Nuland est de retour (à Kiev)

Nuland est de retour (à Kiev)

Victoria Nuland est à Kiev, où elle s’entretient avec les dirigeants divers et variés de Kiev-guignol. Finian Cunningham, dans une analyse pour Strategic-Culture.org ce 7 octobre 2014, signale que c’est la première fois depuis mars dernier que Nuland est en Ukraine, après avoir été l’architecte opérationnelle de l’opération de la prise de pouvoir du 21-22 février comme principal résultat de la campagne de protestation dite Euromaidan, ou “Maidan” plus simplement. Cunningham estime que la visite de Nuland implique un feu vert US pour une relance de la guerre contre la Novorussia après la semie-accalmie qui a été instaurée par les accords de Minsk le 5 septembre. (D'autre part, cette visite succède à une rencontre Porochenko-Merkel et il est également très concevable que Nuland/Washington veulent vérifier si le président ukrainien reste toujours bien dans la ligne.)

La campagne électorale pour les législatives (sans doute repoussées début novembre) fait rage, exactement comme une campagne militaire. Les divers dirigeants se haïssent, notamment le président Porochenko (qui a repris le treillis de combat pour ses interventions télévisées) et son Premier ministre Yatseniouk. Cette haine se concrétise en un affrontement de rhétorique fait principalement d’un renchérissement extrémiste dont la cible privilégiée est naturellement l’ensemble séparatistes du Donbass-Russie. D’autre part, la reprise des combats constituerait une issue assez logique pour les dirigeants politiques du type courant Porochenko/Yatsenouk/Timochenko pressés sinon prisonniers des extrémistes du type-Pravy Sektor (ultra-nationalistes et néo-nazis), et confrontés à une situation économique de quasi-effondrement. Dans ce cas, la fuite en avant est une bonne et saine politique. Par conséquent, Nuland, comme d’habitude en mission d’incendiaire quelle que soit la vigueur des consignes de Washington (s’il y en a, d’ailleurs, des consignes), pourrait constituer à la fois une autorité indiscutable et une caution suffisante du soutien US pour une direction politique plongée dans ce désordre dont on a esquissé la description, tout cela pour alimenter l'hypothèse d'une nouvelle campagne.

«In an ominous sign that the war in Ukraine is set to further escalate, US state department official Victoria Nuland arrived in Kiev where she met with senior members of the Western-backed regime.

»In recent days the ceasefire brokered on September 5 has come under intense pressure as Kiev military forces have stepped up their barrage of the eastern city of Donetsk, with several civilian casualties reported almost on a daily basis. As civilian homes burn in Donetsk, the Kiev regime has also begun openly talking about resuming its war footing by «raising combat readiness» and mobilising new army units toward the eastern Donbass regions, where it is trying to suppress a pro-independence movement in the self-declared People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. [...]

»Now the Kiev President Petro Poroshenko has flipped to a strident war rhetoric. In a televised appearance this week, the former industry tycoon had swapped his tie and suit for military uniform, and was warning that forces under his command were ready to use “modern fighting techniques”. Poroshenko said that “Ukraine has transferred its economy to a military footing and will provide everything possible for the Ukrainian army to be stronger”. This while his bankrupt country owes Russia $5.3 billion in unpaid gas bills. Last week his hardline Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk declared that Kiev’s military had been replenished with new equipment and winter gear.

»The timing of this renewed militarism across the board in Kiev’s political leadership – together with increasing violations of the ceasefire in the east – seems more than coincidental with the arrival of eminence grise Victoria Nuland. Nuland, who is Assistant Secretary of State to John Kerry, hasn’t been in Kiev since March. For the past seven months, she has taken a noticeably low profile with regard to Ukraine. Her absence was no doubt aimed at deflecting from her earlier controversial involvement in overseeing the CIA-backed coup on February 22, when the elected government of then President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed by the fascist cabal headed up by Yatsenyuk. [...]

»Russia’s President Putin and the OSCE chairman, Didier Burkalter, who is also the Swiss president, this week reiterated that all sides in the Ukrainian conflict must abide by the terms of the ceasefire signed in Minsk on September 5. But it seems that Kiev is now moving to dispel any pretence of recognising that ceasefire. Since the truce was called – and apparently signed up to by Kiev’s President Poroshenko – the pro-independence Russian-speaking militia in Donbass have claimed that Kiev’s forces were only using the lull in violence as an opportunity to regroup... [...]

»This week on the day that Nuland landed in Kiev, the regime announced what many suspected all along – that it was merely using the month-old ceasefire as a tactical launchpad to redouble its military operations. Andrey Lysenko, Kiev’s National Defence and Security Council spokesman, said on Monday: “We have managed to upgrade the equipment currently in service, to get new armaments, and to reorganise and retool the defence industries that manufacture armaments and repair hardware.” He added: “We have also managed to regroup our forces, to carry out deep reconnaissance and to gather more information about the enemy. We have completed the third wave of mobilisation. We have replaced the units that needed that, we gave them a chance to have some rest after heavy fighting and to get back to normal”. By “normal”, Lysenko means «terrorising civilians in eastern Ukraine».

»This underscores what Poroshenko has in recent days said about “the economy moving to a war footing”. The sinister sign is that the Kiev regime, including the ‘Candy King’ Poroshenko, is now realigning to an all-out belligerent policy toward the people of eastern Ukraine, and by extension, toward Russia itself. The long overdue visit to Kiev this week by Victoria Nuland – Washington’s Ukraine hawk – carries the foreboding imprimatur of US-backed war escalation.

Mis en ligne le 7 octobre 2014 à 16H41