The CANVAS and Right Sector trail in the murder of Nemtsov

Posted on Fort Russ

March 6, 2015
Ruscom
Translated by Kristina Rus
Originally published: March 1, 2015

The Serbian trail, stretching from the terrorist attack in Kharkov to the murder of Boris Nemtsov, stands out from under the carpet too much to ignore it. NGO CANVAS, grown from the Serbian maidan organization “Otpor!”, is very heavily involved in Ukraine and now have seriously taken over Russia.

The murder of Boris Nemtsov, whose corpse was found almost at the walls of the Kremlin, is in itself a very extraordinary event for Russia. Never in the Russian Federation there was a murder of a former member of the government, Deputy Prime Minister, a politician who was welcome at the White House and who spoke before the U.S. Congress. The body of this politician, deliberately executed in direct line of sight from the Kremlin, calls for a very serious approach to the murder, the forces behind it and the effects. A serious approach to the situation forces us to carefully consider all the versions of what happened.

On February 28, 2015, on the program “Norkin’s List” (NTV) a well-known political analyst Sergey Kurginyan expressed some thoughts about the murder of Nemtsov:

In particular, Kurginyan said:

“…Yarosh [the leader of the Right Sector”, a radical Ukrainian organization – Ruskom] cooperates with CANVAS, it’s a Serbian – American organization for the implementation of the “orange revolutions”, this organization organized Maidan [in Kiev – Ruskom] and everything else. Now CANVAS is heavily involved in Russia. Boris Nemtsov, unfortunately, said some strange words on February 10th, that he is afraid he will be killed by the authorities [which turned to be a fantasy of the editors – KR]. Immediately after that, the topic was discussed by Yarosh and representatives of CANVAS. Then the representatives of CANVAS came to Russia, among those representatives there is a man, a Serb, “Atsa” is his nickname (Alexander “Atsa” Kazun, lives in the USA, works for CANVAS – Ruskom), who was apprehended for the Kharkov explosion, and then he was released by Turchynov. Isn’t this interesting? Do we really want to know who is behind the murders?”

If we discard all versions except for the most probable – the murder of Nemtsov was supposed to destabilize the situation in Russia before the opposition march on March 1, this destabilization is most needed by the Ukrainian radical organizations, and therefore, Yarosh and the Right Sector. The situation on the fronts of Donbass is such that defeated on all fronts and expelled from Debaltsevo Ukrainian military will not soon recover from the damage and most likely will not be able to recover at all. In this situation a strategically winning solution for the Ukrainian radicals and their Western friends and curators is only a serious destabilization of the situation in Russia.

The focus of certain forces on the course of civil and political terror in Ukraine is evident in the terrorist act that took place in Kharkov on February 23, killing three people and injuring about ten. Ukrainian media of course, immediately, before the start of investigation, rushed to blame the “separatists”, “vatniki” and the Russian security services. There is no faith that the Ukrainian investigation will find the perpetrators, just as there is no hope for the investigation of Maidan snipers, which has taken already a year to no result. But if we think about who benefits from the terror in Ukraine, it is clear that neither Russia nor DPR/LPR can benefit from it.

The terror only benefits Ukrainian radicals and their curators, who thus wish to strengthen the anti-Russian and anti-Donbass mood in the society.

What was extraordinary about the Kharkov explosion?

“…two fighters from the special police battalion group “Kharkov-1” and a girl from the Right Sector, who showed negligence when handling explosives, injuring themselves, were supposed to be evacuated by the group consisting of four people. Strange activity of this group attracted the attention of the police, and the four were arrested. During a search of their minivan it turned out that, that it was unclear how they were going to evacuate their own, when the car was packed full of weapons, including automatic mounted grenade launcher AGS-30 of Russian production. The senior of the group turned out to be a U.S. citizen, presumably, of Serbian decent, Alexander Kazun nicknamed “Atsa” permanently residing in Washington, DC. Place of work: NGO CANVAS. Mr. Kazun was immediately released on the personal order from the Secretary of the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine, Aleksandr  Turchinov.”

A capture of a foreign citizen at the place of a terrorist attack looks very suspicious. Even more suspicious is the fact of the release of this citizen, Alexander Kazun, on the order of Alexander Turchynov, who has serious ties with the elites in the USA. And it becomes even more suspicious after understanding what is the NGO CANVAS. Here’s what William Engdahl wrote about it on January 7, 2014 in the article “American NGO involved in the protests in Ukraine”:

“CANVAS: the Belgrade U.S.-funded training organization is behind the carefully organized protests in Kiev. The recent protests in Ukraine stink of an attempt to destabilize the government of Yanukovych, organized from abroad 

After the events in Kharkov the representatives of this organization, engaged in the export of “revolutions” ended up in Moscow. In addition, NGO CANVAS originated from the “bulldozer revolution” in Belgrade in 2000, which overthrew Slobodan Milosevic. The Serbs, who at the time experienced all the “charms” of the coups organized by the West, warned the citizens of Ukraine about those consequences which follow the “peaceful protest against the bloody tyrant” under the cries of “they’re just children!”:

“I live in Belgrade, Serbia, and events in Ukraine remind me of the events in Serbia in the late 1990s and in 2000. In 2000 Western-paid opposition overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, all to our great joy and our great hopes for the future, just because we were tired of the difficult life (or what we perceived as a difficult life at that time) and, in fact, we were naive and duped by Western media (as well as you are today, but let me continue, I will explain this later). Later we realized that it does not work like that – the West did not give us money, did not give us investments, in essence, the West and the European Union did not act like friends at all. Better life never came, and in fact things have gotten worse.

Now, attention! The same people who lied to us and made our “democratic revolution”, are now making YOURS – NGO called “Otpor!” (“Resistance”) in the 1990s, now known as the “CANVAS” – “The Center for the applied nonviolent action and strategies”. Also the usual names and agencies in this show: USAID, Freedom House, The National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros… See for yourself. These are the same people – the oligarchs in Serbia now. They are trained by the CIA, and do their work in Ukraine (and other countries), your Yanukovych even banned some of the many very interesting articles, Ukraine is mentioned in almost every one of them”

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians did not heed the calls of the Serbian people and decided by their bitter experience to test the heavy forces of democracy and breathe the free air of Maidan. In this they were helped by many experts from Serbia (and not only), in particular Marko Ivkovic, the head of the above-mentioned Serbian organization “Otpor!” This was reported by Oleg Tsarev on December 1, 2013 at his page on Facebook:

“The day before yesterday my friend was flying to Ukraine, and in his companion he recognized the well-known organizer of coups and revolutions, Marko Ivkovic. He became famous as the founder of the Serbian “Otpor”, then there were Georgian “Kmara” and Ukrainian “Pora”. Marco tried to organize something similar in Russia, but was extradited and banned from entry. Was in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, when President Bakiyev was ousted there. Now Maidan is in experienced and financially secure hands. Americans do not spare any money on Ivakovic – not so long ago on his projects in Ukraine the National Democratic Institute of the United States provided $1,200,000″.

In 2012, Marko Ivkovic already worked in Ukraine at the National Democratic Institute of USA, operated in contact with the party “Front of Changes” of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, created a public organization “OPORA” to count the votes at elections. Was the unofficial head of the electoral headquarters of Yatsenyuk. The Ukrainian media already in early 2012 hypothesized that Ivkovic was busy preparing “Maidan-2”.

In 2013, right before the aggravation of the situation, Ivkovic arrived to Ukraine on November 29, which was reported by Oleg Tsarev. Next, let’s give a word to the Ukrainian media (publication date September 12, 2013):

“On the eve of the “Popular Assembly,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk and opposition leaders met with Marko Ivkovic – one of the members of the National Democratic Institute, USA. This was reported by the media, citing sources close to Yatsenyuk. The meeting was attended also by Fink Bryne (Gomez) – U.S. citizen, employee of the Agency for International Development, USA. Both U.S. citizens, known as consultants for colored revolutions, came to Ukraine a few weeks ago (Fink Bryne – on October 28). [the spelling of the name may be different in English as it is a translation from Russian – KR]

Now the details of that meeting became known. In particular, it is reported that Marko Ivkovic offered to A. Yatsenyuk, V. Klitschko and O. Tiagnybok to proclaim on the Maidan on Sunday during the “Popular Assembly” a “Manifesto”, according to which to announce the transition of power into the hands of the provisional (until the elections) “people’s government”.

Next was a matter of technique and concerted action. The “People’s government” was supposed to move into the building of the Kiev city administration to use the existing phones of government communications, contact law enforcement agencies and the army calling for support. And also – and this is, perhaps, the most important thing – to contact the embassies of the European countries and the USA with the request for recognition. When it comes to their interests, the United States and Europe, do not waste time with recognition. According to the source, the American Embassy has already prepared the official response with the approval of the actions of the opposition”

Now we know that the January – February events of 2014 in Kiev took place according to the scenario written in December 2013, and therefore, reality confirms the involvement of Serbs and Americans in Kiev events, and the high profile of the organizers of Euromaidan.

Serbian – American consultants of Kiev Euromaidan do not hesitate to use established and successful templates, instructions and practices. For example, the leaflets, which were first used in Belgrade in 2000, then in Cairo in 2011, and then in Kiev in 2013-2014:

NGO CANVAS at first glance at its website seems like a reputable international organization which strongly emphasizes its non-violent character. Now we understand what “non-violent” actions the employee of CANVAS Alexander Kazun, nicknamed “Atsa” was engaged in in Kharkov on February 23 in the car with explosives and automatic grenade launchers and what actions he may have been engaged in in Moscow.

CANVAS operates in Europe, in America, in Africa, and Asia. Tremendous scope for a modest Serbian organization, isn’t it?

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Everything falls into place, when we see,  which organizations CANVAS is cooperating with in “developing long-term strategies related to the production of knowledge, tools, and studies of the global nonviolent struggle and the formation of a network of researchers related to the topic of non-violent resistance and strategies”. This is the Air Force Academy of Colorado, the John Hopkins University, and Columbia University. The website of CANVAS shows links to the sites of organizations such as the Institute of Albert Einstein, Freedom House and others, not less “friendly” to Russia:

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Words are given to us to conceal our thoughts, and websites – to hide the true extent and details of the activities of organizations. So the sterile website CANVAS will not reveal the real information about their activities. But this data is provided by Wikileaks and other resources.

For example, there is a correspondence between the staff of the American organization Stratfor (private intelligence company of the United States, which is also called “the shadow CIA”), in which “CANVAS” and its leaders are very highly rated:

“This is an impressive group. They come in, operate in a country, and try to topple its regime. When used properly, they are stronger than an aircraft battle group.”

In response to the mention of “aircraft battle group”, Vice President of Stratfor, Fred Burton, sarcastically said that perhaps they should be sent to Iran.

Another letter said that “this organization (CANVAS) gets a lot of American money …I spoke with some people who lobbied for them (CANVAS) to get more money”. It is further specified that the Serbian organization “Otpor!” was funded, in particular, by Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, The Open Society Institute, USAID and the U.S. Institute for Peace. And it is indicated that CANVAS has financial ties with these organizations.

“Otpor!” and then CANVAS are not only mentioned in the correspondence of Stratfor employees, they also have close ties with Stratfor, Goldman Sachs, and the U.S. government. The wife of the leader of CANVAS worked in Stratfor for one year (from March 2010 to March 2011).

Srdja Popovich, the leader of the CANVAS

To put it briefly, CANVAS helps Stratfor in executing the color revolutions, overthrowing any leader hostile to the United States. This is what, according to Wikileaks, the US elite valued in Srdja Popovic and his “Otpor”.

In another letter dated March 2010 Stuart Burton said that CANVAS “is trying to get rid of Chavez,” referring to the late President Hugo Chavez. In 2007, the CANVAS tried to overthrow Chavez with trained activists.

In conclusion we can say that the activists of Serbian “Otpor” in their work used (and use) the models of Gene Sharp, the leading expert on the so-called “non-violent regime change”.

How non-violent are these methods, you can evaluate, judging how Gene Sharp participated in the events in Riga in 1990, advising “Sajudis” (nationalist anti-soviet Latvian organization), and that snipers from “Sajudis” shot (and killed) the demonstrators and the police with the aim to destabilize the Baltic States and cause the collapse of the USSR. These are the “non-violent” methods used in his time by Gene Sharp. Such methods are used by his followers from CANVAS, blowing up rallies in Kharkov and killing politicians in Moscow. Don’t you think this version seems more than logical?

For Russia today a new complex phase began, in which the country can win, and therefore survive only if Russian patriots and responsible citizens will understand the situation in all its complexity and tragedy. For further detailed analysis please see Friend: http://friend.livejournal.com/1762463.html (Russian)

John Pilger on modern fascism and the lies of America’s warmongers

Why the rise of fascism is again the issue
By John Pilger
February 26, 2015

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The recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was a reminder of the great crime of fascism, whose Nazi iconography is embedded in our consciousness. Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.

“To initiate a war of aggression…,” said the Nuremberg Tribunal judges in 1946, “is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Had the Nazis not invaded Europe, Auschwitz and the Holocaust would not have happened. Had the United States and its satellites not initiated their war of aggression in Iraq in 2003, almost a million people would be alive today; and Islamic State, or ISIS, would not have us in thrall to its savagery. They are the progeny of modern fascism, weaned by the bombs, bloodbaths and lies that are the surreal theatre known as news.

Like the fascism of the 1930s and 1940s, big lies are delivered with the precision of a metronome: thanks to an omnipresent, repetitive media and its virulent censorship by omission. Take the catastrophe in Libya. Continue reading

Washington stalks its next victim, sends color revolution expert “male Nuland” to Kyrgyzstan

From Oriental Review, March 5, 2015
By Andrew Korybko

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Image: Richard Miles a.k.a father of Color Revolution

One of the most prominent Color Revolution experts in America’s coup d’état toolkit has been hurriedly recalled from retirement for immediate deployment to Kyrgyzstan. Richard Miles, the engineer of the first Color Revolution in Serbia and the Rose Revolution in Georgia, has been appointed as charge d’affaires in Kyrgyzstan until a new ambassador is confirmed by the Senate, because the former one, Pamela Spratlen, has been reassigned as the US Ambassador to Uzbekistan. While it is not known how long Miles will remain in Kyrgyzstan, which will be the Eurasian Union’s weakest economy when it joins in May of this year, ordinary citizens there already suspect that foul play is being planned against their country and have protested his arrival. Given that Miles’ track record of regime change makes him worthy of the ‘Male Nuland’ moniker, it’s appropriate to investigate what tricks the US may be up to in Central Asia, and how it may be trying to force the Ukrainian scenario onto Russia’s southern doorstep.

“The Male Nuland”

Richard Miles has kept a relatively low profile throughout the years and hasn’t garnered the notoriety that his ideological protégé Nuland has, but this doesn’t mean that he’s any less dangerous for the countries he visits. In fact, since he’s the individual who spearheaded the Color Revolution tactic in the first place, he can even be referred to as a ‘proto Nuland’, owing to his ‘successes’ in Serbia and Georgia that helped make EuroMaidan possible in the first place. While he was no longer the American Ambassador to Yugoslavia when the 2000 Bulldozer Revolution overthrow Slobodan Milosevic, he certainly paved the way for its implementation during his work over the three years prior, including overseeing the NATO War on Serbia. As regards Georgia, he served as US Ambassador from 2002-2005 and repeated the Belgrade template in Tbilisi.

Afterwards, he became the Executive Director for the Open World Leadership Center for most of 2006, during which he fostered the creation of thousands of pro-American ‘leaders’ in the former Soviet Union. To Center’s own mission statement concisely describes the type of work that it does:

“Begun as a pilot program in 1999 and established as a permanent agency in late 2000, the Center conducts the first and only international exchange agency in the U.S. Legislative Branch and, as such, has enabled more than 17,000 current and future leaders from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan to meaningfully engage and interact with Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and thousands of other Americans, many of whom are the delegates’ direct professional counterparts.”

The above statement can be read as an admission that the Center’s purpose is to create pro-American proxies that can seamlessly interact with and do the bidding of their Washington patrons, thereby essentially making it an NGO front for the US intelligence community’s cultivation of Color Revolution assets. The organization doesn’t hide the fact that its purpose is to promote American interests and profit, brazenly bragging that:

“Open World offers an extraordinary “bang for the buck” in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and value. The Center boasts an overhead rate of about 7 percent, every grant contains cost-shared elements, and more than 75 percent of our appropriation is plowed back into the American economy every year. The Center might best be described as both a mini-stimulus plan as well as a true international exchange program.”

Bearing in mind Miles’ experience in running this Color Revolution recruitment front, as well as his contribution to managing two ‘successful’ regime change operations in Serbia and Georgia, he can easily be identified as one of the most dangerous people in the US deep state establishment, and the fact that he was recalled from retirement to urgently take the ‘temporary’ post in Kyrgyzstan during these tense geopolitical times must absolutely be seen as a warning about Washington’s nefarious intentions.

Uzbekistan’s Role In The US’ Central Asian Strategy

While Washington is poised to destabilize Kyrgyzstan, it’s showing strong signals that it’s ready to do the opposite in neighboring Uzbekistan, and has been reingratiating itself with Tashkent over the past couple of years in a bid to shore up what it intends to become its Lead From Behind proxy in the region. Continue reading

Interview with Serbian sniper: “Novorossiya is fighting against fascism. May God forgive the disgrace of the Serbian government.”

November 17, 2014

Original articles: Colonel Cassad &  KM Novine
Translation by Alexander Fedotov (with thanks to Milos Lazarevic) Editing by @GBabeuf

Preamble: The interview below is taken from Colonel Cassad. However, the material at Cassad is a translation into Russian of a Serbian language original from KM Novine. The opening paragraph and the final sentence are comments from Colonel Cassad, the remainder of the text is the interview conducted by the Serbian news agency. Our translation made use of both these versions, which contain slight variations between them.

Dejan Berić: it is in our blood to fight injustice

An excellent interview with the Serbian sniper, Dejan Berić, who since the summer has been actively engaged in fighting for the Novorossiya Army against Ukrainian fascists. In autumn, as there was no information about him, many people were worried that Dejan might have been killed; however, he is still alive and healthy, and he continues fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with his comrades.

“Novorossiya is fighting against fascism, may God forgive the disgrace of the Serbian government”

Despite the “boyish” nickname and character, ‘Deki’ has displayed an honourable and courageous attitude toward life. We talked with him about Novorossiya, his motives for fighting there, how to be a sniper, events on the battlefield, and the people and the authorities who make up and who lead Serbia.

The Serbian volunteer in Novorossiya is the kind of man who would appear to be already extinct in Serbia: a man who neither deals nor compromises with the devil; a man who considers it an honour to die in the struggle against injustice; the kind of man who made our nation brave and who, for centuries, preserved the uniquely Serbian quality of keeping the sword unsheathed, both in epic songs and on the battlefield. Dejan Berić, a Serbian volunteer in Novorossiya, though he never expected to, took up the fight on all our behalves and has become one such man.

What are you doing in Novorossiya? What was your motivation to go to the edge of the world, of which we have, until recently, known almost nothing, and to risk your life there? How and why?

What I am doing in Novorossiya, I have already stated many times. So now I will be brief. I came to help our Orthodox brothers and to fight against NATO’s criminals, who bombed our country; they were rattling their sabres and threatening to attack the Crimea. I forgot one fact: that NATO and the countries supporting it are nothing but cowards. They only dare to start a conflict if there is a possibility of bombing from afar and ninety percent of the targets are civilian, in order to sow fear and panic. Thus, they are not directly involved, but their influence here is clearly visible. Also, several American officers were wounded here. They were not in combat—they stay a little further away from the front line and give instructions on the importance of destroying civilian targets. I have heard it from more than one captured Ukrainian soldier; many repeated the same story.

How do you view developments in the former Ukraine today? If you had waited until this time, would your decision be the same today as it was then—to come to Novorossiya?

The situation in Ukraine is beyond awful. If it was not for the terrible censorship in the Serbian press, you could see all the horrors of a civil war. What does appear is more than fifty percent lies.

I can give you a simple explanation for that—the only objective newspapers in Serbia are those that were not bought out by foreigners. And there are none of them, because those that were not bought out are controlled by a government that is no longer Serbian and is driving Serbia to complete destruction. I would love to be wrong… If I had not come at the very beginning, I would have come after I had seen the first photos of children killed in the streets, in schools…

Everyone has a different conscience. I have never forgotten what the NATO criminals did to Serbia. I will always repeat this, not to show that I have not forgotten, but to remind those who did forget. I just cannot imagine myself sitting in a warm room, playing computer games, while the fascist vampire is awakening in its worst form.

Although his words were very useful and needed to be heard, he had been skilfully “hiding” from the local and other media. One day he went into action with a group of Novorossiyan fighters to assist in the execution of an exceptionally important assignment. He didn’t realise that, from then on, his popularity would jump to a new level.

The Serbian public became aware about you when it was announced that you had set fire to an armoured vehicle of the Ukrainian Nazi junta armed only with a rifle. For you, personally, was that one of the most important events in the war in the former Ukraine?

I had been skilfully hiding from the public until we went to help Motorola’s group when they punched through the Snezhnoe-Stepanovka-Marinovka corridor. They are always accompanied by a reporter who films what they do on a small camera. He asked me for an interview, saying that it was only for them, but the next day the video appeared on YouTube.

I went around all the areas where battles were fought. Of Serbs, I saw only one fighter—Slaviša from Belgrade. Sadly, he is no longer with us here; he is resting now, because when a plane bombed the house they were in, he caught a piece of shrapnel in his stomach. He is alright now, but he is still not up to hard work.

Dejan emphasises that he is not in Novorossiya with Četniks or any other group but with locals, for whom he came here. It is very important to him that the locals accept him as one of their own.

On my beret I am proud to wear a five-pointed star next to the bat emblem of the military scouts. Some people in Serbia do not like it. However, it is my choice. People are proud of it here.

I cannot single out the most important event. Maybe it was near Marinovka, when I was able to set fire to the armoured vehicle with shots from a sniper rifle. I used armour-piercing incendiary ammunition. This was not some heroic feat that can be ascribed to me, it was simply that the APC advanced onto our positions firing a large-calibre weapon. It passed us, so we moved forward a little further than planned. I fired at it more from impotence, since we had no anti-tank weapons with us. Its armour was weak, I do not know where I hit it, but, after a few rounds, it was already ablaze.

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The n conventional wisdom is that snipers find themselves a shelter and from there, “alone”, they fire on moving targets of their choice. What exactly is the role of a sniper in war?

That view is a bit misleading. I am a regular soldier, like others who have sub-machine guns. A sniper, I became by force of circumstance. The sniper from the famous Donetsk Airport would kill two or three civilians every day. We were unable to locate him for four days. During those four days the toll reached twelve people killed, of whom only one was male, the rest all women and children. I took a sniper rifle and went to wait for him. I had identified the direction he was firing from and found a position where I could await him. I was lucky that I had thought correctly and I discovered him on his first shot. He never fired again. After that they asked me to eliminate snipers. And that, I suppose, is my main task. Or, at least, it is the hardest one.

Sometimes I read the comments in newspapers that some people see the sniper as a killer of civilians. It hurts to read such things, but a wise man once said: ‘it’s not important what is said, but who says it’. So I am still a sniper in reconnaissance and sabotage, currently the Ryazan Brigade, named in honour of our commander. We were a reconnaissance and sabotage group with one APC, and now we are a brigade with three hundred well-equipped fighters.

How do the Novorossiyan people, and how do you, view the reaction from Serbia—both the people and the government?

I do not want to talk about how people here view the reaction from Serbia. Because I am not able to explain to them the actions of the Serbian government.

I will just say that it does not matter what the government thinks, it is important what the people think. There is a lot of moral support, and that is very important. The government has sold out Serbia. How, then, can it be a benchmark of our relations? We are ordinary people, who have always shed our blood for one another—we are the measure of the relations between the two peoples. It is just as during the criminal bombing of Serbia, when the authorities in Russia did not represent the Russian people. Russians came to help as volunteers. Many got married both in Serbia, and in Republika Srpska [the Serbian entity within the borders of Bosnia Herzegovina -ed.].

Recently, a law was passed providing for criminal penalties for Serbian citizens participating in wars outside their mother country. That law does not apply to professional Serbian soldiers in NATO “peacekeeping” forces, who volunteered for those missions for solely pecuniary reasons. Those who go from Serbia in this way to fight other people’s wars are officially said to be proud representatives of their country around the world.

You are in Novorossiya to defend its people against fascism. You are involved in protecting Orthodox holy places and countries and are not looking for any financial gain. How do you view this law?

The question is well placed. I will give you my opinion, but first I will convey what some of the ex-soldiers of the criminal NATO armies say.

Some soldiers joined our First International Brigade who had served professionally in the French Army for five years. This was three months ago. One man, the most respected in that group, was a Frenchman of Serbian origin, Nikola. He is now the commander of the international group. We no longer serve together, but we keep in touch as much as possible. Is there anything more to say about NATO when you hear him say: “I served in that criminal army in Afghanistan and I am ashamed of it. I came here to fight against fascism”?

What must have happened to the man, that he left a well-paid, well organised army and came here to fight in an army with no pay? As for organization, there is still plenty to do yet. When he arrived, I told him how we fight here; he did not believe me. About twenty days later, when I was in Donetsk, we met again. He smiled, and told me that he thought we had been trying to scare him, but that everything was as we had said. Perhaps many people do not understand why he did what he did. I know. I saw him when he came and again recently. Nobody can drive him away from here, his conscience has awoken.

It would be great if the conscience would awaken in Serbia too. More and more people are coming who served in the army of some NATO country and who want, at last, to fight the good fight.

Dejan says that the law prohibiting taking part in wars was adopted according to an initiative of someone outside of Serbia who wanted to protect their own interests.

Serbia is no longer a country of its own people. Our beautiful land is ruled by foreigners, with their blind servants in the government. I read that law, and to me, as a man who knows what loyalty to his country means, it is beyond laughable. Why? I cannot quote it exactly, but it also states that only the regular Serbian Army can take part in wars outside Serbia’s borders. Hence the Serbian Army became one of the cogs in NATO’s machine. The Serbian Army will participate in the killing of civilians, just as Serbia was brutalized by seventeen separate armies.

May God forgive our government who adopted such a shameful law. I thought it was terrible when I read it. I did not want to get into politics, but, by their actions, they force me… Aleksandar Vučić [the current Prime Minister of Serbia -ed.] called on us to return to Serbia and not to dishonour her in the world any further. I do not know, was he ashamed of his ancestors when he said this??? Both his grandfathers fought against fascism. It is in our blood to fight against injustice, and his actions are pushing more people to come here. If I understand correctly—and please correct me if I am wrong—we who came here by the call of our hearts, we shame Serbia, whereas those who join, as mercenaries, the army which bombed maternity wards, hospitals, schools, buildings, media and trains in our beautiful country—they defend the honour of Serbia. To me it seems a little odd.

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Remember the great words spoken in the holy Serbian land: “It doesn’t matter how much the enemy outnumbers us, what matters is the importance of what we defend.” [“није важно колико је бројнији непријатељ, важна је светиња која се брани” in Serbian original -ed.], so I am staying here with the hope that normal people will come to power in Serbia who will abolish that law so that I will be able to return to my country. I am interested in one thing: whether someone will pass a law condemning the government that caused people in Serbia to commit suicide because they could not pay their bills after they reduced their already-low wages or the pensions that they earned by their labour?

The government is directly responsible for much loss of life in Serbia. To whom will they answer for that? In the end it’s all about politics. Gentlemen politicians, I wish you long and healthy lives, so you can see your grandchildren married and feel how future generations are ashamed of you because of what you have done.

After talking with someone who defends and lives his ideals, it is difficult, in the slavish conditions of Serbia, not to romanticize your views on participation in a war against the Nazis. I recently asked friends—what did they think about going to Novorossiya as volunteers? After a brief pause, when many things flashed through my mind, one of them replied in a tone indicating that the question was nonsensical: “Who would not want to be there?”; yet all find reasons to stay rather than to go: family obligations, work—life has turned us into “heroes with a lack of free time,” as I read somewhere. But, fortunately, not all of us.

Interviewer: Ivan Maksimović

[8]bespilotna

He is a surprisingly decent and modest man. I wish him good health and more well-aimed shots.

“May God forgive the disgrace of the Serbian government”