Major General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of the Kyiv regime’s military intelligence directorate, admitted in an interview with the British daily Telegraph, that the U.S. government is involved in targeting decisions regarding U.S. supplied Lockheed Martin’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
Moscow has seized on this admission to charge the U.S. with direct involvement in the Ukraine War.
Asked by the Telegraph how the HIMARS have so precisely targeted Russian fuel and ammunition depots (at least this is what the Kyiv regime has alleged—ed.), as well as battlefield headquarters in eastern Ukraine, General Skibitsky replied, “in this case in particular, we use real-time information.”
U.S. officials are not providing direct targeting information, Skibitsky claimed, because it would potentially undermine their case for not being direct participants in the war.
However, he suggested that there was a level of consultation between intelligence officials of both countries prior to launching missiles that would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made a video statement saying that Skibitsky’s admission “undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.”
“It is [the] Biden administration that is directly responsible for all Kyiv-approved rocket attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in populated areas of Donbas and other regions, which have resulted in mass deaths of civilians,” Konashenkov said. “No one else in Ukraine or in the world should have any doubts that HIMARS strikes on Novaya Kakhovka on July 12, on Stakhanov on July 17, on Krasniy Luch on July 24, dozens of strikes on Donetsk, and, of course, the July 29 strike on the detention facility in Elenovka, which killed 50 and injured 73 Ukrainian POWs, were planned by [the] Zelensky regime and approved by Washington.”
“Political, criminal and moral responsibility for the Elenovka massacre and other war crimes in Ukraine, along with Zelensky, lies directly with [the] Biden administration,” he concluded.
U.S. officials denied that HIMARS rockets—having a 70-kilometer range—were used specifically to destroy the detention facility at Elenovka in Donetsk, though television crews that visited the site found rocket motor parts fit to HIMARS missiles.
On July 28, the Russians released the video of an Azov soldier, Dmytro Kozatsky, who accused Zelensky’s adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, of ordering the creation of shock videos showing Azov Battalion members torturing and murdering Russians POWs in order to deter other Russians from fighting against Ukraine.[1]
According to Moon of Alabama, a political blogger, Kozatsky’s statement was enough to put Arestovych in jail for a very long time. Arestovych allegedly responded by sending the HIMARS missiles to kill the prisoners in Elenovka who were talking to the Russians and making accusations against him.
Amnesty Documents Ukrainian War Crimes
If indeed Ukraine, and the U.S., was responsible for the Elenovka prison bombing, it would fit a pattern of war crimes documented in a new report by Amnesty International.
The report concluded that Ukraine repeatedly violated the laws of war in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions; the Kyiv regime has “put civilians in harms way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals.”
According to Amnesty’s researchers, viable alternatives were available to the Ukrainian forces that would not endanger civilians by inviting retaliatory strikes on them, such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby. Even worse, when the Ukrainian army occupied civilian buildings, they did not ask residents to evacuate or assist in that evacuation.
$8.7 Billion in Military Assistance
On August 1, the Biden administration authrized another $550 million in arms and equipment from the Pentagon to Ukraine, bringing the overall total of military assistance to a whopping $8.7 billion.
The latest aid package includes more ammunition for the HIMARS and 155mm artillery systems, which on August 4 were used by the Ukrainian army in the bombing of a funeral ceremony for a Russian Colonel near Donetsk city center (a 12-year-old child was among those killed).
In late June, The New York Times reported on a secret U.S. operation involving U.S. commandos and spies who coordinate weapons deliveries and provide intelligence and training to Ukrainian special forces, largely at U.S. bases in Germany and Poland.
The Times further reported that “some CIA personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials. At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine.”
On a street in Bakhmut, a town in the hotly contested Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, The Times reporter observed a group of Ukrainian special forces that had American flag patches on their gear and were equipped with Belgian and American assault rifles.
These revelations all give further weight to Russian assertions about extensive U.S. involvement in a war that is quickly turning into another Vietnam-type quagmire.
Imperial Messenger Raises Alarm Bells
No less an establishment voice than New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman—who earned the nickname “the imperial messenger” for his long ideological support for U.S. imperialism—has raised alarm bells about U.S. policy in Ukraine.
In an August 1 column criticizing Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Friedman wrote that “the Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine—considerably more than has been reported.
“And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency—the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February. It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about.
“It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there.”
These comments are especially significant because of their source.
They indicate that the mythic narrative about Zelensky and illusions sustaining public support for the war are no longer believed at elite levels and have been shown to be fraudulent.
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A similar tactic was used in the 1940s by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). ↑
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Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University and has taught at numerous colleges across the United States. He is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs and co-hosts a radio show on New York Public Radio and on Progressive Radio News Network called “Left on Left.” He is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). Besides these books, Kuzmarov has published hundreds of articles and contributed to numerous edited volumes, including one in the prestigious Oxford History of Counterinsurgency . He can be reached at jkuzmarov2@gmail.com and found on substack here.
[…] Moscow has seized on this admission to charge the U.S. with direct involvement in the Ukraine War. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/08/08/high-level-ukrainian-intelligence-official-admits-u-s-de… […]
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Amnesty International has also documented many abuses committed by Russia. Here is a small sample of Amnesty International reporting:
RUSSIA’S AGGRESSION AGAINST UKRAINE
A massive humanitarian crisis
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of aggression that has unleashed the gravest human rights and refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two. Amnesty International is documenting serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, including the unlawful killing and injury of civilians, destruction of infrastructure, and blocking of desperately needed aid for civilians. Attacks on hospitals and schools, employing “surrender or starve” sieges on civilians, the use of banned weapons such as cluster munitions, and strikes on populated areas using inaccurate weapons may constitute war crimes.
Exposed to constant attacks and with many cut off from water, electricity and heating, people caught up in conflict in cities such as Izium and Mariupol are on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. Diminishing food, water and medical supplies have left them at breaking point, as remaining civilians seek shelter in their basements. Amnesty International’s on-the-ground reports and digital investigations help ensure that evidence of these attacks reaches the world.
Further to the news about Amnesty International, Amnesty International has issued the following statement:
Amnesty International said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.
The rights group said “we fully stand by our findings” but stressed, “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations”.
Does AI usually express regrets over hurt feelings among the perpetrators of atrocities?
[…] Le 28 juillet, les Russes ont diffusé la vidéo d’un soldat Azov, Dmytro Kozatsky, qui accusait le conseiller de Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, d’avoir ordonné la création de vidéos choc montrant des membres du bataillon Azov torturant et assassinant des prisonniers de guerre russes afin de dissuader d’autres Russes de se battre contre Ukraine. [1] […]
Isn’t Friedman also laying the groundwork for the Western nations to exit this quagmire by blaming Ukraine for human rights violations which is an all purpose fig leaf used by neocons and liberals to run away and wash their hands off when things turn bad ? I don’t believe for one moment that there was ever any trust in this relationship which was always an use – use one with both sides taking advantage of the others neurotic needs – Plus the Ukrainians are privy to a lot of dark western secrets of current and past ruling elites connected to money laundering, child abduction, prostitution of women and girls, cheap labour, arms smuggling, drugs and cigarette smuggling, stealing of fertile public lands etc which they can and must have already threatened to leak and publish unless their blackmail demands are met – It shouldn’t be assumed that the West is the master and Ukraine the slave because this relationship is essentially in reverse now – The West has become the person who’s riding the tiger