This is a transcript of an interview with Vadim Stolz (VS), chairman of the international editorial board of burtsev.ru – a group of investigative journalists, affiliated with the Internet weekly Left Russia (left.ru). The interview was taken on August 13 by Natasha Barch (NB), member of the Moscow chapter of burtsev.ru. Vadim Stolz spoke on the telephone from Azerbaijan.

NB. Vadim, what can you tell about those who conceived and prepared the genocidal attack against the Ossetian people by the Georgian army?

VS. We believe that this conspiracy matured by the spring of 2008 in the triangle

between Senator McCain's campaign, the former members of Bob Gates's“supersecret group” of 1989-91, and the representatives of the clandestine Banderovite center in the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence of Ukrainian Defense Ministry,

NB. Could you be more specific and give us details and names?

VS. OK. First, I should mention Dick Cheney's VP Office as a vital link between McCain's campaign and the executive power. In McCain's campaign we identify two key individuals: Randy Scheunemann and Robert Kagan.

Scheunemann is McCain's senior advisor on international affairs; he also owns a lobbying firm, hired by Saakashvili to lobby Georgia's membership in Nato.

In 2002 Scheunemann founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (2002) and became a leading lobbyist for the US war against that country. He took part in the falsification of US intelligence on WMD in Iraq and in organizing its puppet government. He was close to the notorious Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Council. Chalabi served as the main disinformation source for the CIA and the Pentagon and provided them with deniability when the scam became evident. It is possible that Scheunemann worked with the “former” high-ranking CIA officer Fritz Ermarth in this disinformation operation. At that time Ermarth was on the pay of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the biggest contractor for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, with Robert Gates on its board and deeply involved in the aggression against Iraq. One of SAIC's contracts was to payroll the Iraqi puppet government hastily put together by Washington. [Fritz Ermarth serves as a liaison between a group of former Soviet intelligence officers behind the front company Far West LLC and right wing cabals in the US military-industrial complex and the political class – Ed.]

As to Robert Kagan, he is McCain's “informal” advisor from the far-right Atlantic elites and their fashionable ideologue who peddles a return to Western imperialism of the pre-WWI period. His wife is the US representative to NATO. They live in Brussels.

Together with William Kristol, Kagan co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that has become a cheerleader and a flag-bearer for protofacist military-political cabal that includes neocons, ultra right-wing Republicans, ethnic post-Nazis elements, and Likudniks, aching for world domination.

The individuals from the “top secret group” who participated in the latest conspiracy in the Caucasus are Robert Gates, Condi Rice, Ermarth, and Eric Edelman, who works for Gates as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. This is an ideologically cohesive group of veterans of the secret war against the SU and Russia.

We believe that the key role in the conspiracy was played by Ukrainian military intelligence, represented by its informal chiefs: generals Vladimir Filin (b. Vladimir Vladimirovich Litovchenko) and Alexei Likhvintsev (b. Alexei Alexeevich Kolosovskii)

Ukrainian generals who were involved in the US-Ukrainian-Georgian “Operation Clean Field”: Vladimir Filin (left) and Alexei Likhvintsev (Likhvintsev's photo is 20 year old)

[Major-General Vladimir Filin has many faces. In addition to his duties in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, he is a vice-chairman of the “consulting” company Far West LLC (formerly Far West LTD) with head-quarters in Dubai. This company serves as a commercial front for an anti-Russian alliance of the intelligence services of the United States, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and some other countries. Filin also posits as “political scientist” in two Russian publications that belong to Far West LLC: Forum.msk.ru and Pravda.info. Until recently he and his FarWest partners also published in Zavtra, Russia's main “nationalist” weekly that he financially supported. Another of Filin's faces is the Brazilian businessman F. T. Carvallo, who owns several ethanol factories and recently entered into a partnership with George Soros's ethanol interests in Brazil. Ed. ]

According to our sources in Ukraine, Filin and Likhvintsev represent the “Banderovite Center” in the Defense Ministry of Ukraine. [Bavderovites – Ukrainian fascists. Ed. ]

Their partners are: Rt. Colonel of Russian military intelligence Anton Surikov (Mansur Nathoev), General-Major Ruslan Saidov (b. Ruslan Sadulaev), advisor to Ruslan Mirzaev, defense minister of Uzbekistan, and the head of the illegal external intelligence service of the Chechen Republic. Also I have mention the Saudi Prince Rasheed, president of Far West LLC and a relative of Prince Turki al-Faisal. This third group of shadow intelligence operatives has no independent political significance. They are trusted agents of the Atlantists, Saudis, Panturkists, and Ukrainian nationalists.

NB. What can you say about the history of this conspiracy?

VS. Politically speaking, the Georgian assault on South Ossetia is a new phase of what we call “Barbarossa-3” -- the project to dismember Russia after the pattern of dismembering the Soviet Union and taking control over its natural resources and nuclear arsenal. Before the spring of 2008 the main focus of Farwest was the blackmail of Russian leadership, in particular, a group of siloviki around Igor Sechin. Ukrainian military intelligence even created a special department “R,” manned by former Soviet GRU officers, to collect dirt on Sechin's and other groupings of Russian highest bureaucracy and business. The idea was to fan the internal struggle between them, perhaps, even provoking a coup in Moscow and destroying Russia from inside. Putin was either to be assassinated or made a hostage, a puppet of the Sechin group. In the end, Putin was able to defeat these plans by playing the old game of “good cop” and “bad cop” (Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov). The transfer of power to Medvedev was smooth. The literary document of that struggle is the book Third Barbarossa by Anton Baumgarten. Its main victim – Lieutenant-General Alexander Bulbov, head of the Operational Department of the Federal Service for Control Over the Trafficking of Narcotics, and his officers, who took “preventive measures” against Farwest. They were arrested in the fall of 2007 and, despite the protests of the Prosecutor General's Office, remain in prison on the fake charges brought against them by Sechin's ally Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Investigation Committee at the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.

A new phase in the secret war against Russia began when the failure to exploit the transfer of presidential power in the Kremlin for creating chaos became apparent and the Republicans were facing defeat in the 2008 presidential elections. In this new phase, the central place was assigned to the “orange” regimes of Saakashvili and Yushchenko.Their role was to provoke a military crisis with Russia that could be used to convince the “old Europe” that a new cold war with Russia was inevitable, to rally them around the United States and to remove any objections for a speedy integration of Georgia and Ukraine into Nato. No less important was the calculation to boost McCain's faltering bid for presidency. In this respect, it is noteworthy that, according to many observers, Robert Gates was involved in the “October surprise” conspiracy of 1980 that brought Reagan and Bush to the White House. A number of Western commentators have pointed to this parallel with the Georgian attack.

There were also larger considerations. According to Kagan's proposal for a new imperialism, the United Nations must be dissolved and replaced by a “league of democracies,” which will defend “civilization” against a “league of autocracies.” It goes without words that Russia (and China) belongs to the last. It follows that the Atlantists need a “new cold war” against Russia in order to cement the ultra imperialistalliance, called “the West.” In Kagan's vision, the system of the international law will be swept aside, leaving a “clean field,” as it were, for an armageddon between the forces of Western light and Eastern darkness. Kagan dreams about the return to the pre-WWI epoch, when Western imperialists, blissfully ignorant of decadent political correctness, whacked “savages” and “barbarians” left and right. This time the “barbarians” will be called a “league of dictators” who threaten the liberties of the “civilized mankind.” Kagan calls all this “the return to history and the end of dreams.” Judging from the powerful publicity that this fascist crap enjoys in the West, Kagan can be seen as the lead ideologue of the Atlantic and post-Nazi elites. “Operation Clean Field” has ideological roots in Kagan's doctrine. In Saakashvili's speeches, Georgia is portrayed as “the bastion of civilization” against “Asiatic slavery.” Georgia's official discourse is full of similar racist nonsense.

NB. U.S. neocons and the ideological sources of the Georgian genocide against the Ossetian people is a very important topic for analysis and we will be writing about it. But what can you tell about the pre-history of “Operation Clean Field”?

VS. Some time ago we published the information, based on our sources in Ukraine's ministry of defense, that in the fall of 2007 General Vladimir Filin was re-assigned from the Special Department “R” to “coordinate” the activities of Ukrainian and Georgian military intelligence. In practice, this meant that Filin controlled the flow of Ukrainian intelligence about Russian military to Georgia. Georgian intelligence services were not adequate for this task and had to rely on Ukrainians. Filin has experienced intelligence cadres, many of who worked for the Soviet GRU, and a strong operational network in southern Russia and in Moscow. Filin also has sources in the Russian Ministry of Defense, the FSB, and other state agencies. Filin and his Farwest partners developed these sources through what is called “commercial recruitment,” or the partnership in criminal activities like narcotrafficking and illegal arms trade. One can say that, as far as human intelligence was concerned, “Operation Clean Field” was supported by Ukrainian military intelligence. The rest was provided by the U.S. technical intelligence, deployed around the city of Gori and elsewhere.

According to our German sources, in mid-March 2008 Robert Kagan had his first meeting with the leadership of Far West LLC – Vladimir Filin, Ruslan Saidov, and Anton Surikov. They were introduced to Kagan in Brussels by the former high-ranking CIA officer Fritz Ermarth, presently of the Nixon Foundation. This meeting established a channel of communication between FarWest and the foreign policy and secret service elements behind McCain's campaign. Then, in May, Filin began his public nuclear blackmail of Russia, hinting that Ukraine's military had concealed some nuclear weapons in violation of the Budapest agreement of 1995. He also continued to demonize German social-democrats by comparing former Chancellor Schroeder and foreign minister Steinmeier to Nazis, and the Russian-German pipeline project Nord Stream to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. 1 

NB. Could Filin raise the theme of Ukraine's re-nuclearization without the approval from Washington?

VS. This is out of question. Filin's statements were obviously sanctioned by Dick Cheney's people and suggested to him by someone from the MacCain campaign, most likely Kagan or Scheunemann. This is evident from what happened next. In May, Bush goes to Berlin and tells Merkel that Ukrainians are determined to have the Bomb if Germans do not approve their membership in NATO. After meeting with Bush, Merkel goes to Kiev, where GUR (military intelligence) has prepared for Yushchenko and the National Security Council a draft of the declaration about Ukraine exiting the Budapest Treaty and no longer bound to remain a non-nuclear-weapon state. In Kiev, Merkel reportedly softens up on the Nato issue but convinces Yushchenko to wait with the declaration. Meanwhile, Ukrainian press respond to Left.ru publications with a lively discussion of Ukraine's nuclear status. Soon the communist deputy Leonid Grach makes an official inquiry about Ukraine's alleged violation of the Budapest Treaty. He writes to Yushchenko and also to the US Ambassador William Taylor. 2 While Russian press continue to pretend that nothing happens, the Moscow mayor Luzhkov repeats his provocative statements about the Crimea and no less provocative anti-Ukrainian publications come out from the Surkov-Belkovskii stable of shady “political scientists.” 3 Passions begin to rise on both sides. This is just what the sponsors of “Operation Clean Field” need.

Finally, a few days before the Georgian attack, Prince Rasheed [president of Far West LLC – Ed.], Saidov, Filin, and Surikov come to the United States, apparently to make last arrangements with the political sponsors of the operation and Gates's people from the DIA. From the United States, Filin flies directly to Georgia. According to our sources, in Gori his role was to prevent a non-sanctioned destruction of the strategic Rok Tunnel by the Georgians.

After the first battalions of 58th Army have reached Tskhinvali, Filin moves to the Kodor Gorge in Abkhazia. We believe that his role there was two-fold. In the situation when the Georgian defeat was imminent he had to provide for a safe evacuation of the Ukrainian military specialists and make sure that the Abkhazians take under their control the entire Gorge. This last and most important task has strategic significance for the plans of Farwest and his Atlantist and Pan-Turkist sponsors. The Kodor Gorge is a bridge between the Abkhazians and their ethnic relatives – the Adygei (Cherkes) of the Northern Caucasus. Their organization “The Cherkes Congress” and the Turkish Grey Wolves envision the creation of the “Greater Cherkessia” as a part of the Pan-Turkist empire of “The Great Turan.” Anton Surikov (Mansur Nathoev) is thought to be in charge of the security service of the “Chechen Congress” and their liaison with the Grey Wolves in Turkey.

NB. If your account is correct Filin had actually helped the Russian army. Why did they want to keep the Tunnel open?

VS. It is because getting the Russians into Georgia was the main political objective of “Operation Clean Field,” at least for its American sponsors and the Ukrainians, if not for Saakashvili. They just could not imagine that the Georgian army disintegrate that fast. Their strategic goal was to draw Russia into a protracted war, as exhausting and bloody as possible, with big losses of life among civil population and chaos spreading over the entire Caucasus and beyond, into Russia's interior. Do not forget that a genocidal attack was planned against Abkhazia as well. The Georgian war plans, captured by the Russian army, show the encirclement of the Abkhazian forces and most of its population. It is likely that the main concentration of Ukrainian military specialists was in Abkhazia's Kodor Gorge rather than around Tskhinvali. But the Russian army did not get bogged down in Tskhinvali and the lightning speed of its advance stunned U.S. military experts. Even the use of Ukrainian specialists did not help the Georgian army. According to our information, Ukrainian SAMs, manned by Ukrainian crews, downed all four aircraft lost by the Russians. But this was of little significance for the outcome of this war. Perhaps, the loss of a Tu-22 strategic bomber had slowed down somewhat the advance of our troops, because we began to use aviation with more caution. But as soon as the Georgians were dislodged from their positions on the heights around Tskhinvali, we began rolling fast towards Gori. Facing the Russian “blitzkrieg,” Filin evacuated the Ukrainians from the Kodor Gorge. I believe this was a part of their minimum plan anyway. No one could seriously count on Georgia's final victory. They used Georgia as expendable country, as a bait and hook for Russia. Ukraine was entirely different business. Filin's lobbying for Ukraine's nuclear status had begun in anticipation of a Russian-Georgian war that he helped to provoke.

NB. Could we have avoided biting their bait?

VS. No chance. They knew that Russia could not sit and watch a genocide in South Ossetia. So they pushed Saakashvili to this criminal and stupid adventure. Their goal was not to occupy South Ossetia. Americans do not care about this. Otherwise, the first thing they would have done was to destroy the Rok Tunnel. Instead, they began murdering the peacekeepers and civil population as if inviting the Russians to come to their rescue. Their calculation was accurate. Russia had a choice between very bad and the worst, between war and abandoning the South Ossetians to extermination. We had to choose war and make our relations with the West deteriorate even more, which seriously undermined our allies their like Steinmeier and others.

NB. But why didn't we launch a preventive strike? Well, I guess this was a stupid question. They would present us as aggressors.

VS. You bet! In that case, Russia could have to pay much more for saving two thousands lives. Ukraine would have gotten the green light for Nato membership and then we would have to act fast and in full force, risking dangerous consequences.

NB. In other words, our victory in South Ossetia was not victory after all.

VS. Neither a victory nor a defeat. After all, in Russian the word for victory (po – beda) includes these seemingly opposite meanings. We have failed to prevent the death of two thousand people and the destruction. We also had to take the bait, because the strategic initiative remains in their hands and they won't stop at anything. But we have won morally. This is the main thing. Besides, they cannot foresee everything. Our diplomatic activity begin to bring results they did not expect.

NB. Saakashvili's regime has been armed to the teeth by Ukraine, Israel, and the United States. What was the role of Farwest in arming Georgia?

VS. Their role was exceptional. Generals Filin and Likhvintsev represent GUR in supervising Ukraine's military-technical exchange with other countries. They were also primary business partners of the defense minister Okruashvili, selling arms to Georgia through their front company Far West LTD and later through BIVIS-RU. Incidentally, this was the reason that the publication in “Profil” about arms shipments from Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the United States provoked Filin's hysterical response. That article openly blamed Ukraine for warmongering and inciting arms race in the Caucasus. 4 As I recall, that's when Filin for the first time described Russia as Ukraine's likely military adversary and threatened to make public the information about the kickbacks in the arms deals between Russia and Venezuela. 5 Farwest sold Georgia not only the arms from the arsenals of the Ukrainian defense ministry but also the unlicensed arms from their pirate factories in Poland, Bulgaria, and Jordan.

NB. What is to come next?

VB. They will remove Saakashvili. For the United States he's become expendable long ago. Last spring it was decided to put Burdjanadze in his place. Since then she distanced herself from Saakashvili.Yushchenko is in the same boat with Saakashvili. The Americans and Banderovites will replace him with Timoshenko. They think they can control her. For some time she fought for her independence, but in the end Filin, Galaka, Likhvintsev, and other Banderovites psychologically broke her. [Alexander Galaka – forner head of GUR – Ed.]. Now Timoshenko believes they will kill her if she disobeys.

Russia will have to face now provocations in Sevastopol as they will attempt to draw us in a war with Ukraine. If they succeed, it will be impossible to avoid a new cold war and the West will support the Banderovites going nuclear. The hard-core ultra-nationalists in Ukraine are quite capable of dropping the Bomb on Moscow.

Kadyrov and his 25 thousand fighters-veterans of the Dudaev-Maskhadov regime (do not confuse them with the heroic pro-Moscow battalions of Chechen spetsnaz “East” and “West”) so far keep quiet. They are not a threat for now. Better not touch them, we have more urgent business to take care of.

In Turkey, the Grey Wolves used the Supreme Court to intimidate the prime minister Erdogan. He is afraid of them and seeks understanding and support from Russia.

Israel--where all politicians are obsessed with Iran and compete with each other for being the toughest—risks to find itself in Saakashvili's position, in case the Israelis attack Iran. The United States and the Gulf Arabs want Israel to go for this, because they are afraid of Iranians and wish to weaken them by someone else's hands.

The United States are having back-room negotiations with China. From what we hear, the Chinese want to have their own sector of responsibility in Afghanistan. This will automatically make the Central Asia and Kazakhstan their sphere of influence. In exchange, they can use Iran as a bargaining chip with the United States. Unfortunately, we cannot verify this information.

As far as we can see, relations between Putin and Medvedev remain good, but there are constant efforts from inside and outside to drive a wedge between them. Western press and the Russian press, controlled by Farwest, deliberately portray Putin as a fascist. Russia's exclusion from G-8 is almost inevitable. In CIS, no state openly supported Russia. Medvedev and Putin personally asked Lukashenko, Nazarbaev, and Karimov for support but they refused. This is all I have to say for now.

NB. Thank you, Vadim.

You can write to us at research@left.ru

Примечания

1  Andrei Petrov. “Bush blackmails Germany by Ukraine's plans to go nuclear. A new round in the strategy of tension? “ For Filin's anti-German vitriol, see his publications in Forum.msk.ru “In the Treaty Putin – Schroeder Vladimir Vladimirovich – Is for Sure Not Stalin but His Funny Cop,” Taras Klimenko “Ukraine Can Again Become Nuclear State” Forum.msk.ru , 2008.05.28 <http://forum.msk.ru/english/material/eng_news/465130.html> , Natalia Roeva, “Schroeder – Fuerer of the IV Reich” <http://forum.msk.ru/material/lenty/476007.html>

2  “Ukrainian Deputy Asks U.S. Ambassador Taylor to Clarify US Position on Ukraine's Nuclear Status.” Left.ru # 7, 2008 <http://left.ru/2008/7/grach_eng176.phtml>

3  “Luzhkov: Ukraine Has No Grounds to Appropriate Crimea and Sevastopol.” MIGnews .com 14.05.2008 <http://mignews.com.ua/en/articles/302052.html> . See, Igor Dzhadan's “The Mechanical Orange” The Russian Journal 21 April 2008 <http://www.russ.ru/stat_i/operaciya_mehanicheskij_apel_sin> (in Russian). Partly translated by Farwest 's “The Kremlin Is Ready to Make Demonstrative Nuclear Attack against Ukraine in the Southern Part of Pripyatsky Bogs.” Forum.msk.ru 2008.04.25 <http://forum.msk.ru/english/material/eng_news/470793.html>

4  Барабанов Михаил. ЗДРАВСТВУЙ, ОРУЖИЕ!Профиль №40(548) от 29.10.2007 <http://www.profile.ru/items/?item=24498>

5  «Военно-техническое сотрудничество России с Венесуэлой, Сирией и Ираном основано на мошенничестве и коррупции» <http://forum.msk.ru/print.html?id=398798>