Aug. 28—This is the fourth installment of EIR’s roundup of responses from around the world to the posting by the U.S.-funded and State Department sponsored Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) of a Black List—essentially a “hit list”—of 72 prominent individuals from many nations, accusing them of being Russian propaganda agents, “information terrorists,” and “war criminals,” due to their failure to submit to the U.S./UK/NATO “narrative” about the military operations in Ukraine. The first 30 people listed were members and friends of the Schiller Institute who had spoken at a Schiller Institute conference during this year. You can find Part 1 of this series here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.
In addition to mounting responses from around the world denouncing the Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation hit list, two major, relevant developments took place this week.
First, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to an official DHS press release on Aug. 24 announced that their own “Ministry of Truth”—the Disinformation Governance Board established in April of this year—has been “terminated,” and the Secretary has “rescinded its charter, effective today, August 24, 2022.” While this was not directly the result of the outcry against the deadly Ukrainian hit list, the outrage against this threat to the right to free speech and to physical safety certainly contributed to the opposition to the DHS attempt to have an American branch of this fascistic body. Of course, the DHS statement went on to say that “the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work.
The second major development was the exposure of the operation of the Myrotvorets institution in Ukraine, a supposedly “non-government” organization in Ukraine which is not new, but has since the 2014 Maidan coup been publishing thousands of names of Ukrainians, Russians, and foreigners, labeling them “enemies of the state,” and taking great pride when people on its list are assassinated. (See further documentation on Myrotvorets in this issue of EIR).
The recent, expanded exposure of this overtly fascist institution was one result of the Aug. 20 assassination of Daria Dugina in Moscow, mafia style, by a bomb placed under her car. Dugina was a prominent journalist who had written about the actual conditions in the Donbas region of Ukraine and the fascist policies of the Azov Regiment and other Ukrainian institutions.
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia, speaking to the press on Aug. 24 at the UN, said, “The killing of Daria Dugina in Moscow was made on a clear terrorist basis, I would say.” Handing a picture to the press, he added: “This is the infamous Ukrainian website Myrotvorets which shows [her] picture with the inscription ‘liquidated,’ ‘eliminated’.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Harley Schlanger of the Schiller Institute are on the Myrotvorets hit list, among others.