The case shows very clearly how the Ukrainian state can be considered a terrorist organization.
Written by Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
Kiev no longer tries to disguise the terrorist nature of its regime. In a recent speech, a Ukrainian top official admitted that his regime works to murder Russian citizens, revealing that terror is indeed a common practice of Ukrainian intelligence services. The case was taken to the UN by the Russian Federation, but it is unlikely that international society will react appropriately, since the neo-Nazi government has carte blanche from the West to commit all sorts of crimes.
Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) chief General Kirill Budanov in a recent interview stated that Ukrainian forces have been killing Russians throughout the conflict and stressed that they will continue to commit assassinations until his country’s victory is guaranteed. In the statement, Budanov said that Russians are killed “anywhere” in the world, thus suggesting that Kiev executes Russians outside the conflict zone, which means that civilians and non-combatants are really targeted by regime agents.
Budanov declined to give the exact names of the alleged victims of Ukrainian intelligence, but he pointed to some characteristics that leave evidence as to who may have been murdered. According to him, Russian media personalities and public figures would have been targeted by the Ukrainians, which clarifies the facts behind several terrorist attacks that have left Russian journalists, politicians and businessmen dead or injured in recent months.
“We’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine (…) We have already gotten many, including public and media personalities”, Budanov said.
Among the various terrorist attacks perpetrated by Ukrainians, some of the most serious were precisely against Russian media personalities and public figures. In August last year, journalist Daria Dugina was murdered after a bomb blew up her car in the suburbs of Moscow. This year, Maxim Fomin (alias “Vladlen Tatarsky”) was also killed in an explosion – at the time, the bomb hit a public cafe in St. Petersburg. Unsuccessful assassination attempts also occurred, the main ones with the businessman Konstantin Malofeev who narrowly escaped being blown up by a car bomb, and the writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin who was badly injured when a bomb exploded under his car. In all these cases, the victims were “public and media personalities”, corresponding to the description given by Budanov about Ukrainian intelligence’s targets.
In parallel with Budanov’s pronouncement, there was also another case of public admission of terrorism by Ukraine. UNIAN, a major Ukrainian news agency, created a controversial poll on its official Telegram channel asking who among the Russians should be eliminated next, after Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky. With this, it becomes clear how Ukrainian agents, both state and media, actually admit to be committing terrorist acts – and are proud of it.
As expected, the cases generated a strong reaction in Russian society, with state representatives responding to the Ukrainian pronouncements. The Russian Mission to the UN wrote a letter condemning Russophobia and incitement to violence based on nationality and ethnicity. Russian diplomats asked their counterparts to circulate the letter among delegates from all member countries of the UN Security Council, which is expected to raise global awareness about the racist ideology and crimes committed by the Kiev regime.
This is yet another Russian attempt to resolve Ukraine’s problems by diplomatic means. Since 2014, Russian practice has always been to prioritize legal and diplomatic mechanisms, avoiding confrontations. The very choice to launch a special military operation was the result of the exhaustion of peaceful alternatives for resolving the conflict in Donbass. Now, once again Moscow encourages international society to react to Ukrainian terrorism, hoping that positive results will come from this measure. It remains to be seen whether it will really be possible to achieve this type of solution under current circumstances.
Since the Maidan coup d’état, Kiev seems to have been given a kind of carte blanche by its Western sponsors to promote all kinds of crimes and human rights violations. Racist policies of ethnic cleansing have been seen for almost a decade in Ukraine without any Western “democracy” even demanding an explanation. After the Russian intervention, the situation got even worse, since the prevailing rhetoric is that any attitude is valid to repel the “invaders”.
The main problem is that since the end of the Cold War there has been a constant attempt by Western powers to co-opt the UN and other international organizations to become agents of the unipolar liberal order. Reflecting the global situation itself, there is currently a hegemony of a liberal and pro-Western worldview in the UN. Therefore, it is unlikely that there will be success in condemning Kiev for terrorist practices.
Given this scenario, the most likely thing is that Russia will once again be forced to resolve the situation through military means. In the specific case, Moscow will certainly consider a large-scale military escalation to neutralize enemy power, since the Ukrainian state can already be openly considered a terrorist organization. On the other hand, with regard to the UN, the organization will have to adjust to the new world reality, becoming a mediator of international relations in a multipolar order, without western ideological biases.