Murder Of Journalist In Ukraine Comes Amid Wave Of Mysterious Opposition Deaths

It is April 20th which means today is the day the US government begins training neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine. The training comes at a frightening time in Ukraine as journalists and opposition politicians are being killed in the streets while the government in Kiev continues to claim it wants to be part of Western society.

The killing of journalist Oles Buzyna from a drive-by shooting is just the latest in a series of sudden deaths among those opposing the regime in Kiev. Oleg Kalashnikov, a former ally of President Yanukovich, was also gunned down this month. Sadly, those killings are becoming unexceptional in post-coup Ukraine where numerous officials and supporters of the overthrown government have ended up dead.

As Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com points out, the killings of Buzyna and Kalshinikov come after a wave of mysterious and gruesome deaths of those opposing the current government in Kiev. A trend that started out as questionable "suicides" appears to have degenerated to outright thuggish street killings:

* January 26 – Nikolai Sergienko, former deputy chief of Ukrainian Railways and a supporter of Viktor Yanukoych’s Party of Regions, reportedly shot himself with a hunting rifle. The windows were all locked from inside, and no note was found.
* January 29 – Aleksey Kolesnik, the former chairman of the Kharkov regional government and a prominent supporter of the now-banned Party of Regions, supposedly hung himself. There was no suicide note
* February 24 – Stanislav Melnik, another former Party of Regions member of parliament, was found dead in his bathroom: he is said to have shot himself with a hunting rifle. We are told he left a suicide note of “apologies,” but what he was apologizing for has never been revealed, since the note has not been released.
* February 25 – Sergey Valter, former Party of Regions activist and Mayor of Melitopol, was found hanged hours before his trial on charges of “abuse of office” was set to begin. Whoever was responsible neglected to leave a “suicide” note.
* February 26 – Aleksandr Bordyuga, Valter’s lawyer and former deputy chief of Melitopol police, was found in his garage, dead, another “suicide.
* February 26 – Oleksandr Peklushenko, a former Party of Regions member of parliament and chairman of Zaporozhye Regional State Administration, was found dead in the street with a gun wound to his neck. Officially declared a “suicide.”
* February 28 – Mikhail Chechetov, a professor of economics and engineering, former member of parliament from the Party of Regions, and former head of the privatization board, supposedly jumped from the seventeenth floor window of his Kiev apartment. Another “suicide”!
* March 14 – Sergey Melnichuk, a prosecutor and Party of Regions loyalist, “fell” from the ninth floor window of an apartment building in Odessa. Or was he pushed?

Add in Buzyna and Kalshinikov and one could be forgiven for seeing a pattern.

The US response to Ukraine's collapsing civil society is typical for the Obama Administration -  double down on propaganda. Rather than criticize the US' supposed allies in Ukraine for exterminating their political critics Team Obama and friends want to turn their attention to losing an "information war" with Russia. In these alternate universe the US - inventor of public relations - is unable to muster a communications strategy.

The source of this complaint? US government communications. Hope and change at the most transparent administration in history™.