Flashback to 2016: The (5-Year) Mariupol Plan

The Post-Soviet Proposal to Partition Ukraine Is Everything

Trump’s treatment of NATO as a Cosa Nostra-style protection racket is a transparent attempt to weaken the alliance, scare our allies and ingratiate himself to Putin.

Again.

Why is Trump’s nose so far up Putin’s butt anyway?

Similar to that disgusting image (sorry), the Mariupol Plan is sickening. Clandestine discussions surrounding the plan in 2016 help to explain Trump’s lick-spittle behavior towards Russia since. To boot, the sorry fate of the plan’s namesake city demonstrates the nation-scale terrorism the post-Soviet mob is capable surrounding their autocratic machinations.

Tied up in collusion (which Mueller didn’t charge leading many to believe never occured), the Mariupol Plan is a seriously under-appreciated element of the Trump-Russia saga as well as Ukraine’s struggle to escape Russian influence. A deep dive on the plan gives important insight into motivations and strategies from key parties in 2016 still relevant today.

A Less Boring Recap

To grasp all this, some history is necessary. Unlike Putin, I don’t need to make up BS half way back to the Bronze Age in a 30 minute diatribe, dictator-splaining to Tucker Carlson. Not really my style anyway. But there is important background I’ll summarize here.

With distinct history, language and culture, older than Russia’s even, Ukraine was nonetheless conquered by imperial Russia in 1787 under Catherine the Great.

Fast forward — unpleasant treatment of ethnic Ukrainians would persist through the Soviet era with widespread prejudice by ethnic Russians against Ukrainian “khokols.” Sly efforts to Russify Ukraine, to bury Ukrainian identity and culture, were the norm in the Soviet era.

Way worse, the Holodomor is among the ugliest (and least recognized) atrocities of the 20th century. Wielding the threat of the gulag, Joseph Stalin (also a mobster, btw, a Soviet OG) imposed communist ideology on Ukraine, forcing transition of Ukraine’s rich agricultural economy from small family farms to far larger collective enterprises.

Under Stalin’s 5-Year Plan starting in 1928, forced collectivization in Ukraine caused severe underproduction, missing centralized grain production targets by 60% (and angering Stalin.) Scarce food resources were then directed toward Russian cities away from Ukraine. In part, this tyranny was imposed to punish Ukraine for making Stalin and his 5-Year Plan look bad, to weaken the wealthy province and keep it under the Soviet yoke.

Consequently, millions of Ukrainians starved in a wholly unnecessarily, man-made famine imposed by its foreign masters in the Kremlin. As much as 15% of Ukraine’s population, 5 million lives were extinguished in this horror.

Compounding that unimaginable suffering, already-depleted Ukraine served as a primary front in the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union a decade later. Under-equipped Ukrainians often served as cannon fodder while Ukraine took the brunt of the Nazi assault, which decimated 720 cities and 28,000 villages. Ukraine lost an additional 20% of its population in the process.

Afterwards, Western Europe, with generous US assistance under the Marshall Plan, rebuilt to yield a much higher standard of living than did the Soviet sphere.

No surprise, then, that Ukraine declared independence ASAP with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, after 200+ years subjugation. Ukraine regained its sovereignty at that moment but independence and liberality remained elusive with its legacy of corrupt, Soviet institutions and officials, also remaining in Russia’s shadow and media sphere.

The US, Russia and Ukraine (among other Soviet satellites) signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 to firm security arrangements and prevent rogue nukes escaping. Here, Ukraine handed over a sizable nuclear stockpile to Russia in exchange for security assurances from both superpowers guaranteeing they would not threaten or coerce Ukraine, respecting it’s sovereignty and independence.

It did not take long for Russia to covertly renege on the agreement and impose malign influence over Ukraine, same as other former satellites like Georgia, Belarus, Kazakstan etc. In some cases, like in Uzbekistan, post-Soviet ideology and culture dominated, leading to sham elections and corrupt, strongman leadership in Putin’s mold and under his thumb. This dynamic would play out in Ukraine too at first, but Ukraine would evolve away from Russian influence and towards Western-style government.

Ukraine’s first two Presidents were former Soviet officials closely linked to Russia’s post-Soviet leadership. In the 2004 elections to decide the third President, widespread electoral fraud and intimidation by authorities were undeniable. These clearly favored Viktor Yanukovych, also a former Soviet official, their chosen successor.

These post-Soviets had stuffed ballots shamelessly. Their pro-EU opponent, Yushchenko, was even poisoned in an assassination attempt, leaving him disfigured. Protests and civil disobedience following the election forced official challenges to the results. The Ukrainian Supreme Court would find widespread electoral fraud and void the outcome. The closely monitored re-vote swung nearly 10 points in Yushchenko’s favor, earning him the win, and allowing democratic reforms to proceed. These events are now called Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.

Former Ukrainian President Yushchenko before and after assassination attempt by dioxin poisoning

Their cheating thwarted by an increasingly functional civil society operating outside their tentacles, the post-Soviet mob sought to reimpose their influence. A change of tactics was required — Ukraine’s elections were now under a microscope. So, the shadowy network of oligarchs surrounding Putin brought in US political operative Paul Manafort, already infamous for leading the Torturer’s Lobby, smoothing over dictatorial abuses with clever spin and misleading narratives.

Manafort would engineer a new platform for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and a new international influence campaign, to put a bow on their blatant cheating and coercion. Coordinating with Russian propaganda efforts, Manafort strategized political campaigns to serve Kremlin interests based in division and shameless misrepresentation, according to Mueller and the US Senate.

Yanukovych would adopt Manafort’s platform of Ukraine as a “bridge” between Russia and the West. Economic integration with Europe would be a central policy pillar, pacifying Western Ukraine and the free world. But Ukraine would remain in Russia’s security sphere and decline to pursue NATO membership, appeasing Eastern Ukraine.

In 2010, Yanukovych would win his repeat bid for President on Manafort’s bridge platform. Now duly-elected Yanukovych would use Presidential power to degrade democratic reforms, jailing opposition leader Tymoshenko on false charges, weakening press freedoms and engaging in corruption on unfathomable scale, all while advancing the Kremlin’s preferred policies at the expense of Ukraine’s interests and independence. These are typical post-Soviet politics: based in post-truth, autocracy, propaganda, corruption and criminal networks, apparently without moral limitations.

Manafort would happily settle into his new role as mobster-oligarch, living it up in gaudy excess with the easy-come money. The American goon would saddle up to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence agent as his right hand man. The post-Soviet spy managed Manafort’s office in Kiev for years.

In 2012, despite his platform, at the last moment Yanukovych refused to sign an agreement for Ukraine to join the EU, instead working towards integration with the far less appealing, Russian-led Eurasian Union.

It was a farce … Yanukovych being a tool of Russian autocratic influence was now glaring … and humiliating.

By late 2013, enraged by Yanukovych’s blatant corruption, students and young liberals began protests in Kiev’s central square. A prolonged, pro-democracy protest movement (aka EuroMaidan) began then to resist Russian influence and demand European integration. The persistence of protestors in the face of harsh police brutality inspired other factions to join, including some rather violent far-right Ukrainian nationalists (Putin’s fabled Ukrainian Nazis.) After months of escalating clashes and abuses by security forces in response, EuroMaidan eventually eroded Yanukovych’s legitimacy.

On Feb 21 2014, a few days after a bloody massacre, Yanukovych fled … to Russia, of course, where he remains today. Ukraine’s parliament officially removed him and initiated an election to choose a successor. These events are now referred to as Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity.

Yanukovych’s gaudy estate built on billions pilfered from Ukraine is now a museum of corruption open to the public, complete with zoo, replica Greek ruins, even a fake Spanish galleon

Shortly afterwards in the chaotic aftermath, Russian soldiers wearing unmarked army fatigues aka ‘little green men’ secured Ukraine’s prized sea-side province of Crimea. Russia then annexed it after sham elections.

It was as if Russia admitted that losing its puppet in Ukraine entitled them to steal turf as a consolation prize. “You had your Revolution of Dignity, so we’ll snatch Crimea to keep ours! 😭” Or something like that.

Post-Soviet Freak Out

Yanukovych’s ouster was perceived by Russian leadership as an attack by the West, another degradation of Russian power by its enemies. In this paranoid view, Ukrainians could never self-organize an organic protest movement to remove a corrupt leader obviously under toxic foreign influence. No, that sort of self-organization and bottom-up action is simply impossible. Such action MUST be directed by powerful authorities from above.

So, um, Barrack Obama and Victoria Nuland put em up to the whole thing! These scary Westerners (Obama is black and Nuland female, both in American leadership, gasp!) somehow commanded tens of thousands of Ukrainian protestors to risk their lives facing stunning police abuses. I’m not sure how that works, but that’s the propaganda line.

The other main conspiracy theory floated by Russia was that the US or Ukrainian resistance killed dozens of protestors in a false flag to pin the deaths on security forces and make Yanukovych look bad, amounting to a coup. Insane on its face, analysis of video and eyewitness accounts confirm the gunfire that killed 48 and wounded nearly 200 protestors came from elite security forces. Ukrainian court found Yanukovych guilty in absentia for authorizing the massacre and engaging in treason for Russia’s benefit.

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With EuroMaidan so successful, the autocrats in Moscow felt existential danger. Western values had pushed east. A democratizing nation was now on its border, an opening for Victoria Nuland to stir up trouble in Moscow.

How long until a EuroKremlin movement deposes Putin and his band of mobsters fleecing Russia?

This could not stand. Remember Ghaddafi’s ugly death, literally beaten to a pulp by an angry mob of citizens fed up with a lifetime of humiliation under his brutal rule?

Vladmir Putin, shaking in his little boy booties

In other words, the post-Soviets were in security crisis, scared shitless of what citizens would do to them given a chance to turn the tables.

But what were they going to do about it?

The Kremlin had just lost its gambit to control Ukraine by aiding corrupt, ideologically-aligned leadership, causing the crisis in the first place. Open invasion of Ukraine without justification would cross a red line violating the world order. Imperial conquest is simply illegal today.

So, Russia fomented civil war within Ukraine in an attempt to have its way. Igor Girkin, a Russian spy ignited domestic fighting by seizing a small city with a few dozen Russian irregulars in the easternmost province of Donbas. The post-Soviets then propped up, armed and trained a separatist group to continue fighting. Russia has been at war in eastern Ukraine since 2014, just more covertly before the 2022 escalation.

Still insecure AF, the post-Soviets also initiated a new strategy to change the world order, their actions in eastern Ukraine being the first mobilizations of a new global conflict. The post-Soviets would export their brand of politics West, using the same tactics they’d honed in Ukraine. Russia has waged hybrid world war ever since, albeit slyly.

Honest Assessment of Putin’s Hybrid World War Strategy Is Critical For Victory

A year later, post-Soviet tool Paul Manafort would volunteer for Trump’s top Campaign Manager position, unpaid, while Russian operatives courted the Trump campaign seeking to do business.

Collusion Revisited

After all of the above, in the spring of 2016, Trump coffee-boy George Papadapoulous was told Russia had dirt on Hillary. On June 8th, the DCLeaks website was created as a cutout for public release of the compromising files Russian operatives hacked from the DNC. The very next day on June 9th, the infamous Trump Tower meeting occurred. What a coincidence!

According to Trump Jr e-mails, the meeting was arranged by a lawyer on behalf of Ukrainian oligarchs close to Manafort. Pop-star son Emin and real-estate developer father Aras Agalarov offered up documents “incriminating to Hillary Clinton” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” To that illicit offer, Don Jr. famously replied “I love it.”

No way the Russians previewed the newly-created DCLeaks website to the Trump campaign at that meeting, right? Because key players Manafort, Trump Jr. and Kushner were in the room but deny it. They say it was just about Russian adoptions. So we must believe them despite the hard evidence of the meeting’s purpose, the Trump campaign’s willingness to accept illicit help, the cutout’s timing and everything else. Right?

Thanks Mueller. JFC.

Before and after the Trump Tower rendez-vous, Manafort would meet with his Russian spy pal, Kilimnik. Unlike Trump Jr.’s lax security practices while engaging in high crimes, Manafort and Kilimnik used secure communication apps and burner phones. Manafort understood these meetings with a Russian spy while acting as Trump’s campaign chief were completely out of bounds. Espionage.

Manafort’s assistant, Rick Gates, later admitted Manafort instructed him to regularly send confidential campaign strategy and very specific internal polling data to Kilimnik, who Gates had surmised was a Russian spy. In Manafort’s earlier work in Ukraine, such polling had been used to coordinate demographic targeting of Russian propaganda to benefit Yanukovych and the Kremlin. But that couldn’t possibly be the case for Trump and the Kremlin, right? Because Manafort didn’t admit to it?

Sheesh Mueller!

Manafort did indeed deny this was his intention, claiming instead he shared the info to repay aging 7-figure debts to the oligarch above him, Oleg Deripaska a post-Soviet industrialist and mob boss just under Putin. 🙄

Why in the world would this data be worth millions to Deripaska unless it would be used to influence US politics? Given Deripaska’s role in Kremlin influence campaigns, which Manafort was certainly aware, doesn’t it amount to the same thing anyway? Even the crap cover story is a crime of espionage. Anyway you slice it, Manafort must have known his passing this info would assist malign Russian influence ops against the USA that would help mutually ally Trump win the White House. Manafort had been working with this same crew, doing the same activities in Ukraine for nearly a decade.

Despite his stance on collusion, Mueller wrote in his report that “The investigation did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts.” (emphasis added) Somehow, that assessment contradicts the report’s main conclusions, that it did not find the Trump campaign coordinated Russian interference efforts. It certainly did and the report even says so much.

So the debt story amounted to a fig leaf large enough, apparently, to cover up the unpleasant truth from public eyes. Mueller looked the other way and did not charge Manafort for crimes to do with collusion and espionage.

Mueller did bust Manafort however on his money laundering, tax evasion, lying to investigators and tampering witnesses in the Mueller investigation. Sounds like Al Capone, eh. If that’s not mobster shit, I don’t know what is.

Still, it is unbelievable Manafort walks free today, having been pardoned by Trump. He cannot be tried again for his tax evasion and obstruction, but nothing prevents Manafort’s prosecution today on espionage and campaign crimes that amount to lite treason, except a timid or corrupted Justice Department.

Wtf Garland? It is not just Mueller who’s failed us.

A Spy and a Walrus Walk Into a Cigar Bar

The most infamous of the Kilimnik-Manafort meetups occurred on August 2, 2016. A few days earlier, Kilimnik had sent Manafort a coded e-mail requesting a meeting. Kilimnik had a message to deliver from the “the guy who gave you your biggest Black Caviar jar” (apparently Yanukovych and a $40,000 jar.) To relay the message about the “future of his country,” Kilimnik would need a few hours to brief Manafort and Gates, so a dinner was arranged at the Grand Havana Club in New York.

Sipping whisky in the smoky lounge, donning gangster pinstripe suits among the mahogany paneling and leather Ottomans (probably), Kilimnik floated Manafort a tempting offer from their post-Soviet bro Yanukovych, itching to return to power in Ukraine. Manafort admitted this exchange occurred to Mueller, but only after having been caught lying about it for months. Yanukovych’s ‘peace plan’ aka the Mariupol Plan would be a means to end the civil war in Ukraine seize power in eastern Ukraine negating Russia’s motivations to continue fomenting civil war.

The mechanics of the plan went something like this. Yanukovych would triumphantly return to eastern Ukraine and mount a heroic political campaign, with Manafort at his side. While civil war still burned in Ukraine’s east, the conflict could be controlled by the post-Soviets fomenting it. Coordinating the armed separatist movement and Russia’s propaganda efforts, Yanukovych would lead the political effort to justify and execute Ukraine’s eastern provinces breaking away to form a new nation. Or, if that doesn’t fly, to justify political separation with Kiev to form a wholly independent province within Ukraine.

Kilimnik later suggested: “All that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from DT.” Trump could just publicly mention he wants to see peace in east Ukraine and assign a special representative (Manafort) — the rest would be arranged on Kilimnik’s end, who’d coordinate meeting with the Kremlin to finalize the deal. Manafort, Putin and Yanukovych could hammer out the details in the Kremlin (with no elected/official Ukrainian involvement necessary to decide the fate of their nation.)

With Mauripol as its capital and Yanukovych its leader, they would be back in power stuffing their pockets (and ballots) just like old times. The plan delivers power and resources to the autocratic mob while also helping secure Russia’s border with a compliant puppet state, all while degrading Ukraine’s independence and liberality in the process.

It’s a win-win-win for the mobsters— just not for the people of Ukraine who actually live there and for the USA who upholds the (mostly) rules-based world order. Supporting democratizing nations also serves US interests, not just a moral or ideological consideration. The USA benefits from dynamic trading partnerships with advanced economies that develop from liberal democracies. More important, the world is far more secure when leadership is accountable to voters and laws, rather than a criminal mob. When is the last time the USA went to war with a free, developed nation? Never?

So, US opposition was the major practical problem with the Mariupol plan. Obama, Clinton or Bush admins would never go for this — the plan inverts long-time, bipartisan US-Ukraine policy centered on promoting a free, whole and independent Ukraine.

So why would the Trump campaign agree to do the Kremlin’s bidding in Ukraine against US interests?

Let’s look at the facts. After having been asked for a policy favor should they win the White House, Manafort then laid out their strategies to win that White House. To a Russian spy. When he knew the Russians had compromising materials on their opponent. When he knew the Russians are skilled at influence operations using such materials. When Manafort himself had coordinated political campaigns with Russia’s influence operations for years in Ukraine.

Like the Trump Tower meeting, it stinks of quid pro quo and an ongoing collaboration, and not just a little.

“Help us with our Ukraine issue, we’ll help get you elected” — perhaps that much had already been agreed upon and this discussion surrounded a potential plan of execution.

Manafort’s strategies centered on degrading Clinton’s public image via relentless attacks according to a US Senate report. These are obviously compatible at a minimum, but seem designed to coordinate with the dirt on Hillary that the Russians contributed. The three would pore over the polling data to refine and then disseminate the messaging plan for victory, get everyone on the same page. Kilimnik then flew home and passed the info back to Russian intelligence, according to a 2021 US Treasury release sanctioning the spy.

To boot, the post-Soviets did deliver the dirt on Hillary. Meanwhile, Manafort and the Trump campaign consistently made moves that signaled cooperation with Russia’s efforts. For example, just before the secret cigar bar meeting, the Trump campaign adjusted RNC party policy on Ukraine, backing off a platform of weaponry support for Kiev against the Russia-backed separatists. Coordination and cooperation appears to have continued well into the Trump administration too.

The Years Since

Not long after the fateful meeting, Manafort’s criming in Ukraine made global headlines, forcing his ouster from the Trump campaign. Yanukovych‘s hand-written accounting of corrupt payments, aka the Black Ledgers, detailed millions Manafort received over and above pay for his “legitimate work” advising the autocratic mob. For what crimes exactly Manafort was paid these millions under the table remains unclear.

Nonetheless, Manafort remained connected to the Trump campaign, Trump admin and the Russian spy. Gates would continue passing polling data to Kilimnik at Manafort’s direction. Wikileaks and all the rest would land Trump an electoral win that November.

Unshockingly, Trump then hired several Russia-friendly officials and advisors to fill his new administration, including National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who had received tens of thousands of dirty dollars giving a 2015 speech for Russia propaganda outlet RT. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had received the Order of Friendship in 2013 from Putin himself. PR Advisor Michael Caputo worked at Russian state giant Gazprom and advised Ukraine’s proRussian Party of Regions beside Manafort after the Orange Revolution.

Shady contacts between the incoming administration and Russian agents continued too. Kushner would meet with a Kremlin-linked, sanctioned Russian banker, obviously not on legitimate business dealings. He and Flynn would ask Russian ambassador Kislyak to use Russia’s secure diplomatic cables (outside reach of US Intelligence) to communicate with the Kremlin. Flynn would be forced to resign nearly immediately when headlines surfaced regarding his communication with Kislyak suggesting the Trump administration would soften sanctions enacted by the Obama administration as punishment for election interference.

On December 8, Kilimnik would write a draft e-mail in an account that Manafort would access soon afterwards. The clandestine communication referenced the plan for Ukraine:

Russians at the very top level are in principle not against this plan and will work with the BG [Yanukovych] to start the process of uniting DNR and LNR [separatists] into one entity, with security issues resolved (i.e. Russian troops withdrawn, radical criminal elements eliminated). The rest will be done by the BG and his people

There we have smoking gun evidence of Kilimnik saying the plan is a
”go” — the Kremlin would direct troops and criminal networks in coordination with Yanukovych to set the stage for the Mariupol plan’s execution.

Surrounding inauguration, Manafort and Kilimnik would secretly meet again in Alexandria, VA to discuss the Mauripol Plan. And then again in Madrid a month later. However, Mueller had little insight into the contents of these meetings aside from their purpose being discussion of this plan for Ukraine.

Manafort would tell Kilimnik he didn’t believe investigations would amount to anything, but they obviously did. With Flynn’s ouster and ramping investigations, so much attention on clandestine contacts and quid pro quo soon made fulfilling the Mariupol Plan like threading a needle.

Could this plan still fly given the aftermath of the 2016 election interference?

Nope.

By spring of 2017, Mueller was appointed Special Council to investigate the crime spree as a global spotlight brought heat. The Mariupol Plan would have to be put on ice. The ‘quo’ part of the quid pro quo, remained and remains undelivered. And we all know how mobsters often treat outstanding debts.

The events surrounding Trump’s impeachment make more sense when viewed in this context. Trump seemed to be attempting to repay a debt he couldn’t earlier, to help Russia reassert malign influence over Ukraine as it struggles for independence. Trump would seek to make Zelenskyy choose whether to engage in corrupt investigations against Biden (which would likely erode US support for Ukraine) or lose US weapons support more immediately. Trump has now succeeded in politicizing US support for the conflict, which many Republicans now oppose.

Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 elections, despite post-Soviet assistance to the Trump campaign in the form compromising materials surrounding Biden’s son. Russia was now back to the same insecure situation it had been in 2015 (Victoria Nulands everywhere in a too-free Ukraine next door, and no compliant partner in the White House.)

Russia’s invasion of February 2022 amounted to an escalation of the old conflict. Miscalculating on several fronts, nonetheless the post-Soviet mob sought to re-impose control over Ukraine by decapitating Kiev initially. Ukraine resisted, punching above its weight class — Ukraine’s competent and motivated forces in stark contrast to Russia’s corrupted ranks, cannon fodder and prisoner soldiers. Ukrainian forces innovative use of drones to take out Russian tanks and warships is particularly impressive.

What the post-Soviets did not miscalculate however was that this conflict could again be used to influence US politics. The escalated invasion clearly and openly defied the long-standing world order, making Biden appear unable to uphold it. (In reality, Biden has, as far as I can tell, impressively herded the Western alliance in response, despite much corruption and malign influence pervading it.) Critically, the Russia-Ukraine War occurring during the current US presidential campaign amounts to a platform for Putin to engage in a wide variety of means to impact US politics. Why this is not being messaged by the Biden administration in advance to blunt the impact is totally beyond me. An attack on Ukraine’s nuclear plants or use of WMDs could have enormous political implications in upcoming US elections.

The front lines of the war in Ukraine today, where Russian forces have dug in also suspiciously reflect their goals evident in the foiled Mariupol plan. Having failed at their bid to take control all Ukraine, Russia has now dug in to entrench their position in its east.

Don’t be surprised if they place Yanukovych back in there as their puppet to break the region away from Kiev’s leadership.

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Wrapping up this already-too-long post, its clear the post-Soviets, like the Soviets before them, simply don’t give a flying f@%k about the people of Ukraine. The relationship is one of exploitation and abuse. The Mariupol Plan, like Stalin’s 5-Year Plan before it, would need to be imposed on Ukraine by autocratic foreign forces, leaving the people of Ukraine in the dark and voiceless, with resources draining out at their oppressors whims, under the thumb of criminal thugs.

Those who argue for forcing Ukraine to sue for peace should ask themselves:

If Russia gets its way, how long until another autocratic Russian plan produces another Holodomor? Is that really peace for Ukrainians?

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