Ukrainian blacklist that includes ex-Pink Floyd musician has MI5 as one of its sources
A Ukrainian blacklist claims to source some of its intelligence from Britain’s MI5. And it even includes a file on former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters. The aims of the blacklist appear to be the suppression and elimination of voices critical of the Ukrainian government.
Meanwhile, there are those on the radical left – anarchists – who are fighting as partisans or alongside government forces, determined to crush the Russian invaders.
‘Peacemaker’ blacklist
The Orwellian-sounding Peacemaker/Myrotvorets database is a blacklist reportedly organised in 2014. This was after a meeting between a former member of Ukraine’s security service Sluzhba Bespeky Ukrayiny (SBU) and Ukrainian politician George Tuka.
According to a 2019 Al Jazeera article, the database contained more than 130,000 persons, including Russian military and pro-Russia separatists. The Mirror believes the total number of names on the blacklist is now around 187,000. Names can be found with their sources quoted – e.g. MI5, NATO, SBU – at the bottom of each record.
Al Jazeera reported in 2019 that the database also included “4,000 international journalists accredited by separatist authorities”. And it currently includes a link to a list of more than 600 Russian FSB (successor to KGB) officers “involved in the criminal activities of the aggressor country in Europe”.
British musician on blacklist
Peacemaker also includes a file on former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters. An English translation of that file shows Waters is accused of:
Anti-Ukrainian propaganda. An attempt on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Participation in attempts to legalize the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
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It also includes a zip file with a list of websites that purport to back up these allegations. And the source of the Waters file is given as ‘SBU’.
Former Swiss strategic intelligence member Jacques Baud claims the Peacemaker database is used as a means of harassing or eliminating those in favour of a deal with Russia:
In the Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated. This is the case of Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he was too favorable to Russia and was considered a traitor. The same fate befell Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the SBU’s main directorate for Kiev and its region, who was assassinated on March 10 because he was too favorable to an agreement with Russia—he was shot by the Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) militia.
Clampdown on the left
Meanwhile, an article by Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy in the Grayzone claims that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has “outlawed his opposition, ordered his rivals’ arrest, and presided over the disappearance and assassination of dissidents across the country”.
They add:
In a March 19 executive order, Zelensky invoked martial law to ban 11 opposition parties. The outlawed parties consisted of the entire left-wing, socialist or anti-NATO spectrum in Ukraine. They included the For Life Party, the Left Opposition, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Socialists, the Party of Shariy, Ours, State, Opposition Bloc and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc.
One blogger referred to in the article provides a list of those who “fell foul of the Ukrainian government and its policies”. The article also includes numerous accounts of alleged torture carried out by Ukrainian military against Russians and pro-Russians.
From the frontline
There’s also another side to this conflict.
Le Monde Libertaire interviewed a member of the mainly Ukrainian anti-authoritarian Resistance Committee regarding what’s happening in Ukraine since the Russian invasion. The anonymous interviewee – we will call her ‘Yulia’ – explains that anarchists and anti-fascists have joined with units of the Territorial Defence Forces (TDF). And they are mostly active in the Kyiv region and Kharkiv.
Yulia adds:
While we had always opposed the Ukrainian state, we understand that Russian autocracy is much worse. If the Russian army occupied Ukraine, there would be absolutely no political freedom, activists would be imprisoned or killed.
As for Putin, she adds:
[He] himself had said many times before that his favourite philosopher was Ivan Ilyin – a far-right thinker exiled by the Bolsheviks, who later supported the Italian Fascists and German Nazis as they rose to power , who had also repeatedly spoken out against the Ukrainians as a threat to Russia. Not to mention Putin’s ties and financial support to various far-right parties and Western politicians – like Marine le Pen, Eric Zemmour in France, Victor Orban in Hungary,
Yulia also provides an excellent insight into how anarchists and left libertarians are organising with government forces. She adds how the TDF have “defended some cities against Russian regular troops and became partisans”. However, ” in other cases they fight alongside the army”.
It’s all about survival:
While some might argue that anarchists should have no cooperation with the state military, for all Ukrainian anarchists it is clear that this is a battle for our survival. The Russian army has already committed numerous war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, including the indiscriminate destruction of cities, the bombing of hospitals, the execution of men of conscription age, as well as mass arrests of pro activists- Ukrainians in various cities under occupation. If Russia won, such crimes would continue throughout Ukraine. This is why all Ukrainian anarchists decided to resist Russian aggression – like those anarchists who joined the Free French Army to fight against German Nazism.
Daily reports on the fight by the libertarian left against the Russian aggressors are provided by Operation Solidarity and published by Le Monde Libertaire.
What is it good for?
War inevitably results in atrocities and war crimes. And in Ukraine, it’s important to question the ultimate aim and scope of the Peacemaker blacklist, particularly if Baud’s claim that Peacemaker’s militia carried out an assassination is correct.
War also sees the often inevitable crackdown on those critical of the government line. We see that in Russia, with the banning of independent news media and blocking of social media. But, as pointed out in the article by Blumenthal and Krishnaswamy, it appears to be happening in Ukraine too, with the clampdown on opposition. The authors also point out that the Ukrainian government has combined all TV news channels into a single channel, which can be a form of censorship.
In any war, independent journalism has an important role to play to report on all of these aspects. Even if, for some readers, that makes for uncomfortable reading.
Featured image via screenshot
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Either shameless Putin supporters enjoying freedom of speech they could only dream of in Russia, or FSB trolls.
I note you have no problem with Azov/Zelensky trolls and SBU supporters
Shakehands, would you deny them their freedom of speech?
I don’t, Kistabill. I pass opinion on the article. Merely an observation in our luxury of free speech. Try putting an article out in Moscow calling out Putin for the c*nt that he is (imo).
You would be very hard pushed to find that any of the many opposed to Azov Nazi Ukraine, Murderers and blatant Black Flaggers who are Shameless Putin supporters enjoying freedom of speech they could only dream of in Russia, or FSB trolls! Putin is a Neoliberal Conservative, why would a bunch of mostly Socialists want anything to do with a Conservative be that BlueKeef, BoJoke, Nutcase-Biden or any other TORY/Conservative type!?
The MSM is a powerful tool, but the MSM combined with Zombified MSM Sheeple, to such a degree, that they are frothing their support for Nazi Ukraine and the butchers of Ukrainian Civilians who happen to be Ethnic Russian-Speakers is absolutely frightening!
First they came for ………….. me, on 3 Counts Homosexual, Disabled, Socialist!
So, if it’s all the same, piss off with your Nazi-Shagging, I prefer to stick to Hating Nazis of any/all backgrounds, cultures and religions!
“those on the radical left – anarchists” are not on the Left at all. Anarchism is a creed of radical individualism that rejects the State and refuses to recognise what unites the working class in our fight against the ruling class. Sadly, anarchists generally end up supporting that class, as they are doing in Ukraine, where the Zelenskyy-led government has been increasing the exploitation of workers through legislation and allowing the IMF to dictate economic policies. Repression and state abuse of socialists is as rife in Ukraine as it is in Russia, possibly more so.
A note of caution. The document shown is not in Ukrainian, but Russian. I’m not at all sure that it comes from a Ukrainian official source. (Just did a swift check to translate “Great Britain” into Ukrainian. As I expected, it contains a letter in the Ukrainian variant of Cyrillic script that doesn’t occur in the Russian version – the I that looks the same as in the Latin alphabet we use.)
The Canary is increasingly putting focus in a number of its articles on anarchists and anarchism, though most people on the left (whether in Ukraine or the rest of Europe) don’t identify with this ideological trend.
Framing the actions of the British government in other articles as a new Class War is also a reference to an anarchist standpoint.
In my opinion, the injection of an apparently anarchist editorial line, now observed in many articles including by Steve Topple, is unlikely to persuade the readership to follow along uncritically.
I think The Canary, as developing left media, would be unwise to take a too narrow overall approach when offering a Left perspective.
I agree with Darkspeed. There is a failure to reflect the anti-imperialist left in this country. There is also a failure to understand the nature of the conflict, a NATO inspired proxy war and most of all the abysmal failure to understand that following the fascist and US sponsored/funded 2014 coup, which led to the burning alive of 49 trade unionists in their centre in Odessa, that the far-Right which took control immediately turned on Russian speakers (50% of the population).
There has been no mention of the role of Azov and the fascist militias. The anarchist ones are insignificant in comparison.
Although Tom Coburg’s article is better than his last abysmal one on the Bucha massacre, We owe it to the victims of conflict to tell the unsanitised truth about war
https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2022/04/19/we-owe-it-to-the-victims-of-conflict-to-tell-the-unsanitised-truth-about-war/
it still lacks any analysis or background. It is the BBC which has a ‘bias against understanding’ by always omitting historical context and present eg the Israel/Palestine issue as if it were just a question of 2 sides. Canary should aim for something better.
Coburg’s whitewashing of the role of the National Police’s Safari Battalion and its massacre in Bucha, which was blamed on the Russians is still unforgiveable and has made me question my support for The Canary.
I fully understand why many Ukrainians under patriotic fervour would feel it necessary to fight the Russian invader, even at the cost of seeing their own country destroyed. However, for those of us not emotionally involved, it is clear that they are pawns in a US proxy war against Russia, the old enemy. US moves don’t seem to make rational sense, pushing Russia closer to China (the rising power) and weakening the US dominated financial system
People should perhaps remember that this day 8 years ago Shakehands and other ‘patriotic’ fools friends in the Right Sector and other fascist militia, set fire to the Trade Union Centre in Odessa. 49 people were either burnt alive or died jumping from the building. Many more were injured. The mothers of those who were murdered have formed an organisation which these fascist thugs have threatened and intimidated.
We should remember that the Ukrainian State has integrated these thugs into its own National Guard and security services.
So when idiots like Shakehands and other who have been taken in to think Putin is the real enemy (just like Saddam 19 years ago) we should remember the old slogan ‘No Pasaran’
Back to my original point, Putin supporters like Tony GG luxuriate in their western free speech whilst decent Russian people who refuse to support this invasion are locked up.
Move to Russia if it’s such a better political environment to live under.