A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests US Was Plotting Coup
Friday, 21 February 2014 11:14
By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
Protesters
extend their barricades near Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine,
February 21, 2014. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times)A
short-lived truce has broken down in Ukraine as street battles have
erupted between anti-government protesters and police. Last night the
country’s embattled president and the opposition leaders demanding his
resignation called for a truce and negotiations to try to resolve
Ukraine’s political crisis. But hours later, armed protesters attempted
to retake Independence Square, sparking another day of deadly violence.
At least 50 people have died since Tuesday in the bloodiest period of
Ukraine’s 22-year post-Soviet history. While President Obama has vowed
to "continue to engage all sides," a recently leaked audio recording
between two top U.S. officials reveal the Obama administration has been
secretly plotting with the opposition. We speak to Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University. His most recent book, "Soviet Fates
and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War," is out in
paperback. His latest Nation article is "Distorting Russia: How the
American Media Misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine."
TRANSCRIPT:
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A
short-lived truce has broken down in Ukraine as street battles have
erupted between anti-government protesters and police. Last night, the
country’s embattled president and the opposition leaders demanding his
resignation called for a truce and negotiations to try to resolve
Ukraine’s political crisis. But the truce only lasted a few hours. The
last three days have been the bloodiest period of Ukraine’s 22-year
post-Soviet history. Over 50 people have died, including at least 21
today. The truce ended today when armed protesters attempted to retake
Independence Square. Both sides have accused the other of using live
ammunition. A Ukrainian paramedic described the chaotic scene.
UKRAINIAN PARAMEDIC:
[translated] Some bodies are at the concert hall. Some are at the
barricades. Now there are maybe around 15 or 20 dead. It is hard to
count, as some are carried away, others are resuscitated. Now, as far as
I know, three dead people are at the city hall, and two more dead are
at the main post office. There are so many at the concert hall that we
didn’t even take them.
AMY GOODMAN:
The Ukrainian parliament, Rada, and Cabinet buildings have reportedly
been evacuated because of fears they could be stormed by protesters. The
street clashes are occurring while the Ukrainian president, Viktor
Yanukovych, is meeting with the foreign ministers from Germany, Poland
and France.
The Obama administration stepped up pressure on the Ukrainian
government Wednesday by announcing a visa ban on 20 members of the
Ukrainian government. The U.S. is also threatening to place sanctions on
the Ukrainian government.
The protests began in late November after
President Yanukovych reversed his decision to sign a long-awaited trade
deal with the European Union, or EU, to forge stronger ties with Russia
instead.
To talk more about the latest in Ukraine,
we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and
politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most
recent book,
Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is now out in paperback. His latest
piece in
The Nation is called "Distorting Russia: How the American Media Misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine."
So, talk about the latest, Professor Cohen.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Where do you want me to begin? I mean, we are watching history being
made, but history of the worst kind. That’s what I’m telling my
grandchildren: Watch this. What’s happening there, let’s take the big
picture, then we can go to the small picture. The big picture is, people
are dying in the streets every day. The number 50 is certainly too few.
They’re still finding bodies. Ukraine is splitting apart down the
middle, because Ukraine is not one country, contrary to what the
American media, which speaks about the Ukraine and the
Ukrainian people. Historically, ethnically, religiously, culturally,
politically, economically, it’s two countries. One half wants to stay
close to Russia; the other wants to go West. We now have reliable
reports that the anti-government forces in the streets—and there are
some very nasty people among them—are seizing weapons in western
Ukrainian military bases. So we have clearly the possibility of a civil
war.
And the longer-term outcome may be—and I want
to emphasize this, because nobody in the United States seems to want to
pay attention to it—the outcome may be the construction, the emergence
of a new Cold War divide between West and East, not this time, as it was
for our generation, in faraway Berlin, but right on the borders of
Russia, right through the heart of Slavic civilization. And if that
happens, if that’s the new Cold War divide, it’s permanent instability
and permanent potential for real war for decades to come. That’s what’s
at stake.
One last point, also something that nobody in
this country wants to talk about: The Western authorities, who bear some
responsibility for what’s happened, and who therefore also have blood
on their hands, are taking no responsibility. They’re uttering utterly
banal statements, which, because of their vacuous nature, are
encouraging and rationalizing the people in Ukraine who are throwing
Molotov cocktails, now have weapons, are shooting at police. We wouldn’t
permit that in any Western capital, no matter how righteous the cause,
but it’s being condoned by the European Union and Washington as events
unfold.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
And when you say the Western countries who bear some responsibility, in
what sense do they bear responsibility? I mean, clearly, there’s been
an effort by the United States and Europe ever since the collapse of the
Soviet Union to pull the former Soviet states into their economic
sphere, but is that what you’re talking about?
STEPHEN COHEN:
I mean that. I mean that Moscow—look at it through Moscow’s eyes. Since
the Clinton administration in the 1990s, the U.S.-led West has been on a
steady march toward post-Soviet Russia, began with the expansion of NATO in the 1990s under Clinton. Bush then further expanded NATO
all the way to Russia’s borders. Then came the funding of what are
euphemistically called NGOs, but they are political action groups,
funded by the West, operating inside Russia. Then came the decision to
build missile defense installations along Russia’s borders, allegedly
against Iran, a country which has neither nuclear weapons nor any
missiles to deliver them with. Then comes American military outpost in
the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which led to the war of 2008, and
now the West is at the gates of Ukraine. So, that’s the picture as
Moscow sees it. And it’s rational. It’s reasonable. It’s hard to deny.
But as for the immediate crisis, let’s ask
ourselves this: Who precipitated this crisis? The American media says it
was Putin and the very bad, though democratically elected, president of
Ukraine, Yanukovych. But it was the European Union, backed by
Washington, that said in November to the democratically elected
president of a profoundly divided country, Ukraine, "You must choose
between Europe and Russia." That was an ultimatum to Yanukovych.
Remember—wasn’t reported here—at that moment, what did the much-despised
Putin say? He said, "Why? Why does Ukraine have to choose? We are
prepared to help Ukraine avoid economic collapse, along with you, the
West. Let’s make it a tripartite package to Ukraine." And it was
rejected in Washington and in Brussels. That precipitated the protests
in the streets.
And since then, the dynamic that any of us who
have ever witnessed these kinds of struggles in the streets unfolded,
as extremists have taken control of the movement from the so-called
moderate Ukrainian leaders. I mean, the moderate Ukrainian leaders, with
whom the Western foreign ministers are traveling to Kiev to talk,
they’ve lost control of the situation. By the way, people ask—excuse
me—is it a revolution? Is it a revolution? A much abused word, but one
sign of a revolution is the first victims of revolution are the
moderates. And then it becomes a struggle between the extreme forces on
either side. And that’s what we’re witnessing.
AMY GOODMAN:
Let’s go to the Ukrainian opposition leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who
admitted earlier today the opposition does not have full control of
protesters in Independence Square.
ARSENIY YATSENYUK: The only chance to do it is to stop the riot police, to stop the protesters, to impose a DMZ, like demilitarized zone, and to move this conflict from the streets to the Parliament.
REPORTER 1: Parts of the protesters are out of control?
ARSENIY YATSENYUK:
No one—I would be very frank, that the government doesn’t control the
riot police, and it’s very difficult for the opposition to control
Maidan. And there are a number of forces who are uncontrolled. This is
the truth.
REPORTER 2: So, Ukraine is in chaos now.
ARSENIY YATSENYUK: Ukraine is in a big mess.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Professor Cohen?
STEPHEN COHEN: A moderate.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go—
STEPHEN COHEN: Who wants to be president.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to President Obama. He’s in Mexico for the big Mexico-Canada-U.S. summit talking about Ukraine.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
With regard to Ukraine, along with our European partners, we will
continue to engage all sides. And we continue to stress to President
Yanukovych and the Ukrainian government that they have the primary
responsibility to prevent the kind of terrible violence that we’ve seen,
to withdraw riot police, to work with the opposition to restore
security and human dignity, and move the country forward. And this
includes progress towards a multi-party, technical government that can
work with the international community on a support package and adopt
reforms necessary for free and fair elections next year. Ukrainians are a
proud and resilient people who have overcome extraordinary challenges
in their history, and that’s a pride and strength that I hope they draw
on now.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama in Mexico, Professor Cohen.
STEPHEN COHEN: What are you asking me to comment on?
AMY GOODMAN: Your response to his response.
STEPHEN COHEN:
To what he just said? Shame. Shame. He is saying that the
responsibility for restoring peace is on the Ukrainian government, and
it should withdraw its security forces from the streets. But let me ask
you, if in Washington people throwing Molotov cocktails are marching on
Congress—and these people are headed for the Ukrainian Congress—if these
people have barricaded entrance to the White House and are throwing
rocks at the White House security guard, would President Obama withdraw
his security forces? This is—this is—and do you know what this does? And
let’s escape partisanship here. I mean, lives are at stake. This
incites, these kinds of statement that Obama made. It rationalizes what
the killers in the streets are doing. It gives them Western license,
because he’s not saying to the people in the streets, "Stop this, stop
shooting policemen, stop attacking government buildings, sit down and
talk." And the guy you had on just before, a so-called moderate leader,
what did he just tell you? "We have lost control of the situation."
That’s what I just told you. He just confirmed that.
So what Obama needs to say is, "We deplore
what the people in the streets are doing when they attack the police,
the law enforcement official. And we also don’t like the people who are
writing on buildings 'Jews live here,'" because these forces, these
quasi-fascist forces—let’s address this issue, because the last time I
was on your broadcast, you found some guy somewhere who said there was
none of this there. All right. What percent are the quasi-fascists of
the opposition? Let’s say they’re 5 percent. I think they’re more, but
let’s give them the break, 5 percent. But we know from history that when
the moderates lose control of the situation, they don’t know what to
do. The country descends in chaos. Five percent of a population that’s
tough, resolute, ruthless, armed, well funded, and knows what it wants,
can make history. We’ve seen it through Europe. We’ve seen it through
Asia. This is reality. And where Washington and Brussels are on this
issue, they won’t step up and take the responsibility.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
Well, even in most recent history, whether you look at Libya or whether
you look at the situation in Syria, where those presidents warned that
there were extremist elements inside a broader popular movement that
were eventually going to gain control, this seems like a replay in terms
of what’s going on here in the Ukraine of a popular movement, but yet a
very, very, as you say, right-wing movement—not only a right-wing
movement, but a fascist movement with a history. Ukraine has had a
history of a fascist movement going back to the days of Nazi Germany.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Let’s go to real heresy. Let’s ask a question: Who has been right about
interpreting recent events? Let’s go to the Arab Spring. Obama and
Washington said this was about democracy now, this is great. Russia
said, "Wait a minute. If you destabilize, even if they’re authoritarian
leaders in the Middle East, you’re not going to get Thomas Jefferson in
power. You’re going to get jihadists. You’re going to get very radical
people in power all through the Middle East." Looking back, who was
right or wrong about that narrative? Have a look at Egypt. Have a look
at Libya. Who was right? Can Russians ever be right about anything?
Now what are the Russians saying about
Ukraine? They’re saying what you just said, that the peaceful
protesters, as we keep calling them—I think a lot of them have gone
home. There were many. By the way, at the beginning, there were hundreds
of thousands, tens of thousands, of very decent, liberal, progressive,
honorable people in the streets. But they’ve lost control of the
situation. That’s the point now. And so, the Russians are saying, "Look,
you’re trying to depose Yanukovych, who’s the elected government."
Think. If you overthrow—and, by the way, there’s a presidential election
in a year. The Russians are saying wait 'til the next election. If you
overthrow him—and that's what Washington and Brussels are saying, that
he must go—what are you doing to the possibility of democracy not only
in Ukraine, but throughout this part of the world? And secondly, who do
you think is going to come to power? Please tell us. And we’re silent.
AMY GOODMAN:
I want to go to the famous leaked tape right now. The top State
Department official has apologized to her European counterparts after
she was caught cursing the European Union, the EU, in a leaked audio
recording that was posted to YouTube. The recording captured an
intercepted phone conversation between the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,
Geoffrey Pyatt, and Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe.
Nuland expresses frustration over Europe’s response to the political
crisis in Ukraine, using frank terms.
VICTORIA NULAND: So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the U.N. help glue it. And, you know, [bleep] the EU.
AMY GOODMAN:
While Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s comment about the
EU dominated the news headlines because she used a curse, there were
several other very interesting parts of her conversation with the U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine.
GEOFFREY PYATT:
Let me work on Klitschko, and if you can just keep—I think we want to
try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here
and help to midwife this thing. Then the other issue is some kind of
outreach to Yanukovych, but we can probably regroup on that tomorrow as
we see how things start to fall into place.
VICTORIA NULAND: So, on that piece, Geoff, when I wrote the note, Sullivan’s come back to me VFR saying, "You need Biden?" And I said, "Probably tomorrow for an attaboy and to get the deets to stick." So Biden’s willing.
AMY GOODMAN:
That’s the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Pyatt, speaking with Victoria
Nuland. The significance of what she is saying? She also had gone to
Ukraine and was feeding protesters on the front line.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Cookies, cookies. Well, here again, the American political media
establishment, including the right and the left and the center—because
they’re all complicit in this nonsense—focused on the too sensational,
they thought, aspect of that leaked conversation. She said, "F— the
European Union," and everybody said, "Oh, my god! She said the word."
The other thing was, who leaked it? "Oh, it was the Russians. Those
dirty Russians leaked this conversation." But the significance is what
you just played. What are they doing? The highest-ranking State
Department official, who presumably represents the Obama administration,
and the American ambassador in Kiev are, to put it in blunt terms,
plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine.
Now, that said, Amy, Juan, you may say to
me—neither of you would, but hypothetically—"That’s a good thing. We
don’t like—we don’t care if he was elected democratically. He’s a rat.
He’s corrupt." And he is all those things. He is. "Let’s depose him.
That’s what the United States should do. Then the United States should
stand up and say, ’That’s what we do: We get rid of bad guys. We
assassinate them, and we overthrow them.’" But in Washington and in
Brussels, they lie: They’re talking about democracy now. They’re not
talking about democracy now; they’re talking about a coup now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, this is more from—
STEPHEN COHEN:
And we—excuse me—and we should—we, American citizens, should be allowed
to choose which policy we want. But they conceal it from us. And I’m
extremely angry that the people in this country who say they deplore
this sort of thing have fallen silent.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
Let’s listen to little bit more of the leaked conversation between the
U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Victoria Nuland, the top
U.S. diplomat for Europe.
VICTORIA NULAND: Good. So, I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.
GEOFFREY PYATT:
Yeah. I mean, I guess, you think—in terms of him not going into the
government, just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework
and stuff. I’m just thinking, in terms of sort of the process moving
ahead, we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is
going to be Tyahnybok and his guys. And, you know, I’m sure that’s part
of what Yanukovych is calculating on all of this. I kind of—
VICTORIA NULAND:
I think—I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the
governing experience. He’s the guy—you know, what he needs is Klitsch
and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a
week. You know, I just think Klitsch going in, he’s going to be at that
level working for Yatsenyuk. It’s just not going to work.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ:
That was Victoria Nuland, the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, speaking
with Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine. Stephen Cohen,
this—this chess game—
STEPHEN COHEN: You don’t need me here. What do you need me for?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —this chess game that they’re conducting here?
STEPHEN COHEN: There it is. There it is.
AMY GOODMAN: But explain the names. Who is Klitsch, Yats?
STEPHEN COHEN:
All right. And notice the intimacy with which the Americans deal with
the two leading so-called "moderate"—and these are big shots, they both
want to be president—Ukrainian opposition. Klitschko is Vitali
Klitschko, a six-foot-eight former—he resigned his title two months ago
to enter politics—heavyweight champion of the world. His residence has
been Ukraine—I mean, Germany. He plays—he pays taxes in Germany. He’s a
project of Merkel. He represents German interests. I’m sure he’s also
faithful to Ukraine, but he’s got a problem. Yatsenyuk, however—not
Yatsenyuk, but the other guy she calls "Yats" is a representative of the
Fatherland Party. It’s a big party in Parliament. But Washington likes
him a lot. They think he’ll be our man. So you could see what they’re
saying. We don’t quite trust Klitschko. Now, if you want to get
esoteric, that’s the tug between Washington and Berlin. They’re not
happy with Merkel, the chancellor of Germany. They don’t like the role
Merkel is playing, generally. They think Germany has gotten too big for
its britches. They want to cut Merkel down. So you noticed Klitschko,
the boxer, is Merkel’s proxy, or at least she’s backing him. You notice
that they say, "He’s not ready for prime time. Let him do his homework."
Now, this guy—I’m bad on Ukrainian names.
Tyagnybok, that they say has got to play a role, he’s the leader of the
Freedom Party, the Svoboda Party, but a large element of that party, to
put it candidly, is quasi-fascist. And they’re prepared to embrace this
guy. This is the guy, by the way, that Senator John McCain in November
or December went to Kiev and embraced. Either McCain didn’t know who he
was, or he didn’t care. The United States is prepared to embrace that
guy, too—anything to get rid of Yanukovych, because they think this is
about Putin. That’s all they really got on their mind.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, here you have President Obama, again, speaking yesterday in Mexico.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Our approach as the United States is not to see these as some Cold War
chessboard in which we’re in competition with Russia. Our goal is to
make sure that the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for
themselves about their future, that the people of Syria are able to make
decisions without having bombs going off and killing women and
children, or chemical weapons, or towns being starved, because a despot
wants to cling to power.
AMY GOODMAN: Who benefits from the instability, Professor Cohen, in Ukraine? And what does it mean for Putin? Is he concerned about this?
STEPHEN COHEN: Of course he’s concerned. It’s right on his borders, and it’s all tainting him. I mean, The Washington Post wrote an editorial yesterday. Putin is happy that the violence has broken out in the streets. Everybody understands, even The Washington Post
understands, which understands almost nothing about Russia, but they
got this, that during the Sochi Olympics, the last thing Putin wants is
violence in Ukraine. So why is he happy about it? He deplores it. He’s
unhappy. He’s furious at the president of Ukraine. He read him the Riot
Act on the phone last night, that why doesn’t he get control of the
situation? What is he doing? So Putin is not responsible for this. Can
we speak about Obama?
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Very quickly. I grew up in the segregated South. I voted for him twice,
as historical justice. That’s not leadership. That’s a falsification of
what’s happening in Ukraine, and it’s making the situation worse, what
he says, is that we deplore the violence and call upon Ukrainian
government to withdraw its forces and stop the violence. He needs to
talk about what’s happening in the streets.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And is it conceivable, if Ukraine descends into a further civil war, that Russia might intervene?
STEPHEN COHEN:
It’s conceivable. It’s conceivable. Here—I mean, Yanukovych—you might
say, as an adviser to Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine, "Impose
martial law now, because you’ve got bad PR in the West anyway, and
you’re not in control of the situation." The problem is, Yanukovych
isn’t sure he controls the army.
AMY GOODMAN: He just fired the head of the army yesterday.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Yeah, we don’t know what it means, but it indicates he’s not too sure
about the army. But, by the way, you asked, would Russia intervene?
Would NATO intervene? NATO is all over the place. NATO was in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Ask yourself that: Would NATO send troops in? Is that, yes, you think they would?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I—
STEPHEN COHEN: We don’t know.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We don’t know, yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN:
And we’re not going to be told, just like we’re not being told what’s
going on in these private conversations about deposing the president of
Ukraine. If they depose—
AMY GOODMAN: Unless they’re leaked again.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, and if the Russians leak them, it doesn’t count. Is that right?
AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. can hardly protest, given the whole scandal with the NSA recording conversations.
STEPHEN COHEN:
Yeah, well, you know what they said. They said—they said, when this got
leaked, that this is a low point in statecraft. After Snowden? After
Snowden? I mean, what did Tennessee Williams used to say? Mendacity?
Mendacity? The mendacity of it all? Don’t they trust us, our government,
to tell us a little bit of the truth at last?
AMY GOODMAN:
Stephen Cohen, I want to thank you for being with us. We’re going to
move onto Venezuela. Stephen Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian
studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.
His most recent book,
Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, it’s just out in paperback. His latest
piece in
The Nation is "Distorting Russia: How the American Media Misrepresent [Putin], Sochi and Ukraine." This is
Democracy Now!
