Copyright by Brian Howard Seibert
POST FOURTEEN POINT ZERO
14.0 May 18 Crimean Tatar Genocide Remembrance Day
The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) reported, “18 May 2022 marks the 78th anniversary of the 1944 Deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people from Crimea. It is eight years since Russia, having invaded and annexed Crimea, prohibited Crimean Tatars from gathering in remembrance of the victims of this heinous crime which is recognized in Ukraine and Canada as genocide.
This year, as in all previous years, under Russian occupation, Crimean Tatars known for their civic position have received ‘warnings’ from the Russian occupation police or prosecutor’s office. These warn them of “the inadmissibility of extremist activities”. Since they are invariably delivered in the days leading up to 18 May, it would seem clear that the Russian occupiers view honouring victims of a crime against the entire Crimean Tatar people to be ‘extremism’.
The warnings remain identical from year to year, however there are differences this year, and not only because of Russia’s total war against Ukraine, and the extension of its methods of terror to areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblast under Russian occupation.
Those western political leaders and analysts who believe Ukraine should accept Russian occupation of Crimea and Donbas because, allegedly, Putin needs to “save face”, would do well to remember that, in 2021, both areas under actual or effective Russian occupation received freedom ratings from Freedom House that were close to those of North Korea. They should also note that Russia is leaving nothing to the imagination about the repression and rights violations that will swiftly follow any other Ukrainian territory if it falls under Russian occupation.”
Crimean Tatar Genocide Remembrance Prohibited
and Mounting Terror in Russian Occupied Crimea
18.05.2022
Halya Coynash
18 May 2022 marks the 78th anniversary of the 1944 Deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people from Crimea. It is eight years since Russia, having invaded and annexed Crimea, prohibited Crimean Tatars from gathering in remembrance of the victims of this heinous crime which is recognized in Ukraine as genocide.
Back in May 2014, Russia claimed that this was merely a ban on all gatherings, supposedly due to the war in Donbas and possible ‘trouble from extremists’. The ban was, however, lifted just in time for a Russian language festival on 6 June. It has remained in force specifically against remembrance of the Deportation and, effectively, against Crimean Tatars.
This year, as in all previous years, under Russian occupation, Crimean Tatars known for their civic position have received ‘warnings’ from the Russian occupation police or prosecutor’s office. These warn them of “the inadmissibility of extremist activities”. Since they are invariably delivered in the days leading up to 18 May, it would seem clear that the Russian occupiers view honouring victims of a crime against the entire Crimean Tatar people to be ‘extremism’.
The warnings remain identical from year to year, however there are differences this year, and not only because of Russia’s total war against Ukraine, and the extension of its methods of terror to areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblast under Russian occupation.
One of the regular recipients of such ‘warnings’ is now himself a political prisoner. The arrest of Nariman Dzhelyal, Crimean Tatar Mejlis leader, journalist and human rights defender, on 4 September 2021, both marked and was accompanied by an ominous new escalation in Russia’s persecution of Crimean Tatars.
It was entirely clear that Russia had arrested Dzhelyal in revenge for his participation in the inaugural meeting in Kyiv on 23 August of the international Crimea Platform. He and two other Crimean Tatars – civic journalist Asan Akhtemov and his cousin, Aziz Akhtemov, were charged with a supposed ‘act of sabotage’ claimed to have taken place on the day that Dzhelyal spoke with high-ranking representatives of 45 democratic states about the situation in Crimea.
Their ‘trial’ is now underway, with the men facing 20-year sentences on absolutely preposterous charges, with the only ‘evidence’ from anonymous witnesses who may well not know any of the men.
The seizure of the above three men, as well as two others, bore all the hallmarks of abductions, not arrests, yet those members of their families and other Crimean Tatars who gathered outside the FSB offices to find out their whereabouts were roughly detained themselves. Since then there have been several mass detentions, including of elderly people and women carrying cakes and balloons who came to greet human rights lawyer Edem Semedlyaev, who had been imprisoned for 12 days, essentially for properly representing those detained earlier.
Those arrests also heralded an escalation in open abductions, clearly aimed at torturing and / or threatening other Crimean Tatars into providing false testimony. While two men have found the courage to publicly report the torture they were subjected to, it is likely that others agreed to initially sign a piece of paper, and then found the FSB come back with further demands, including acting as the ‘anonymous witnesses’ used to imprison political prisoners for up to 20 years.
Since the beginning of Russia’s total war against Ukraine, a large number of Crimean Tatar civic activists and journalists have received horrific sentences (from 12 to 19 years) without any crime. The charges all faced are one of Russia’s most cynical conveyor belts of repression, with a large number of other political prisoners likely to receive similar sentences in the coming months.
See, for example, Russia passes 19-year sentences against Crimean Tatar journalist and activists for defending human rights
Another such conveyor belt has accelerated since Russia seized parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Over recent months, at least four Crimean Tatars (Arsen Ibraimov; Rustem Gugurik; Rustem Osmanov and Nazrulla Seidaliev) have been arrested and charged with involvement, while in mainland Ukraine, in the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion. This body is perfectly legal in Ukraine and is not, despite the name, an armed formation. Three of the men are permanently resident in the Kherson oblast, with Rustem Osmanov having actually been seized by the invading forces at his Kherson oblast home and then illegally taken to Crimea.
It is certainly not the case that only Crimean Tatars are persecuted in occupied Crimea, as the apparent abduction turned arrest of civic journalist and medical worker Iryna Danilovych has made all too clear. Crimean Tatars, however, and the Mejlis, or self-governing body, of the Crimean Tatar people, played an enormous role in upholding Ukrainian unity and territorial integrity and the fact that the main indigenous people of Crimea so clearly identify themselves with Ukraine is doubtless an irritant to Moscow. The vast majority of Ukrainian political prisoners held in occupied Crimea or Russia are Crimean Tatars, and it is ominously plain that the Russian invaders are also targeting Crimean Tatars in temporarily occupied parts of Kherson oblast.
Those western political leaders and analysts who believe Ukraine should accept Russian occupation of Crimea and Donbas because, allegedly, Putin needs to “save face”, would do well to remember that, in 2021, both areas under actual or effective Russian occupation received freedom ratings from Freedom House that were close to those of North Korea. They should also note that Russia is leaving nothing to the imagination about the repression and rights violations that will swiftly follow any other Ukrainian territory if it falls under Russian occupation.
Russian Soldier on Trial for War Crimes
Pleads Guilty to Killing Civilian
The Guardian reported, “The first Russian soldier on trial for war crimes in Ukraine during Moscow’s invasion has pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed civilian.
Vadim Shishimarin, 21, appeared at Kyiv’s Solomyansky district court charged with war crimes and premeditated murder.
Shishimarin is accused of killing an unarmed civilian, a 62-year-old man in the northeast Ukrainian village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
Asked in court if he was guilty of the allegations, including war crimes and premeditated murder, Shishimarin responded “yes”. If convicted, he faces up to life imprisonment.
Ukraine’s state prosecutors said Shishimarin – a sergeant from the Siberian region of Irkutsk – and four other Russian servicemen fired at and stole a privately owned car to escape after their column was targeted by Ukrainian forces.
The soldiers drove into the village of Chupakhivka where they saw an unarmed 62-year-old man riding a bicycle and talking on his phone, they said.
Prosecutors said Shishimarin was ordered by another serviceman to kill the civilian to prevent him from reporting on the Russians’ presence. Using a Kalashnikov assault rifle, he fired several shots through the open window of the car at the civilian’s head, they said. The civilian died on the spot.
It is the first war crimes trial since Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.”
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“The VARANGIANS” Series:
‘The Varangians’ series of five books is about the Danish Varangian Princes of early Rus’ (Ukraine), based on The Nine Books of Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus and the Rus’ Primary Chronicle of Nestor. The Rus’ monk Nestor asserts that Rus’ was founded by three brothers, Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, but the Danish names in Book 5 of Saxo’s work are Erik, Sigfrodi (King Frodi) and Roller, three brothers from Denmark and Norway.
Book One of the five book Varangians Series places the Saga of King Frodi the Peaceful from Book Five of The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) into its proper chronological location in history. In 1984, when I first started the book, I had placed the main character, Erik’s (Hraerik’s) birth at circa 800 CE, but have since revised it to 810 to better fit with the timelines of the following books in the series. Saxo had originally placed the saga at the time of Christ’s birth and later experts have placed the story at about 400 CE to correspond with the arrival of the Huns on the European scene but when Attila was driven back to Asia, the Huns didn’t just disappear, they joined the Khazar Empire north of the Caspian Sea and helped the Khazars control the western end of the famous Silk Road trade route.
When King Frodi’s Danes started their ninth century ‘Southern Way’ incursions into the rivers of present day Russia, they ran into the Khazar Khaganate that was controlling Silk Road trade there and cooperation looked promising when he married King Hun’s daughter, Princess Hanund. But she cheated on him and he sent her back to Khazaria in disgrace and things got ugly, fast. Two Norwegian princes, Hraerik and Hraelauger Hraegunarson, sons of the famous Hraegunar Lothbrok, visited Frodi’s court in Liere with a dangerous plan to protect their own Nor’Way trade route to Khazaria, but that plan changed when Prince Hraerik fell in love with and married Princess Gunwar, King Frodi’s sister.
When news arrived in Liere that the Huns planned to attack Denmark, Prince Hraerik convinced King Frodi to assemble a Varangian Army of the North and lead a pre-emptive strike against the Khazar Empire. Following the capture of Kiev, the three brothers, Frodi, Hraerik and Hraelauger established the Hraes’ (Rus’) Trading Company and built an empire that exists in many forms to this very day, including Russia, Normandy, Great Britain and L’Anse Aux Meadows in America. The wealth of the Hraes’ Trading Empire they created powered the prolific Viking expansion in Medieval Europe that still fascinates us today.
Book One, “The Saga of Hraerik ‘Bragi’ Hraegunarson,” recreates Book Five of Saxo’s work to illuminate the origins of the name Rus’ and how it evolved from Hraes’ in ninth century Russia and how the name Varangians originally meant Va Rangers or Way Wanderers of the Nor’Way. The book examines the death of Princess Gunwar (Hervor) at the hands of the Hunnish Prince Hlod and how it drives Prince Hraerik ‘Bragi the Old’ Hraegunarson (Hraegunar Lothbrok’s son) to write a famous poem of praise that both saves his head and rallies the northern kingdoms to fight the infamous Battle of the Goths and the Huns on the Don Plain of Gardariki (Gnita Heath of Tmutorokan).
Book Two, “The Saga of Helgi ‘Arrow Odd’ Hraerikson,” recreates Arrow Odd’s Saga of c. 1200 to illustrate how Arrow Odd was Prince Helgi (Oleg in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev, by showing that their identical deaths from the bite of a snake was more than just coincidence. The book investigates the true death of Hraegunar Lothbrok by poisoned blood-snakes (kenning for swords) and how his curse of ‘calling his young porkers to avenge the old boar’ sets up a death spiral between swine (Sveinald) and snakes (Gorm ‘the Old’) that lasts for generations. It then goes on to depict the famous Battle of the Berserks on Samso, where Arrow Odd and Hjalmar the Brave slay the twelve berserk grandsons of King Frodi on the Danish Island of Samso, setting up a death struggle that takes the Great Pagan Army of the Danes from the ravaged coast of Norway to England and on to Helluland in Saint Brendan’s Newfoundland.
Book Three, “The Saga of Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Hraerikson,” reveals how Ivar the Boneless Ragnarson was actually Prince Eyfur (Igor in Slavic) Hraerikson of Kiev and then King Harde Knute of Denmark. By comparing a twenty year lacuna in the reign of Prince Igor in the Russian Chronicles with a coinciding twenty year appearance of a King Harde Knute I (Hard Knot) of Denmark in European Chronicles, Prince Igor’s death by sprung trees, which reportedly tore his legs off, may have rather just left him a boneless and very angry young king. Loyal Danes claimed, “It was a hard knot indeed that sprung those trees,” but his conquered English subjects, not being quite as polite, called him, “Ivar the Boneless”.
Book Four, “The Saga of Svein ‘the Old’ Ivarson,” demonstrates how Prince Sviatoslav ‘the Brave’ of Kiev was really Prince Svein Eyfurson of Kiev, who later moved to Norway and fought to become King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark and England. But before being forced out of Russia, the Swine Prince sated his battle lust by crushing the Khazars and attacking the great great grandfather of Vlad the Impaler in a bloody campaign into the Heart of Darkness of Wallachia that seemed to herald the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with the 666 Salute of the Army of the Impalers. The campaign was so mortifying that the fifteen thousand pounds of gold that the Emperor of Constantinople paid him to attack the Army of the Impalers seemed not nearly enough, so Prince Svein attacked the Eastern Roman Empire itself. He came so close to defeating the greatest empire in the world, that later Danish Christian Kings would call his saga, and the sagas of his kin, “The Lying Sagas of Denmark” and would set out to destroy them, claiming that, “true Christians will never read this saga”.
Book Five, “The Saga of Valdamar ‘the Great’ Sveinson”, establishes how Grand Prince Vladimir ‘the Great’ of Kiev was also known as Prince Valdamar Sveinson of Gardar, who supported his father, Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’, in attacks upon England and later became King Canute ‘the Great’ of England and also King Knute ‘the Great’ of Denmark and Norway. Unlike his father, he came to the aid of a Roman Emperor, leading six thousand picked Varangian cataphracts against Anatolian rebels, and was rewarded with the hand of Princess Anna Porphyrogennetos, a true Roman Princess born of the purple who could trace her bloodline back to Julius and Augustus Caesar. She was called Czarina, and after her, all Rus’ Grand Princes were called Czars and their offspring were sought matrimonially by European royalty.
Conclusion:
By recreating the lives of four generations of Russian Princes and exhibiting how each generation, in succession, later ascended to their inherited thrones in Denmark, the author proves the parallels of the dual rules of Russian Princes and Danish Kings to be cumulatively more than just coincidence. And the author proves that the Danish Kings Harde Knute I, Gorm ‘the Old’ and Harald ‘Bluetooth’ Gormson/Sweyn ‘Forkbeard’ were not Stranger Kings, but were Danes of the Old Jelling Skioldung Fridlief/Frodi line of kings who only began their princely careers in Rus’ and returned to their kingly duties in Denmark with a lot of Byzantine Roman ideas and heavy cavalry and cataphracts.
SeiberTeck: 'The Varangians Series' 