Your trusted source

Press TV has talked with Bill Jones, with the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington D.C., to shed more light on the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine. 

- I am looking at a quote that Mr. Putin has made. This was pretty recent. He told reporters that this is about the Ukrainian presidential election campaign for March 2015, which he said this is not a revolution but a very well-prepared protest, referring to the protests that are taking place, in which in his view, was not prepared for today but for the presidential campaign, in an attempt to shake the current government and I want to emphasize legitimate authorities in the country.

Does Putin have a point there?

- I would go even further than President Putin. I think that what we are looking at is a repeat of what happened in Libya but without NATO involvement. There is a direct intervention on the part of the US and the EU for regime change. This is the name of the game. But the target here is not directly Yanukovych, the target is Vladimir Putin.

What they are trying to do, as John McCain has indicated in calling Ukraine the Crown Jewel of Russia, is to pull Ukraine away from Russia in order to weaken and I think openly destroy it. So we are looking at a situation that potentially can be a new Sarajevo if they succeed in doing what they seem to want to do.

- Well, Bill Jones, you had rather a strong viewpoint there of the intentions behind, perhaps, what the US and the West have, regarding Ukraine. You mentioned Libya as an example, I mean tell us what plans do you foresee the US having? What goals do they have by destabilizing some of Russia’s allies such as Ukraine?

What would be to their benefit? What is your viewpoint on that?

- Well, since President Putin was reelected, of course there has been a total opposition from the West. They did not want him to even run as a candidate and they made their views very clearly known at an early stage and since then there had been continual moves both in terms of defense measures, in terms of the missile defense system , moves which Russia clearly feels are threatening its own existence.

And here we have a situation developing in Ukraine and obviously there are internal problems there but these problems are being manipulated clearly from the outside.

The fact that the EU officials and US officials were out on the streets, cheering on the demonstrators, it was really just an interference in the internal affairs of another nation, which I really have not seen the like of in a long, long time and they were directly indicating that they want that decision of Ukraine to be a part of the EU and mind you that more countries want to leave the EU at this time than want to join it; because it is going to represent hardship and even the Ukrainians know that. They are going to suffer if they go into the EU, but there is this fear of Russia that is driving them on and this is being propelled from the outside.

If you look at the people on the ground, you have ... people, some of them have well intentions, some are very concerned, but then you have elements there that cannot be described as anything else than fascist, anti-Semitic , Svoboda Party which stems in an old Nazi party from Ukraine. These are the people who are trying to push and push and push, bring this to the brink; and they are bringing the other people with them and they are being supported by the direct support coming from the United States and the European Union and I think that those signals are being read very clearly in Moscow and think they feel this as an existential threat to them.

- The Russian president actually accused militants of trying to overthrow Ukraine’s government and he said that the protesters seem to have been very well prepared and trained by these militant groups. Of course some saying that that is a hint of outsiders being involved in the training of these demonstrators. Do you believe that? Do you think that that is the case?

- Well, I think absolutely this has been going on for years. If we look back at the Orange Revolution, you had George Soros and his friends in the Open society Group who at that period were going from country to country, from Croatia to Slovenia, to Ukraine, building up this cadre which could be utilized on the streets to really overthrow the government.

So that aspect still is in place. As Mr. Williams indicated, of course there is a lot of discontent within Ukraine and some of these are very legitimate. And I am sure many of the people who are out on the streets have legitimate concerns that have to be addressed, but the problem is that because you have this network, which is manipulating the situation and in that network I include these very radical right-wing Ukrainian groups that have now joined the mainstream and who from all we can see, are the ones who are really conducting the violence not the people on the street who have been out there to protest but certain groups who are taking the initiative on that to try to steer this in a certain direction and the direction they have is, really, regime change. They want Yanukovych out of there and you know, of course in the background of course, is Russia.

What effect will this have on Russia? If Ukraine leaves the cooperation with Russia, joins the EU, takes the suffering that will be entailed with that decision, Russia will see this as an existential threat and I think that they will start to take other measures.

We are really on the brink of a very dangerous situation, a very dangerous conflict between nuclear powers and it is extremely unsettling what is going on today in Ukraine as a result of that.

- Bill Jones, going along the lines that you have talked about in terms of the US and I could probably bring in EU as well into this, how far do you think the US is going to go and in terms of its goal, do you think that is trying to destabilize Ukraine to make it come into its sphere using the EU as a shield in order to encircle Russia with, of course, NATO being there, which is something obviously that Russia is against?

- Well, this is part of what seems to be going on and I would not take everything..., take the whole US political establishment as one, but there is a group of people who are interested in doing that.

I see Mr. Brzezinski is now making his proposals felt, he is calling for what he calls Peoples’ Council..., ignoring the official governments in creating some kind of, I do not know if he would consider this as a soviet, that he is calling for; but at least something that would certainly destabilize the entire situation.

But that obviously is a policy which is being pursued by some in the West, within the EU and within the United States establishment itself; and hopefully cooler heads will prevail in this. Now we are simply at the level of conducting economic sanctions against the government of Ukraine. I hope they have the subtlety of spirit and of hand to deal with this thing, to try to bring some kind of a diplomatic solution to bear on that, but I fear that there is so much of a push from the elements who really want to bring this to a complete change of regime that they will have difficulty in getting a response from the other side. But there are definitely forces in the US, the actions taken by the US in this respect, have brought this even further towards a crisis than would have otherwise been the case.

- Bill Jones, Ian Williams talked about Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked the Ukrainian President to withdraw these anti-protest laws. The US has also asked for that. How far do you think that Putting is going to be behind Ukraine, given the fact that we are seeing the movements now being made asking Yanukovych to pretty much withdraw these anti-protest laws that have sparked these protests?

- I think Putin largely taking wait and see attitude here, he is not going to try to directly influence the situation and he is probably looking, as we are, to see where this is going to go.

But obviously if Ukraine went into the EU, they will be entering really an effective dictatorship and there goes their national sovereignty. Ask any Greek, ask any Spaniard, ask any Italian. The Italians now have a caretaker government more or less but they do not understand this and therefore the EU seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel. What they do not know is that there is no tunnel and that will be a brick wall if they hit that and this is the illusion to many people unfortunately having Ukraine with regard to that issue.