The guesswork in this blog has been clarified. The armed man in Mariupol who spoke English is a man from London named Leon Swampy. In his words, he has gone to Ukraine to do what he thinks is right.
A social page on him mentions the Azov special purpose regiment. That group is discussed a bit here. It is slated to be folded into the National Guard of Ukraine. It is a battle-hardened group. I find this very interesting because the announcement by American General Hodges, which is discussed here, says “American soldiers will deploy to Ukraine this spring to begin training four companies of the Ukrainian National Guard.” Armored vehicles will also be shipped in. This means that American soldiers will be training Ukrainian soldiers, some of whom are already veterans of combat.
Why is this significant? It’s significant because the article tends to mislead us. The Pentagon spokesperson was a Ms. Hillman. “The training was requested by the Ukrainian government ‘as they work to reform their police forces and establish their newly formed National Guard,’ Hillman added.”
The conjunction of police training with National Guard does not look accurate to me. And she also said this: “The American training effort comes as part of a US State Department initiative ‘to assist Ukraine in strengthening its law enforcement capabilities, conduct internal defense, and maintain rule of law’ Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Vanessa Hillman told Defense News.”
I really do not think that the training has anything to do with law enforcement, police forces and rule of law, not if it involves elements like the Azov regiment or people like Swampy. The words “internal defense” seem to mean going into battle against the forces in eastern Ukraine. I think it should be made clear to the world that the U.S. is intervening in this war. This is not merely a matter of helping Ukraine enforce rule of law in the usual senses of that phrase. This will become more clear as time passes. I am perhaps merely putting two and two together a little sooner and I am pointing out that the U.S. government has the nasty habit of obfuscating what it’s doing.
4:30 pm on January 28, 2015
