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FTR #818 Can You Put Lipstick on a Nazi? (Part 3): Update on Ukraine and Timeline of Ukrainian Fascism

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. [1] The new dri­ve is a 32-giga­byte dri­ve that is cur­rent as of the pro­grams and arti­cles post­ed by 10/02/2014. The new dri­ve (avail­able for a tax-deductible con­tri­bu­tion of $65.00 or more) con­tains FTR #812 [2].  (The pre­vi­ous flash dri­ve was cur­rent through the end of May of 2012 and con­tained FTR #748 [3].)

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Lis­ten: MP3

Side 1 [7]   Side 2 [8]    

Intro­duc­tion: Con­tin­u­ing analy­sis of the recent Ukrain­ian elec­tions, this broad­cast fur­ther devel­ops the so-called “mod­er­ate” forces’ incor­po­ra­tion of explic­it Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments, as well as their adop­tion of pol­i­cy advo­cat­ed by the extrem­ists.

Exem­plary of this dynam­ic is the issue of “lus­tra­tion laws.” [9]  Osten­si­bly designed to fight the endem­ic cor­rup­tion that has plagued Ukraine since it gained inde­pen­dence, the laws actu­al­ly appear to be part of the ongo­ing purge [10] of politi­cians sym­pa­thet­ic to Rus­sia and are in vio­la­tion of prin­ci­ples of law.

To gen­er­ate momen­tum for the lus­tra­tion laws, pres­i­dent Poroshenko select­ed a recip­i­ent [11] of fund­ing from Pierre Omid­yar. Svit­lana Zal­ishchuk is now a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, hav­ing forged polit­i­cal dia­logue between the “mod­er­ate” par­ties and the fas­cist par­ties such as Svo­bo­da and the Rad­i­cal Par­ty.

At least two mem­bers [12] of the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion have been elect­ed to par­lia­ment, includ­ing its founder Andriy Bilet­sky [13].

The deputy com­man­der of the Azov Bat­tal­ion [14] has been appoint­ed chief of police of Kiev [15]. With a vet­er­an of a Nazi com­bat unit super­vis­ing the con­stab­u­lary of that nation’s cap­i­tal, demo­c­ra­t­ic process may very well be fur­ther imper­iled.

(We have cov­ered the ascen­sion of the OUN/B heirs in the Ukraine in a num­ber of pro­grams: FTR #‘s 777 [16]778 [17]779 [18]780 [19]781 [20]782 [21], 783 [22]784 [23]794 [24]800 [25], 803 [26], 804 [27], 808 [28], 811 [29], 817 [30].)

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The role of Svo­bo­da mem­ber and for­mer defense min­is­ter Andriy Paru­biy [31] as an advis­er to Poroshenko; Poroshenko’s comem­o­ra­tion [32] of Octo­ber 14 (anniver­sary of the found­ing of the OUN-UPA) as a Ukrain­ian hol­i­day; an overview of the polit­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the OUN/B heirs that have come to pow­er in Ukraine; review [33] of oth­er Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments that serve in an advi­so­ry role in the ranks of the “mod­er­ate” forces in Ukraine; dis­cus­sion of the spin placed by West­ern media on the Nazi and fas­cist pres­ence with­in the Poroshenko and Yat­senyuk blocs; the Azov Bat­tal­ion mem­ber­ship of a key Vitali Klitschko ally (Klit­shko is an impor­tant mem­ber of Poroshenko’s Bloc); Azov asso­ciate and Yat­senyuk func­tionary Tetyana Chorno­vol’s head of Poroshenko’s “anti-cor­rup­tion” task force–a posi­tion that places her in the fore­front of the “lus­tra­tion law” milieu.

1.  It turns out one of the key fig­ures in the Poroshenko admin­is­tra­tion, who was also heav­ily backed by Pierre Omidyar’s pro-Maid­an out­fits, was the per­son in charge of push­ing the lus­tra­tion laws [11]. Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the fact that Svit­lana Zalis­chuk, the recip­i­ent of Omid­yar’s fund­ing, was a key play­er in coor­di­nat­ing the activ­i­ties of the so-called “respectable,” “mod­er­ate” pro-EU polit­i­cal cadre with the overt­ly fas­cist par­ties such as Svo­bo­da and the Rad­i­cal Par­ty.

“Omid­yar-Fund­ed Can­di­date Takes Seat in New Ukraine Par­lia­ment” by Mark AmesPan­do Dai­ly; 10/30/2014. [11]

Ukraine just held its first post-rev­o­lu­tion par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, and amid all of the oli­garchs [34], EU enthu­si­asts, neo-Nazis [12]nepo­tism babies [35], and death squad com­man­ders [13], there is one new­ly-elect­ed parliamentarian’s name that stands out for her con­nec­tion to Sil­i­con Val­ley: Svit­lana Zal­ishchuk [36], from the bil­lion­aire president’s Poroshenko Bloc [37] par­ty.

Zal­ishchuk was giv­en a choice spot on the president’s par­ty list, at num­ber 18 [38], ensur­ing her a seat in the new Rada. And she owes her rise to pow­er to anoth­er oli­garch besides Ukraine’s pres­i­dent — Pierre Omid­yar [39], whose fund­ing [40] with USAID helped top­ple the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment. Zalishchuk’s pro-Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion out­fits were direct­ly fund­ed by Omid­yar.

Ear­lier this year, Pan­do exposed [40] how eBay bil­lion­aire and Inter­cept pub­lisher Pierre Omid­yar co-fund­ed with USAID Zalishchuk’s web of non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions — New Cit­i­zen [39]Ches­no [41]Cen­ter UA [42]Accord­ing to the Finan­cial Times, New Cit­i­zen, which received hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars from Omid­yar, “played a big role in get­ting the [Maid­an] protest up and run­ning” in Novem­ber 2013. Omid­yar Network’s web­site fea­tures Zalishchuk’s pho­to­graph [39] on its page describ­ing its invest­ment in New Cit­i­zen. Zal­ishchuk was brought into the NGOs by her long­time men­tor, Oleh Rybachuk [43], a for­mer deputy prime min­ster who led the last failed effort to inte­grate [44] Ukraine into the EU and NATO [45].

Zalishchuk’s pho­tos also grace [46] the Poroshenko Bloc’s web­site [36] and twit­ter feed [47], as she emerged as one of the pres­i­den­tial party’s lead­ing spokesper­sons. The Poroshenko Bloc is named after Ukraine’s pro-West­ern pres­i­dent, Petro Poroshenko, a bil­lion­aire with a lock on Ukraine’s con­fec­tionary indus­try [48], as well as own­ing a nation­al TV sta­tion and oth­er prized assets. He came to pow­er this year thanks to the rev­o­lu­tion orig­i­nally orga­nized by Zalishchuk’s Omid­yar-fund­ed NGOs, and has reward­ed her with a seat in the Rada.

The president’s par­ty tasked Zalushchik with pub­licly sell­ing [36] the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial new “lus­tra­tion law” — essen­tially a legal­ized witch-hunt law first pro­posed by the neo-fas­cist Svo­boda Par­ty ear­lier this year, and sub­se­quently denounced by Ukraine’s pros­e­cu­tor gen­eral [49] and by Human Rights Watch [50], which described a draft of the law as “arbi­trary and over­ly broad and fail(s) to respect human rights prin­ci­ples,” warn­ing it “may set the stage for unlaw­ful mass arbi­trary polit­i­cal exclu­sion.”

The lus­tra­tion law [51] was passed under a wave of neo-Nazi vio­lence [51], in which mem­bers of par­lia­ment and oth­ers set to be tar­geted for purges were forcibly thrown into trash dumps.

Zal­ishchuk, how­ever, praised the lus­tra­tion law, claim­ing that the legal­ized purges would “give Ukraine a chance at a new life.”

Short­ly before the elec­tions, on Octo­ber 17, Zal­ishchuk used her Omid­yar-fund­ed out­fit, “Ches­no,” [52]to orga­nize a round­table with lead­ers of pro-EU and neo-fas­cist par­ties. It was called “Par­lia­ment for Reform” [53]and it brought togeth­er lead­ers from eight par­ties,includ­ing Zalishchuk’s “Poroshenko Bloc” (she served as both NGO orga­nizer and as pro-Poroshenko par­ty can­di­date), the prime minister’s “People’s Par­ty” and lead­ers from two unabashed­ly neo-Nazi par­ties: Svo­boda [54], and the Rad­i­cal Par­ty of Oleh Lyashko [55], who was denounced by Amnesty Inter­na­tional [56] for post­ing YouTube videos of him­self inter­ro­gat­ing [56] naked and hood­ed pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratist pris­on­ers. Lyashko’s cam­paign posters fea­tured him impal­ing [57] a car­i­ca­tured Jew­ish oli­garch on a Ukrain­ian tri­dent.

Mean­while, Zalishchuk’s boss, Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko, has led a bloody war against pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists in the east of the coun­try that left at least 3700 dead in a half year of fight­ing. Human Rights Watch recent­ly accused [58] Poroshenko’s forces of “indis­crim­i­nate” use of clus­ter bombs in heav­ily pop­u­lated areas, that “may amount to war crimes.” Poroshenko’s forces include neo-Nazi death squads like the noto­ri­ous Azov bat­tal­ion.

Last month, Poroshenko fur­ther cement­ed [32] his ties to the extreme right [59] by hail­ing Ukraine’s wartime Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors [60], the vio­lently anti-Semit­ic [61] UPA, as “heroes [62].” The fas­cist UPA par­tic­i­pated in the Holo­caust [63], and were respon­si­ble for killing tens of thou­sands [64] of Jews and eth­nic Poles in their bid to cre­ate an eth­ni­cally pure Ukraine. Many UPA mem­bers filled the ranks of the Nazi SS “Gali­cia” Divi­sion [65]. The neo-Nazi Right Sek­tor, which spear­headed the vio­lent lat­er stages of the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, sees itself as the UPA’s con­tem­po­rary suc­ces­sors; Right Sektor’s leader, Dmit­ry Yarosh, believes [66] that any “eth­nic minor­ity that pre­vents us from being mas­ters in our own land” is an “ene­my.” [66] Yarosh was just elect­ed [67] to the new par­lia­ment.

This week, Omid­yar Network’s “invest­ment lead” for Ukraine, Stephen King, accept­ed an award [68] for Omid­yar Network’s role in a major new USAID-backed [69] project, Glob­al Impact Invest­ing Net­work. . . .

2. The Kiev gov­ern­ment just passed a law osten­si­bly intend­ed to purge the gov­ern­ment of its past cor­rupt­ing influ­ences. The so-called “lus­tra­tion laws” actu­al­ly appear to be a thin legal veneer for a whole­sale purge of any Ukrain­ian civ­il ser­vants in any way linked to Rus­sia. The lus­tra­tion laws are the statutes that Omid­yar’s proptege Zalis­chuk has been empow­ered to gar­nish with a veneer of respectabil­i­ty and legal­i­ty.

“Ukraine Could Sack up to Mil­lion Offi­cials with Ties to Russ­ian Past”  [9]by Dmit­ry Zaks [AFP]; Yahoo News; 10/09/2014. [9]

Ukraine’s pres­i­dent approved a dis­puted anti-graft mea­sure on Thurs­day that could see up to a mil­lion civ­il ser­vants with alleged links to past Sovi­et or pro-Russ­ian gov­ern­ments imme­di­ately sacked.

The so-called “lus­tra­tion law” fol­lows the exam­ple of oth­er east­ern Euro­pean nations that broke free of decades of Moscow’s dom­i­na­tion at the end of the Cold War.

It was also a ral­ly­ing cry of the protests that con­vulsed Kiev last win­ter and led to the ouster of pro-Russ­ian pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych and a secre­tive band of Ukrain­ian tycoons.

The law removes any­one who held a fed­eral or region­al gov­ern­ment posi­tion for more than a year under Yanukovych, who is now in self-imposed exile in Rus­sia.

It also sets up a spe­cial com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate judges and law enforce­ment agents sus­pected of liv­ing lav­ish lifestyles on hum­ble gov­ern­ment wages.

Anoth­er pro­vi­sion pre­vents any­one unable to explain their sources of income or assets from hold­ing office for five to 10 years.

Law­mak­ers’ ini­tial fail­ure to adopt the leg­is­la­tion last month sparked vio­lent protests out­side par­lia­ment that engulfed the build­ing in the black smoke of burn­ing tyres and brought riot police out on the streets.

The bill itself says it was draft­ed to help “restore trust in the author­i­ties and cre­ate a new sys­tem of gov­ern­ment that cor­re­sponds to Euro­pean stan­dards”.

“This is a his­toric day for Ukraine,” Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko post­ed on his Face­book account.

“The state machine will be cleansed. Glo­ry to Ukraine!”

- Way to set­tle scores? -

But the leg­is­la­tion has been bit­terly fought by law­mak­ers rep­re­sent­ing Russ­ian-speak­ing east­ern regions — the power­base of the for­mer regime and now par­tially con­trolled by sep­a­ratist rebels.

Its legal­ity has also been ques­tioned by the Coun­cil of Europe and busi­ness lead­ers who fear it will lead to a dam­ag­ing exo­dus of com­pe­tent bureau­crats.

Even the president’s own spe­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive on children’s issues com­plained that it “vio­lates basic rights and free­doms of cit­i­zens, is anti-con­sti­tu­tion­al and does not cor­re­spond to Euro­pean judi­cial pro­ce­dures or stan­dards.”

“It pro­vides a way to set­tle scores with your (polit­i­cal) oppo­nents,” children’s ombuds­man Yuriy Pavlenko wrote on his Face­book account.

Oth­er claus­es in the law bar any­one found guilty of back­ing sep­a­ratist caus­es and any­one who worked as a pros­e­cu­tor or held a top office when state agents shot dead near­ly 100 pro­test­ers dur­ing the Kiev unrest.

The com­mis­sion can addi­tion­ally probe civ­il ser­vants’ links to the Sovi­et-era secret ser­vice and Com­mu­nist Par­ty.

The mea­sures have already prompt­ed the res­ig­na­tion of two top finance and econ­omy min­istry offi­cials who are respect­ed by the busi­ness com­mu­nity but were hired dur­ing Yanukovych’s 2010–2014 pres­i­den­cy.

A suc­ces­sion of recent gov­ern­ments have been riv­en by squab­bles and busi­ness clan rival­ries that stalled the adop­tion of cru­cial eco­nomic restruc­tur­ing mea­sures and left the coun­try near­ly bank­rupt and depen­dent on for­eign help.

Yanukovych and his allies were accused of per­se­cut­ing their pre­de­ces­sors and jail­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Yulia Tymoshenko for polit­i­cal rea­sons.

...

3.  Par­lia­men­t’s fail­ure to enact the lus­tra­tion laws sparked vio­lent protests out­side par­lia­ment that “engulfed the build­ing in the black smoke of burn­ing tyres and brought riot police out on the streets”.  These protests were staged by “usu­al suspects”–Pravy Sek­tor, Svo­bo­da et al. Again, Zal­ishchuck is basi­cal­ly Poroshenko’s legal and par­lia­men­tary run­ning dog for the leg­is­la­tion favored by the OUN/B heirs. Here’s a bit more on those protests [10]:

“Watch Angry Ukrain­ian Pro­test­ers Throw a Politi­cian in the Dump­ster” by Sarah Kauf­man; Voca­tive; 9/16/2014. [10]

 It’s been a hell of a year for Ukraine. Months of fiery protest, the over­throw of a pres­i­dent, a Russ­ian inva­sion and even a war.

But despite a cease-fire that’s in effect, there’s no sign that things are set­tling down. On Tues­day, some activists of the extrem­ist pro-Ukrain­ian par­ty Avtomaid­an threw a Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment mem­ber in a met­al trash can, doused him with an unknown liq­uid and threat­ened to light him on fire. It was all part of a demon­stra­tion [70] out­side par­lia­ment in which hun­dreds of mem­bers of the far-right par­ties of Ukraine—Right Sec­tor, Avtomaid­an and Volya—demanded the pas­sage of law on some­thing called “lus­tra­tion.”

Lus­tra­tion in Ukraine means cleans­ing the gov­ern­ment from its past by screen­ing offi­cials and often pun­ish­ing them for involve­ment in a past regime. Pun­ish­ments can include stigma­ti­za­tion or removal from office. The point of lus­tra­tion for many Ukraini­ans is to ensure the cor­rup­tion that was so preva­lent in the regime of Vik­tor Yanukovich, who was forced from office ear­lier this year, is erad­i­cated. (The law passed, but it’s unclear what the net effect will be for mem­bers of par­lia­ment.)

The YouTube video shows Vitaliy Stanislavovich Zhu­ravskiy, a Ukrain­ian MP since 1998 with no par­ty affil­i­a­tion, lying in a dump­ster while a pro­tester force­fully holds his head down. Demon­stra­tors push and shove the dump­ster in every direc­tion until the cops grab Zhuravskiy’s hands and pull him out. In the back­ground, demon­stra­tors are burn­ing tires and shov­ing police offi­cers.

4. More depth on the nature of the “new” polit­i­cal make­up of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment is pro­vid­ed by German-Foreign-Policy.com. Note that the “mod­er­ate” Yat­senyuk’s par­ty has Andriy Bilet­sky [13], founder of the Azov Bat­tal­ion as an advis­er. Poroshenko has Svo­bo­da mem­ber Oleg Makhnit­sky as an advis­er, as well as Roman Svarych, the per­son­al sec­re­tary to Jaroslav Stet­sko.

“Nation­al­ist Upsurge”; german-foreign-policy.com;  10/24/2014. [33]

The elec­tion cam­paign, end­ing this week in today’s pro-West­ern Ukraine, is char­ac­ter­ized by extrem­ist nation­al­ism. Accord­ing to opin­ion polls, the par­ty of the politi­cian, who had pro­mot­ed him­self using videos of his vio­la­tions of the human rights of alleged pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists, is set to become sec­ond in Sun­day’s elec­tions. Con­sid­er­ing the civ­il war’s nation­al­ist upsurge, oth­er par­ties have begun accept­ing mili­ti­a­men into their ranks. The com­man­der of the fas­cist Asov Bat­tal­ion, for exam­ple, is a mem­ber of the “mil­i­tary coun­cil” of Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Jazen­juk’s par­ty. Last week, Asov Bat­tal­ion mili­tia mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vio­lent attacks on the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment. Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, it was alleged that Kiev’s troops had used inter­na­tion­al­ly banned clus­ter muni­tions in the Donet­sk region. New social cuts are antic­i­pat­ed — regard­less of the win­ner of the elec­tions — to pay for the essen­tial sup­plies of Russ­ian gas. Berlin and the EU, whose hege­mon­ic sphere Ukraine joined this year, are refus­ing to give Kiev addi­tion­al mate­r­i­al assis­tance. Aside from these issues, the for­mer Pol­ish for­eign min­is­ter, Radoslaw Siko­rs­ki, admit­ted that he had com­plete­ly invent­ed the seri­ous alle­ga­tions he made against the Russ­ian pres­i­dent. Ger­man media have wide­ly report­ed on these alle­ga­tions.

Sum­ma­ry Exe­cu­tion

The elec­tion cam­paign in today’s pro-West­ern Ukraine has been shaped, to a grow­ing extent, by extrem­ist nation­al­ism. Opin­ion polls pre­dict the vic­to­ry of the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc,” whose top can­di­date, Vitali Klitschko, had been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly groomed by the CDU-affil­i­at­ed Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foundation.[1] For months already, poll­sters have been unan­i­mous­ly pre­dict­ing that Oleh Lyashko’s “Rad­i­cal Par­ty” will come in sec­ond. With his vio­la­tions of the human rights of alleged pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists, (german-foreign-policy.com report­ed [2]) Lyashko seems to attract a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of poten­tial­ly fas­cist vot­ers. Most recent­ly, he aroused atten­tion, when, in a TV talk show, he pre­sent­ed a pris­on­er — whom he claimed was a Russ­ian soldier.[3] Lyashko also announced that, in the future, he will have cap­tured sep­a­ratists sum­mar­i­ly exe­cut­ed. Polls give Lyashko more than ten per­cent of the vote. The Svo­bo­da Par­ty, which, up to now, had been the strongest force with­in the fas­cist spec­trum, is expect­ed to lose so many votes to Lyashko’s par­ty [12] that it will have to wor­ry about whether it will achieve the 5% hur­dle or have to depend on direct man­dates. Svo­bo­da may also lose votes to the “Right Sec­tor,” which hard­ly has a chance of win­ning seats in the Verk­hov­na Rada.

“Cru­sade Against Unter­men­schen”

Beyond the spec­trum of overt­ly fas­cist par­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the “Peo­ple’s Front” — the par­ty of Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk, who had been put in pow­er by the West — is cam­paign­ing with well-known rightwing extrem­ists. Tetiana Chorno­vol, the for­mer press sec­re­tary of the fas­cist UNA-UNSO orga­ni­za­tion, who, in the mean­time has joined the Asov Bat­tal­ion, is the sec­ond can­di­date on the bal­lot of the “Peo­ple’s Front.” The “Peo­ple’s Front” has also estab­lished a “Mil­i­tary Coun­cil” to prof­it from the coun­try’s nation­al­ist war fren­zy. The “Mil­i­tary Coun­cil” also includes Asov Bat­tal­ion com­man­der Andriy Bilet­sky. Bilet­sky once declared, “the his­toric mis­sion of our nation in this crit­i­cal moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final cru­sade for their sur­vival,” in “a cru­sade against the Semi­te-led Unter­men­schen.”[4] His Asov Bat­tal­ion had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vio­lent attacks on the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment. These attacks began Octo­ber 14, when the major­i­ty of the deputies reject­ed the motion for declar­ing Octo­ber 14 an offi­cial hol­i­day [32]. The Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army (UPA), which had also com­mit­ted mas­sacres on more then 90,000 Chris­t­ian and Jew­ish Poles, was found­ed Octo­ber 14, 1942.

Clus­ter Muni­tions

Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, there were also seri­ous alle­ga­tions raised against the gov­ern­ment. Accord­ing to recent reports — includ­ing those by west­ern human rights orga­ni­za­tions — Kiev gov­ern­ment forces, par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­cist mili­tias, are com­mit­ting seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions in the civ­il war in east­ern Ukraine. It has also been report­ed that gov­ern­ment units have used inter­na­tion­al­ly banned clus­ter muni­tions in the Donet­sk region. Clus­ter muni­tions are par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous to civil­ians. To date, 114 coun­tries have signed the treaty ban­ning clus­ter muni­tions. The Ukraine has not joined the treaty even after the pro-west­ern coup in Kiev. Accord­ing to Human Rights Watch (HRW), there is strong evi­dence of Kiev’s gov­ern­ment forces hav­ing used clus­ter muni­tions in attacks in ear­ly Octo­ber — at the time, the cease­fire was already in effect. Accord­ing to HRW, at least six peo­ple have been killed and dozens wound­ed by these inter­na­tion­al­ly banned muni­tions. The real num­ber of vic­tims is prob­a­bly high­er, accord­ing to the human rights organization.[5]

Verge of Col­lapse

For the peri­od fol­low­ing the elec­tions, regard­less of elec­tion results, there are already indi­ca­tions of new social cut­backs. Eco­nom­i­cal­ly, Ukraine is on the verge of col­lapse. This year’s eco­nom­ic per­for­mance will shrink by up to ten per­cent, cor­re­spon­dents report. The bud­get could reach a deficit of more than sev­en per­cent of the gross domes­tic prod­uct. Since the begin­ning of the year, the Ukrain­ian cur­ren­cy, the hryv­na, has lost well over half of its val­ue vis à vis the US dol­lar, caus­ing the price of import­ed goods to soar. In addi­tion, the costs of ener­gy have also been ris­ing; infla­tion is run­ning at around twelve per­cent. No one expects the US $17 bil­lion in IMF bailouts — up to 2016 — to suffice.[6] There­fore, now that Kiev has joined the West­ern hege­mon­ic sphere of influ­ence, it is insist­ing on finan­cial sup­port from Berlin and the EU. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is only will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in lim­it­ed financ­ing. At best, a lim­it­ed share of the costs for Russ­ian gas deliv­er­ies to Ukraine could be cov­ered, accord­ing to the EU’s Ener­gy Com­mis­sion­er Gün­ther Oet­tinger’s entourage. The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment must revise its bud­get. This implies wide-rang­ing social cuts. The fact that no final agree­ment has been reached with Rus­sia on the sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas is advan­ta­geous to Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko and Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk. The absolute­ly essen­tial agree­ment and, with it, also the debate on more cuts, are, there­fore, post­poned until after elec­tions.

Lies

Recent Ger­man media reports have demon­strat­ed to what extent the west­ern “free­dom” PR cam­paign, even beyond the Ukrain­ian elec­tion cam­paign, is resort­ing to obvi­ous lies for their pow­er strug­gle with Rus­sia. Last week­end, Radoslaw Siko­rs­ki, until recent­ly, as Poland’s For­eign Min­is­ter, one of the EU’s most involved politi­cians in the Ukrain­ian con­flict, was quot­ed claim­ing that in Feb­ru­ary 2008, the Russ­ian Pres­i­dent, Vladimir Putin, pro­posed to him and the Pol­ish Prime Min­is­ter, at the time, Don­ald Tusk, that Ukraine be divid­ed up between Poland and Rus­sia. “Tusk, for­tu­nate­ly, did not answer. He knew that the room was bugged,” claimed Siko­rs­ki. By Wednes­day, it was claimed that the “sus­pi­cion” of Rus­sia cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing “an old plan of con­quest,” has now “been fur­ther rein­forced” by Siko­rski’s declaration.[7] How­ev­er, by then, Siko­rs­ki already had had to admit that, con­trary to his ear­li­er alle­ga­tions, he had not even been present at the said meet­ing. He had been told that “a sim­i­lar” state­ment had been made. He has now also admit­ted that the meet­ing in ques­tion had not even tak­en place.[8] This inci­dent is but one in a long line of absur­di­ties being prop­a­gat­ed by west­ern polit­i­cal PR and media. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9])

Oth­er reports and back­ground infor­ma­tion on Ger­many’s pol­i­cy toward Ukraine can be found here: The Kiev Esca­la­tion Strat­e­gy [71]The Free World [72]A Fatal Taboo Vio­la­tion [73]The Euro­peaniza­tion of Ukraine [74]Cri­sis of Legit­i­ma­cy [75]“Fas­cist Free­dom Fight­ers” [76]The Restora­tion of the Oli­garchs [77] (IV), Sec­ond-Class Stake­hold­ers [78]Ukrain­ian Patri­ots [79]Ukrain­ian Maneu­vers [80]A Les­son Learned [81] and Under Tute­lage [82].

[1] See Our Man in Kiev [83].
[2] See Radikalisierung im Par­la­ment [84].
[3] Ben­jamin Bid­der: Rechter Poli­tik­er Ljaschko: Der Mann, der die Ukraine aufhet­zt. www.spiegel.de 22.10.2014.
[4] Ukraine cri­sis: the neo-Nazi brigade fight­ing pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists. www.telegraph.co.uk 11.08.2014.
[5] Ukraine: Wide­spread Use of Clus­ter Muni­tions. www.hrw.org 20.10.2014.
[6] Matthias Benz: Ein Land im Stresszu­s­tand. www.nzz.de 22.10.2014.
[7] Kon­rad Schuller: Ein schlechter Scherz? Frank­furter All­ge­meine Zeitung 22.10.2014.
[8] Siko­rs­ki entschuldigt sich. Frank­furter All­ge­meine Zeitung 23.10.2014.
[9] See “Moskaus Drang nach West­en” [85].

 

5. Poroshenko made [32] Octo­ber 14 a nation­al hol­i­day, hon­or­ing the found­ing of the OUN-UPA.

6a. It appears that Azov Bat­tal­ion com­man­der Andriy Bilet­sky was elect­ed to Par­lia­ment as well.

“A Bilet­sky, Neo-Nazi, Azov Reg Com­man­der, Social Nation­al­ist A Leader Elect­ed with Sup­port from Pop­u­lar Front”;  Ukraine Antifa Twit­ter­feed; 10/26/2014. [13]

6b. Deputy com­man­der of the Azov Bat­tal­ion, Vadim Troy­an, just become Kiev’s chief of police [86] (Google trans­lated):

“Avakov Appoint­ed Chief of Police of Kiev Region Zamkom­bata ‘Azov’ “; 10/31/2014. [87]

Ukrain­ian Inte­rior Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov appoint­ed chief of Research Affairs in Kyiv oblast par­ty ATO, deputy bat­tal­ion com­man­der “Azov” Vadim Troy­an.

He announced from the stage of the Cen­ter of Cul­ture and Arts of Ukraine Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs on Fri­day, Oct. 31, trans­mits “Ukrin­form”.

“I have an order that has appoint­ed Lieu­tenant Colonel Vadim Troy­an depart­men­tal head of the Kiev region, and I hope that the patri­ots who proved his loy­alty in bat­tle coun­tries that are com­pe­tent, able, togeth­er with the old experts to form qual­i­ta­tively new mili­tia, which we expect,” — said the Min­is­ter.

Avakov added that Troy­an is a grad­u­ate of the Police Acad­emy, has expe­ri­ence, trust him, because he is well estab­lished in the ATO. “It frees Mar­i­upol with” Azov “, fought under Ilo­vaiskaya, par­tic­i­pated in the bat­tles of Shi­rokino. We trust him. And today, the deci­sion of the min­is­ter, he’s a police chief of Kiev region “- said the head of the Inte­rior Min­istry.

In reply, Vadim Troy­an assured that the Ukraini­ans will not let such a respon­si­ble posi­tion. “When I was study­ing, I dreamed of chang­ing the sys­tem and the fight against crime, to help the peo­ple of Ukraine. I think that this case is that God has giv­en me — the bat­tal­ion, the min­istry and the peo­ple — I will not fail, “- he said.

6c. Azov Bat­tal­ion mem­ber Igor Mosiy­chuk [12] has been elect­ed to par­lia­ment on the Rad­i­cal Par­ty tick­et.

“Igor Mosiy­chuk, Nazi, Azov Reg­i­ment, Social-Nation­al­ist Assem­bly, elect­ed to Ukraine Par­lia­ment, Rad­i­cal Par­ty”; Ukraine Antifa Twit­ter­feed; 10/26/2014. [12]

6d. Anoth­er Azov vet­er­an (killed in action in August) was a close ally of Kiev May­or Vitali Klitschko, who is a key mem­ber of Poroshenko’s polit­i­cal par­ty. His wid­ow, also an Azov asso­ciate and a mem­ber of Yat­senyuk’s Mil­i­tary Coun­cil, was head of the “anti-cor­rup­tion” task force. This places her promi­nent­ly in the “lus­tra­tion law” milieu!

“Hus­band of Kiev Rev­o­lu­tion Hero Killed in Bat­tle” by Christo­pher Miller; Mashable.com; 8/10/2014. [88]

A close ally of Kiev May­or Vitali Klitschko and the hus­band of promi­nent jour­nal­ist-turned-activist Tetyana Chorno­vol, was killed in action in the country’s con­flict-torn east on Sun­day.

Myko­la Bere­zovy, 37, was fight­ing with the “Azov” bat­tal­ion, a group of vol­un­teer fight­ers under the con­trol of the Inte­ri­or Min­istry, against Russ­ian-backed rebels in the town of Ilo­vaisk some 30 miles south­east of the sep­a­ratist strong­hold of Donet­sk when he was fatal­ly wound­ed by a sniper’s bul­let [89], said Anton Gerashchenko, an advi­sor to Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov. . . .

. . . . Under the new gov­ern­ment, Chorno­vol was appoint­ed to lead Ukraine’s anti-cor­rup­tion task force. . . .

. . . . Bere­zovy, the for­mer head of Klitschko’s Ukrain­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) par­ty in in what is now rebel-occu­pied Hor­liv­ka, Donet­sk region, bled out while wait­ing for a med­ical assis­tance to arrive at the scene. . . . .

7.  An arti­cle about Ukraine fur­ther devel­ops the pres­ence of Nazis and fas­cists in the so-called “mod­er­ate” polit­i­cal ele­ments in Ukraine. The spin is inter­est­ing. Crit­ics from the pro-EU fac­tion are crit­i­ciz­ing this as giv­ing cre­dence to what Putin is say­ing. The fact is that Putin has been mak­ing those state­ments because the pro-OUN/B heirs in Ukraine are, in fact, Nazis and fas­cists!

“Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Wowed Con­gress, But His Par­ty Has a Dark Side” by Anna Nemtso­va; The Dai­ly Beast; 9/19/2014. [31]

Activists and oppo­nents warn that Poroshenko’s embrace of ultra-right­ists plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin.

Experts who mon­i­tor ultra-right-wing groups and hate crimes have sent an open let­ter ask­ing Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk, a key Poroshenko sup­port­er, to exclude sev­er­al Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist lead­ers from his new­ly found­ed People’s Front par­ty. These activists remind­ed Yat­senyuk and Poroshenko that some of the pub­lic fig­ures appoint­ed as the par­ty can­di­dates for the upcom­ing Octo­ber par­lia­men­tary elec­tions are open­ly anti-Semit­ic and are not known to have renounced their views. They pro­mote rad­i­cal Ukrain­ian nation­al­ism, racism and neo-Nazi ideology—the heady brew of loath­some doc­trines that Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and his back­ers have warned about since the Feb­ru­ary change of pow­er in Kiev.

In pho­tographs of the recent par­ty con­gress, Yat­senyuk and for­mer act­ing Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Turch­nov stood shoul­der to shoul­der with Andrei Bilet­sky, a leader in the far-right Patri­ots of Ukraine and the Social-Nation­al­ist Assem­bly.

These groups are known for brawl­ing, attack­ing pub­lic fig­ures, and var­i­ous hate crimes. Before the Russ­ian-backed rebel­lion in east­ern Ukraine most were regard­ed as lit­tle more than hooli­gans. But in the face of Russia’s threats, Bilet­sky and oth­er far-right fig­ures have been trans­formed from fringe per­son­al­i­ties into nation­al heroes.

The vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion Bilet­sky serves with, Azov, counts a few hun­dred armed mil­i­tants. “We don’t deny that a major­i­ty of our guys are Ukrain­ian patri­ots,” Bilet­sky said in a recent inter­view, pub­lished on Azov’s Face­book page. West­ern vol­un­teers also sup­port­ed Bilet­sky, he said: “Brits, Ital­ians, Swedes, Rus­sians, Belaru­sians, some Greeks, Croats and Poles. For­eign­ers are our elite forces.” The battalion’s sym­bol is a mod­i­fied swasti­ka, although for the record the group denies it is Nazi-inspired.

The more mod­er­ate oppo­si­tion has crit­i­cized Poroshenko for seem­ing to wel­come the “Nazi” part­ners while using them as can­non fod­der in the war against Moscow and pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists.

In a recent inter­view with The Dai­ly Beast in Kiev, Grig­o­ry Nemi­ra, head of the Euro­pean inte­gra­tion com­mit­tee in the Ukraine par­lia­ment and a close ally of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Yulia Tymoshenko, said that Poroshenko pre­ferred to del­e­gate the respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pened on the front lines to vol­un­teer com­man­ders and not the defense min­istry.

“The pres­i­dent still has not appoint­ed a chief of staff for the armed forces,” said Nemi­ra. “He has not admit­ted we are in a state of war, pre­fer­ring to throw the bat­tal­ions like Azov into the most dan­ger­ous com­bat zones, where author­i­ties would not have the courage to send reg­u­lar troops.”

The price these sup­pos­ed­ly hero­ic bat­tal­ion com­man­ders demand­ed for their com­bat roles is rep­re­sen­ta­tion in par­lia­ment. Russ­ian forces have killed dozens of vol­un­teer sol­diers in recent bat­tles, Bilet­sky said ear­li­er this month, and “those who made a major sac­ri­fice deserve to be rep­re­sent­ed in pow­er.” His bat­tal­ion fight­ers, some wear­ing undis­guised swasti­ka tat­toos, often express anti-Semit­ic views. But that did not stop hun­dreds of Ukraini­ans from push­ing “like” under Face­book pho­tographs of Bilet­sky and his men.

The “Mil­i­tary Coun­cil” of the People’s Front wel­comed a com­man­der of the Dnper‑1 Bat­tal­ion, Yuri Birch. Andriy Paru­biy, a co-founder of Patri­ots of Ukraine back in the 1990s, also has found a role in the pro-Poroshenko camp. [Paru­biy is from Svo­bo­da and was Defense Min­is­ter through much of the ear­ly part of 2014.] He and a few oth­er activists were tried for beat­ing demon­stra­tors in Lviv on Novem­ber 7, 1997. Dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary upris­ing on Maid­an square, he worked close­ly with far-right groups as a com­man­der of the Maid­an self-defense troops. Last year, Patri­ots of Ukraine sup­port­ers and Bilet­sky were accused of attempt­ing to kill jour­nal­ist Sergei Kolesnik. He was detained but nev­er con­vict­ed. Oth­er sup­port­ers of the orga­ni­za­tion were jailed in 2011 for prepar­ing a ter­ror­ist act. . . . .

8. The pro­gram con­cludes with a syn­op­tic overview of the his­tor­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the OUN/B milieu that came to pow­er in the wake of the Maid­an coup. (We have cov­ered the ascen­sion of the OUN/B heirs in the Ukraine in a num­ber of pro­grams: FTR #‘s 777 [16]778 [17]779 [18]780 [19]781 [20]782 [21], 783 [22]784 [23]794 [24]800 [25], 803 [26], 804 [27], 808 [28], 811 [29], 817 [30].)