For context* he said this👇 right after Russia invaded Ukraine (he'd blamed Ukraine, the EU, & Nato for 'provoking' Russia) and the month after his Stop The War Coalition colleagues set up a group to defend the 'Anti-Fascist Resistance' in the Russian-run 'Republics'. /THREAD/
*I noticed someone in the replies whining about context. Around the same time as he gave those comments in Newport in this👆 clip he was telling a Lyndon LaRouche organisation in Australia this 👇schillerinstitute.org/conf-iclc/2015… ![[Nato's] interests in the Ukraine are not benign interests in support for the people of Ukraine. It's about advancing military technology and a military presence further and further eastwards in order to create this ghastly scenario of some kind of hi-tech war with Russia in the future.](/images/1px.png)
![[Nato's] interests in the Ukraine are not benign interests in support for the people of Ukraine. It's about advancing military technology and a military presence further and further eastwards in order to create this ghastly scenario of some kind of hi-tech war with Russia in the future.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dlwy68NXoAA21Ip.jpg)
One year later at the Channel Four Labour leadership hustings he said if Russia invaded Lithuania we'd be "sucked into it" because we're in Nato. (He's since repeated that the UK shouldn't help defend our friends in the Baltics at least 3 times.)
At that same 2015 C4 hustings he claimed that 'the Russian military/industrial connections used the opportunity [of Ukraine's Maidan]' to push their government (Putin) into doing things like invading Crimea.
He said something similar to Andrew Marr in Sept 2015. news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h…
At the 2015 Daily Mirror hustings Liz Kendall quoted him saying Nato had provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. His response was "I didn't say that, come on I've never said that, so please."
In that response to Kendall somehow I doubt that he was splitting hairs over what he wrote in the Morning Star about Ukraine in 2014, which was "not unprovoked". Look at how he reacted to this question from Marr. He's bored with us mere mortals.
That Morning Star 2014 piece also contained this line, which is just gobsmackingly offensive for Ukrainians. His Sept 2015 comments so offended Lithuanians that the Ambassador wrote to the Guardian. theguardian.com/world/2015/sep…
Also forgotten about the Morning Star piece is that federalising Ukraine is a Russian propaganda line and not based on any actual movement in Ukraine for federalisation. "Ukrainian politics are divided between Ukrainian and Russian-speaking people" was also Russian propaganda BS.
That same month, Aug 2015, a Ukrainian human rights activist had said that Corbyn was ignoring Russian human rights abuses. His campaign claimed that he'd "sent his support to peace campaigners across the region." thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/polit… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I recently asked that human rights activist, @halyapuff, if she'd seen any subsequent "support to peace campaigners across the region", this is what she said 👇
Also in late summer 2015 we already had #suggestacorbynsmear and jokes on Radio Four about Jeremy Corbyn refusing to be was a Russian agent. That was how those of us writing on Corbyn & Russia were treated. #smear is still, of course, around, post-Skripal not so much the joking.
Last September, reacting to reports of Russian interference, here it was the EU referendum, a Labour spokesman (Seumas Milne, who Corbyn has said, over Salisbury, speaks for him) said this. politicshome.com/news/uk/defenc…
2018 post-Salisbury, & post Milne's disastrous comments, Corbyn told the House that he supported "action to challenge Russia that is robust and hard hitting". hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-0… And said this 👇
But now, late Summer 2018, and despite Dawn Sturgess' murder, we're back to what he told Russia Today in 2014 - no to sanctions on the Kremlin. It should be crystal clear by now that the UK under Corbyn would act against Western unity and in Russia's interests.
There's a whole other thread in the cover given by Corbyn for Russia in Syria but I'll just leave a yelling @nurseboothroyd in summary of that here.
And I'll just leave this here. It's from his 2011 introduction to the book 'Imperialism: A Study' by John Atkinson Hobson. (ht @rcolvile)
One more quick point. @OzKaterji reported this newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20… I have heard of two other unreported instances of absolutely explicit pro-Russian bias by Milne.
Just leaving this here ...
