This is the first of three parts of an interview that Oleg Nesterenko, President of the CCIE, gave to the publication “L’Éclaireur des Alpes”. This part discusses the responsibility of the 2014 Maidan coup for the tragic events that plunged Ukraine into war.
Part 2
L’Éclaireur: Over and above Vladimir Putin’s responsibility for starting the war, what are the reasons that led the Russians to intervene militarily in Ukraine, and what are the underlying causes?
Oleg Nesterenko: When we talk about the reasons that led the Russians to intervene militarily in Ukraine, root causes and triggers are often confused, especially in the Western press. The triggers are mistaken for the causes. As for the causes, we don’t even talk about them, or we just talk nonsense. It’s important to distinguish one from the other.
There are two main interrelated triggers. The first is the coup in Kiev in 2014. Without this unconstitutional overthrow of power, Ukraine would be living in peace today. Without this coup, for which there is tangible evidence that the United States of America was behind with the help of its European surrogates, there would not be the war we are currently experiencing. It is important to stress that before this event in 2014, neither Crimea, nor the Donetsk region, nor the Lugansk region had the slightest intention of separating from Ukraine. In Crimea, I never heard anyone, either among the ordinary people or among senior officials in closed circles, talk about the possibility or necessity of separating from Ukraine and rejoining Russia. There was no reason to do so.
And even later, within the framework of the Minsk agreements, the idea of the separation of Ukraine from the regions of Lugansk and Donetsk was by no means foreseen, or even raised. It was the supplement of autonomy from the central power in Kiev that was the subject of the agreement, starting with linguistic autonomy: the right of the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine to speak and use their native language, the language they want and not the one imposed by the new power bearing a more than questionable legitimacy.
The second trigger for the war in Ukraine was the Odessa massacre in 2014, about which not much is said in France. Local propaganda seeks to conceal this major event. It is far too embarrassing.
When the coup took place in Kiev and the ultra-nationalists, supported directly by the United States, came to power, the Russian-speaking and traditionally pro-Russian parts of Ukraine—the Russian-speaking regions of Donbass, Crimea, Odessa, Nikolayev and Kharkov—rose up.
And when the extremists came to Odessa to put down the perfectly peaceful demonstrations by the inhabitants, they came armed to kill. Officially, 48 people were killed. In reality—certainly more. And these were not abstract deaths, the victims of some accident. It was the people of Odessa who were massacred by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis from the traditionally Russophobic west of Ukraine. And these inhabitants were massacred with enormous savagery (raped and then strangled, burnt alive, etc.) for their refusal to accept the new power that had never been elected by anyone. The inhabitants of the pro-Russian regions were deeply traumatised by this massacre, even more so than by the events in Kiev, because this time it happened in their region and could happen again at any time. I was in Crimea in 2014 and I remember the locals saying “there’s no way these degenerates are coming here”.
Although almost all the perpetrators of the Odessa massacre are well known—there is a wealth of eyewitness accounts, photos and videos showing the unmasked faces of those who took part in the massacre—not a single one of them has been arrested or even investigated by the new Ukrainian government. This is the beginning, the foundation of the new Ukrainian “democracy” so much admired by the gullible and manipulated masses in the West.
So, after the proclamations of independence of the Crimea and Donbass regions from Ukraine—which were easy to achieve, given that at least three-quarters of the populations concerned were vehemently opposed to the new power installed in Kiev—the events in Odessa merely reconfirmed the validity of the separation.
L’Éclaireur: How do you explain the interference of the United States and the European Union in matters that could have remained regional?
Oleg Nesterenko: Because the real underlying causes of this conflict are quite different. The real reasons lie with the United States. You even have to forget about Ukraine because, in fact, it has very little to do with it. It is not the Ukrainians who have decided or are deciding anything. They are just the executors and victims in a great game that is way beyond them.
Before talking about the real root causes of this conflict and the underlying role of the collective West, it is important to say a few words about the role of the Russian naval base in Crimea, in Sevastopol. The role not in the events of February 2022, but of March 2014.
Much has been said about Moscow’s intention to protect the Russian and pro-Russian populations. This is true. That’s a human reason. But geopolitically, the key reason for taking back Crimea was the Sevastopol naval base. The Sevastopol naval base is a strategic element in the defence of the Russian Federation. Whoever controls the Sevastopol naval base controls the Black Sea. It’s as simple as that. So for the Kremlin, it was inconceivable that the Russians who had always been there, and not just since 1991, would be driven out and replaced by Nato ships and the United States. Because that was the Western plan.
L’Éclaireur: Does this port have any strategic importance for Ukraine?
Oleg Nesterenko: The Sevastopol naval base has no strategic or even existential value for Ukraine. Ukraine has never been and never will be a naval power. Ukrainian naval forces today are, quite simply, non-existent. Not to mention that the Russian presence was not free. Russia paid an annual rental fee for the port. So it was quite beneficial for Kiev to rent the base to the Russians. On the other hand, for Nato, it is a more than strategic point. Seizing the port of Sebastopol would have been a major geopolitical victory. For Moscow, it was therefore vital that enemy forces were never allowed access to the Sevastopol base.
Following Turkey’s entry into NATO in 1952 and the subsequent absorption of Romania and Bulgaria in 2004, the geostrategic aim of the Atlantic alliance was, and still is, to absorb Ukraine and Georgia by claustrating Russian naval forces in the port of Novorossiysk—the only remaining deep-water naval base—and thus making the Black Sea NATO’s internal sea.
Despite repeated lies over the years, this is exactly what has been planned, with Russia as the sole target. And this has been the case even since the 1990s, when Russian-Western relations were at their highest level since 1944. At that time, Moscow was still very open and too naïve about the intentions of the American-centric collective West.
L’Éclaireur: So Ukraine is just a pawn and Europe a kind of chessboard?
Oleg Nesterenko: Unfortunately, that’s exactly the case. And those in charge in Kiev are perfectly aware of the situation. I don’t believe for a second that Zelensky and his entourage are unaware of their real role.
To return to the underlying reasons for the war in Ukraine, there is not one, but three key reasons. On the one hand, there is the desire to continue world domination by the American monetary system, in other words the dollar. The war in Ukraine is, above all, a war against the American currency (to be continued in our second part).
The second reason is the maximum reduction in economic relations between Russia and the European Union. It is not Russia but the European Union that is the United States’ major competitor on the world market. Reducing European competitiveness by depriving them of one of the major factors in regulating the cost of their industrial production—cheap Russian energy—was one of the key elements of American foreign policy.
The third reason is the desire to significantly weaken Russia and therefore its capacity to intervene in the future major conflict which will inevitably take place between the United States and China, and for which Russia is the latter’s energy and food “rear base”. When the active phase of Sino-American hostilities begins, without Russia behind it, China’s economy will be doomed.
L’Éclaireur: Why haven’t the Americans tried (if they haven’t tried) to destabilise Russia internally, as they did in Ukraine?
Oleg Nesterenko: This modus operandi is part of their doctrine. They succeeded in Ukraine, but we mustn’t forget that they have already done exactly the same thing in Georgia, in 2003, where they succeeded perfectly, and tried to reproduce the same scenario in Belarus and Kazakhstan, among others. It didn’t work, thanks in large part to Russia’s support for the target countries.
Of course they tried to destabilise Russia from within. And, from their point of view, they are perfectly right to do so, because the one and only way to bring Russia down is from within. Not only have they tried, they are continuing to try. Except that the adversary’s modus operandi is perfectly well known and the country’s internal security structures are well adapted to combat the threat.
Russia is not Georgia, and even less so Ukraine, given its power and political structures that are widely supported by the population. Russia is much more stable.
L’Éclaireur: But didn’t Russia underestimate the Ukrainians’ ability to resist?
Oleg Nesterenko: Remember the serious assessments that were made of Ukraine’s ability to hold out against Russia. At the time, just before the outbreak of hostilities, it was estimated that Ukraine would only be able to hold out against Russia for a very limited period of time.
Contrary to what is reported in the Western mass media, and despite what has been happening on the ground for over a year now, I would like to stress that those experts who predicted that Ukraine would only be able to hold out for a limited time were not at all wrong. They were not at all wrong in their predictions.
My words may seem surprising in the light of what we’ve been observing for over a year. But there’s no need to be surprised. We must never forget that the active phase of hostilities was launched at the end of February 2022 and that talks between Ukraine and Russia were already taking place in Istanbul at the end of March 2022. Why would a party that feels strong and knows it still has considerable capacity for resistance sit down around a negotiating table to agree a form of surrender? It never happens that way. The Ukrainians went to the negotiating table knowing that their capacity for resistance was very limited.
In Istanbul, when the two parties reached a consensus on the majority of the key elements of the agreement on the cessation of hostilities, when they were practically one step away from ratifying the peace agreement document, there was a 180 degree turnaround on the Ukrainian side. Why did this happen? You don’t need much experience in the business world to know that in negotiations, when one of the two parties does an about-face from one day to the next, it only means one thing—that this party has had a counter-proposal from the competitors of those opposite it. That’s how it works in the business world. It’s the same in politics.
If Ukraine was able to afford the luxury of writing off the peace agreement, it was simply because it had received a counter-proposal. And this counter-proposal could only have come from the Western camp. The events that followed revealed the elements of this proposal: Ukraine received a proposal to open a gigantic line of credit partly payable in arms. In return, Ukraine was to undertake to refrain from concluding a war-stopping agreement with Russia and to supply the fighting “manpower”. That was the agreement.
In order to meet Kiev’s second commitment, Ukraine’s national borders for leaving the country were closed. In France, we don’t talk about it much—because it’s too embarrassing a truth—but at the start of the war there was a gigantic exodus of people from the Ukrainian territories, particularly the male population. The men knew that if they didn’t leave, they would be sent to the slaughter. When Western television talks about Ukrainian heroism, it makes me smile, knowing full well that the country would have been emptied of future fighters in a very short time if the borders had not been closed. Incidentally, you should know that to leave Ukraine since the borders were closed and even today, you have to pay a bribe to Ukrainian customs officials ranging from 7 to 10,000 U.S. dollars. In other words, virtually no wealthy Ukrainians are fighting in Ukraine. To die today in Ukraine—that is the fate of the poor. This information comes directly from many people I know personally who have paid to leave the country.
L’Éclaireur: In Europe, Ukrainian refugees have enjoyed a very protective status, compared with Syrians and Afghans in particular. But in your opinion, is this usurped?
Oleg Nesterenko: That is indeed the case. On the one hand, the “Atlanticist” bloc is directly responsible for the exodus of the Syrian and Afghan populations—a separate article would be needed to list the “charitable” actions committed by this bloc against these countries and their disastrous consequences. And I’m not just talking, for example, about the act of aggression against Syria, which is legally considered to be a crime of aggression, according to points a, b, c and d of paragraph 2 of Article 8bis of the Rome Statute of the ICC, so much cherished and promoted these days by those who finance it. We have to go back much further, to the origins of the creation of various currents and structures, including the Islamic State. If we are in the logic of welcoming refugees from all horizons, then it is these two populations that have the most legitimacy to benefit from it, not to mention the Libyans, whose future has been destroyed by the subcontractors of the United States.
On the other hand, when it comes to Ukrainian refugees, particularly in France, there is what we know about them from the mass media and there is the reality, which differs greatly from the propaganda. The Western media present Ukrainians as a group of individuals who have fled the war. This is the familiar narrative. The reality doesn’t match it at all.
Ukrainian refugees are far from being a homogenous group. There is a very clear divide between refugees from the east and those from the west of the country. Those from the west of the country, traditionally nationalist territories, fled Ukraine, while their region was under no real threat. They risked nothing, either at the start of the war or today. By the second month of the conflict, it was already clear that Russia had no interest in this area. Western Ukraine is not Syria or Iraq. The real reason why people from this area are leaving for Europe is not humanitarian, but economic.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the western regions of Ukraine have always lived in great poverty, bordering on destitution: virtually all the country’s wealth is concentrated in Kiev and eastern Ukraine. Between 1991 and 2022, millions of Ukrainians, mostly from the above-mentioned regions, left to work abroad. There are two destinations for these workers: Russia and the European Union. You probably don’t know this, but even today there are more than a million Ukrainian workers on Russian soil. And I’m only talking about the official figure of those who have an official work permit. Including the black market, it is estimated that there are over 3 million Ukrainian citizens working in Russia. The traditionally very high number of illegal Ukrainian workers is due to the policy of tolerance towards them that has always prevailed in Russia: they don’t risk much by being arrested.
Others have gone to work illegally in the European Union. When you have one person from a village who leaves to work in Europe, in time it can be the majority of the village’s working-age population who follow in their footsteps, one after the other. The overwhelming majority of men work in the building trade, and the women who accompany their husbands—as housekeepers. The men are mostly “rotational”, because most of the time their families stay at home. And we’re talking about millions of people. If many of your readers have never heard of this, you should know that there isn’t a single adult in the whole of Ukraine for whom what I’m saying isn’t commonplace.
With the outbreak of war, many families left to join their husbands working illegally in the European Union. Many others saw an opportunity to leave and change their lives. When they left, many rented out their properties to refugees from the east of the country, who are not traditionally attracted by the riches of Europe and prefer to stay in Ukraine. There’s a real scandal in Ukraine, which you’ll obviously never hear about, involving war profiteers who were never in any danger and who left to collect benefits in Europe by renting out their properties to genuine refugees at exorbitant prices, given the exploding demand which has driven up rental prices. These are by no means isolated cases, but a widespread practice throughout the western regions of the country. So much so that today it’s impossible to find a single property to rent that isn’t at least twice, and in some places even five times, the pre-war price.
In any case, those from the west of Ukraine who are not in the European Union for economic reasons went home some time ago. I can assure you of that.
On the other hand, those from the east of the country, traditionally pro-Russian territories, have fled a very real danger. Among them, those who have gone to Europe are those who did not have the financial means to stay in western Ukraine, which is a perfectly safe area, but where they are being robbed by locals who, incidentally, hate them almost as much as the Russians. What the Europeans don’t know is that many of these genuine refugees are fundamentally pro-Russian and hate the Kiev regime and everything it stands for. If they did not leave for Russia, it was only because it was not possible to cross the front line. There was only one way for them to flee: westwards.
In France, you have a relatively large number of Ukrainian refugees who are perfectly pro-Russian, but who keep quiet because they know that the host country, intoxicated by its propaganda, must not learn the truth about them and reject them for political reasons. These are mainly people over 45, who were educated under the USSR. They are by no means nostalgic for the Soviet past, far from it. They’re just people who know exactly what Russia and the Russian world are like, because they’ve lived there.
L’Éclaireur: Do you have any idea how many Ukrainians have fled Ukraine?
Oleg Nesterenko: I don’t have precise figures, but we’re talking about millions who have left for Europe, including more than 100,000 for France. You have to remember that the borders were closed in March 2022, otherwise almost the entire male population aged between 18 and 60 would have fled the country and there would be no one left to send to the slaughterhouse. But the country that has taken in the most refugees is Russia. There are over 3.2 million people. And to talk about Ukrainians being forced to leave for Russia is just a sign of imbecility and total disconnection from reality.
Source : L’Eclaireur des Alpes
Translation : Яннис В.Зброек for Donbass Insider