AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

Stepan Bandera L’Operazione ANYFACE: quando l’Esercito statunitense sottrasse un nazionalista ucraino ai servizi sovietici. Di Thomas Boghardt (traduzione di L. Pavese) Protetto dal rifiuto dell'Esercito degli Stati Uniti di soddisfare una richiesta di estradizione sovietica, Stepan Bandera tramò nell’ombra per l’indipendenza ucraina per quasi quindici anni, dopo la fine della Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Alla fine della guerra, la Germania e la sua capitale, Berlino, caddero sotto l’occupazione congiunta degli Alleati. La cosiddetta Guerra Fredda non era ancora giunta a temperatura, ma cominciavano a manifestarsi crepe nell’alleanza del periodo bellico. Mentre il governatorato statunitense della Germania cercava di cooperare con i sovietici, i servizi d’informazione dello U.S. Army (l’Esercito degli Stati Uniti) diffidavano invece del dittatore sovietico Stalin, e cercavano di tenere alta la guardia sulle sue reali intenzioni nei riguardi dell’Europa Centrale e dell’Occidente. E, rig...

      As if facing the aggressive pro-Russian secessionists were not enough, the Ukrainian armed forces have to deal also with the inefficiency of their government, which is failing them, even at the most basic level. To cope with the failures of the state institutions that are supposed to back them, the soldiers have to rely on civilian organizations that citizens have set up to gather and distribute what the troops need.  But is it really just ineptitude, on the part of the Ukrainian state, or is this state of affairs intentional?      The Homemade War of the Ukrainians     By Valentina Cominetti      (Translated and edited by Leonardo Pavese)      From the outside the Donbas looks like hell. From Donetsk it is less frightening. One walks on eggshells, that’s for sure. The city is in the hands of the pro-Russian separatists, even though they took over just four buildings: two seats of the SBU (the Uk...

        "Ukraine," in the old Slavic language, meant "the borderland," or "the frontier." Today the old name acquires a new meaning, while  anti-government protesters are in the streets, demanding a closer relation with western Europe, to which they feel the Ukraine culturally belongs, and demonstrating against what they perceive as a pro-Russian stance on the part of President Yanukovich. The Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, which has re-emerged after almost a century of communist persecution, is trying to play a pacifying role, during these turbulent times in the "borderland," but it is essentially still perceived as a "foreign influence," and it is running the risk to be driven underground again.      The following article, by Stefano Magni,  is interesting, because many conservative Catholics in western Europe (certainly in Italy), faced with the secular, atheist drift taken recently by the European Union, which is becoming more and...