Mira Terada, the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Sonja Van Den Ende, a journalist from the Netherlands, who is currently in the territory of Donbass as a war correspondent. The head of the Foundation discussed with Ende the unilateral propaganda of the Western media regarding the conflict in Ukraine, found out why the European international courts are not working properly and found out what the residents of the Kherson region think about the potential reunification with Russia.
Good afternoon, dear Sonja! Please tell our viewers and readers a few words about yourself and what you do.
Well, my name is Sonja Ende, and I’m originally from the Netherlands, from Rotterdam. I am a journalist for many years already. I write for several media outlets like Global Research, Tehran Times and One World Press, several in Belgium. And I have my own news outlet called Free Syria. And yes, that’s what I do many years already.
Please share your story about how you ended up on the territory of Donbass?
Well, first of all, I was invited for a conference here in Moscow and then I heard that there were some troops going to the Donbass. So I have said: “Yes, okay, I would like to go.” There were also some other journalists there. So yeah, this is how I ended up going to the Donbass.
How do the European mass media cover the events that are taking place on the territory of Ukraine now? Do they talk about atrocities and provocations of Ukrainian servicemen and nationalists controlled by them?
Well, that’s a one-sided propaganda. Unfortunately, in the whole of Europe or the Western world, they only speak about Ukraine, about that the Russians are really bad, that they started they call it a war. And, you know, it is a special operation, but they don’t see that. So they don’t cover anything what is happening from the Russian side, nothing only Ukrainian and blaming the Russians. And that’s why it’s bad, it’s propaganda what they do.
What is happening now on the territory of Ukraine is the result of many years of provocation by NATO countries, which are trying with all their might to fight Russia and everything connected with it. What do you think is the reason for such attitude towards Russia? Why does the West see Russia as an enemy?
Well, the West has a special agenda. They have that already for years. When we go back to, for instance, 2001, when the president Bush from the US, he said that he will destroy many countries, the axis of evil. Of course, Russia was not mentioned, but Russia was already since 2008 when President Putin held his Munich speech and he clearly said that the unipolar world is over and we are now getting a multi-polar world. And since that time that they intensified that well hatred their agenda against Russia. And we could see that more intensified when the war in Syria broke out and especially at the height of the war 2015 when Russia came in to help. And I think they had their plan to destroy Russia or at least take a color revolution to perform the color revolution.
For eight years now, the armed forces of Ukraine have been exterminating the residents of Donbass, what is happening cannot be called anything other than genocide. In your opinion, why did the NATO countries, which now direct a significant part of their resources to support Ukraine, ignore for so many years what was happening in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics?
Well, again, that’s their agenda. They know that it’s happening, but they are against Russia. So they prefer not to see it. They prefer not to report about it. Nothing. Maybe sometimes they say: “oh, they’re a separatist.” That’s how they call them in these regions. And it’s their agenda. As I said, they like to destroy Russia or make a color a revolution. And it’s very clear now. They want to control Russia because as all of its wealth, as I suppose, it’s that’s the reason behind it.
From a legal point of view, how realistic is it to bring the perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine to justice? Why do international agreements and European courts not work with respect to citizens who speak Russian?
Well, first of all, I think when we have to bring them to justice, it’s not going to happen in Europe. We have the International Criminal Court, of which the US is not part of it, but it’s another story. But it will not happen in Europe because they have their own agenda. And when you look at the International Criminal Court, there’s only cases that they think it’s relevant, like a lot of African countries or former Yugoslavia. So when there has to be some justice that has to be done, I think in Russia or China or whatever, and this is really bad. And the Ukrainian servicemen performed a lot of atrocities. It’s what I saw when I was there and I heard a lot of atrocities happening. So the justice will not be done in Europe. That’s one thing. No not at the moment.
The influence of the United States on what is happening in Ukraine is obvious. Since 2015, the United States has allocated millions of dollars for training and arming Ukrainian neo-Nazis, preparing provocations and engaged in propaganda. Why does the world community did not react to that fact at all?
Well, I think before that year the US is a European unipolar world. So the West and the US, they have the power, they had the power in the world. So the other communities that is look the other side and yeah, they, they take compliance with them and you know, they are all the same that we did in Syria in 2015 or other countries before that Afghanistan, Iraq, they destroyed a lot of countries. But yeah, I think the other countries didn’t look. But now that the world has changed, we have a different situation with a multipolar world and it’s very hard for the US to accept.
For decades, the United States has been interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, trying to impose its democracy, which sometimes costs the lives of thousands of civilians. What do you think is the reason they get away with all this? Isn’t it time to unite and punish the States for dozens of war crimes committed in other countries?
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I said before, that they think they are a sort of colonialist. They perform and they think they still have a unipolar world. But that’s a fantasy they live in. So they have to accept now that it’s not that kind of world anymore. So what they’ve done in the past, I think they have to be punished severely because they destroyed a lot of countries, they killed a lot of people. It started with Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. And I think the world must know that these are crimes, crimes against humanity. And this is going on for so many years that it’s very terrible. It’s genocide.
There is an opinion that the United States, which has declared itself the source of world democracy, does not really care what happens outside their country. They deliberately add fuel to the fire by supporting armed conflicts around the world, because this allows them to earn huge money on the supply of weapons. What do you think about this?
Well, I think the global elite, it’s like a criminal gang, you know, in every country they perform color revolution or conduct a war like in Syria or Iraq, they straightaway confiscate oil. They put the jihadis, for instance, in Syria there and now they support the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. These are their proxies. They are fighting a proxy war without making their own hands very dirty. You know, this is very terrible. So I call them a criminal mafia gang. Yeah. They put a color revolution. They robbed the country and kill the people and install a puppet regime, so they comply with them like Zelensky is now. And this has to stop because it’s going on too many years already.
What do you know about American biochemical laboratories located on the territory of Ukraine? Is it true that biological weapons capable of causing irreparable harm to the population of Russia were developed there?
Yes. And what I heard from especially a Bulgarian journalist, she did a lot of research, but also know from Mr. Lavrov. It came all out that there are, I think, approximately 30 laboratories and it’s horrible, their experiments. What we maybe see now, the monkeypox, I don’t know, if it’s true because there’s a lot of propaganda again and maybe COVID-19 came from there. We don’t know. We just don’t know. And it’s because it spreads all around Western Europe a lot. And of course, they blame China, for instance. But it’s very terrible what they are doing, and I think it has to be stopped all these laboratories because it’s also, again, it’s dangerous for mankind and we don’t know what they’re going to do. I heard that some viruses, they put in drones and send them to certain territories to release it so they can kill many people with that. It’s horrible.
It is no secret that the Western media brainwash their audience with an anti-Russian agenda. Do ordinary Americans and Europeans really not notice how they become the subject of manipulation?
Yeah, that’s a question that’s puzzling me as well as a European, you know, because I covered the Syrian war, and since many, many years, I tried to wake up the people and tell them look what’s going on. In the name of democracy they perform all these atrocities. But yeah, what can I say? I think the majority of the European people are asleep. They’re not awake. And the brainwashing is so badly, the propaganda is so badly. And of course, during COVID it intensified and I hope we can wake them up, me and maybe a few other ones who are here like we were in Syria, that we wake them up and tell them: “Look, this is what is going on. And that’s what the government or the media is telling you in the West.”
The economic sanctions imposed against Russia due to a special military operation in Ukraine primarily harm residents of Western countries who are already forced to overpay for heat and fuel. How far do you think NATO countries are ready to go in their maniacal desire to inflict “irreparable” damage to the Russian economy?
Well, I think they’re stretched to the limit already now with the oil embargo they’re going to put in place. And I think it’s all this crazy ideology, what to have the great reset and maybe you heard of it and the Green New Deal. And so they think they can manage without Russian gas, without oil, without all this fossil fuels. But I think they will be lot of problems because you cannot replace all the cars all of a sudden. So they are facing a lot of problems. And, well, it’s going to be very very bad for Europe and for the US. Maybe I don’t know about the U.S. because they have this LNG gas, but for Europe, it’s very bad, especially for Germany, I think. They are 80% dependent on Russian gas. So they will be in the cold this winter and the people will suffer a lot. And so what else can sanctions can they put in place here? I think that’s the limit already. It’s crazy.
The other day Finland decided to apply for NATO membership, however, according to numerous experts and residents of Finland, in fact, almost none of the Finnish population wants to see their country in NATO. Why, in your opinion, does the political leadership of Finland neglect the opinion of its residents?
Well, I wrote once a piece saying that we are not ruled by our leaders anymore, not the politicians. That’s what I mean. And I think that is the case in at least the whole of Europe. We are not ruled by the politicians. We are ruled by the elites, by the global elite, like all the like Bill Gates and Rockefellers, all these guys or Bloomberg, they are the ones who are in the real power, the deep state. And all these politicians are in this lobby groups or the lobby groups influence all these politicians to pressure them to become part of NATO or to do this or to do that. And that’s the problem. They don’t care about the people anymore. There’s no democracy. That’s only a word. It’s not reality. I think Europe has become a totalitarian state They don’t care about the people. They you know, that’s the whole problem. So people can go demonstrate, but that’s no use, actually. Of course, you have to try always. But as long as these politicians are in power and are backed up by this deep state, it’s not going to change, unfortunately.
Why does the President of Ukraine refuse to sign peace agreements with the Russian Federation? What does he hope for?
Well, I think he hopes for that his army or his country will want him to have victory and that Russia will be destroyed. I think that’s what he thinks. But I think he thinks in a very wrong way because, you know, Europe has tried many times before, at least two times. You know, the Second World War and Napoleon did, I think, to conquer Russia. And then that’s going to happen. And this time, it’s also not going to happen. And but he is a crazy guy. I think he better had stayed actor, his profession was. NATO is trying to tell him always to send weapons and but if you look at the reality on the ground, it’s you know, they are losing they’re losing badly.
How and when do you think the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine will end?
Well, I hope it will end this year. I cannot say. I hope what I see is that they gained territory a lot already. And yeah, because I was in the Kherson last week and the people are really very happy that they now liberated Kherson and was always a city, I think that was Russian-oriented. But I hope soon. I think when they move to the West, it will end soon. I cannot say I hope so. Let’s hope so.