Lugansk, Donetsk, Kharkov
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April 6th marked a dramatic change in narrative for the Maidan takeover in Ukraine. It became a matter of either/or, with no more in-between ground for the Maidan government to stand in. It would either have to show actual support for the democratic reforms it sold to the world with its coup on the previous government; or it would use the coup as a vehicle to install an ultra-nationalist government in its place.

On April 6^th, protesters opposing Maidan rule pushed their way into government buildings in the south-eastern regional capitals of Donetsk, Kharkov, and Lugansk. In Donetsk, the ultra-nationalist Pravy Sector tried to squelch the protests right away by sending in around 20 people armed with Molotov cocktails and weapons. However, locals spotted the intruders, confiscated their weapons and Molotov cocktails, and sent them back to Kiev after a duck walk through the corridor of shame. They were forced to walk past the people without their masks.

At around 9:50 the next morning Interior Minister Avakov, one of the Maidan oligarchs, stated in an interview that the protests in south-east Ukraine had been effectively quenched. Over the last week and a half the Ukrainian government has tried to arrest every protest leader it can find and charge him with being a separatist. Conviction carries a jail sentence of 5 to 8 years.

By 10 a.m., live video showed that all three regional governments were still controlled by the protesters. The first reaction from the Kiev junta came from Oleg Lyashko, MP and presidential hopeful. You may know Lyashko as 'I'll hang you by the balls and have you f***ed'  -Oleg. Like the true believer in democracy he constantly shows himself to be, he said, in effect, Give me 10,000 guys and I will deal with the plague in the south-east. By this he meant cleansing south-east Ukraine of its residents.

In this video, which shows Pravy Sektor blocking the Rada (Senate) in Kiev, Lyashko is introduced as the guy that brought bullets and gasoline to Pravy Sektor. In other videos, this presidential hopeful brags about throwing Molotov cocktails at the Berkut, the police force  charged with protecting the legally elected government.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the ultra-nationalist former prime minister of Ukraine, went to Lugansk during the protests with teams from Avakov, now Interior Minister in the Maidan government, and Turchynov, its appointed interim president. Tymoshenko told police and the Ukrainian SBU (similar to the U.S. FBI) that the protesters in Lugansk were not just separatists, but real terrorists and that government forces "don't need to stand on ceremony in dealing with them!" The order was to shoot the protesters, after it was found out that the police didn't offer much resistance.

In the morning of April 7, the protesters started building barricades and asserting control over more buildings. T hey also broke into the administration building of the Security Service of Ukraine in Lugansk, seizing a weapons room and the weapons that were stored there.

From the time of the coup until today, everything from Kiev directed at the largely ethnic-Russian population in the south-east has been laws that make the residents second-class citizens, coupled with pronouncements, like Lyashko's, to kill the citizens that live there.

The "Russian Minority" Represents Real Ukrainians

Ethnic Russians in south-east Ukraine have in fact lived in this region for hundreds of years. And, though they are now called the "Russian minority," they proved to be the majority in the last election. Victor Yanukovych was elected president by their votes.

Across the country, these are the people that are robbed at gunpoint, killed, kidnapped, or beaten by what is now the Kiev government. The militant right-wing Pravy Sector is now an official organ of the government and has been sent to quench the uprising in the south-east.

South-east Ukraine is also the industrial and manufacturing region of Ukraine, and the place where most of the jobs are. During the first three weeks after the junta in Kiev took power, it took a deduction of 200 hryvnia from everyone's pay to support the families of Maidan sniper victims. This was done with no one even being asked.

The banks here, most notably Privat Bank which is owned by the oligarch Kolomoyskyi, are limiting and freezing the accounts of people throughout the south-east region. For the last month, persons working in the coal and manufacturing industries have been told that if they joined the protests, or even spoke about them on the job, they would be fired. And, for the last two weeks, 30% of the workers' pay has been deducted to support the new National Guard, which is composed mostly of Pravy Sector fighters who have been threatening the population of the region.

Yulia Tymoshenko was quoted last week as saying, "It doesn't matter who wins the presidential election, we all win. We all hate Russia!" By "Russia," she also means the people of south-east Ukraine who won't accept being ruled by an ultra-nationalist government. Moreover, the election has no viable candidates, so that whoever wins will provide no more than token representation for the eastern half of Ukraine.

When Secretary of State John Kerry said about the protests in the southeast, "This doesn't appear to be spontaneous," he was absolutely right. The protests are an act of desperation by people that have been entirely rejected by the militant Bandera-influenced ultra-nationalist-oriented junta that has taken control of their country. This Galician faction, with its roots in a World War II alliance with Hitler, represents just 1-1/2% of the country's total population.

The official White Hous e line about the protests, as presented by spokesman Jay Carney, is that "There's strong evidence that some pro-Russian protesters who have taken over government buildings in eastern Ukraine were paid, and not local residents."

State Department spokesperson Jane Psaki freely admits, however, that all the information the U.S. government has about the situation is coming directly from the Kiev government that is starting to crack down on the region.

What Is the U.S. Government Hearing from Kiev?

According to the Kiev Post, Pro-Russian separatists, allegedly acting in concert with the Kremlin, seized government buildings and called for referendums on joining the Russian Federation in a matter of weeks.

Acting President and Verkhovna Rada chairman Oleksandr Turchynov has said that "anti-terrorist measures will be taken against separatists who seized administrative buildings in Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv regions using arms."

This sounds like a plausible narrative, until you take note of the fact that in Kharkov government forces retook the buildings on April 8th without weapons, because the people were unarmed. The police in all regions are not resisting.

Protests against Maidan, and then against the junta, have been going on here for months, with sporadic takeovers of government buildings without weapons. And the laws that were passed during Maidan forbidding armed assault on citizen protesters still apply.

Nevertheless, Pravy Sector announced a full mobilization in the region on April 7th, calling for new volunteers, saying there would be plenty of work, and declaring war. The volunteers came with automatics and grenade launchers. In Nikolaev, they have so far shot 20 people. In Lugansk, they have attacked the local people with automatic weapons.

In addition, the Alfa special force unit that stood down during the coup has been mobilized to fight the unarmed protesters, and a fully-armed tactical Berkut unit from western Ukraine has been mobilized. And, as if this weren't enough, Kiev also announced the mobilization of Blackstone mercenaries to destroy the opposition in the region. The order proceeds from the very same people that made illegal the Berkut police force charged with protecting government structures in Kiev!

Ultimately, what is happening is all about forced Ukrainization. Understand it in American terms:

What would have been your reaction if, after Sept. 11, people had come up to you and told you that the men who had destroyed the Trade Center were heroes? That Mohammed Atta was a hero for democracy. What would you have said to them if your family had been trapped in the Twin Towers?

For most people, the conversation would have ended there--except, perhaps, for a few choice words about the monstrosity of even breathing something like that. I didn't know anybody that died in 9/11. Yet, on that day, for all the world, all Americans became our people, our family, our friends. That's the way the conversation would have ended for me.

If you say Mohammed Atta is a hero, you are in effect saying that the victims are the criminals. The Maidan protests have led to this very conclusion. Less than 1% of a country's population has taken over the country and now wants to put up statues to its own Atta-like heroes.

In real terms, 9/11 was a relatively small event. Only three-thousand people died; that's all. And, with that statement, I've probably just made your blood boil! How can I say "only"? Sitting here reading what I just typed makes my blood boil, too.

Yet, this is what the Bandera junta in Kiev is doing to the entire population of Ukraine. Disagree, and you are a terrorist. Imagine that your kids have come home from school saying they want to be like bin Laden or Mohammed Atta, and you'll understand the reaction to the Nazi ally and sympathizer Bandera. He didn't kill 3,000 people you didn't know. He killed over 500,000 people that the people here did know.

For people in Ukraine and Russia to say Bandera is a hero is to say that their relatives who were tortured and killed by Bandera were the criminals--that those who fought the Banderas were the criminals. Would you need any money to motivate you to fight against such people?

Since that day, September 11, 2001, America has been at war. Remember George Bush's "You're either with us or against us!"

The coal miners and industrial workers have tried to keep the peace in south-east Ukraine. I have had a few long discussions with people Mr. Kerry would call "separatists." What's happening now in their region is not what they wanted. Starting on April 6, 2014, it is what they have been forced to do.

America: The situation now is your tax dollars at work!

Today, the only thing standing in the way of the destruction of the people in south-east Ukraine is their own iron will, and Russia. President Putin and the Russian Duma have made it clear: Regardless of the cost to them, these people will be protected.