Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 4/14/23 Rick Sterling on Why Zelensky Will Not Take Back Crimea

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Scott interviews journalist Rick Sterling about what he learned on a trip to Crimea back in 2016. Sterling explains how the trip came about, who he was able to meet and why it’s convinced him the current regime in Kyiv will not be able to take control over the peninsula.    Discussed on the show: “Why Zelensky Will NOT Take Back Crimea” (Antiwar.com) Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at [e-mail]. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys introducing rick sterling and he's a journalist from san francisco and it's been a little while since he's been on the show but he's good on lots of stuff and in this case he's got some firsthand experience to share with us why Zelensky will not take back Crimea, it's called, at anti-war.com. Welcome back to the show. How are you doing, Rick?

Glad to be with you, Scott. Great, happy to have you here. So you went to Crimea, as it says here, with a delegation from the Center for Citizen Initiatives. Tell us first about that before everybody gets all suspicious. Okay, well, the Center for Citizens. Citizen Initiative, website ccisf.org, is an organization that was founded by Sharon Tennyson in the 1980s, and it has been operating since that time conducting people-to-people delegations.

Russians coming to the United States and U.S. citizens and people from the West going to Russia. She, Sharon had a particular focus on rotary clubs. So she tried to link up rotary clubs in North America with rotary clubs in Russia. And what exactly is a rotary club? It's a little old fashion even to me, I think. Exactly, exactly. So, and then she was also instrumental in. Oh, I'm sorry.

Can you describe those a little bit? What is a rotary club? Rotary Club is a business organization, and they're kind of, I mean, they're, they're, they've been, they have a business perspective. It's, it's business oriented, but it seeks to promote, you know, goodwill between nations. And they host, like, even just on the local level, they kind of are a venue for people giving political speeches and stuff like that. Is that right? I've all, I've often heard of them, but never really very much, you know? Okay, right. Well, in fact, my dad was a Rotarian, and he was a proud Rotarian. So that was just something of interest to me. But it goes far beyond that. Her delegations went all over Russia, and they went all over the U.S., especially in the 1980s and the 1990s. Russians were keen to make contact with Americans to learn from. American business practices. And so Sharon was a part of that. She received some funding from USAID, which was cut off later in the 1990s. As, you know, toward the end of the, well, at the

beginning of the Putin period, I think it was cut off. But the one other organization I want to mentioned that she was helping to promote, to promote was Alcoholics Anonymous. So she did that in Russia. And I have a good friend who was a former alcoholic himself who, who benefited from here in the Bay Area. And he went to Russia numerous times and promoted that organization there. That's great. And I've talked to her at least one time on the show. And it seems like a great lady of goodwill and she just wants to help people understand each other better, that kind of thing. So her organization arranged this trip that you were a part of. And can you just tell us a little bit more about that, the trip itself and how many people went with you and how did you end up

in Crimea of all places right now? Yeah, it was a fascinating trip. So this was in 2016. So it was two years after the coup in Kiev and two years after Crimea seceded from Ukraine and what they call reunified with Russia. And we can talk more about that later. But the whole trip was about 15 people. There were some people that you probably know. Anne Wright was a part of the delegation, Ray McGovern, David Hartzaw. So some people like that, and then some, you know, a number of others. There was about 14 or 15 people on the delegation. We spent four or five days in Crimea, and that actually was one of the highlights of the trip. It was amazing to see. It's very beautiful. The Black Sea is wonderful

to swim in. The people were very happy to see us, because at that time, they had been under two years of Western sanctions. Visa card didn't work. There were all sorts of U.S. sanctions on, specifically on Crimea. They used to have cruise ships that would arrive at the ports in Crimea. They were no longer landing there, so there was economic consequences. but there was, we talked with a wide range of people there from the elected city councils in Simferopol, which is the capital of Crimea, it's inland.

Also, we met with numerous elected officials in Yalta and Sevastopol, and they were really very, very clear and very happy that they had, as I say, rejoined. or reunified with, with Russia. So I was, I didn't know much about Crimea before going there, so I was kind of amazed to learn that Crimea was part of Russia since 1783, that there's a long history, that the people there speak Russian. So there was, you know, if you like, we can get into more of the reasons they, they decided to secede from Ukraine. But it was, you know, it was very overwhelming. The election results were 97% voted to reunify with an 83% turnout. We talked with a diverse number of people, a lot of young people, including Tatars, including

Armenians, including Ukrainians, and Russians. It was, you know, it was across the board. They realized this was the best thing for Crimea. Yeah, that's very interesting. So, first of all, I'm sorry because I read it wrong. I thought you just recently went in the middle of all of this. And so I was like, holy crap, man. But then I'm reading this and now I see that, okay, this is years ago. Right. Now that I'm listening to you more carefully than I read this in the first place. Right. Well, it's still fascinating piece, though, and it's still on time because it's during a very controversial time, as you're alluding to right there. This didn't just happen for no reason, but right. Right. Right. Look, we already know that story. I want to hear more about what was going on there and

and who you met and what they told you and those kinds of cool things. One of the interesting things was to meet with some young Tatars. And this was, Tatars are the indigenous group. They're, most of them are Muslim. They have Turkish, kind of a Turkish background. And so that was an interesting group. there was some, you know, hostility toward the Soviet Union, and some had sided with the Nazis during World War II and had been expelled on account of it by Stalin to Siberia. But they had been under the Putin administration, they had been the Tatars who wanted to go back to Crimea, were invited to do so and were given some insubis.

incentives to do so. And so there's a Tatar community that's always been there, and then there's some also that are returning. And that is seen by the West as being a minority group that can be a thorn in the side of Moscow. We talked with some very sharp young Tatars who were really clear that the best thing for them is to be part of Russia and they like the changes that have taken place. I remember asking one of them if, and there was a group that engaged in some terrorist action after the, after the coup and after the decision by Crimeans to rejoin Russia. There were some terrorist actions. There were electrical power pylons that were exploded.

And the organization that was behind that was, it's called the Mediolis group. And they didn't leave any doubt about it. On the down power pylons, they spray painted their logo. So there was no doubt about that. but so I was curious what they thought about medialists and what they you know how they how they viewed the situation overall and as I was saying they think the best thing was with them with their community as well is with Russia and they they made a specific reference to the Soros money going to through NGOs to fund organizations that that have supported the coup in Kiev and supported the ultra-nationalists. So that was kind of, I didn't mention Soros, they brought it up. And afterwards, I looked it up, and it's all over the place that Soros

invested at least $230 million in NGO operations in Ukraine. Hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, the audio book of my book, Enough Already. Time to End the War on Terrorism is finally done. Yes, of course, read by me. It's available at Audible, Amazon, Apple Books, and soon on Google Play and whatever other options there are out there. It's my history of America's War on Terrorism from 1979 through today.

Give it a listen and see if you agree. It's time to just come home. Enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. The Audio Book Hey guys, I've had a lot of great webmasters over the years, but the team at Expanddesigns.com have by far been the most competent and reliable. Harley Abbott and his team have made great sites for the show and the Institute,

and they keep them running well, suggesting and making improvements all along. Make a deal with Expandesigns.com for your new business or news site. They will take care of you. Use the promo code Scott and save $500. That's expanddesigns.com. Man, I wish I was in school so I could drop out and sign up for Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom instead. Tom has done such a great job on putting together a classical curriculum for everyone from

junior high schoolers on up through the postgraduate level, and it's all very reasonably priced. Just make sure you click through from the link in the right margin at Scott Horton.org. Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom. Real history, real economics, real education. Yeah, Kit Glarrenberg and others have great write-ups on all of that. Yes. And he wasn't even the worst in that one. But so.

Well, yeah, I mean, Victoria Newland herself said that the U.S. has spent $5 billion since the early 1990s to quote-unquote promote democracy in Ukraine. Well, listen, she can feel the will of the entire Ukrainian people. she's such a jam so talk about this bus attack because this was you know I guess here little noticed but obviously was a huge turning point in the sort of after coup

situation now what's going to happen and then this is one of the first things that happened exactly well the events in the Maidon, the central plaza in Kiev, are hugely important and deserve a lot more study. There's a Ukrainian-Canadian professor named Ivan Kachinovsky who's done a very, very detailed examination of what went on there, and specifically the massacre of people which took place. And he's got very, very convincing evidence that it was the shootings of both police and protesters was by snipers located in buildings controlled by the insurrectionists, by the opposition.

Anyway, and the key date there was February 20 of 2014. And meanwhile, several hundred people had had, taken time out of their work and taken time out of their studies and gone by bus from Crimea to Kiev for several weeks in advance to provide an alternative perspective and to protest against the violent protests which were taking place in the Maidan Plaza and they were These were kind of known as the anti-Midon, since the Midan protesters will call themselves the Midan protesters. In any case, there were several hundred people from Crimea that had gone there, had taken time

out of their schedules to do that. When the climax of the events there was on February 20, when approximately 50, when approximately 50 people were killed on the Maiden Plaza with dozens more injured. And the total number of deaths is near 100. But in any case, the climax was on February 20. At the end of that day, the people said, this is hopeless. We're trying to peacefully protest here in support of the government and against the violent protesters. And there's mass killings going on. We need to just go back. We need to go home.

Doing a peaceful protest in this environment makes no sense. So they started on their convoy of eight buses, and they got about 100 miles south of Kiev on the way back to Crimea. And then a roadblock by ultra-nationalists took place. They had logs across the road, and they were only allowing the vehicles that they permitted to pass, and they stopped these buses. They were very aware of who was on there. In any case, what they did was they terrorized all the people on the buses. They tortured many.

They killed seven, and it was a, you know, this was a huge shock to the people in Crimea, who, Of course, as soon as possible, the people communicated with their friends and family back in Crimea what had happened, and the news of that event, you know, spread very rapidly. And that was the people that we talked with in Crimea mentioned that as being another decisive reason that they realized they had no place in this kind of a. this kind of a crime of a ukraine they had been part of ukraine they had voted in elections they had been participating and but this was the last straw because there was nothing but hatred and violence being shown by the ultra-nationalist or neo-nazzi uh thugs who had uh had a lot of influence in the in the my don and in the uh the current uh the kiev government that took place just a few days following the February 20.

And then, so when you talk to not just the ethnic Russian majority, but when you talk to the Tatars and what other groups did you mention that you had gone? Or Armenian. Oh, and Armenian. When you talked to them, they all agreed that they would way rather be under Russian control than Ukrainian control? Yes. And now was it like a Soviet commissar that? took you on this tour and introduced you to these people?

Well, I don't think Soviet, there's not too many Soviet gommissars in the Rotary organization. Okay. So they weren't all living in Potemkin villages and? No, no. We've been a diverse group of people. And we talked with elected officials as well. These are the people who, you know, are popularly elected.

So we did meet with some people from the Crimean government, the elected city council of Simperipol and elected public servants or officials in Yalta and Sebastopol. We met with people like that, but we also met with just everyday people. We also talked with cultural people who are most involved in cultural activities. Yeah. All right. High school students, college students, you know, we met with a diverse range of people. As I was saying, we had about 15 people on the delegation. What we did there is we divided it up into little groups of two or three and met with all sorts of different people. So to make the most of our time there, I went with my friend Bob Spies.

So he's a friend now, but I first met him on that trip. And so we visited with an Armenian culture group. And other people met with other people. But it was, you know, across the board. And another reason that the people in Crimea were happy that they had taken that decision two years previously was that Russia was investing a lot in upgrading the infrastructure, which had been neglected. They complained that Crimea was neglected by Kiev, you know, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and that things were falling apart.

There was no investment in improving the infrastructure, and that even in the short time of two years, Russia had dramatically started improving things. Roads, there was a new airport in Simpharapol. There were plans underway for building the Kerch Strait Bridge, which is a very, it's a, I think it's 15 miles. It's a very long bridge that passes across the Kurtz Straits of the, from the Black Sea to the Ezov Sea. So they, They were, you know, they were, they had no regrets. Yeah. All right.

Well, and that's no surprise either. But I didn't know that, that you had gone there, or if we talked about that, my Biden brain had forgotten about it. So I'm really glad that you wrote about this and I really appreciate your time on the show. I'm sorry, we're short on time today, but great to talk to you again, Rick. Okay. Yep. Bye-bye.

All right you guys. That's Rick Sterling. He's at anti-war.com with this one. Wieselensky will not take back Crimea. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.