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Videos and Photos of the Odessan Massacre, and Why It Was Done

By Eric Zuesse:

-:WARNING:-

This item should only be viewed by a mature audience

 

May 10 2014 "ICH" - For the first time in history, an organized massacre of civilians has been filmed by many people from many different angles and perspectives while it was happening, and is documented in extraordinary detail in “real time,” the perpetrators having no fear of any negative consequences from their endeavor, and even cheering and celebrating the tortures and deaths as they were being imposed upon the helpless victims. The perpetrators were unconcerned, because what they were doing was what the government (which the U.S. had imposed upon their country and which U.S. taxpayers had spent more than 5 billion dollars to bring about there) had wanted them to do, and had helped to organize them to carry out. These people were just having fun, like a party to them, nothing really serious at all. Sort of like Stanley Kubrick’s movie A Clockwork Orange, more than, say Auschwitz (such a bore!). But, if so, a hundredfold more. And none of these people (tragically including the victims) were actors!

Background: On May 2nd, the Ukrainian Government in Kiev, located in the west, ordered local governments in the country’s east to take over the buildings that were being occupied by Russian-speaking Ukrainians who didn’t recognize the legitimacy of that newly installed and U.S.-supported Ukrainian government. There was violence in many cities, one being Odessa, where Russian-speaking Ukrainians were taken into the Trade Unions Building (viewed as leftist by the conservative political parties) and were massacred by burning, gunshots, and other means.

This video from George Eliason, an American living in Ukraine, shows the Trade Unions Building starting to be firebombed; then at 2:28 a big firebomb is blasted into the building and there are cheers, but by the end of the video the flames are strong and the sky can hardly be seen because of the dense smoke from the burning building:

The next video shows the firebombs (Molotov cocktails) being thrown into the Odessa Trade Unions Building, and occupants escaping to the roof:

This next, very brief, video shows the burning building from the street, with someone (who is identified on other videos as “Mykola”) firing a gun in the direction of the burning building:

This next video shows a crowd of anti Russian-speaking men from the neo-Nazi Pravy Sector (or “Right Sector,” paramilitary racist anti-Russian nationalist Ukrainian party) herding Russian-speaking Ukrainians into the burning building:

This video from Eliason shows members of Pravy Sector throwing stones and firing rifles into the building:

This brief video from Eliason shows people jumping out of windows from the burning building:

This video from Eliason shows people with clubs beating to death to finish off several people who had just jumped from the windows:

This brief (2:06) video, which was uploaded to youtube on 6 May 2014,

shows an Odessan who is in a street-crowd right after the massacres had occurred on May 2nd, and he’s being asked questions about what had happened. A passerby with a cellphone recorded this brief interview, and the questions came from members of the crowd, who wanted his account.

Here’s my transcript of the video’s printed subscript’s English translation, retaining its typos exactly as they were shown in the film-clip (except that the curse-words aren’t shown letter-for-letter), and with clarifications added by me in red:

Those who were collecting the bodies said: we were walking on the dead bodies … [How many people got killed there?] If we take the whole day, 116. … They are burying them secretly. They were collecting the bodies and finished off the wounded. [Did they poison them with some gas?] Not only with gas. They used stan granades, guns, traumatic guns, pump-action rifles. They chased the people into the building and finished them there. Two guys were clubbed to death with sticks. Is it normal? Is it a f–king united country? They burned a woman with two children alive. In the first floor this woman and two children were killed. … And the Media called us … I’m sorry but I will talk [to the media]! The Ukrainian [Kiev] Media call us terrorists. But the Right Sector [a Western-oriented neo-Nazi party, prominent in the new Kiev government], the wankers, chased us up to the roof of the builing. They threw Molotov Cocktails at us and cried ‘Death to enemies’. To what enemies [he asked them]? And then they cried [out in support of] ‘United Ukraine’. [He replied] F–k the United Ukraine. F–k this country [the newly installed government in Kiev]. [How all this was going chronologically?] Chronologically? They came … [Were there any children killed?] There were many children, women and old people murdered. They finished off the wounded. With headshots. They jumped on their heads. The police couldn’t do anything, they only cordoned off the building. The police tried to come up, a grenade burst among them, and they jumped on the dead bodies. [Where are the rest of the bodies?] The rest of the bodies are six kilometers from Odessa. We need to go there and take them. [unclear question] My name is Vania. [He turns to go.]

This news report by Eliason,

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Odessa–the-First-Pogrom-by-George-Eliason-Activism-Anti-War_Civil-Disobedience_Class-War_Obama-Warmonger-140507-595.html

includes photos from the event while it was happening, and also links to videos. Among the still photos in it are these

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Odessa–the-First-Pogrom-by-George-Eliason-Activism-Anti-War_Civil-Disobedience_Class-War_Obama-Warmonger-140507-595.html

showing (as he titles them) “Pregant woman strangled with cord,” “Torture- Gasoline poured over his head,” and “Rape and torture victim.”

This next item is a picture of the burning building, and a list of the first 36 identified corpses:

http://www.unian.net/politics/914899-stali-izvestnyi-imena-36-pogibshih-v-stolknoveniyah-v-odesse.html

This group of photos includes both the photo of the strangled pregnant woman and the video recorded from the ground below while she was screaming for help:

http://ersieesist.livejournal.com/813.html

The following 59-second video taken right before the operation shows local Odessa police forces en-masse refusing to participate in it, dropping their shields and walking off, instead of following their instructions from the central government in Kiev:

http://users.livejournal.com/_devol_/882549.html

The Ukrainian title right below that video translates as “Part of the Odessa Police refused to stand in the cordon.”

Next is a photo of two Right Sector girls smiling into the camera while carrying Molotov cocktails to the building to join in the massacre:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203476189495505&set=a.4248624383967.167315.1536441281&type=1&theater

The following 9-minute video was taken by a Right Sector person wandering through the wrecked burnt-out building on the night of May 2nd after the job was done, to inspect the corpses and record with pride and satisfaction the results of a day’s work:

The last two mentioned items are linked to on May 2nd, the very day of the events, at this informative blogpost:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/05/ukraine-imf-lose-the-east-and-get-more-money/comments/page/2/

where the 9-minute video is described thusly: “The people either suffocated to death or/and were beaten to death. The fascists are searching the corpses for their identification and names and contacts of their friends … apparently to put them on the list of further fascist terror.” Wallets are taken, etc., for that investigative purpose. So, the victims’ families might now also be in danger.

Also linked-to there is a photo of a coterie of about 6 girls pouring from a gasoline can into beer-bottles to make the Molotov cocktails. They looked like a group of friends simply enjoying a street-party:

http://www.politnavigator.net/opublikovany-snimki-ulybayushhikhsya-aktivistok-gotovyashhikh-koktejjli-molotova-v-odesse-foto.html

Here is the ultimate group of videos:

http://scgnews.com/odessa-massacre-evidence-the-mainstream-media-wont-show-you-warning-disturbing-footage

Here are key parts translated from the transcript of the lengthiest video there:

0.43-47 “Let us burn those motherf–kers right in the building, f–king faggots”

1.08 Everything around is already burning. Injured people are lying on the ground.

1.18 1.20 Maidan activist Mykola is running and shooting at people, who are trying to escape from the window.

5.40-5.50 attackers throw more fire to the window and then are shouting “GOAL!!!”

6.25 – 7.13 Mykola … is shooting at people who are trying to catch air and are seen from the window.

8.10 Maidan activists are telling each other to go to the backyard, because people are trying to escape from there

8.26 Crowd is shouting “They are escaping! Run to the backyard!”

14.15 People, who are still alive are shouting “Police, you have been bought as scums and all of you will go to prison afterwards!”

14.41 Man from the window is shouting “Citizens of Odessa city, rise up!”

16.40 People start to jump from the window. 2, 3, 4 dead bodies. [Not shown, but only mentioned in the conversation.]

21.00 Still alive girls are shouting from the second and third floor.

23.00 Burning man has fallen from the window. Crowd is happy.

23.20 Anti-nationalist man is lying on the roof. Maidan nazzis are shouting to him “Jump! Glory to the Ukraine!”

Another of the videos there is “Ukraine Crisis – What You’re Not Being Told,” and it includes the tapped phone-call on which Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet informed EU Foreign Policy Chief Cathy Ashton, regarding the results of Paet’s investigation into who was behind the snipers who on 20 February 2013 had fired on protesters in Kiev and murdered 21 people, which Obama blamed on Yanukovych and which was used as the chief legal pretext for his ouster. “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” The snipers firing both at the Maidan protesters and at Yanukovych’s police were hired by the people that Victoria Nuland placed into power to replace the democratically elected President, Yanukovych. He was corrupt, but he didn’t do this: “our” people did it, but Obama and his team hid it, and they still hide it.

And here are still-shots of the burnt corpses:

http://fishki.net/anti/1266149-zhertvy-odessy-dom-profsojuzov.html?mode=profile:396961:posts

[Note from Washington's Blog: Former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter Robert Parry documents other horrific acts as part of the mass killing in Odessa: As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.

“Burn, Colorado, burn” went the chant.

As the fire worsened, those dying inside were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building also was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading “Galician SS,” a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist army that fought alongside the German Nazi SS in World War II, killing Russians on the eastern front.]

The reason why the Kiev government is ousting Russian-speaking Ukrainians from government buildings in the east is to retain control of the east. CNBC had headlined on May 1st, just the day before these massacres, “IMF warns Ukraine on bailout if it loses east” and reported: “‘This is something of a leap of faith for the IMF and is politically driven by key IMF shareholders [the international aristocracy in the U.S and Europe] to support the (interim prime minister Arseniy) Yatseniuk “kamikaze” administration in its reform efforts,’ according to Tim Ash, head of emerging markets research at Standard Bank.”

That “kamikaze” term there was referring to the following: Euronews on February 27th bannered “Ukraine’s New Premier Suggests Sacrifices Are Unavoidable,” and presented the hard-right Victoria Nuland, wife of the co-founder, along with Bill Kristol, of the Project for a New American Century. PNAC had famously championed Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Obama had appointed Nuland U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia. In the subsequently infamous leaked phone-conversation (reported by the BBC on February 7th, “Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call”), she dictated to America’s Ukrainian Ambassador that Arseniy Yatsenyuk or “Yats” must run Ukraine. Yatsenyuk was dedicated to the West’s austerity measures, so as to burden ordinary Ukrainians with the enormous debts that had been piled up and socked away by Ukraine’e’s aristocrats, the former corrupt Ukrainian leaders who had stashed billions abroad. Nuland said, “I don’t see Klitchko in the government. I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think Yats is the guy. He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know.” She didn’t want someone she didn’t know; only known corrupt insiders should be rulers. In gangland, you deal only with people you know. And now, the far-right economist “Yats” became the appointed leader, and he immediately said: “We need to form a responsible government — and it’s not about personalities, this is about responsibility. You know, to be in this government is to commit political suicide. And we need to be very frank and open. This is the political suiciders.” He was looking to impress the lenders, so that when he’d retire from government, he’d be able to cash in for his having served not Ukrainians, but the corrupt lenders to the corrupt former Ukrainian political leaders. The Obama plan was for Ukraine to become another Greece, only more so. A taped speech by Nuland to a hard-right corporate forum, the U.S.-Ukrainian Foundation, on 13 December 2013 was posted under the headline “Victoria Nuland Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of Ukrainian ‘Democratic Institutions’.” She said there that the anti-Russia elements in Ukraine represented “the principles and values that are the cornerstones for all free democracies.” The concept there of “democracy” was as versus communism, the polarity that had been central for her husband, Robert Kagan, co-founder with Bill Kristol of PNAC. And now, under the imposed Ukrainian leader “Yats,” Obama would extract repayment for the $5 billion, from the Ukrainian public. During George W. Bush’s Administration, Nuland had served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, but when John Kerry became Secretary of State, Kerry chose her to run Europe and Asia. Hillary Clinton had earlier made her the State Department’s official Spokesperson. The entire Obama Administration consisted of Republican “Democrats.” [Side note: Washington’s Blog is a non-partisan site.   We believe that the war between liberals and conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.  Moreover, given that Obama has now reaffirmed the Iraq War, and that both mainstream parties are bankrupt of ethics – and ignoring what people want – we think that cheerleading for Democrats-versus-Republicans is counter-productive. But this is such an important post that we urge you keep reading past this partisan paragraph ... whatever your politics.]  The people in the Democratic Party who financed the political campaigns of the top Democratic office-holders were the “Democratic” aristocrats. Republican aristocrats financed the political campaigns of all Republican office-holders: that Party was 100% corrupt, but only at the very top level was the Democratic Party 100% corrupt. Most congressional Democrats, for example, are not corrupt. They’re not populists, but they take into account not only the interests of their big financial donors: they care somewhat about the public, too.

The transcript of Nuland’s speech was posted 16 December 2013 at the Department of State, “Assistant Secretary Nuland at U.S.-Ukraine Foundation Conference”. Her exact words there were: “Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We’ve invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.” Very funny, that reference to “a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.”

Chris Ernesto at AntiWar.com headlined on 15 March 2014, “Brzezinski Mapped Out the Battle for Ukraine in 1997: It’s all about maintaining the US position as the world’s sole superpower.” The plan was to squelch Russia in order to retain the existing mono-polar world: control of all the world’s resources by America’s aristocracy, as the dominant player everywhere. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s decades-long patronage by David Rockefeller was now becoming understandable in a stark light.

The BBC’s “Newsnight” featured a segment on the Ukrainian situation, which was posted 28 February 2014 to youtube as “Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT,” and it interviewed some of the activists who had taken over as armed and organized gangs, and many of whom were unapologetically “National Socialist,” some even overtly pro-Hitler. The U.S. had indirectly (if not directly) placed them in control, after we forced Viktor Yanukovych out.

On 5 March 2014, Russia Today TV, Russia’s English-language news service, issued a tapped phone-conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and the Estonian foreign affairs minister Urmas Paet, in which the latter said that the massacre on 18 February 2014 that Western news media had reported to have been perpetrated by troops for the ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovych and that had sparked his overthrow had actually been perpetrated instead by agents of the pro-Western leaders who were now in power. However, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution goes beyond this, to document that when Paet’s phone-conversation with Ashton became public, he walked back his degree of certainty that Yanukovych had been framed on this matter.

That wikipedia article is extraordinarily thorough.

On 6 March 2014, Paul Craig Roberts bannered, “The Looting of Ukraine Has Begun,” and he wasn’t referring to the long history of kleptocracy in Ukraine, but only to the Obama Administration’s part in that history. “According to a report in Kommersant-Ukraine, the finance ministry of Washington’s stooges in Kiev who are pretending to be a government has prepared an economic austerity plan that will cut Ukrainian pensions from $160 to $80 so that Western bankers who lent money to Ukraine can be repaid at the expense of Ukraine’s poor. http://www.kommersant.ua/doc/2424454 It is Greece all over again. … The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education, layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations. Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness.”

Something highly important occurred at that very moment: Iskra News in Russian, and also the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, reported, on 7 March 2014, that “At 2 a.m. this morning … an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport” near Kiev in the west, and that, “According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.” This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, “Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?” in which he noted that, when asked, “A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, ‘Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.” The load was said to be “more than 40 heavy boxes.” Chossudovsky noted that, “The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine’s gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars.” It was 36 tons. The U.S., according to Nuland had invested aroud $5 billion in the coup. Was Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation’s gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation’s steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be able to be repaid to Russia’s oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland’s having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-U.S. ploy.

Metal.com, the Shanghai Metals Market, headlined on March 14th, “Ukraine Gold Reserves Reported To Be Hastily Aircrafted To U.S.” Nobody would say anything about it, and U.S. “news” media blacked out the matter. However, U.S. sources said that it was done in order to protect Ukraine’s gold in the event that Russia were to invade and steal it.

Raul Illargi headlined at The Automatic Earth, “Debt Rattle Mar 9 2014: Big Oil and Gas Wars,” and linked to recent news reports about international oil companies’ efforts to push Russia’s state oil company Gazprom out of Ukraine and replace Russian with Western oil companies’ production. Headlines included: “EU leaders draw up plans to send gas to Ukraine if Russia cuts off supply,” “Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry,” “Ukraine Plans to Cut Russian Gas Imports, Raise EU Supply,” and “Ukraine’s Naftogaz slashes Russian gas imports in February.” The machinations by rightist politicians to shove aside Gazprom were already at a fever-pitch throughout the weeks leading up to the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Victor Yanukovych, especially the last week of February in 2014, when he was replaced by Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

So: that’s why the Russian-speakers who live in Ukraine are terrified and are hoping for Russia’s protection of them, and why Ukraine’s neo-Nazis are being unleashed against them. It’s just one gang of aristocrats trying to muscle another gang of aristocrats off to the side. And we’ll see who wins. But, clearly, the public, throughout Ukraine, will lose, big-time: “collateral damage” from the struggle between two rival gangs of aristocrats.

It’s just history repeating itself, for the millionth time.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Via WashingtonsBlog

Take Action: Stop funds for neo-Nazis in Ukraine! Not another Odessa massacre!: Join the nationwide grassroots movement to demand that the U.S. government cut all funds and military aid to the Ukraine government, which has a large number of neo-Nazis in its top positions.
 

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