Ukraine names Oligarchs and Gangsters as Governors and Ministers
…by F. William Engdahl
Having unarmed police allowed the terrorists to win
[ Editors Note: Mr. Engdahl takes us into the belly of the beast today. It is an unpleasant journey into how the major Western Powers have throw their “democracies” behind an incredible rogues’ gallery of cut throats and scoundrels in the Ukraine.
And I will warn you today. If the public does not show more outrage than it has so far, this marriage of international criminal gangs and proxy terrorists will be brought to your neighborhood whenever your crooked politicians decide they want it.
They are doing this in your name, they say to protect “our” interests, although they still prefer to be vague and fluid as to the definition. An honest leadership would not do this… only those who assume we would never approve what they are really doing — and why — and for whom.
What we get instead is what I can only describe as one shade to the right of old Soviet Red Terror propaganda. So far the public response has me worried. There isn’t much, and I can assure you the bad guys are making notes on that.
In the end, we may get what we deserve, simply because we could not be bothered to speak up and “resist.” Watch what happens to these Ukrainian people… Jim W. Dean ]
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Victoria Nuland
The newly self-elected Ukrainian government is reorganizing all institutions of power, dissolving the special riot police, naming its cronies to key political posts.
But perhaps the most indicative of the true character of the new regime is the naming last week of new Governors to head the major political divisions of regions of Ukraine.
They include dual Israeli-Ukrainian nationals and notorious billionaire gangsters. This seems to be the “democracy” that US State Department Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, Victoris Nuland had in mind when she rejected earlier EU compromise initiatives with the terse comment, “Fuck the EU.”
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Now – economic destruction
Ihor Kolomonskyi
The non-elected or provisional Ukrainian government headed by 39-year old Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has made key regional appointments as Governors in the industrial pro-Russian eastern Ukraine.
The Prime Minister has named three billionaires, including Ukraine’s richest, to head the key political regional or advisory posts.
Ihor Kolomoisky, a metals, banking and media baron worth between $3 and $6 billion, will be governor of his native region Dnipropetrovsk.
He built his billions as a crony of convicted fraudster, ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko. He is an Ukrainian-Israeli business oligarch of Jewish descent with a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship although dual citizenship is not recognized by Ukraine. Until now he has controlled his business empire from Switzerland.
He is the leading partner of the Privat Group. [1]
Serhiy Taruta
Serhiy Taruta, the country’s 16th-richest man, was put in charge of the strategic coal mining region of Donetsk.
Serhiy Taruta is a Ukrainian businessman, chairman of Industrial Union of Donbas, and President of FC Metalurh Donetsk. According to Forbes magazine, he ranks among the 500 richest people in the world, with his estimated wealth being around 2 billion US dollars. [2]
Most eyebrow-raising is the role of Ukraine’s richest man, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, former money backer of Yanukovych. Akhmetov has pledged to “do everything possible to maintain the integrity of our country.”
Akhmetov, whose SCM Group controls nearly half of the country’s coal, steel, ore and thermoelectricity sectors is listed as the 47th richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of US 15.4 billion.
He allegedly won his billions through ties to organized crime in the 1990’s. Akhmetov issued a statement on March 2: “I state with all due responsibility that SCM Group, which today employs 300,000 people and represents Ukraine from west to east and from north to south, will do everything possible to maintain the integrity of our country.” [3]
According to Wikipedia, Akhmetov was a former ‘enforcer’ and ‘leader’ of Akhat Bragin’s ‘Tatar’ clan or mafia, responsible for the use of “mafia methods to push aside the ‘red directors’ of the Industrial Union of the Donbass.” [4]
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Dicey cabinet too…
Rinat Akhmetov
The new “interim” Cabinet of Arseniy Yatsenyuk fits into a similar pattern of oligarchs, gangsters and corruption. It includes Andriy V. Parubiy as new Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine. Parubiy led the anti-government riots.
His mooted deputy at National Security is neo-nazi Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor) leader, Dmytro Yarosh. Pravi Sektor is estimated to number 5,000 and were inbvolved in the most extreme violence at Maidan Square and allegedly did the sniper killings of police and demonstrators that led to the coup on February 22.
Among the members of the Pravi Sektor is the hard-core Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), reported tied to NATO and used for their “dirty wars” in Chechnya, Georgia and elsewhere since 1991. Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper, reports that Right Sector distributed translations of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Maidan Square.[5]
In 1991 on Ukrainian independence from Russia, new National Security and Defense Council head Parubiy founded the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine together with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, who is now a People’s Deputy in the new Ukrainian pariament.
Yarosh also heads the neo-nazi Stepan Bandera Tryzub organization since 2005. On their website, Yarosh issued an appeal to Dokka Umarov, the Chechen terrorist guerrilla leader associated with Al-Qaeda, for support of Ukraine.[6]
“We love democracy.. .really, we do.”
Svoboda is an extreme far-right party, basically fascist and anti-semitic. Its previous name, the Social-National Party of Ukraine says much. Svoboda Party has six major cabinet ministries in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Tyahinybok, its head, has given speeches in the past deriding “kikes” and in 2005 wrote a letter to the president calling for an investigation into “organised Jewry and criminality in Ukraine”.
Svoboda is part of an alliance of European neo-fascists, the Alliance of European National Movements, which includes France’s National Front, the British National Party and Hungary’s Jobbik. [7]
Among the key posts, the Svoboda Party now controls the General Prosecutor’s Office. Deputy Prime Minister, Oleksandr Sych, is from Svoboda and will have key economic responsibilities. As well Svoboda controls the Ecology Ministry and the important Agriculture Ministry.
Lowest harvest in many years expected
Ukraine’s corn harvest is in danger because of the chaos. The country is the third largest corn exporter in the world. The Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, was accused of illegal privatization of land and abuse of power and was under criminal investigation by the previous government, which forced him to flee to Italy. [8]
Rounding out a new circle of corruption, Yuriy Prodan is Energy Minister, a post that raised many eyebrows in Ukraine because he is tied to Privat Group of controversial billionaire Igor Kolomoisky.
As well, Oleksandr Shlapak, new Finance Minister a former deputy head of Kolomoisky’s PrivatBank, is also a representative of the Kolomoisky group. [9]
This is the result of the US-engineered coup in Ukraine. Now with EU and US financial aid conditional on the new Ukraine government embracing severe IMF austerity and privatization as well as demand to end domestic gas price subsidies, the new government is clearly looking forward to the next rape of hapless Ukrainians and worse.
Why would people in the US, allegedly promoters of democracy, not care about the gangsters and murderers their policies have brought into Kiev? US-Polish security strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski stated it clearly back in 1997:
Zbigniew Brzezinski
“Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia.
Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine…would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who…would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the south…
if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”[10]
[2] Daily Mail, Bring on the oligarchs Ukraine drafts in its superrich tycoons to help curb unrest in Russian-speaking east, Mail Foreign Service, 8 March 2014, accessed in
[3] Roman Olyearchyk, Akhmetov joins Ukraine oligarchs in pledging to protect homeland, Financial Times, March 2, 2014 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a99fc964-a189-11e3-a29e-00144feab7de.html#axzz2vOBdROJp.
[7] Jessica Elgot, Ukraine’s New Leaders: From Neo-Nazis To A Muslim, A Jew And A Heavyweight Boxer, 3 March 2014, Huffington Post, accessed in http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/03/ukraine-government_n_4889063.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
[8] Katya Gorchinskaya, The not so revolutionary new Ukraine government, Kyiv Post, February 27, 2014, accessed in
Frederick William Engdahl (born August 9, 1944) is an American writer, economics researcher, historian, and freelance journalist.
He is the author of the best-selling book on oil and geopolitics, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. It has been published as well in French, German, Chinese, Russian, Czech, Korean, Turkish, Croatian, Slovenian, and Arabic. In 2010 he published Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, completing his trilogy on the power of oil, food, and money control.
Mr. Engdahl is one of the more widely discussed analysts of current political and economic developments, and his provocative articles and analyses have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines and well-known international websites. In addition to discussing oil geopolitics and energy issues, he has written on issues of agriculture, GATT, WTO, IMF, energy, politics, and economics for more than 30 years, beginning the first oil shock and world grain crisis in the early 1970s. His book, ‘Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation has been translated into eight languages. A new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order describes the American military power projection in terms of geopolitical strategy. He won a ‘Project Censored Award’ for Top Censored Stories for 2007-08.
Mr. Engdahl has lectured in economics at the Rhein-Main University in Germany and is a Visiting Professor in Economics at Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
After a degree in politics from Princeton University (USA), and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm, he worked as an independent economist and research journalist in New York and later in Europe, covering subjects including the politics of energy policy in the USA and worldwide; GATT Uruguay Round trade talks, EU food policies, the grain trade monopoly, IMF policy, Third World debt issues, hedge funds, and the Asia crisis.
Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of international publications on economics and political affairs including Asia Times, FinancialSense.com, 321.gold.com, The Real News, Russia Today TV, Asia Inc., GlobalResearch.com, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine. He has been a frequent contributor to the New York Grant’sInvestor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International and Freitag and ZeitFragen in Germany, Globus in Croatia. He has been interviewed on various geopolitical topics on numerous international TV and radio programs including Al Jazeera, CCTV and Sina.com (China), CCTV (China) Korea Broadcasting System (KBS), and RT Russian TV. He is a Research Associate of Michel Chossudovsky’s well-respected Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal, Canada, and a member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine.
Mr. Engdahl has been a featured speaker at numerous international conferences on geopolitical, GMO, economic, and energy subjects. Among them is the Ministry of Science and Technology Conference on Alternative Energy, Beijing; London Centre for Energy Policy Studies of Hon. Sheikh Zaki Yamani; Turkish-Eurasian Business Council of Istanbul, Global Investors’ Forum (GIF) Montreaux Switzerland; Bank Negara Indonesia; the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies; the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Croatian Chamber of Commerce and Economics.
He currently lives in Germany and, in addition to teaching and writing regularly on issues of international political economy and geopolitics, food security, economics, energy, and international affairs, is active as a consulting political risk economist for major European banks and private investors. A sample of his writings is available at Oil Geopolitics.net
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