USAID Helping Run Ukraine IO
USAID got their people into the British media. Where else are they?
As mentioned time before time before last, Max Blumenthal found a curious connection between the Ukrainian IO machine and the formerly venerable BBC.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/25/bbc-fixer-war-ukrainian-nationalist-pr-operative/
This connection is in the form of "fixer" Orysia Khimiak. Also mentioned in passing: one Illia Ponomarenko.
But that was in the context of a false flag by the bad guys. And that would have been the proverbial "that", but for a curious piece that turned up some time later at Sputnik News.
Swedish Journo Axed After Article About Ukrainian Nazis, Praising RT as 'Quality Journalism'
Swedes are notoriously far-left. So you'd expect them to be all over the Azov Battalion and All Things Ukraine. But no. There's nary a mention of any of that in their media. They keep to the official NATO narrative, thank you very much, and word has it they're now considering membership in NATO to protect themselves from the big evil bear.
The above Sputnik piece tells the story of one Kajsa Ekman, nicknamed "Ekis", who writes for an obscure site called "Dagens ETC", and who hangs out in the same circles as the local Enemies of Assange. According to Sputnik, Kajsa makes peanuts working for the rag, but always does her work well. A bit of further research reveals that she occasionally writes for other publications such as TruthDig, and has also published a book or two.
Kajsa usually sticks to politically correct topics, but not now. Swerving out of the designated lane, Kajsa suddenly became curious why Sweden of all places would keep a lid on what's been going on in the Ukraine, and curious as well about this strange new startup called Kyiv Independent.
Kyiv Independent was founded only a few months ago, Kajsa notices, rising from the ashes of the Kyiv Post which suddenly shut its doors in the autumn of 2021.
Why do we accept the Nazi connections with that Kyiv Independent? asks Kajsa, and she starts right in with Khimiak's friend Ponomarenko. Ponomarenko, she learns, has been embedded with the Azov Battalion. And he thinks it's really cool, sort of John Wayne type stuff. And he's good buddies with one of Azov's artillery commanders.
Like the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights a few years ago, Kyiv Independent's become a de facto source of acceptable misinformation on the Ukraine. And, just like with the SOHR, which Eva Bartlett outed during a press conference at the United Nations, Kyiv Independent mostly deals in propaganda. It's no wonder that the West's perception of what's going on in the Ukraine is so scarily distanced from reality.
Sweden's big league publicist organisations are already helping fund KI. So is the German colossus Springer-Verlag. Sweden's union association's "Global Worker" has agreed to translate all KI pieces into Swedish.
"Nobody seems to react to the fact that they're Nazis", comments Kajsa. Illia Ponomarenko, who's only mentioned in passing by Max Blumenthal, is graded as "high-profile war reporter" by Kajsa. Illia likes to post photos of his good times with Azov, says Kajsa.
Kajsa's curious, so she talks with Ivar Andersen, the editor of Global Worker. What's Andersen been saying?
"As things stand today, I see KI's staff as a positive force, despite that one reporter's Nazi sympathies."
("Nazi sympathies" is changed to "Azov sympathies", but not by Kajsa.)
Kajsa presses Andersen, and Andersen explains that Ponomarenko won't be writing for KI, that their collaboration with him is only about "social issues" and has nothing to do with his work as a war correspondent embedded with Azov.
"A Swedish publication with clear Nazi sympathies would never be considered as a media partner with Global Worker", writes Kajsa. "And Azov and Aidar are not just unacceptable - they're war criminals."
KI's CEO Daryna Shevchenko even did a photo opportunity laying flowers at the monument of an infamous Ukrainian Nazi collaborator.
Nazi connections aren't the only creepy thing about KI, Kajsa says. For the official story about KI's sudden rising from the ashes of Kyiv Post reads more like a fairytale.
The actual background is a bit different, Kajsa discovers. How to get all that organisation and funding so fast? The government of Canada was involved. So was the European Endowment for Democracy. Most of the writers were sponsored by USAID. Their CEO used to work for USAID. Their financial honcho Jakub Parusinski used to be manager of USAID's Media Development Foundation. A half dozen of them were sent to the US on full pay (for a new publication that didn't even exist yet) for "study" of some sort.
Kajsa completes her piece, on time and ready to print as per usual, and submits it to her editor, who thinks it's a great piece of investigative journalism, and puts it online straight away. Good job, everyone's happy. For a few hours.
Kajsa gets a message from the editor the following day. Her ten-year employment has been terminated. No reason given. Further probing yields only incoherent nonsense.
Kajsa's friends react, so her editor feels compelled to offer an official explanation, which he publishes on the front page of the website. It's like this, he writes. We used to have freedom of speech, but we don't really have it anymore, that's that, times have changed, and he's OK with firing Kajsa because... because he can. People in the media go animal on him, but he doesn't relent. He can't. He's wedged tightly between one rock and another.
What publication is this? It's not the BBC. It's an obscure enterprise in tiny Sweden with a nonexistent readership - a readership so insignificant that they were caught cooking the books on their subscriber lists to get more state funding. They got caught, and now have to pay back millions.
Kajsa's piece: how many actually read it?
Somebody saw it. Somebody who shouldn't have seen it. What the one day is called "great work" by an editor is suddenly nothing of the sort 24 hours later, and the author is fired after ten years of well-received work.
That makes no sense, right? Nope - unless one considers that the threat of the Big Lie - the Great Narrative - being exposed is more than "somebody" is prepared to tolerate.
Ponomarenko may have placed Khimiak at the BBC. But he placed himself at The Guardian. Where else are they located?
USAID got their people into the British media. Where else are they?