Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy are working with other members of Congress to get the United States more deeply involved in the internal affairs of Ukraine.
Ron Paul: Ukraine is none of our business.
The move follows an escalation of violence in the country. Reports Thursday indicate 100 people have died and 500 were injured as gunfire erupted in Kiev’s Independence Square where anti-government demonstrations have taken place since November. CNN crews reported the gunfire erupted after protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces.
McCain and Murphy announced “targeted sanctions” aimed at the Ukrainian government. The Obama administration on Wednesday said it is blocking around 20 Ukrainian officials from entering the United States. It says they are linked to the government’s response to violence in Kiev.
The duo said they are busy working on legislation including “targeted sanctions on government officials and other persons who have committed, ordered, or materially supported acts of violence against peaceful citizens in Ukraine, or who are complicit in the rollback of Ukraine’s democracy.” They reportedly “remain in contact with the Administration and look forward to working together on this legislation.” The State Department has announced it will work with the European Union on more extensive sanctions against Ukrainian government officials if the violence worsens.
In December McCain met with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda party.
Tyahnybok was mentioned in a tapped phone call between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt earlier this month. He was described as one of the “big three” who will rule after Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, is removed from office.
In 2004 Oleh Tyahnybok praised Ukraine’s proto-fascist partisans who operated during the Second World War. He said the partisans “did not fear, but took up their automatic rifles, going into the woods to fight Muscovites, Germans, Jewry and other filth.” Tyahnybok insisted Ukraine had to be liberated from a “Moscow-Jewish mafia.”
McCain works with ultra-nationalists to undermine democratically elected Ukrainian government.
“Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better,” McCain told protesters, including Right Sector and other militant groups comprising the EuroMaidan movement, including Trident of Stepan Bandera (a Ukrainian nationalist assassinated by the Soviet KGB), Patriot of Ukraine, White Hammer, Ukrainian National Defense, and others.
Right Sector is widely believed to be behind most of the violence in the capital, including shooting at police. It has declared the formation of a Revolutionary National Guard that claims it will unite all ultra-nationalists in the country and arrest all the enemies of the revolution.
The groups rejects integration with the European Union and considers the Svoboda party to be too pacifist and conciliatory.
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