Vladimir Putin's Top 10 Lies On Ukraine

Here is the full fact sheet from the State Department:

1. Mr. Putin says: Russian forces in Crimea are only acting to protect Russian military assets. It is “citizens’ defense groups,” not Russian forces, who have seized infrastructure and military facilities in Crimea.

The Facts: Strong evidence suggests that members of Russian security services are at the heart of the highly organized anti-Ukraine forces in Crimea. While these units wear uniforms without insignia, they drive vehicles with Russian military license plates and freely identify themselves as Russian security forces when asked by the international media and the Ukrainian military. Moreover, these individuals are armed with weapons not generally available to civilians.



2. Mr. Putin says: Russia’s actions fall within the scope of the 1997 Friendship Treaty between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

The Facts: The 1997 agreement requires Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, which have given them operational control of Crimea, are in clear violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.



3. Mr. Putin says: The opposition failed to implement the February 21 agreement with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The Facts: The February 21 agreement laid out a plan in which the Rada, or Parliament, would pass a bill to return Ukraine to its 2004 Constitution, thus returning the country to a constitutional system centered around its parliament. Under the terms of the agreement, Yanukovych was to sign the enacting legislation within 24 hours and bring the crisis to a peaceful conclusion. Yanukovych refused to keep his end of the bargain. Instead, he packed up his home and fled, leaving behind evidence of wide-scale corruption.



4. Mr. Putin says: Ukraine’s government is illegitimate. Yanukovych is still the legitimate leader of Ukraine.

The Facts: On March 4, President Putin himself acknowledged the reality that Yanukovych “has no political future.” After Yanukovych fled Ukraine, even his own Party of Regions turned against him, voting to confirm his withdrawal from office and to support the new government. Ukraine’s new government was approved by the democratically elected Ukrainian Parliament, with 371 votes – more than an 82% majority. The interim government of Ukraine is a government of the people, which will shepherd the country toward democratic elections on May 25th – elections that will allow all Ukrainians to have a voice in the future of their country.



5. Mr. Putin says: There is a humanitarian crisis and hundreds of thousands are fleeing Ukraine to Russia and seeking asylum.

The Facts: To date, there is absolutely no evidence of a humanitarian crisis. Nor is there evidence of a flood of asylum-seekers fleeing Ukraine for Russia. International organizations on the ground have investigated by talking with Ukrainian border guards, who also refuted these claims. Independent journalists observing the border have also reported no such flood of refugees.



6. Mr. Putin says: Ethnic Russians are under threat.

The Facts: Outside of Russian press and Russian state television, there are no credible reports of any ethnic Russians being under threat. The new Ukrainian government placed a priority on peace and reconciliation from the outset. President Oleksandr Turchynov refused to sign legislation limiting the use of the Russian language at regional level. Ethnic Russians and Russian speakers have filed petitions attesting that their communities have not experienced threats. Furthermore, since the new government was established, calm has returned to Kyiv. There has been no surge in crime, no looting, and no retribution against political opponents.



7. Mr. Putin says: Russian bases are under threat.

The Facts: Russian military facilities were and remain secure, and the new Ukrainian government has pledged to abide by all existing international agreements, including those covering Russian bases. It is Ukrainian bases in Crimea that are under threat from Russian military action.



8. Mr. Putin says: There have been mass attacks on churches and synagogues in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The Facts: Religious leaders in the country and international religious freedom advocates active in Ukraine have said there have been no incidents of attacks on churches. All of Ukraine’s church leaders, including representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, have expressed support for the new political leadership, calling for national unity and a period of healing. Jewish groups in southern and eastern Ukraine report that they have not seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents.



9. Mr. Putin says: Kyiv is trying to destabilize Crimea.

The Facts: Ukraine’s interim government has acted with restraint and sought dialogue. Russian troops, on the other hand, have moved beyond their bases to seize political objectives and infrastructure in Crimea. The government in Kyiv immediately sent the former Chief of Defense to defuse the situation. Petro Poroshenko, the latest government emissary to pursue dialogue in Crimea, was prevented from entering the Crimean Rada.



10. Mr. Putin says: The Rada is under the influence of extremists or terrorists.

The Facts: The Rada is the most representative institution in Ukraine. Recent legislation has passed with large majorities, including from representatives of eastern Ukraine. Far-right wing ultranationalist groups, some of which were involved in open clashes with security forces during the EuroMaidan protests, are not represented in the Rada. There is no indication that the Ukrainian government would pursue discriminatory policies; on the contrary, they have publicly stated exactly the opposite.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/stat...p-10-lies-ukraine-crimea-2014-3#ixzz2wt9VlCsz

 

There it is once again: the fiction—amazingly repeated again and again all over the world as if it were true—that 96.6 per cent of the people in Crimea voted in a hastily organized referendum for “reunification” with Mother Russia. “We are going home,” declared Crimean Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov in the capital Simferopol on Sunday night. And that’s the way Putin made it sound, of course.

But from top to bottom, these claims are pure rubbish. A week before the vote just 41 percent of Crimeans wanted their land to be a part of Russia, yet the returns came back showing 96.6 pecent approval. The electoral commission, such as it is, released numbers indicating 474,137 people voted in the port city of Sevastopol, which would be 123 percent of the registered population there.

Just look at the fundamental question on the ballot: “Are you for reunification of Crimea with Russia with the rights of a Russian Federation subject?” What “reunification”? Crimea was never a part of the Russian nation as such, it was a conquered part of the Russian Empire that was wrested from the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century after changing hands many, many times among many powers. (This video animation of Europe’s shifting borders over the last 1,000 years gives a good idea how fluid the frontiers have been.)

From 1917 to 1954 the Crimean peninsula was part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union, then transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, where it remained until 1991 when the USSR ceased to exist. Since then, it has been part of Ukraine, but as an autonomous republic. So the legal premise of “reunification” with the Russian nation is pretty dubious, Moscow’s tools are determined to ram it down the throats of the people there, in Ukraine and the world.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...izure-of-crimea-is-based-on-pure-fiction.html

 

The first Big Lie is that Ukraine is such a cauldron of ethnic hatred and violence that Mother Russia was forced to intervene to rescue and protect Russian speakers from their extremist Ukrainian neighbors. False.

Ukrainians, be they first-language Russian or Ukrainian speakers (virtually all speak Russian), would shake their heads, just as would Bavarians when warned they are in danger of ethnic and racial violence at the hands of North Germans. On any stroll in Kiev or other cities, one hears more Russian than Ukrainian. Although the Russian media has likely scoured the record, there are no incidents of Ukrainian-on-Russian ethnic violence. There are no cases of Russian speakers in the east hiding in their cellars from the latest Ukrainian pogrom. Ukrainians do not feel hatred towards Russians. First-hand reports coming out of Ukraine say that Ukrainians, who had regarded Russians as friends and neighbors, for the first time regard them with a sense of loss as “others” (chuzhie).

Russia’s second Big Lie is that Ukraine’s East and South wish to join voluntarily their Russian brethren in a united Russia. False.

Putin cites his Levada Institute polls as proof of the admiration he enjoys among his people. He should therefore accept the results of a scientific poll of more than 2,000 Ukrainian citizens taken during the worst of the Maidan demonstrations, when separatist tendencies would have been inflamed, but before the Russian invasion ignited anti-Russian sentiment. The highly professional poll shows an overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens want Russia only as a friendly neighbor with open borders and no visas. Some 12.5 percent want Russia and Ukraine as one country, reaching a high of twenty percent in the East and 25 percent in the Crimean south. An unoccupied Ukraine would not voluntarily join the corrupt and dysfunctional Russia. The Maidan revolution offers a fresh start with a chance of becoming part of law-abiding and prosperous Europe.

The new prime minister of Crimea – installed by the Russian occupation to preside over Crimea’s annexation — is one Sergei “The Goblin” Aksyonov, a purported member of the Crimean underworld, whose pro-Russian party won a whopping four percent of the votes in the last regional elections. Now he purports to represent all Crimea as he barrels through the Crimea with his escort of AK-47-toting Russians (Excuse me, I meant to say Crimean self-defense troops).

The third Big Lie is that the Maidan demonstrators were not ordinary people venting against corruption and mismanagement, but vile, extreme nationalists, anti Semites, and Nazis paid and trained by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Having driven out the legitimate president of Ukraine, extremists are poised to take the Ukrainian presidency and parliament. Two presidential candidate hail from the far right. Poor Russia had no choice but to intervene. False.

Yes, nationalists were among the bravest of the Maidan demonstrators, but they constituted a small minority. The grim list of the “Heavenly Hundred” victims shows a grand total of eight deaths from the two right-wing parties. The others were students, factory workers, and otherwise ordinary people, some from the East, demonstrating out of conscience. As to the upcoming presidential elections, the latest polls show ex-heavyweight boxing champion, Vitaly Klitshko, in the lead with the two right-wing candidates polling collectively less than five percent – scant evidence of an impending skin-head Nazi takeover.

If Putin is intent on saving Europe from right-wing extremism, he is advised to invade Greece (Golden Dawn), France (National Front), Netherlands (Wilder’s Freedom Party), or Hungary (Jobbik) – all of which have double the popular support of Ukraine’s far right. Maybe such invasions would actually wake up the somnambulant Europeans.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrod...ne-if-it-werent-so-serious-it-would-be-funny/