The Red Army

If you were to ask an American politician in the year 2024 whether they celebrate Victory Day, presumably you would receive a puzzled look instead of a shared nod of celebration.

This year, instead of remembering the American perspective to the end of World War II, take a moment to ponder on the Red Army and over 26 million (some estimates are even higher) their sacrifices which are still felt today, and in some cases, still being found in the dirt where they perished 75+ years later.

Twenty-four years of discipline and labor have created an eternal glory, the name of which is the Red Army.

Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army that it can never be repaid.

But we can declare that the Soviet Union will receive the arms, money, and provisions it needs. Anyone who fulminates against Hitler should consider the Red Army a heroic model which must be imitated.

-Ernest Hemingway

Liberation of the Camps

As you take a few moments to learn about Victory Day, the history of the Eastern Front, or just want a few excerpts before tackling your day, if you’re an American, it is unlikely you have been able to read the perspectives of a Red Army soldier, or someone liberated by the Red Army. Below are a few excerpts from Dan Stone’s book Liberation of the Camps.

Red Army Perspective:

To the extent that we can access the Red Army's views, it is through memoirs and letters. Vasily Gromadsky, an officer of the 60th Army, offered this description:

I realized that they were prisoners and not workers so I called out, 'You are free, come out!"... They began rushing towards us, in a big crowd. They were weeping, embracing us, and kissing us. I felt a grievance on behalf of mankind that these fascists had made such a mockery of us. It roused me and all the soldiers to go and quickly destroy them and send them to hell."

Georgi Elisavetskii, another of the first Soviet soldiers to enter the camp, admitted in 1980 that 'My blood runs cold when I mention Auschwitz even now. He described the liberation in dramatic detail:

When I entered the barrack, I saw living skeletons lying on the three tiered bunks.

As in fog, I hear my soldiers saying: 'You are free, comrades!' I sense that they do not understand [us] and begin speaking to them in Russian, Polish, German, Ukrainian dialects; unbuttoning my leather jacket, I show them my medals... Then I use Yiddish.

Their reaction is unpredictable. They think that I am provoking them. They begin to hide. And only when I said to them: 'Do not be afraid, I am a colonel of Soviet Army and a Jew. We have come to liberate you' ... Finally, as if the barrier collapsed... they rushed towards us shouting, fell on their knees, kissed the flaps of our overcoats, and threw their arms around our legs. And we could not move, stood motionless while unexpected tears ran down our cheeks.

Liberated Perspective:

Of the inmates who were in Auschwitz's hospital at the moment of liberation, none came to be more celebrated than Primo Levi. It is impossible to do justice to the complexity of ideas and simplicity of prose with which Levi describes his liberation (as with everything he writes about). It is thus worth citing a long passage, which follows the arrival of four Soviet horsemen riding along the road outside the barbed-wire perimeter of the camp:

They did not greet us, nor did they smile; they seemed oppressed not only by compassion but by a confused restraint, which sealed their lips and bound their eyes to the funereal scene. It was that shame we knew so well, the shame that drowned us after the selections, and every time we had to watch, or submit to, some outrage: the shame the Germans did not know, that the just man experiences at another man's crime; the feeling of guilt that such a crime should exist, that it should have been introduced irrevocably into the world of things that exist, and that his will for good should have proved too weak or null, and should not have availed in defence.

More than any other author of a Holocaust testimony, Levi captures the swirling, mixed emotions to which liberation gave rise:

So for us even the hour of liberty rang out grave and muffled, and filled our souls with joy and yet with a painful sense of pudency, so that we should have liked to wash our consciences and our memories clean from the foulness that lay upon them; and also with anguish, because we felt that this should never happen, that now nothing could ever happen good and pure enough to rub out our past, and that the scars of the outrage would remain within us forever, and in the memories of those who saw it, and in the places where it occurred and in the stories that we should tell of it. This confusion, this simultaneous 'attack of mortal fatigue' that accompanied the joy of liberation' accounts for 'why few among us ran to greet our saviours, few fell in prayer’

We have previously touched on the Western media hypocrisy in a separate article which can be read at length below. The article does a deep dive into the rise of Ukrainian nationalism and how its growth was influenced by the Central Intelligence Agency to sow discontent within the former USSR.

Red Street Journal

[DECLASSIFIED] - CIA INVOLVEMENT IN UKRAINIAN NATIONALISM

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4 years ago · 8 likes · Red Street Media Collective

Modern Hitler Youth Camps

For several years now, Ukraine has been the home of modern Hitler Youth camps, indoctrinating children into the Banderite ideology of Ukrainian Nationalism, functionally serving as a pipeline to raise the next generation of Ukrainian Nazis.

In typical Western fashion, the mainstream press has been aware of this issue, covering these camps years prior to the Special Military Operation.

In the two videos above you will see children being taught how to use rifles, lectured about the history of Ukraine from the perspective of supporters of Stefan Bandera. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is also prominent, as well are calls to destroy Russian civilization.

The Associated Press observed this nationalist rhetoric in the reporting they did on these camps in 2018. Some of the lecturers at the camps gave a glimpse into the types of topics these children are being taught.

Cherkashin is a veteran of the fight against pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine; he was wounded in combat and later came to lead Sokil, or Falcon, the youth wing of the Svoboda party. It is important, he says, to inculcate the nation’s youth with nationalist thought, so they can battle Vladimir Putin’s Russia as well as “challenges that could completely destroy” European civilization.

Among those challenges: LGBT rights, which lecturers denounce as a sign of Western decadence.

“You need to be aware of all that,” said instructor Ruslan Andreiko. “All those gender things, all those perversions of modern Bolsheviks who have come to power in Europe and now try to make all those LGBT things like gay pride parades part of the education system.”

While some youths dozed off during lectures, others paid attention. Clearly, some were receptive.

During a break in training, a teenager played a nationalist march on his guitar. It was decorated with a sticker showing white bombs hitting a mosque, under the motto,

“White Europe is Our Goal.”

Even after the Special Military Operation launched, the Western press let the Nazi problem slip out on occasion.

Nationalist Symbols

An unusual attempt to downplay the influence of Nazi symbology has been invoked during the current conflict raging in Eastern Ukraine. On social media, supporters of Ukraine have defended the use of these symbols under the guise of them being different than the ones used in Nazi Germany. Of course, this can easily be disproven.

We can take the Azov Battalion symbol and analyze it carefully.

Ukrainian War Crimes

In the Western press, Ukraine is framed as a defense of Western Democracy against the evil Russians. In reality though, the Ukrainian military has been committing atrocities since at least 2014.

The United Nations has published a few studies already, indicating the scale of atrocities against those in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

During the on-going conflict, Ukraine has been observed several times committing atrocities against prisoners of war. We must warn our readers that the video below is incredibly graphic.

Shortly after the video was posted, Ukraine supporters took to the internet to claim the video was another example of Russian propaganda.

The Human Rights Watch organization also chimed in, indicating that it would be a war crime if the video turned out to be real. The New York Times eventually admitted the video was real.

A common scene on social media are pro-Ukraine supporters taking pleasure in the brutality of war. The barbarism on display is illustrated by a verified Twitter user with over 200,000 followers gleefully bragging about turning bad “ordinary Russian” into a good one (Dead one).

Stop Pretending

The attempts to downplay the Nazism in Ukraine is irresponsible and will cause unneeded death and destruction as nationalists are allowed to go unchecked.

One of the reasons we at Red Street use Western sources is to refute attempts to frame our work as Russian propaganda. This strategic method of reporting is to help our readers to think about how narratives shift according to geopolitical interests.

Recently Jackson, Mississippi became the latest location in a series of crippling American water infrastructure problems across the country. Clean drinking water is becoming increasingly difficult to access for some Americans.

A video posted by Molly Minta on Friday reveals just how bad things have gotten in Belhaven. She took to Twitter, sharing video of what appears to be black coffee coming out of the water faucet. This comes just two weeks after a state of emergency was declared as a result of flooding impacting water treatment infrastructure.

Credit for Tweet/Video to Molly Minta/Mississippi Today.

Unsafe Drinking Water Continues

As stomach churning as this phenomenon is, unfortunately more and more Americans are becoming acquainted with coffee-colored, unsafe drinking water. If we zoom out and look at the water infrastructure problem in the US with a span of years, instead of weeks, we can begin to see a pattern emerge.

Despite touting $100 Million being awarded to Michigan to combat the Flint Water crisis, which began in 2014. Flint Michigan residents still are dealing with the fallout from the crisis, some do not have access to drinking water 8 years after becoming aware of the crisis. Even though Michigan state touts’ “compliance” with federal regulations, things are not always as they seem.

According to the State of Michigan website:

Flint Water Quality Update

Since July 2016, the city of Flint's water system has met state and federal standards for lead in drinking water for 12 consecutive monitoring periods. The latest six-month round of monitoring shows Flint's 90th percentile at 10 parts per billion (ppb), below the requirement of 15 ppb. Flint has conducted excavations to determine service line material composition at approximately 95 percent of the residential locations.

On paper, this seems like great news. Couple this with a guarantee to replace lead tainted pipes for free, one might conclude that the problem is over. Unfortunately, Flint residents are still facing challenges getting safe drinking water. Just as recently as 2019, Flint Residents were receiving water filters which seemed to only add to the frustrations as PBS Frontline had reported, indicating that despite the political PR campaigns by the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists are not convinced the problem is solved.

The study Frontline references in their reporting tested water samples from both Detroit and Flint Michigan. Below is a short summary of their methodology, results, and conclusion.

Methods & Materials: 10 homes in Flint with suspected cases of infection had water collected from the sink with the filter on, off, and from the shower. 10 Detroit homes were used as controls; water was collected from the kitchen sink and shower as only 1 out of 10 homes had a filter. 100 mL sterile cups were used for water collection.

Results: Results of Flint samples are shown in Table 1. No pathogens were detected from Detroit water. Residents of 7/10 homes in Flint had severe pneumonia, 1 sepsis, and 1 folliculitis. 5/10 patients died.

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that even two years after switch of the water back to Huron Lake, Flint municipal water showed high levels of pathogens. These results have important implications for immune compromised patients, and other cities with aging infrastructure where PoU filters are being considered.

Additionally, just as recently as a month ago, Michigan Live reported that the lead levels in Flint water are rising. Yes, in 2022, a full 8 years after the crisis hit the mainstream. They attribute this to performing a higher volume of tests, which is not exactly reassuring. Simply put, ensuring Americans have access to clean drinking water is an afterthought of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The Buck Stops with the United States Government

Despite all the public relations campaigns done by the Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Michigan, or from Presidents like Barrack Obama, the issue of clean drinking water still needs to be addressed in 2022, and must be addressed immediately.

The problem is often times a political choice, not a financial one. There is plenty of funds to fix the water crisis in the United States. Just how much is $100 Million from the EPA anyway? To put this into perspective, we could compare this to aid spending in Ukraine. The United States government is simply prioritizing strategic interests in Ukraine over, as has been the case for over half a century.

As just as recent as July, the United States had already committed $2.2 billion worth of security assistance to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This is only military equipment, however. In May, Congress passed an additional $40 billion in aid for Ukraine. The New York Times broke down these aid packages as follows:

Even as we enter the middle of September 2022, the United States is sending additional aid to Ukraine at an alarming pace, including an additional $3 Billion given as recent as 12 days ago.

With all these numbers thrown at you, it becomes difficult to keep track of. Thankfully journalists such as Stephen Semler who are tracking the spending month-to-month, have written and compiled the various aid packages into a nice, easy-to-read article. You can read their full piece on this here:

US Navy Poisons Water - Red Hill Water Crisis

In another example of poor priorities leading to problems accessing clean drinking water, we can turn to the US Navy, in 2021, involved with an incident poisoning drinking water in Hawaii as a result of a recently installed PVC pipe. A fuel leak at a Navy fuel storage location on November 20th, 2021, contaminated drinking water for military families.

Honolulu Civil Beat provided excellent coverage of this crisis, receiving photos and video from military personnel who were concerned about the incident, showing footage of fuel leaking into the water tunnel. While the issue appears to have been caused by a PVC pipe being installed, this speaks to a larger issue of why the US Navy is storing hazardous materials close enough to a water source in the first place. A single PVC installation should not poison hundreds of residents.

Journalist Abby Martin also took to YouTube a month after the crisis to do a deep dive into how the United States Navy attempted to cover up the incident.

The Biden Administration is Negligent

Although infrastructure problems span multiple administrations, and Republicans and Democrats have both shown to prioritize military spending over clean drinking water, Biden is the current commander in chief. The buck stops with him, the Senate, and the House.

The residents of Jackson Mississippi do not want to end up like Flint Michigan, 8 years later still experiencing problems, with additional health issues being caused by the “solutions” of the local government through the use of unsafe filters. The time to pressure local, state, and national representatives to stop sending our money overseas, and to resolve our problems at home is now.

The last few decades are ample evidence of the ineptitude of both Democrats and Republicans, being unable to provide basic needs to sustain human life. The basis of clean drinking water is step one for any functional society. To the current administration, clean water is not the priority.

Alternatively, we have provided a compressed .pdf file for those who wish to save the collection.

Life Special Issue Ussr March 29 1943

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OPERATION BELLADONNA

NOTE: To decode CIA Terms & Cryptonyms, use a Research Aid.

If we analyze publicly available declassified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, we can learn quite a bit about the United States and its role in the historical development of Ukrainian Nationalism. To view the February 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict, in isolation, would be a mistake.

In a declassified CIA document outlining the details of Operation Belladonna, we can see the United States had already made contact with Ukrainian Nationalists that were keen to ally with the Americans against the USSR, primarily through influencing the development of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR). The subject discussed in the document was used to gather intelligence on the USSR and Soviet operations both at home and abroad.

Later on in the document, we can see the known affiliations of the UHVR that the CIA was aware of, specifically the Bandera & Melnyk factions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), in addition to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The document goes on to outline the scale of the UHVR apparatus, noting how many countries its members are stationed in and the extent of suggested reports.

PROJECT CARTEL/AERODYNAMIC

As the CIA expanded its operations in Ukraine, additional projects came to light, Notably, Project AERODYNAMIC (formerly CARTEL, ANDROGEN, AECARTHAGE), which operated between the years of 1949-1970 before being reclassified under Project named QRDYNAMIC in 1970 and later PDDYNAMIC in 1974, and finally QRDYNAMIC/QRPLUMB (formerly AEBEEHIVE) as it operated until 1991.

There are thousands of documents that contain sensitive information regarding these project names and the activities involved. A treasure trove of United States history that seems to have gone under the radar of the mainstream press. Declassified documents from 1950 reveal one of the initial project outlines for CARTEL.

As we can see, by the 1950s, the CIA had successfully established a network for counter intelligence with Ukrainian underground nationalists. Under Project CARTEL, it is worth noting that each document refers to a list of subjects by the name Cartel-1, Cartel-2, and so on…

If we refer to our Research Aid, we can decipher some of the code names to understand who the CIA initially worked with during this project and what their cryptonyms were.

Ivan Hrinioch, Mykola Lebed, are a few of the subjects within CARTEL that play a significant role throughout other declassified documents. In this specific document, it outlines their involvement along with other CARTEL members with regards to setting up communication channels and procurement of weaponry. The document goes on to outline a supply list for the different CARTEL members, along with the item name and associated costs.

In a 1966 declassified document, we can see the noted objective of AERODYNAMIC at that time. It notes that the underlying objective is ‘Nationalist flare-ups’ in widely scattered areas of the Soviet Union, particularly in Ukraine. The document goes on to outline the usage of anti-Soviet emigres in collaboration with the ZP/UHVR to achieve their aims. We can see a reappearance of Ivan Hrinioch and Mykola Lebed as well, though in this document they are under different cryptonyms.

One interesting piece of information in this document is the admission that ZP/UHVR clandestine activities conducted through the Prolog Research and Publishing Association, Inc in New York. AECASSOWARY-2 aka, Mykola Lebed, appointed as the president of Prolog, becoming the principal agent of Project AERODYNAMIC.

The operations were not just isolated to New York. Another declassified document reveals some additional objectives of Project AERODYNAMIC, one of which is to utilize broadcast time available on the KUBARK (Cryptonym for CIA) radio station in Athens, Greece. Its operation was intended to deliver communications to multiple groups, namely the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and members of the Indigenous populations to maintain a national consciousness, and to encourage pride in the heritage and individuality of their culture.

Along with the stoking of nationalist tendencies, the document also revealed clear intentions to create dissatisfaction amongst Ukrainian military personnel against the USSR.

In case there were any further questions with regards to the CIA’s involvement and development of Ukrainian nationalism, we can look no further than a document from 1958 which reveals quote:

I emphasized that the main rationale of our support of the AECASSOWARY's was to have a foothold in the whole subject of Ukrainian nationalism in order to be able to exploit it in various parts of the world, with ultimate targeting, of course, at the Ukrainian SSR.

PROJECT AEBATH

It is important to note that there are many projects that operate in tandem along side Project AERODYNAMIC. CAPELIN is one of them. The area of operations for CAPELIN were Munich, Germany, where its first noted primary aim is counter espionage information on CASSOWARIES and CAVATINAS subjects. If we reference our Research Aid, we can see who these subjects are, one of them a cryptonym for Stefan Bandera.

The document illustrates that one of the project subjects, CAPELIN, was recruited as early as 1946. The document goes on to reveal intricate details about the project’s estimated cost, special equipment, cover, etc…

The principal agent of this project is being noted as a Counterintelligence/Counterespionage informant which they note has provided valuable information on Ukrainian emigre organizations, personalities, and intelligence agencies from many different countries. An interesting part of this document is another admission of intent to take advantage of nationalistic tendencies.

His penetration of the SB has been of particular
value to the CE section by providing net only information on ZCh/OUN activities but
also an opportunity to direct or influence those activities in certain insances.

UKRAINE IN 2022

Although this article only covers a miniscule portion of declassified documents from the CIA, it is important to note that these projects define half a century of support for Ukrainian nationalism, and there are still thousands more to analyze.

The role the United States played in the historical development of Ukrainian nationalism, with all of its ugly side effects, should be examined closely. The massive collective effort of the internet can surely shed more light on this history.

The Invasion of Ukraine

In late February 2022, the Russian Federation announced a military operation in-which its aims were the complete ‘demilitarization’ and ‘denazification’ of Ukraine. President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, alongside the announcement of a military operation, recognized the independence of the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic.

Almost immediately after the military operation, western media began publishing a barrage of opinion pieces and articles that attempted to push back on the claim President Putin made regarding ‘denazification.’

Article after article painted the picture of Putin exaggerating the claims of Ukrainian nationalism fermenting neo-Nazi ideologies. If one has only learned about the country of Ukraine in 2022, it would be easy to take this barrage of information at face value.

Before the Invasion

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, western media seemed to have the complete opposite point of view with regards to the question of Neo-Nazi & Nationalistic tendencies within the Ukrainian populace. It appeared the mainstream press were well aware of Ukraine’s problem with white supremacy and nationalism prior to February 2022. For instance, Time Magazine reported on how a far-right white supremacist militia relies on social media to train and recruit members. In another article, The Nation reported on the rise of Neo-Nazis in the region as early as 2019.

In fact, the prominence of Neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine was such a widely reported topic within the western media, they received a barrage of memes targeted at them, poking fun at their sudden change in narrative. Of course Russians themselves took part in the fun as reported by The Guardian.

The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, who enjoys prodding foreign media, wrote a “request to the mass disinformation outlets of the USA and Britain – Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Sun etc – announce the schedule of our ‘invasions’ for the coming year. I’d like to plan my vacation”.

A day earlier, she wrote: “February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day of the failure of western war propaganda. Humiliated and destroyed without firing a shot.”
Source: The Guardian

The Azov Battalion

Ukraine has a multitude of battalions at their disposal within the National Guard or SBU. A lot of attention surrounding the Neo-Nazi topic of Ukraine is centered on the Azov Battalion. The Azov Battalion is an officially recognized unit of the National Guard of Ukraine and has been at the center of a lot of media controversy since the 2014 Maidan protests. It is clear that the west, primarily the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, are putting their support behind Ukraine during Russia’s military operation. How far does this support go?

In 2014, then Senator John McCain visited Ukraine to reaffirm the United State’s commitment to the Ukrainian project. Not only has the United States been a valuable supporter of Ukraine, but its neighbor, Canada, has also offered its assistance in the training of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis. As James Carden from The Nation wrote in 2016, the United States government revoked a ban on funding Neo-Nazis from its year-end spending bill.

The Contradiction

The western media was attempting to frame a narrative in-which President Putin was exaggerating, or lying, about his claims of Neo-Nazis atrocities in Ukraine, fueled by the continued rise of nationalism. We end up with a contradiction where the west claims it has no clue, or denies entirely, the rise of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, while these very same outlets have reported extensively on the rise of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine in the past.

If we only look at the past decade, we can see the west supported and continues to support nationalists in Ukraine. If we step back even further, we can see the past decade is only a drop in the bucket compared to half a century of continued support from the United States, and all of the atrocities that followed.

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