Donbas can starve say 'rebel' leaders

Last winter there were some reports that people had starved to death in Eastern Ukraine. The reason was that humanitarian aid was being stolen by the criminals who run the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk 'People's Republics' (DPR/LPR).

The insidiousness of Russian propaganda is shown by what you'll find if you look for that information, which is widespread Western media reports of deaths being blamed on Ukraine and not the 'rebels'. This is because Ukraine stopped social payments and because some truck convoys were blocked.

That humanitarian aid to the Donbas was being stolen was the claim of former rebel leader Igor Girkin on Russian TV. Another rebel commander, Pavel Dremov, said that only one in ten of Russian aid convoys actually reached the people. Trucks supposedly delivering aid through Ukrainian checkpoints have been found to be carrying alcohol instead.

International agencies operating in the Donbas have come under increasing pressure. Monitors from the OSCE, there because of agreements signed by the 'rebels' and by Russia, have been harassed and had their vehicles destroyed. In April the International Rescue Committee, which looks after refugees, was expelled after being kidnapped and accused of 'spying'. Aid from the European Union that does get through has been repackaged to appear to come from the 'republics'.

Now, just weeks before temperatures plunge, the rebels have expelled every single international aid body bar the Red Cross - and Russian groups. This includes the United Nations and Médecins Sans Frontières. The Red Cross may be next given that they have been harassed in the past.

According to the UN, this is the situation in Luhansk:

Sick children deprived of essential medications, patients forced to undergo surgery without anesthesia, and food prices so high that many residents can’t afford to eat properly.

The UN also said that when the 'rebels' switched pension payments to rubles they "duped" pensioners by rigging the exchange rate.

Said the UN's Stephen O’Brien:

Some 150,000 people are not receiving monthly food distributions, 1.3 million people’s access to water is at risk, and more than 30,000 people have not received shelter materials and household items they urgently need.

Those most at risk are in the villages and small towns, especially in the east. Well away from Donetsk itself, so unlikely to be seen by Western journalists. Much trumpeted Russian humanitarian aid convoys have time and again been found instead to contain weapons.

So why are the 'rebels doing this? According to the newspaper News of Donbass it is because of "a new strategy for the external security and counter external and internal threats." Specifically a "threat posed by these counter-revolution within the republic."

Just let that sink in. So because of politics, because of ideology, because of paranoia their 'people' can be sacrificed? 

The mentality that 'foreign' organisations must be a threat of course comes from Russia, where numerous human rights and even scientific groups have been effectively closed down after being labeled as 'foreign agents'. It is also indulged by many in the West who think that Russia is 'surrounded' and at risk of a Western supported 'colour revolution'. Russian TV (all the people in the Donbas are allowed) is devoted to feeding this paranoia so of course a benign humanitarian group like Doctors Without Borders cannot be what the sane people reading this blog post see it as. No, it must be peddling 'illegal psychotropic drugs'!

But these are the lunatics that the likes of Unite's Andrew Murray, the RMT union and Stop The War Coalition's Lindsey German (and many, many others) are supporting. So called 'anti fascists' who think the UN will foment counter revolution and who are prepared to see their 'citizens' starve or die in agony, the weakest among them first.  Thousands will die because of this decision.

It is not like there has not been fair warning aplenty before but this should be the final straw. 'Solidarity with the Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine' should shut up shop and anyone on the left who continues to back these people deserves to be shunned. 

Edited to add: KHRPG reports that:

Ukrainian billionnaire Renat Akhmetov’s humanitarian aid is also not affected by the ban.  Jock Mendoza-Wilson from Akhmetov’s Foundation is reported to have suggested that the militants are hoping to receive humanitarian aid from Western countries via Russia.  His idea is that the aid would be presented as though from Russia.  It seems difficult to believe that western agencies would agree to this, especially given that they would be in breach of Ukraine’s law on temporarily occupied territory if they entered such territory from Russia, without Ukraine’s permission.

Edited to add: IRIN, the UN's news agency reports:

Some 500,000 children up to 10 years of age urgently need polio vaccination in rebel-held areas, and many of the 8,000 tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS patients will die unless medicine is provided, [UNICEF] said.

Edited to add: Watch a discussion (after the jump) on the humanitarian crisis from Al Jazeera with guests Petro Burkovsky (Deputy Head of Analysis and Information Division, National Institute for Strategic Studies), Pavel Felgenhauer (Defence Analyst and Columnist for the Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazetta), and Bart Janssens (Director of Operations for Doctors Without Borders).