Evidence of Russia backing France Yellow Vest riots surfaces

French security services are investigating Russian
involvement in the Yellow Vests protests after reports that more than 600
Russian Twitter accounts have begun promoting the Yellow Vest movement, the
Bloomberg News agency reported on Dec. 9, citing French Foreign Minister
Jean-Yves Le Drian. Two Yellow Vest protestors – with ties to Russian
intelligence services – are involved in the riots and posed for a photograph in
which they carried a flag of the Russian-sponsored Donetsk People’s Republic,
the Security Service of Ukraine reported on Dec. 8. “International borders are
not an obstacle for Russian hybrid aggression,” said in the statement SBU Head
Vasyl Hrytsak. “The Kremlin is using dirty methods to undermine European
stability because it sees in that threats to itself.”

One of the Yellow Vest protesters with the Donetsk
flag, Fabrice Sorlin, contributes to the Katehon think tank that is sponsored
by Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian billionaire who is identified as sponsoring
Russian aggression in Donbas, and Sergei Glaziev, among Vladimir Putin’s
closest advisers on the military aggression in Ukraine. The other protestor,
Xavier Moreau, is the founder and director of Paris-based Startpol Center for
Political Strategic Analysis that supports the policies of the Putin regime.
Moreau is a native Frenchman who gained Russian citizenship and was also
identified by Ukraine’s SBU as directing a civic organization calling for
solidarity with Donbas.

Pro-Russian sentiments are high in Ukraine’s
Zaporizhia region “without the obvious interference of the Russian war
machine,” said on Dec. 9 Heorhiy Tuka, the deputy minister for the temporarily
occupied territories of Ukraine. “There are separatist sentiments there, as
well as illegally armed formations with pro-Russian leanings,” he said on
Ukrainian television, referring to the Zaporizhia region that borders the
partly occupied Donetsk region. “There is something to work on there, and I
believe this needs to be done. If not before yesterday, then tomorrow. All these
scum don’t need convincing and finding agreement with, but uprooted and
destroyed.”

Zenon Zawada: It’s
apparent that Europe – stretching from Ukraine to France – has become the
battleground between Russia and the U.S. for what the global order will look
like. In response to the U.S. backing maidan-style protests and so-called
“color revolutions” in the former Soviet Union sphere for the last two decades,
the Russians are now backing violent riots with similar color themes in
European countries. Most major political conflicts in Europe involve Washington
backing the current establishment, and Russia backing those in opposition,
usually with nationalist-traditionalist motivations.

We believe Russia is planning similar “color riots” in
Ukraine during the 2019 presidential (scheduled for March—April) and
parliamentary elections, in October. They will be aimed at discrediting the
election results, which will be alleged to be rigged and fraudulent. Poroshenko
has forbidden the entry of Russian males when imposing martial law in late
November, which we believe is likely to be either extended or renewed
throughout 2019.

However, as the Ukrainian deputy minister Tuka has
pointed out, there could be enough Ukrainian citizens to stir riots (without
Russian interference), which could even lead to the start of civil war given
how militarized society has become, with access to weapons common and
widespread at this point. Russia will be looking for opportunities to ignite
violent conflict in Ukraine throughout next year in order to justify expanded
military aggression and efforts to dissolve Ukrainian statehood.