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| Steve Sweeney third from left at the top |
by New Worker correspondent
A video conference was held last week between Steve Sweeney, a reporter for RT News now based in Moscow, and members of International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) in the UK. Steve was previously International Editor of the Morning Star, and is also a member of IUAFS. He regularly reports from the Donbas and other regions of Ukraine which recently joined the Russian Federation.
Steve visited polling stations in Donetsk during the recent elections for local and Duma representatives in the people’s republics which recently joined the Russian Federation, and said they appeared to be open, free and fair. He said he had witnessed "a return to democratic life".
He spoke to an old man who was in tears and said that it was the first time in nine years he'd been able to vote.
However the Ukrainian Armed Forces deliberately targeted polling stations, and in one strike two civilians were killed.
Steve also interviewed the miners' leader Georgy Yankov in the town of Makievka, who spoke of the leading role of the coal miners against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Yankov said people in the Donbas were shocked and saddened to hear that unions in Britain, including the National Union of Mineworkers had supported the pro-Kiev Ukraine motion C21 at the TUC Congress in Liverpool, after miners in the then Soviet Union had sent money to British miners during the 1984-5 strike.
He said the fake, Western-financed yellow unions in Ukraine stage so-called strikes, in which workers are ordered to stand outside their workplaces for an hour by their bosses for the media to come and film ‘striking workers’. Of course all genuine trade unions in Ukraine were crushed by the post-2014 fascist regime long ago, and all tarde union activists have been killed, imprisoned, or have gone underground or into exile.
In one case Steve said Ukrainian workers donned helmets and pretended to be in Donetsk - all to feed the Western media 'journalists' who collaborate with Ukrainian nazis to dress up the repulsive puppet Kiev regime as legitimate and democratic.
He says that everyone he has spoken to in the Donbas regards the Russian forces as liberators who are defending them against Ukrainian genocide.
Steve said that coal production in the Donbas has fallen after so many miners joined the Donetsk and Lugansk militias, that Gonzalo Lira, an American journalist arrested in Kiev for allegedly spreading “Russian propaganda” is expected to face trial soon, and that some foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine have been turning their guns on one another.
Steve Sweeney is amongst hundreds of journalists on the infamous Ukrainian Mitroverets 'kill list'. Many opponents of the Kiev regime on the list have already been assassinated while the Western human rights crusaders turn a blind eye. Only days ago a Russian journalist - a communist - was killed in Zaporozhye. He added that the Mitroverets website is hosted in Langley, Virginia, which is also the home of the CIA
Steve spoke about the lies now being peddled by the British mercenaries Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were pardoned and repatriated by the Donetsk authorities after being sentenced to death.
“They’ve been doing the rounds of the television stations, Aslin was at the United Nations and the international committee for the Red Cross, and recently Pinner was on the BBC and appearing on the Piers Morgan show, and both have book deals lined up.
“Pinner in particular was talking about a ‘genocide of Ukrainians’. Now this is simply absurd I have to say, because even the United Nations disagrees with him on that, they’ve said that there's not enough evidence for this, but here in Donetsk we can safely say that's exactly what awaits people here if the Ukrainian counter-offensive were to prove successful”.
Steve recently visited the site of the alleged Russian bombing of the Mariupol Theatre last year, which is mired in controversy.
"Even the Western media and the Western human rights organisations can't agree on what happened there. The Washington Post initially said no people died, then Amnesty International reported 12 people killed, and the Associated Press as many as 600.
“But we spoke to people who were held hostage at the theatre by Azov fighters, and they told a very different story from the narrative played out by the West.
"We spoke to around 10 people in a new park at the back of the Mariupol Drama Theatre - also currently being reconstructed - who were people we walked up to randomly and were sitting on benches or walking through the park.
I would say maybe eight out of 10 of them said that the Azov were a terrorist organisation, and they were very clear on what they thought should happen to them. They said the Azov Battalion moved local civilians into the theatre and then blew it up, in order to frame the Russian side for their own crime.
"This is in the context of the ongoing trials now taking place in Rostov-on-Don, where the first sentences have been handed down. The people we spoke to - all quite respectable people, people with families - said that all the Azov members should be executed. I was really quite shocked, but they didn't have a kind word to say about either the mercenaries or the Azov fighters who were holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
"Again this is something of a myth that has been created by the West - 'the heroes of Mariupol' or the 'defenders of Azovstal', to whitewash what really happened there. These were largely Nazis or neo-nazis from the Azov Battalion, and they were holed up there there alongside the British mercenaries, but they had held civilians from Mariupol hostage in the steel plant and mined the plant as well, so they aren't quite the heroes that they're being made out to be.
Pinner now claims that he and others were held hostage by the Azov Battalion at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, while in fact he and Aslin fought alongside the Azov fighters.
Steve also said a Ukrainian oligarch has announced plans to rebuild Mariupol with US support, but on condition that all traces of Russian culture would be removed.
He often does reports for RT New from buildings where civilians have been killed in attacks and about the constant bombing and shelling of the Donbas, deliberately targeting civilian areas.
“Last night for example I heard them all throughout the night, and I dread to think what would happen if the air defences weren't here, the death toll would be much higher...and they do support Russian troops being here to defend them against a potential genocide”.
A video conference was held last week between Steve Sweeney, a reporter for RT News now based in Moscow, and members of International Ukraine Anti Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) in the UK. Steve was previously International Editor of the Morning Star, and is also a member of IUAFS. He regularly reports from the Donbas and other regions of Ukraine which recently joined the Russian Federation.
Steve visited polling stations in Donetsk during the recent elections for local and Duma representatives in the people’s republics which recently joined the Russian Federation, and said they appeared to be open, free and fair. He said he had witnessed "a return to democratic life".
He spoke to an old man who was in tears and said that it was the first time in nine years he'd been able to vote.
However the Ukrainian Armed Forces deliberately targeted polling stations, and in one strike two civilians were killed.
Steve also interviewed the miners' leader Georgy Yankov in the town of Makievka, who spoke of the leading role of the coal miners against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
Yankov said people in the Donbas were shocked and saddened to hear that unions in Britain, including the National Union of Mineworkers had supported the pro-Kiev Ukraine motion C21 at the TUC Congress in Liverpool, after miners in the then Soviet Union had sent money to British miners during the 1984-5 strike.
He said the fake, Western-financed yellow unions in Ukraine stage so-called strikes, in which workers are ordered to stand outside their workplaces for an hour by their bosses for the media to come and film ‘striking workers’. Of course all genuine trade unions in Ukraine were crushed by the post-2014 fascist regime long ago, and all tarde union activists have been killed, imprisoned, or have gone underground or into exile.
In one case Steve said Ukrainian workers donned helmets and pretended to be in Donetsk - all to feed the Western media 'journalists' who collaborate with Ukrainian nazis to dress up the repulsive puppet Kiev regime as legitimate and democratic.
He says that everyone he has spoken to in the Donbas regards the Russian forces as liberators who are defending them against Ukrainian genocide.
Steve said that coal production in the Donbas has fallen after so many miners joined the Donetsk and Lugansk militias, that Gonzalo Lira, an American journalist arrested in Kiev for allegedly spreading “Russian propaganda” is expected to face trial soon, and that some foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine have been turning their guns on one another.
Steve Sweeney is amongst hundreds of journalists on the infamous Ukrainian Mitroverets 'kill list'. Many opponents of the Kiev regime on the list have already been assassinated while the Western human rights crusaders turn a blind eye. Only days ago a Russian journalist - a communist - was killed in Zaporozhye. He added that the Mitroverets website is hosted in Langley, Virginia, which is also the home of the CIA
Steve spoke about the lies now being peddled by the British mercenaries Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who were pardoned and repatriated by the Donetsk authorities after being sentenced to death.
“They’ve been doing the rounds of the television stations, Aslin was at the United Nations and the international committee for the Red Cross, and recently Pinner was on the BBC and appearing on the Piers Morgan show, and both have book deals lined up.
“Pinner in particular was talking about a ‘genocide of Ukrainians’. Now this is simply absurd I have to say, because even the United Nations disagrees with him on that, they’ve said that there's not enough evidence for this, but here in Donetsk we can safely say that's exactly what awaits people here if the Ukrainian counter-offensive were to prove successful”.
Steve recently visited the site of the alleged Russian bombing of the Mariupol Theatre last year, which is mired in controversy.
"Even the Western media and the Western human rights organisations can't agree on what happened there. The Washington Post initially said no people died, then Amnesty International reported 12 people killed, and the Associated Press as many as 600.
“But we spoke to people who were held hostage at the theatre by Azov fighters, and they told a very different story from the narrative played out by the West.
"We spoke to around 10 people in a new park at the back of the Mariupol Drama Theatre - also currently being reconstructed - who were people we walked up to randomly and were sitting on benches or walking through the park.
I would say maybe eight out of 10 of them said that the Azov were a terrorist organisation, and they were very clear on what they thought should happen to them. They said the Azov Battalion moved local civilians into the theatre and then blew it up, in order to frame the Russian side for their own crime.
"This is in the context of the ongoing trials now taking place in Rostov-on-Don, where the first sentences have been handed down. The people we spoke to - all quite respectable people, people with families - said that all the Azov members should be executed. I was really quite shocked, but they didn't have a kind word to say about either the mercenaries or the Azov fighters who were holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
"Again this is something of a myth that has been created by the West - 'the heroes of Mariupol' or the 'defenders of Azovstal', to whitewash what really happened there. These were largely Nazis or neo-nazis from the Azov Battalion, and they were holed up there there alongside the British mercenaries, but they had held civilians from Mariupol hostage in the steel plant and mined the plant as well, so they aren't quite the heroes that they're being made out to be.
Pinner now claims that he and others were held hostage by the Azov Battalion at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, while in fact he and Aslin fought alongside the Azov fighters.
Steve also said a Ukrainian oligarch has announced plans to rebuild Mariupol with US support, but on condition that all traces of Russian culture would be removed.
He often does reports for RT New from buildings where civilians have been killed in attacks and about the constant bombing and shelling of the Donbas, deliberately targeting civilian areas.
“Last night for example I heard them all throughout the night, and I dread to think what would happen if the air defences weren't here, the death toll would be much higher...and they do support Russian troops being here to defend them against a potential genocide”.
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