The crisis unraveling in Ukraine is proving to be among the most intense geo-political ruptures on the international stage in many years.

Anti-Russian rhetoric rivaling that of the chilliest moments of the Cold War has been spouted by Western leaders and media pundits.

One such pundit is Lloyd Axworthy. Axworthy has served as President and vice-Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg for about a decade. Dr. Axworthy served in the 1990s as a Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister. He has written numerous books and articles and is a sought after commentator on international affairs. In 2004 he authored the book Navigating a New World by Knopf Canada Publishing.

Following a “fact-finding” Mission to Ukraine this spring, Mr. Axworthy and his Vice President Bill Balan had a chance to survey the situation in Kiev and get a sense of the factors affecting Ukraine’s democratic exercise. http://globalbrief.ca/lloydaxworthy/2014/04/21/ukraine-a-non-violent-resistance/

It should be noted that the mission to Ukraine was sponsored by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. The NDI is one of the key recipients of funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, identified as a CIA front-group which destabilizes governments and popular movements. According to author Willam Blum, the NED had a hand in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, undermined leftist insurgencies in the Phillipines, and in the early 1990s funded the Miami-based anti-Castro Cuban-American National Foundation. [2]

Michel Chossudovsky explains in detail the destabilization efforts of the NED in Ukraine in the articleIMF Sponsored “Democracy” in The Ukraine .

This week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour features the comments of Dr. Axworthy and his university colleague Bill Balan with regard to their first-hand observations of the Ukraine situation. They were clearly articulating the view that it was the Russian President Vladimir Putin that was the key destabilizing force in the region. Their comments were recorded at a public talk given April 22 at the Free Press Cafe in Winnipeg, Canada.

Later in the programme, Rick Rozoff of Stop NATO returns to the Global Research News Hour to respond to Axworthy’s comments, to comment on the upcoming May 25 presidential election and exactly who it is that is interfering with Ukrainian democracy, and to update listeners on the alarming developments on the ground in Eastern and Southern Ukraine in the wake of the Odessa