed365b58d35274bf0c3c18427e81">Ukrainian security chief Oleksiy Danilov instead pronounced</a> that
“the fulfillment of the Minsk agreement means the country’s
destruction.” At the final round of Minsk talks in February, just two
weeks before Russia’s invasion, a “key obstacle,” the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/11/russia-ukraine-minsk-agreements/">Washington Post reported</a>, “was Kyiv’s opposition to negotiating with the pro-Russian separatists.”</p>
<p>Zelensky’s acquiescence to Nazi forces was most recently underscored
on April 7th, when an address to the Greek parliament was overshadowed
by his <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-04-07/azov-fighter-video-overshadows-zelenskiys-address-to-greek-lawmakers">airing of a video featuring a member of the neo-Nazi Azov battalion</a>.</p>
<p>“I think Zelensky found out very quickly that because of the
Ukrainian right, it was impossible to implement Minsk II,” John
Mearsheimer, the University of Chicago professor who has warned for
years that US policies were pushing Ukraine into a conflict with Russia,
said in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH3s7MRJkAI">a public event</a> the
same day. “…Zelensky understands that he cannot take the Ukrainian
right on by himself. So basically we have a situation where Zelensky is
stymied.”</p>
<p>Echoing his late friend and colleague Stephen F. Cohen, Mearsheimer stressed the centrality of the US role.</p>
<p>“The Americans will side with the Ukrainian right,” Mearsheimer said.
“Because the Americans, and the Ukrainian right, both do not want
Zelensky cutting a deal with the Russians that makes it look like the
Russians won. So this is the principal reason I’m very pessimistic about
Ukraine’s ability to help shut this one down.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">This week, John Mearsheimer, speaking to <a href="https://twitter.com/KatrinaNation?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@KatrinaNation</a>, noted the continued alliance between DC and Ukraine’s far-right:</p>
<p>“The Americans will side with the Ukrainian right… Both do not want
Zelensky cutting a deal with the Russians that makes it look like the
Russians won.” <a href="https://t.co/yxDOlEaBLG">pic.twitter.com/yxDOlEaBLG</a></p>
<p>— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1513159755572862978?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">April 10, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p>While claiming to profess concern for Ukrainian lives, NATO
policymakers have made plain their disregard for diplomacy. Instead, as
retired senior US diplomat Chas Freeman <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/24/us-fighting-russia-to-the-last-ukrainian-veteran-us-diplomat/">recently told me</a>, they have pursued a policy of fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”</p>
<p>“Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the
fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the
fighting,” Freeman, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs, among a number of other senior
positions, said.</p>
<p>Invoking Freeman’s warning, Noam Chomsky concurs that US policy amounts to a “death warrant” for Ukraine.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Chomsky cites my recent interview with veteran US
diplomat Chas Freeman, who warned that US policy amounts to fighting
Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” (<a href="https://t.co/sNZGoPGFIL">https://t.co/sNZGoPGFIL</a>)</p>
<p>Flooding Ukraine with weapons & blocking diplomatic solutions is a “death warrant”, Chomsky says. <a href="https://t.co/l4AhVeJIA9">pic.twitter.com/l4AhVeJIA9</a></p>
<p>— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1511748821914734594?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">April 6, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/05/ukraine-nato-russia-limits-peace/">on April 5, the Washington Post</a> made
clear the prevailing viewpoint in Washignton and Brussels: “For some in
NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than
to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv
and the rest of Europe.” While rhetorically claiming to support
Ukrainian agency, in reality, the Post added, “there are limits to how
many compromises some in NATO will support to win the peace.” This is
undoubtedly the message being relayed to Zelensky from the White House
in what National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described as “near-daily
contact” with Zelensky’s team about the negotiations with Russia.</p>
<p>In sabotaging Zelensky’s peace mandate to side with the Ukrainian
far-right, the US pushed Ukraine into a calamity that Professor Cohen
warned about nearly three years ago.</p>
<p>“There were moments in history, political history, when there’s an
opportunity that is so good and wise and so often lost, the chance,”
Cohen told me in October 2019. “So, the chance for Zelensky, the new
president who had this very large victory, 70 plus percent to negotiate
with Russia an end to that war, it’s got to be seized. And it requires
the United States, basically, simply saying to Zelensky, ‘Go for it,
we’ve got your back.'”</p>
<p>By choosing to ignore the pleas of lonely voices like Cohen to
instead have the back of Ukraine’s far-right, Washington sabotaged a
historic peace mandate and helped provoke a catastrophic war.</p>
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