Kermit Heartsong - Ukraine - ZBIG's Grand Chess Board & How The West Was Checkmated

V.N.: So on that piece, Jeff, when I wrote the note Sullivan’s come back to me V.F.R., saying you need Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta boy and to get the details to stick. So, Biden’s willing.

G.P.: Ok. Great, thanks.

appendix II

Phone Transcript paet and ashton

The following conversation between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton, high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union, was apparently leaked by Ukrainian Security Forces. The conversation has Paet and Ashton discussing the Maidan sniper shooting. Paet believes based upon the information that he has received while visiting that the new Ukrainian government is the responsible party.

CONVERSATION W/INTIAL CONNECTIONS OMITTED:

Catherine Ashton: Hello.

Urmas Paet: Hello.

Ashton: Hello, how are you?

Paet: I am fine

.

Ashton: Good.

Paet: And you?

Ashton: Good. I am good. I just wanted to catch up with you on what you thought when you were there.

Paet: Ok, yes. I returned last night already, so that I was one day.

Ashton: Yeah. Impressions?

Paet: Impressions are sad.

Ashton: Um hum.

Paet: I met with representatives of Regions Party [originally Yanukovych’s party, but it had dissociated from him by this point in time], also new coalition representatives, and also civil society [Ukrainian non-governmental organizations or NGOs]. There is this lady called Olga [Dr. Olga Bogomolets, who was tending to wounded protesters] who is head of the doctors. Yes, yes. You know her?

Ashton: I do.

Paet: Yes, so that, well, my impression is indeed sad that there is, well, no trust towards also these politicians who will return now to the coalition. Well, people from Maidan and from civil society, they say that they know everybody who will be in new government — all these guys have a dirty past.

Ashton: Yeah.

Paet: So that, well, they made some proposals to the same Olga and some others from civil society to join new government. But this Olga, for example, she says directly that she is ready to go to the government only in the case if she can take with her, her team of foreign experts to start real health care reforms.

Ashton: Yeah.

Paet: So that, well, basically, it is that the trust level is absolutely low. On the other hand, all the security problems, this integrity problems, Crimea, all this stuff. Regions Party was absolutely upset. They say that, well, they accept, they accept this that now there will be new government. And there will be external elections. But there is enormous pressure against members of parliament — that there are uninvited visitors during the night … to party members. Well, journalists … some journalists who were with me, they saw during the day that one member of parliament was just beaten in front of the parliament building by these guys with the guns on the streets.

Ashton: Yeah.

Paet: So that all this mess is still there. And, of course, this Olga and others from civil society, they were absolutely sure that people will not leave the streets before they see that the real reforms will start. So that it’s not enough that there is just change of government. So that that is the main impression. So that, from EU’s and also well Estonia’s point of view, of course, we should ready to put this financial package together. Also together with others. This very clear message is needed that it’s not enough that there is change of government, but they say real reforms — you know, real action to increase the level of trust. Otherwise, it will end badly. Because the Regions Party also said that, well, we will see that if the people from the eastern part of Ukraine will really wake up, and will start to demand their rights. Some people also with me, they were also in Donetsk. There people said that, well, we can’t wait. How long still the occupation of Ukraine lasts in Donetsk. That it is real Russian city, and we would like now to see that, well, Russia will take over. So that well … short impressions.

Ashton: No, very, very interesting. I just had a big meeting here with Olli Rehn [EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs] and the other commissioners about what we can do. I mean, we’re working on financial packages — short, medium, long-term. Everything from how we get money in quickly. How we support the IMF. And how we get a kind of … investment packages and business leaders and so on. On the political side, we’ve worked [?out?] what resources we have got, and I offered to civil society, and to Yatsenyuk [Aresniy Yatsenyuk became the interim prime minister when what is now the “new coaltion” became the interim Ukrainian government] and Klitchko [Vitali Klitchko, one of the leaders of the new coalition, a former boxer, and now mayor of Kiev], and everybody I met yesterday: “We can offer you people who know how to do political and economic reform. The countries that are closest to Ukraine have been going through dramatic changes and have done big political and economic reforms. So we have got loads of experience to give you, which we’re happy to give.” I said to the people in Maidan, “Yes, you want real reforms, but you’ve got to get through the short-term first. So you need to find ways in which you can establish a process that will have anticorruption at its heart, that will have people working alongside until the elections, and that you could be confident in the process.

Then I said to Olga, “You may not be Health Minister now, but you need to think about becoming Health Minister in the future, because people like you are going to be needed to be able to get and make sure that [?reform?] happens. I also said to them, “If you simply barricade the buildings now, and the government doesn’t function, we cannot get money in, because we need a partner to partner with.

Paet: Absolutely.

Ashton: And I said to the opposition leaders, shortly to become government, “You need to reach out to Maidan. You need to be, you know, engaging with them. You also need to get ordinary police officers back on the streets under a new sense of their roles, so that people feel safe. I said to the Party of the Regions people, “You have to go and lay flowers for the people [who] died. You have to show that you understand what you have … what has happened here. Because what you were experiencing is anger of people who have seen the way that Yanukovych lived and the corruption. And they assume you are all the same.” And, also the people who have lost people and who feel that, you know, he ordered that to happen. There is quite a lot of shock I think in the city. A lot of sadness and shock, and that is going to come out in some very strange ways if they are not careful. I think all of us, we just have to work on this. We did a big meeting here today to try and get this in place. But, yeah, very interesting, your observations.

Paet: It is. And, well, actually, the only politician [whom] the people from civil society mentioned positively was Poroshenko [Petro Poroshenko, known as “the chocolate king” was elected president of Ukraine in the May 25 election].

Ashton: Yeah, yeah.

Paet: So that he has some sort of, how to say, trust among all this Maidan people and civil society. And, in fact, what was quite disturbing, the same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides.

Aston: Well, that’s … yeah.

Paet: So that, then she also showed me some photos. She said that as [a] medical doctor she can, you know, say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened. So that there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind [the] snipers, they were … it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.