Thus, the winners from Kiev's economic turn to the West will be Ukraine's oligarchs, Ukraine's banks, western banks, and western corporations. Beyond the job losses and wage reductions in the private sector, the losers will be "the majority of Ukrainian households that will have their real income reduced as they pay higher costs for gas, Ukrainian elderly who will have their pensions cut, Ukrainian government workers who will lose their jobs, and all Ukrainian households who will lose other government services." (p. 123)
John McMurtry minces no words: "Big Banks, Oil, Military Contracting, Big Agri-Food and Pharma are themselves only vehicles of the one underlying economic disease of transnational money sequences" [which] feed on ruined societies as their carrion."(p. 250)
"Ukraine follows this macro pattern. It comes into the fold of the EU through a US-led fascist coup posing as 'freedom' and 'revolution,' but in fact hollowing out the society's lifeblood"as the US-led coup and the EU straitjacket suck it dry." (Ibid)
(Note: Although articles outside this book by the highly esteemed economist, Paul Craig Roberts, support the economic interpretation offered above, it is safe to assume that this interpretation would be met with scorn in the White House, on Wall Street, at the IMF, the EU, and the World Bank.)
Perhaps the best chapter in the book is "The Geo-Politics of Euromaidan," by Mahdi Nazemroaya. It pays very close attention to the actual details of the coup that toppled the democratically elected government of President Yanukovych.
Andriy Parubiy was one of the founders of the neo-Nazi "Svoboda" party. He now serves as Kiev's coup regime secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. Significantly, Parubiy was "the man controlling the so-called 'Euromaidan security forces' that fought government forces in Kiev." (p.91)
As Mr. Nazemroaya tells it, the former commandant of Ukraine's Security Service, Major-General Oleksandr Yakimento, claimed that "counter-intelligence forces were monitoring the CIA in Ukraine during the protests" [T]he CIA was active on the ground in Kiev and collaborating with a small circle of opposition figures." (p. 93)
"Yakimento also said that it was not the police or government forces that fired on protesters, but snipers from the Philharmonic Building that was controlled by opposition leader Andriy Parubiy, which he asserts was interacting with the CIA. Speaking to the Russian media, Yakimento said that twenty men wearing 'special combat clothes' and carrying 'sniper rifle cases, as well as AKMs with scopes' ran out of the opposition-controlled Philharmonic Building and split into two groups of ten people, with one taking position at the Ukraine hotel." (pp. 93-94)
Mr. Yakimento's assertions about the Ukraine hotel were supported subsequently by an investigation conducted by German television's ARD Monitor program and televised on April 10, 2014. According to ARD Monitor, "there is this video that appears to show, that the demonstrators were hit from the back. The man in yellow on this recording goes even further. He was among the protesters who were on Institute Road for several hours that day. His name is Mikola, we met up with him at the scene of the events. He tells us that members of the opposition demonstrators were repeatedly shot in the back.
Mikola: "Yes, on the twentieth, we were shot at from behind, from the Hotel Ukraina, from the 8th or 9th floor."
According to ARD's report, "[T]he hotel on the morning of February 20 was firmly in the hands of the opposition. We talk to eyewitnesses from the Hotel Ukraina, journalists, opposition figures. They all confirm to us on February 20 the hotel held by the opposition was heavily guarded. It would therefore have been very difficult to sneak in a government sniper."
ARD then tracked down a radio amateur who had recorded Yanukovych's snipers talking to each other that day. Their radio traffic shows them discussing the fact that someone is shooting at unarmed people -- someone they do not know.
1st government sniper: "Hey guys, you over there, to the right from the Hotel Ukraina."
2nd government sniper: "Who shot? Our people do not shoot at unarmed people. "
1st sniper: "Guys, there sits a spotter aiming at me. Who is he aiming at there -- in the corner? Look! "
2nd sniper: "On the roof of the yellow building. On top of the cinema, on top of the cinema. "
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