theDrahos

After being briefed on the details of the delegation of Ukrainians who provided fake photos to Senator Jim Inhofe and the U.S. Senate Armed Services alleging to depict Russian military columns in Ukraine in December, Lyndon LaRouche denounced the delegation as a part of Victoria Nuland’s Nazi faction, who have been given priority access to members of the U.S. Congress as part of a propaganda war, via the consent of Obama.

“It’s Nuland who is the backer of the Nazi’s in Ukraine, it is clear what she is doing. First she was a tool for Bush and Cheney, and now she is Obama’s tool. This is the group, this Nazi faction, who is going to continue the conflict in spite of the agreements made by the ‘Normandy Four.’ These are Nuland’s Nazis.” —Lyndon LaRouche, February 14, 2015

Sen. Jim Inhofe’s office issued a statement yesterday admitting that a delegation of Ukrainians, led by three members of the Ukrainian parliament (Supreme Rada) — who just happen to have been hard-core Banderite fascists and field commanders in the civil war in the Donbass — presented his office and the Senate Armed Services Committee on which he serves with phony photos, alleging to depict Russian military columns in Ukraine between Aug. 24 and Sept. 5, 2014. At least one of the photos was in fact taken by Associated Press of Russian convoys in Georgia during the conflict in South Ossetia nearly seven years ago, in 2008. Several others are readily available elsewhere online, and can be found using a Google Images search.

Inhofe is a prime sponsor of legislation authorizing the United States to provide lethal weapons to the Ukrainian government. The fraudulent photos were used to lobby the U.S. Senate to initiate and pass such legislation. According to a statement issued by Inhofe:

“The Ukrainian parliament members who gave us these photos in print form as if it came directly from a camera really did themselves a disservice. We felt confident to release these photos because the images match the reporting of what is going on in the region. I was furious to learn one of the photos provided now appears to be falsified from an AP photo taken in 2008.”

The bigger scandal is that hard-core Ukrainian Nazis, like the ones who hornswaggled Inhofe, are are repeatedly touring Capitol Hill to disinform the U.S. Congress. The three Rada members of the delegation, a list of which was provided to BuzzFeed News by Inhofe’s office, are all leaders of paramilitary units fighting in Southeast Ukraine, and have been active in the fascist Banderite organizations that were crucial to the illegal coup d’état against the elected government one year ago:

1) Lt. Col. Semen Semenchenko, commander of the Donbass volunteer Assault Battalion;

2) Andriy Teteruk, commander of the Peacekeeper unit; and

3) Yuriy Bereza, commander of the Dnipro-1 regiment.

The latter two units are formally under the Internal Affairs Ministry, while both the Donbass Battalion and Dnipro-1 regiment are financed by Ihor Kolomoysky, the “oligarch” governor of Dnepropetrovsk Region. Bereza’s political career goes back to the Congress of Ukrainian Nationists (KUN), the very first Banderite party re-established in Ukraine after independence by Slava Stetsko, the widow of Hitler-collaborator and MI-6 sponsoree Yaroslav Stetsko, and the founder of the Bandera Tryzub (Trident), later to become the core of Right Sector (see EIR dossier, May 16, 2014). Semenchuk got into the Rada on the slate of Self-Help, a party formed out of the Maidan insurgency last year. The other two became MPs thanks to the People’s Front slate of Victoria Nuland’s hand-picked Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseni Yatsenyuk. Bereza and Teteruk also sit on the a new National Front Military Council, formed in August to build Ukraine’s military capacity; with them is Andriy Biletsky, another Right Sector figure, who is commander of the Azov Battalion – a unit which flies the Nazi Wolfsangel and acts with according brutality against the civilian population.

EIR ON THE RECORD: February 2014 Factsheet, Western Powers Back Neo-Nazi Coup in Ukraine

Semenchenko visited the USA at least twice, if not thrice, in September-December 2014, seeking U.S. weapons. He met with Sen. John McCain and others, besides Inhofe. (Trained as a film-maker, however, “Lt. Col.” “Semenchenko” – a pseudonym – is so militarily incompetent, that Teteruk and others have reportedly been tasked to straighten out the Donbass Battalion.)

Four other members of the eleven-man delegation were listed as officials of the Ukrainian “Charitable Fund for War Veterans and Members of the Antiterrorist Operation.”

It is hardly coincidental that before writing their Jan. 30 Atlantic Council report calling for the United States to provide lethal weapons to Ukrainian forces—the report which inspired Inhofe’s planned legislation—the authors of that report made a trip to Ukraine. The list of Ukrainians they met in Kyiv and Lviv includes no fewer than four officials of the “Charitable Fund for War Veterans and Members of the Antiterrorist Operation,” of whom three were part of the delegation which met Inhofe and passed him the phony photos.

The coordinator of the delegation to Inhofe was Dr. Phillip Karber, a professor at Georgetown University and the president of the Potomac Foundation.

Karber is a former strategy advisor to Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. According to a report they issued on April 8, 2014, Karber traveled to Ukraine with General Wesley K. Clark in late March and early April of last year, at the invitation of the Ukrainian National Security Advisor and Senior member of the Parliament, paid for by the Potomac Foundation. The Potomac Foundation’s old 990 tax forms indicate that the Foundation has received funding from among others the Soros/Open Society Fund and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

During the visit to Ukraine, Karber and Clark reportedly participated in 35 meetings with senior officials, military commanders, and various politicians, with Karber also visiting front-line formations. Afterwards, they recommended immediate shipments of American body armor, night vision devices, communications equipment, and aviation fuel, and, to maximize Kiev’s defense potential, Clark and Karber recommended the acquisition of MiG-29s, T-72 tanks, man-portable air defenses, and anti-tank weapons.

Where one side sees an opening for possibly something different, in the potentials opened up by the agreement negotiated in Minsk this week, the other side sees more of the same. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Thursday called on the West to seriously discuss ways of building a common Euro-Atlantic security architecture, despite U.S. pretensions to rule the world.

“Our opinion causes discontent of those who demonstrate obsession with the idea of their own exclusiveness, despite the objective tendencies of the emerging multi-polar world,”

he said, reports TASS.

“The recent edition of the United States’ national security strategy emphasizes that Washington must rule all and everywhere relying on its available tools—from economic sanctions to force pressure. It reiterates the United States’ preparedness for unilateral use of military force.”

The Obama Administration, meanwhile, has already decided in advance that if the Minsk agreement falls apart, it will be Russia’s fault.

“The true test of today’s accord will be in its full and unambiguous implementation, including the durable end of hostilities and the restoration of Ukrainian control over its border with Russia,”

according to a White House statement yesterday.

“This agreement must now be followed by immediate, concrete steps to fulfill the commitments by all parties. The ceasefire must be implemented and honored. Heavy weapons must be withdrawn from the conflict zone, and Russia must end its support for the separatists and withdraw its soldiers and military equipment from eastern Ukraine,”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest added.

The view in the European Union is apparently not that much different, with the notable exception of French President François Hollande. “If there are difficulties, I don’t exclude additional sanctions,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after an EU summit in Brussels yesterday. Hollande actually opened up the possibility of ending the sanctions.

“It is clear that if everything falls into place, then measures will be taken at the European level to ease sanctions,” he said. “France would be part of such a process [referring, at least in part, to the delivery of the two Mistral warships], but for the moment we are not there yet,” he added.