Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

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FTR #824 Bringing It All Back Home, Ukrainian-Style: The Evolution and Triumph of Ukrainian Fascism

Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. 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.  (The pre­vi­ous flash dri­ve was cur­rent through the end of May of 2012 and con­tained FTR #748.)

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This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment

NB: This descrip­tion con­tains mate­r­i­al not includ­ed in the orig­i­nal broad­cast.

Intro­duc­tion: The U.S. was one of three coun­tries to vote against a U.N. res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors as “free­dom fighters”–something the U.S. has been pro­mot­ing since the end of World War II. Ger­many and the EU nations abstained. Ukraine itself and Cana­da were the oth­er coun­tries that vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion. The OUN/B dias­po­ra and its influ­ence in the GOP and intel­li­gence ser­vices of the U.S. is the pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion to be weighed in con­nec­tion with this dis­grace­ful episode.

The large OUN/B  dias­po­ra pop­u­la­tion in Cana­da undoubt­ed­ly has much to do with that nation’s behav­ior in this con­text.

Most of the pro­gram relies on an impor­tant piece by George Elia­son, who resides and works in Ukraine. (NB: in this piece “Ban­dera” is a col­lec­tive noun applied to the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions adher­ing to the ide­ol­o­gy and method­ol­o­gy of OUN/B leader Stephan Ban­dera.)

In this arti­cle, Elia­son ana­lyzes the role of the OUN/B dias­po­ra and its piv­otal role in the gen­er­a­tion and prop­a­ga­tion of anti-Sovi­et and anti-Russ­ian ide­ol­o­gy.

By work­ing with­in net­works such as the Promethean League, the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations and oth­er intel­li­gence-con­nect­ed net­works, the “Ban­dera” have suc­cess­ful­ly com­man­deered the ide­o­log­i­cal, polit­i­cal and jour­nal­is­tic atti­tudes and poli­cies pur­sued by the coun­tries that host­ed them.

Fol­low­ing the anti-Russ­ian “lus­tra­tion” laws, Petro Poroshenko is mov­ing to alter the cit­i­zen­ship laws to allow select for­eign­ers to get fast-tracked cit­i­zen­ship in order to allow them to hold cab­i­net posi­tions. It sounds like he’s also con­sid­er­ing just allow­ing for­eign­ers to fill those posts with­out the cit­i­zen­ship require­ment. It sounds as if he wish­es to install per­son­nel from the OUN/B dias­po­ra in Ukraine’s law enforce­ment and nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus.

Ukrainian/American Natal­ie Jaresko–Ukraine’s new finance minister–is a for­mer State Depart­ment offi­cer who was just grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship last week. She was for­mer­ly head of a US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment-backed fund. (US AID is a fre­quent cov­er for intel­li­gence activ­i­ties.)

Pro­gram High­lights Include: British intel­li­gence offi­cer Bri­an Crozier’s role in the immer­sion of Ban­dera in the intel­li­gence ser­vices and polit­i­cal estab­lish­ments of the UK and oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries ; review of the Free Con­gress Foun­da­tion’s role in installing the “Ban­dera” and oth­er East­ern Euro­pean Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors in new­ly-lib­er­at­ed coun­tries of the for­mer Sovi­et bloc; dis­cus­sion of Simon Petli­u­ra’s estab­lish­ment of fas­cism as the tem­plate for Ukrain­ian nation­al­ism; the influ­ence of the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire on the devel­op­ment of fas­cism in Ukraine and oth­er East­ern Euro­pean nations.

1. Most of the pro­gram relies on an impor­tant piece by George Elia­son, who resides and works in Ukraine. (NB: in this piece “Ban­dera” is a col­lec­tive noun applied to the indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions adher­ing to the ide­ol­o­gy and method­ol­o­gy of OUN/B leader Stephan Ban­dera.)

In this arti­cle, Elia­son ana­lyzes the role of the OUN/B dias­po­ra and its piv­otal role in the gen­er­a­tion and prop­a­ga­tion of anti-Sovi­et and anti-Russ­ian ide­ol­o­gy.

By work­ing with­in net­works such as the Promethean League, the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations and oth­er intel­li­gence-con­nect­ed net­works, the “Ban­dera” have suc­cess­ful­ly com­man­deered the ide­o­log­i­cal, polit­i­cal and jour­nal­is­tic atti­tudes and poli­cies pur­sued by the coun­tries that host­ed them.

“Ukraine: Why Ban­dera Have the Largest Geo-Polit­i­cal Voice in EU” by George Elia­son; OpEdNews.com; 8/1/2014.

*“Ban­dera” here is used as a gener­ic term for the fol­low­ers of Stephan Ban­dera and their institutions–D.E.

Part I of the Series- Ban­dera — Into The House of Lec­tor

Today with the sup­port of Europe, Aus­tralia, Cana­da, the US direct­ly, NGOs, the IMF and UN indi­rect­ly; Kiev enjoys an unpar­al­leled geopo­lit­i­cal posi­tion. What­ev­er lie it tells is the new truth.

Com­men­ta­tors have been scram­bling to make sense of this, and of how Nazism could have popped up so bold­ly with the sup­port of the free West­ern World. We’re told it only plays a small part in what is going on in Ukraine, but his­to­ry is often stranger than fic­tion and in this case fic­tion is the sto­ry you have been told. Ukraine is a para­dox: There has nev­er been a demo­c­ra­t­ic ori­ent­ed gov­ern­ment in Kiev and demo­c­ra­t­ic protests were the ruse to get West­ern sup­port.

From the late 1980’s to Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence in 1991, the Ban­dera world lead­ers looked at Ukraine sens­ing inde­pen­dence would soon hap­pen. Their great­est con­cern in the run up to free­dom was that there were no Nazis in Ukraine, or more pre­cise­ly only a few, locat­ed around the Ban­dera cap­i­tal of Lviv, with no polit­i­cal pow­er. From 1991, with the help of the US and EU they have been prepar­ing to change that fact rad­i­cal­ly. The para­dox is that mod­ern Ukraine’s Nazi gov­ern­ments have always been active on the world stage. The only form of gov­ern­ment the mod­ern Ukrain­ian state has ever known has been the worlds longest con­tin­u­ing and most extreme ultra nation­al­ist gov­ern­ment the plan­et has ever seen.

Where Ukrain­ian Extrem­ism Start­ed

In 1848 the mod­ern Ukrain­ian state came into being under the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an (Haps­burg) Empire, in what is called the Spring of Nations ( see Roots of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ism ‑Paul Robert Magosci). Under the Haps­burg empire the Ukrain­ian peo­ple were first rec­og­nized as a dis­tinct nation­al­i­ty and freed from the serf­dom they had been under since the seat of the Rus empire moved from Kiev to Moscow.

In the Aus­tria-Hun­gar­i­an Empire they were known as the Tyroleans of the east. The term means Aus­tri­ans of the east. With their recog­ni­tion as a peo­ple by Vien­na, they acquired the Hab­s­burg mod­el of gov­ern­ment. These coun­tries include: Gali­cia (West Ukraine), Ruthe­nia ( West Ukraine), Esto­nia, Poland, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Aus­tria, Hun­gary. After WW I Ger­many adopt­ed this mod­el, as did Bosnia-Herce­gov­ina, Ser­bia, Slove­nia, and Roma­nia.

When fleshed out, this gov­ern­ment mod­el is an extreme form of ultra nation­al­ism. The only part of Ukraine rec­og­nized by the empire was Gali­cia which was a major hold­ing for the Haps­burgs. Lin­guis­ti­cal­ly there were four lan­guages in what is now Ukraine. Ruthe­ni­ans, also called Russyns, had a unique lan­guage. Gali­cia had its own, which is now called Ukrain­ian. Dnieper Ukraine spoke a sim­i­lar lan­guage. Peo­ple in Lit­tle Rus­sia (the South East), which was out­side of the Haps­burg hold­ings spoke Russ­ian and were a part of Greater Rus­sia. (ibid). West­ern Ukraine was entire­ly devot­ed to the Aus­tro- Hun­gar­i­an empire and was its staunchest sup­port­er in war.

Why Ultra Nation­al­ism or Nazism became the East­ern Euro­pean Mod­el

The ultra nation­al­ist gov­ern­ment mod­el that the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire set out for the indi­vid­ual nations in the empire dur­ing the 1848 Spring of Nations set up a dual loy­al­ty sys­tem that bound the coun­tries inside the Empire to Vien­na’s rule. Each coun­try weed­ed out cit­i­zens that lacked total loy­al­ty to the empire’s ultra nation­al patri­o­tism, or con­sid­ered oth­er forms of gov­er­nance. They did this through pogroms and geno­cide.

Each cit­i­zen’s iden­ti­ty had to wrap around the excep­tion­al­ism as defined by the lead­ers of their coun­try. Each cit­i­zen was first and fore­most entire­ly devot­ed to the nation, demon­strat­ed by nation­al sac­ri­fice or hero­ism. To be entire­ly devot­ed to nation involved an almost cul­tic devo­tion to the Emper­or and the Empire that the nation was part of, and belonged to, and Gali­cian Ukraine became the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire’s poster child.

Ultra nation­al­ism shield­ed Haps­burg West Ukraine from Russ­ian influ­ence out­side and from Pol­ish influ­ence inside. It kept all of the Empire’s pos­ses­sions from gain­ing too much influ­ence in sis­ter coun­tries and com­pet­ing for loy­al­ties.

In World War 1, The Ukrain­ian state fought on the side of Ger­many with Aus­tria-Hun­gary. They found­ed the Ukrain­ian Gali­cian Army which laid the foun­da­tion for the lat­er UPA and Ban­dera move­ments. With the breakup of the Haps­burg empire, the vas­sal states were freed by default, not by choice. With the Empire gone, the only choice was to declare a repub­lic or be absorbed by Poland. It should be not­ed that the Ultra Nation­al­ism dis­played by Kiev today is nei­ther orig­i­nal nor Ukrain­ian. Fur­ther­more, most peo­ple are not aware that the oth­er Haps­burg rem­nant states dis­play the same ultra nation­al ten­den­cies as Ban­dera Ukraine but have not been able to become estab­lished as such. (See Hun­gary, where the ultra nation­al­ist Job­bik Par­ty won 20% of the elec­torate in 2014.)

Prometheanism as the Root of Russ­ian Hate

Anoth­er recent project is called Prometheanism. Accord­ing to Wikipedia: “The cre­ator and soul of the Promethean con­cept [wrote Cha­raszkiewicz] was Mar­shal Pil­sud­s­ki, who as ear­ly as 1904, in a mem­o­ran­dum to the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment, point­ed out the need to employ the numer­ous non-Russ­ian nations that inhab­it­ed the basins of the Baltic, Black and Caspi­an Seas in its strug­gle against Rus­sia, and empha­sized that the Pol­ish nation, by virtue of its his­to­ry, love of free­dom, and uncom­pro­mis­ing stance toward [the three empires that had par­ti­tioned Poland out of polit­i­cal exis­tence at the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry] would, in that strug­gle, doubt­less take a lead­ing place and help achieve the eman­ci­pa­tion of oth­er nations oppressed by Rus­sia.”

This would be achieved by help­ing these nations to devel­op along strong ultra nation­al­ist lines. All the Promethean coun­tries agreed to put any dis­putes behind them and work togeth­er until they were all free ultra nation­al­ist states. For Ukraine from its incep­tion as a rec­og­nized peo­ple in 1848, Nazism is the only form of gov­ern­ment it has ever known. The short lived gov­ern­ments that fol­lowed and con­tin­ued in exile all these years were known for their unre­lent­ing bru­tal­i­ty and extreme ultra nation­al char­ac­ter­is­tics.

The Roots of Ultra-Ban­dera Ukraine’s Rus­so­pho­bia

All ultra-nation­al­ism func­tions by focus­ing on a nation­al myth. This means that his­to­ry and real­i­ty are irrel­e­vant. The myth cre­ates the nation that can do no wrong and is set above moral­i­ty. The root of Gali­cian hatred of Rus­sia is based in its nation­al myth. Accord­ing to this myth they are the sole heirs to Kiev Rus the fore­run­ner of their nation. They are the heirs of the lan­guage, and the right­ful rulers of all Rus peo­ple. Accord­ing to the myth, the Moscovy empire stole their birthright and lan­guage. This is what prompt­ed the 2014 Moskal on the knives mur­der­ous rage that is part and par­cel of Ukrain­ian nation­al­ism. At the same time they point out that they were called Ukraini­ans and spoke the Ukrain­ian lan­guage in the days of Kievan Rus to jus­ti­fy the nation­al­ist myth that lan­guage is what binds them (His­to­ry of Ukraine- Rev. Isadore Nahayewsky, PHD- Amer­i­ca Pub­lish­ing House of the Prov­i­dence Asso­ci­a­tion of Ukrain­ian Catholics in Amer­i­ca 1962). The nation­al­ist myth is a com­mon denom­i­na­tor in every ultra nation­al­ist or nazi coun­try. In the case of Ukraini­ans, they con­sid­er that they have been done an irrepara­ble wrong by his­to­ry, and the only way to right it is to destroy Rus­sia.

Ukraine and the East­ern Bloc- Devel­op­ing the Ultra

From 1917 to 1921 Ukraine exist­ed as three inde­pen­dent states; West­ern Ukraine, Ukraine, and the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Sovi­et Repub­lic (dis­band­ed 1918 and inte­grat­ed with Sovi­et Ukraine).

Dur­ing this time, no Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment last­ed more than a year before being over­thrown by increas­ing­ly ultra nation­al­ists; how­ev­er, the South­east­ern region was nev­er a part of ultra nation­al Ukraine.

The gov­ern­ment of West Ukraine (Gali­cia) and Ukraine formed a loose main­ly sym­bol­ic union based on ultra nation­al­ism. Each had its own nation­al gov­ern­ment, army, and laws. Simon Petliu­ra was one of the orig­i­nal lead­ers of the Haps­burg coun­tries to sign onto Prometheanism. But even as the rec­og­nized dic­ta­tor of Ukraine he was forced to move the gov­ern­ment into exile.The only accept­able form of gov­ern­ment to a Ukrain­ian is the Gali­cian (West Ukraine) mod­el of extreme ultra-nation­al­ism. Petliu­ra is revered as a hero in West­ern Ukraine and a butch­er every­where else for his pogroms, tor­ture, and mur­der.

As the Sovi­et Union grew stronger, Poland set up what it and even­tu­al­ly the West would con­sid­er the only legit­i­mate gov­ern­ments of the Promethean coun­tries.

Promethean Coun­tries whose lead­ers emi­gat­ed

  1. The Ukrain­ian Peo­ple’s Repub­lic, to Poland, France and Czecho­slo­va­kia;
  2. Geor­gia, to France;
  3. Azer­bai­jan, to Turkey and France;
  4. Kuban and Don, to Czecho­slo­va­kia;
  5. The North­ern Cau­ca­sus’ Moun­tain Nation­al Cen­ter, to Turkey;
  6. The Armen­ian Nation­al Cen­ter, to France;
  7. The Tatar Nation­al Cen­ters (Crimea, Idel-Ural, Turkestan), to Turkey, France and Poland

Even­tu­al­ly, with the addi­tion of a few more anti-bol­she­vik coun­tries (in exile) they would be looked upon as a mini- UN by the west. The com­mon denom­i­na­tors were that all are extreme­ly ultra nation­al­ist and all have a com­mon hatred for Rus­sia.

Prometheanism is still very active today, focus­ing on destroy­ing the per­ceived Russ­ian impe­ri­al­ism.

** Note:With this devel­op­ment, unless oth­er­wise spec­i­fied, Ban­dera is used as a gener­ic term which, like its syn­onym Nazi, should be used as a group descrip­tion for all “in exile” gov­ern­ments under direct Ban­dera lead­er­ship. All of the above list­ed have been.

The 1930’s

His­to­ry dealt anoth­er real slight to ultra nation­al­ist Ukraine by cred­it­ing the rise of Nazism to Adolf Hitler. After WWI Ger­many also moved into the Haps­burg mod­el of inde­pen­dent gov­er­nance. Hitler was­n’t orig­i­nal, he just devel­oped into the big kid on the block. Nazi Ger­many had lit­tle use for Nazi Ukraine until after the war start­ed. Ger­man Nazi ide­ol­o­gy was based on indus­tri­al fas­cism, while Ukrain­ian ide­ol­o­gy was based on agri­cul­tur­al fas­cism. Ukraine was seen as a back­wa­ter to the Ger­man ultra nation­al­ists at the time, and this has­n’t changed.

Fol­low­ing the WWI breakup of the Aus­tria-Hun­gary Empire the Ban­dera were an ide­al fit. The Ger­mans were the sis­ter empire to their own and they expect­ed the same kind of treat­ment. That fact made it nat­ur­al for the Ban­dera to swear allegeance to the Third Reich for­ev­er. It was a slap in the face when they did­n’t get the same rights they had under the Empire. This fact, cou­pled with Hitler los­ing the war are the only rea­sons they hate being called Nazis today.

It’s also why in some of the pri­vate armies oper­at­ing in Ukraine today they swear alle­giance to the 3rd Reich ide­al.

WW2

Any­one who has fol­lowed Ukraine at all is well aware of Ban­der­a’s activ­i­ties in WWII. The geno­cide of over 500,000 peo­ple in Ukraine, the SS Divi­sions that the ultra nation­al­ists manned, fight­ing against both the Sovi­et Union and the West­ern Allies. The Ban­dera SS Divi­sions also manned the con­cen­tra­tion camps that became exter­mi­na­tion camps dur­ing the war. The Ban­dera have nev­er stood tri­al for crimes against human­i­ty, and nev­er even had to apol­o­gize.

Post WW2

In 1946, three devel­op­ments hap­pened that pro­found­ly changed the world we live in. The first hap­pened as the ultra nation­al­ist Ukrain­ian emi­gre pop­u­la­tions set­tled into their host coun­tries and start­ed to par­tic­i­pate as dual cit­i­zens. Keep in mind that oth­er than for a few brief years, Ukrain­ian ultra nation­al­ism only exist­ed as a gov­ern­ment in the dias­po­ra. The first the Ultra Nation­al­ists were polit­i­cal extrem­ists from a tiny region and after­ward only exist­ed as a stand­ing army.

Dur­ing and after WWII, the Ban­dera army moved out of Ukraine, emi­grat­ing as a nazi army to host coun­tries all over Europe, Scan­di­navia, Aus­tralia, and fur­ther West. The Ban­dera were com­prised of, at min­i­mum, 4 Waf­fen SS divi­sions as well as the large civil­ian army they main­tained for geno­cide.

The Ban­dera start­ed tak­ing pub­lic office as cit­i­zens of the host coun­try and main­tained rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment in exile. They joined polit­i­cal par­ties and pushed the host coun­tries polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies toward the far right as they went. They worked togeth­er as a bloc to push for the destruc­tion of the Sovi­et Union and the rein­state­ment of a gov­ern­ment that would become Nazi Ukraine.

Even­tu­al­ly, as office hold­ers or advis­ers they were in posi­tion to push Ban­der­a’s objec­tives in con­junc­tion with the gov­ern­ment in exile. The oth­er Ban­dera (all asso­ci­at­ed groups) described under the Promethean project and below did the same thing, work­ing hand in hand with the Ukrain­ian lead­er­ship. Even­tu­al­ly this mix dom­i­nat­ed all of West­ern pol­i­tics, espe­cial­ly the con­ser­v­a­tive and ultra lib­er­al par­ties whereev­er they went by stok­ing nation­al­ist fer­vor and pride — or Excep­tion­al­ism. After 1947 they were recruit­ed as agents in the cold war. Even­tu­al­ly across Europe and the West they would run the cold war and gain access to the high­est posi­tions of pow­er on the con­ti­nent.

Yaroslav Stet­sko, the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations

Stet­sko was Stepan Ban­der­a’s sec­ond in com­mand and founder of many of the groups that would push for Ukrain­ian inde­pen­dence. Stet­sko took over world lead­er­ship of Ban­der­a’s OUN‑B fac­tion in the late 1960’s until 1986 when he died. He was nev­er charged with crimes against human­i­ty.

***The Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations was a group of extreme ultra nation­al­ist East­ern Euro­pean coun­tries whose pur­pose was the destruc­tion of the Sovi­et Union and Com­mu­nism by fur­ther­ing the Promethean pro­jec­t’s aims. ABN coun­tries were devel­oped on ultra nation­al­ist foun­da­tions, and their accep­tance across the west was due to their work dur­ing the cold war.

The ABN pro­vid­ed Europe with:

  • On the ground intel­li­gence inside the Sovi­et Union
  • Espi­onage experts inside the Sovi­et Union
  • Pro­pa­gan­dists that could com­mu­ni­cate with peo­ple inside their respec­tive bloc coun­tries and dis­sem­i­nate anti Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­da to the local pop­u­la­tions, build­ing nation­al­ist ten­sions.
  • Raise funds for con­ser­v­a­tive and ultra con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­dates in coun­tries across Europe
  • NATO action­able intel­li­gence: Ban­dera has been described as the only weapon need­ed to destroy the Sovi­et Union. This was due to its abil­i­ty to infil­trate gov­ern­ments, influ­ence pol­i­cy mak­ers, and get their own peo­ple into posi­tions of pow­er.

ABN Groups includ­ed;

  • The Bul­gar­i­an Nation­al Front, (Bul­gar­ia)
  • The Belaru­sian Cen­tral Rada, (Belarus)
  • The Cos­sack Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment
  • The Croa­t­ian Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, (Croa­t­ia)
  • The Czech Move­ment for Free­dom (Za Svo­bo­du), (Czech Repub­lic)
  • The Czech Nation­al Com­mit­tee,
  • The Eston­ian Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, (Esto­nia)
  • The Union of Eston­ian Fight­ers for Free­dom,
  • The “Free Arme­nia” Com­mit­tee, (Geor­gia)
  • The Hun­gar­i­an Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, (Hun­gary)
  • The Hun­gar­i­an Mind­szen­ty Move­ment,
  • The Lat­vian Asso­ci­a­tion for the Strug­gle against Com­mu­nism, (Latvia)
  • The Lithuan­ian Rebirth Move­ment, (Lithua­nia)
  • The Slo­vak Lib­er­a­tion Com­mit­tee, (Slo­va­kia)
  • The Nation­al Turkestan­ian Uni­ty Com­mit­tee, (Turkestan)

The Re-emer­gence of the Ukrain­ian Gov­ern­ment in Exile

When Symon Petliu­ra (pres­i­dent of the gov­ern­ment in exile) was assas­si­nat­ed in 1926, Andrii Livyt­sky took over. In 1945 Livyt­sky reac­ti­vat­ed the Gov­ern­ment-in-exile of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Repub­lic and invit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the new emi­gra­tion to join it. In 1946 he instruct­ed Isaak Mazepa to unite all polit­i­cal par­ties around the state cen­ter of the UNR, and that union even­tu­al­ly result­ed in the orga­ni­za­tion of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Coun­cil (1947).

In 1945, at the found­ing of the Unit­ed Nations, the Ukrain­ian Sovi­et Social­ist Repub­lic was giv­en found­ing mem­ber sta­tus. Even­tu­al­ly through the work of the ABN, UNC, and many oth­er Ban­dera (include all cap­tive nation coun­tries under ABN), the UNC stepped into this posi­tion unof­fi­cial­ly. Even­tu­al­ly all fac­tions of the Ukrain­ian Dias­po­ra would coa­lesce around the UNC and the gov­ern­ment in exile of Ukraine. By the 1980’s the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Repub­lic gov­ern­ment in exile became the only rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a free Ukraine for Europe, the West, and its allies.

1950’s Sovi­et Union

The Sovi­et Union that the world heard about dur­ing the Cold War until its col­lapse was the pro­pa­gan­da the Ban­dera devel­oped about Stal­in­ism. In Jan­u­ary 1950, the Sovi­et Union offered a gen­er­al amnesty to all Ban­dera fight­ers. Dur­ing the 1950’s the Sovi­ets pushed out the last of the Ban­dera gueril­la fight­ers and after Stal­in the Sovi­ets went through a peri­od of de-Stal­in­iza­tion. This nor­mal­iza­tion made pos­si­ble Ban­der­a’s resur­gence in Ukraine.

Nor­mal­iza­tion (or Sovi­eti­fi­ca­tion) meant tak­ing all the dif­fer­ent republics in the Sovi­et Union and homog­e­niz­ing them in order cre­ate one nation. Part of that effort was to white­wash the Ukrain­ian Nazis from the his­to­ry books, both to assim­i­late and pro­tect pri­mar­i­ly the Gali­cian pop­u­la­tion that was left, from ret­ri­bu­tion for the geno­cide Ban­dera com­mit­ted in west, cen­tral, and east­ern Ukraine.

Because Nazism was­n’t taught in school beyond the fact that it is evil, what Ukrain­ian ultra nation­al­ism is was for­got­ten. Most sur­vivors of the atroc­i­ties just did not talk about it. Thus, in the 1990’s, ultra nation­al­ism could emerge and remain unrec­og­nized in plain sight, grow­ing into the orga­ni­za­tion­al force behind the Orange Rev­o­lu­tion and the Coup in 2014. All the pro-coup forces present in 2014 includ­ing Tryzub/ Pravy Sek­tor were active in 1991.

1950’s Anti-Bol­she­vik Europe

In the late 1940’s and into the 50’s cold war fever spread across Europe. Gov­ern­ments began their move to the right and even­tu­al­ly far right, cul­mi­nat­ing in the UK with Prime Min­is­ter Mar­garet Thatch­er. Com­mu­nist sym­pa­thiz­ers in gov­ern­ment were fer­ret­ed out. Anti- Com­mu­nist groups such as the ABN became the go to net­works for intel­li­gence and sab­o­tage efforts. Dur­ing the 50’s, Stet­sko’s ABN absorbed or destroyed every oth­er group or net­work not pre­vi­ous­ly aligned with it, and became the sole provider of intel­li­gence to all of Europe’s intel agen­cies and gov­ern­ments regard­ing the Sovi­et threat. These were the only East­ern Euro­pean gov­ern­ment struc­tures that Europe ever dealt with for over 50 years.

Dur­ing this time, Euro­pean defense and for­eign pol­i­cy revolved around what their Ban­dera part­ners report­ed. When you con­sid­er every­thing that occurred dur­ing the Cold War, that is con­sid­er­able. From the late 1940’s until the fall of the Sovi­et Union in 1991, MI5 (British Intel­li­gence) dealt exclu­sive­ly with Ban­dera groups. Europe was intro­duced to all the var­i­ous gov­ern­ments in exile and espe­cial­ly the Ukrain­ian. These are the only East­ern Euro­pean part­ners Europe ever knew. Dur­ing this peri­od it became the pol­i­cy of West­ern Euro­pean coun­tries to help free the cap­tive Sovi­et bloc nations, sup­port the gov­ern­ments in exile’ claims to legit­i­ma­cy and pro­tect their rights.

The Haps­burgs and Ban­dera 1960’s and 70’s

The Haps­burg monar­chy helped guide the lead­er­ship in their for­mer pos­ses­sions. The Free­dom Coun­cil was formed by Otto von Haps­burg and Yaroslav Stet­sko at a con­fer­ence in Munich on June 30-July 2 1967, as a coor­di­nat­ing body for orga­ni­za­tions fight­ing com­mu­nism in Europe.

EMP H.R.H. Otto von Haps­burg was hon­orary chair­man of the Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil, based in Munich, dur­ing the 1980s and allied to the Anti-Bol­she­vik Bloc of Nations (ABN). The EFC was found­ed in 1967 and in 1987 cel­e­brat­ed its 20th anniver­sary. The Exec­u­tive Pres­i­dent at that time was British M.P Mr. John Wilkin­son, and one of two Vice-Pres­i­dents was Mrs. Sla­va Stet­sko, M.A. (ABN).

The Euro­pean Free­dom Coun­cil (EFC), which Yaraslav Stet­sko co-found­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ed in, oper­at­ed in close con­junc­tion with ABN. Annu­al con­fer­ences for the ABN and EFC were often held togeth­er, and the lead­er­ship of both orga­ni­za­tions knew each oth­er and

cor­re­spond­ed reg­u­lar­ly. The EFC func­tioned as ABN“s West­ern coun­ter­part and sought to “mobi­lize sup­port of the Free World for the sub­ju­gat­ed nations’ ” lib­er­a­tion struggle.“A mass West­ern mobi­liza­tion in sup­port of ABN“s dis­en­fran­chised del­e­gates could only strength­en the unit­ed mul­ti-nation­al ABN front”.

The admin­is­tra­tive struc­ture of EFC resem­bled that of ABN, and the EFC rep­re­sent­ed anti-com­mu­nist groups from Aus­tria, Bel­gium, Cana­da, Den­mark, Eng­land, France, West Ger­many, Hol­land, Italy, Spain, Swe­den, Turkey, and the Unit­ed States.

The EFC extend­ed into Asia with the Asian-Pacif­ic Anti-Com­mu­nist League, that includ­ed Afghanistan, Sau­di Ara­bia, Chi­na (Tai­wan), Thai­land, and Viet­nam. (East­ern Euro­pean uni­ty under Russ­ian Com­mu­nism and the Anti-Bol­she­vik Block of Nations: Con­cep­tion, Ide­ol­o­gy, and Con­fer­ences by Alexan­der Nicholas Sosoenko).

The EFC fur­ther insti­tu­tion­al­ized and legit­imized the ABN groups under Stet­sko. All of the anti-com­mu­nist work­ing groups in every coun­try were tied direct­ly into the respec­tive intel­li­gence ser­vices and for­eign pol­i­cy deal­ing with the Sovi­et Union. This enhanced their stand­ing and made their sup­port part of nation­al pol­i­cy across Europe.

How impor­tant were they? Sla­va Stet­sko is the only major WWII Nazi fig­ure to ever hold high nation­al office any­where in the world. She had the sup­port of a unit­ed Europe behind her. She was award­ed the medal of Free­dom in the US. The EFC gave her almost imme­di­ate access to all the Euro­pean heads of state, and in Britain the full sup­port of Mar­garet Thatch­er’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty.

Bri­an Crozi­er

Bri­an Crozi­er and the Insti­tute for the Study of Con­flict (ISC) brought the influ­ence Stet­sko’s ABN groups had in the UK to a peak under Mar­garet Thatch­er.

Start­ed in the 1960’s his ISC became one of the best intel gath­er­ers in the world. It’s not many men that can start their own intel­li­gence branch, but Bri­an Crozi­er did. Both MI5 and the CIA relied on his intel­li­gence oper­a­tions, devel­oped through ties with the ABN since the 1940’s. When Stet­sko helped cofound the World Anti-Com­mu­nist League it increased Crozier’s val­ue inter­na­tion­al­ly and expand­ed his influ­ence in the west­ern hemi­sphere. (Transna­tion­al Anti-Com­mu­nism and the Cold War: Agents, Activ­i­ties, and Net­works edit­ed by Luc van Don­gen, Stephanie Roulin, Giles Scott-Smith):

From the 1950s onwards, Crozi­er set about expos­ing the true char­ac­ter of left-wing dic­ta­tor­ships, and chal­lenged the illu­sions of their West­ern apol­o­gists. By argu­ing that the West must stand up to com­mu­nism , he helped pro­vide the intel­lec­tu­al under­pin­ning for the robust defence strat­e­gy cham­pi­oned by Pres­i­dent Rea­gan and Mar­garet Thatch­er.”

Crozi­er was a con­stant fix­ture lec­tur­ing at the Min­istry of Defense about the com­mu­nist threat. His view of it was exact­ly that of the ABN. Detente was weak­ness. The Sovi­et Union had to be dis­man­tled. In 1991 it was.

The “Inter­mar­i­um”

The Prome­thi­an­ism project start­ed over a hun­dred years ago, build­ing an ultra nation­al­ist Ukraine and East­ern Europe as a buffer to Rus­sia. It’s called the Inter­mar­i­um.

The for­ma­tion of the renewed Baltic-Black Sea region, or the Inter­mar­i­um, start­ed in the 1990s. In 1993, US Pres­i­den­tial Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advis­er Antho­ny Lake pro­claimed the con­cept of expand­ing democ­ra­cy. It pro­vid­ed for the involve­ment of for­mer East­ern bloc coun­tries and Sovi­et republics, save Rus­sia, in Transat­lantic insti­tu­tions. The Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion launched NATO’s east­ward expan­sion in 1994 with a view to its imple­men­ta­tion. The Krem­lin adamant­ly object­ed to this pol­i­cy.

NAZI EUROPE

When you look hon­est­ly at the fruit of the Haps­burg Spring of Nations, Prometheanismand the Euro­pean and US sup­port­ed Ban­dera, its real­ly stag­ger­ing. Ukraine is only in the spot­light because it was the only place where regime change could come quick­ly. Many of the East Euro­pean coun­tries in the EU and NATO are already Nazi, or are imple­ment­ing the polit­i­cal ground­work for the estab­lish­ment of ultra nation­al gov­er­nance.

Gali­cia (West Ukraine), Ruthe­nia ( West Ukraine), Esto­niaPolandLatviaLithua­nia, Aus­tria, Hun­gary, Post WW I Ger­many, Bosnia, Herce­gov­ina, Ser­bia Croa­t­iaSlove­nia and Roma­nia stepped into this mod­el.

The prob­lem with these exam­ples is that they are not cul­tur­al excep­tions, but the rule. In 2007 at Tbil­isi, Geor­gia, a stat­ue of Prometheus was ded­i­cat­ed by Geor­gian Pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili and Pol­ish Pres­i­dent Lech Kaczyn„ski. Saakashvili has shown by his mil­i­tant sup­port for Nazi Kiev that he is a true believ­er in Prometheamis­m’s ultra nation­al­ism.

The Ukraini­ans

Before 1991, Ukraine was part of the Sovi­et Union, but from the West­’s per­spec­tive where were the Ukraini­ans? More impor­tant­ly, who were the Ukraini­ans? The Ukrain­ian Nation­al Repub­lic had exist­ed out­side Ukraine for over 80 years. It was a friend to the West and its peo­ple were the Ukraini­ans. Peo­ple inside Sovi­et Ukraine were Sovi­et cit­i­zens, unless they were work­ing with the Ban­dera oper­a­tives. Europe nev­er met them. Europe nev­er knew them. Europe did not and does not rec­og­nize the indige­nous peo­ple of Ukraine unless they are giv­en the stamp of approval by their long­time friend — the Ukrain­ian Emi­gre Pop­u­la­tion’s lead­er­ship.

In 1991 the pres­i­dent of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Repub­lic gave his pow­er and the seal of state to Leonid Kuch­ma who until then had been a com­mu­nist leader in Kiev. Kuch­ma was born in Gali­cia, Poland (Ukraine), and was for his entire life a Ukrain­ian ultra nation­al­ist. In accept­ing the seal, the flag of Gali­cia (Ban­dera) Kuch­ma agreed to bring the new state in line with the law and tra­di­tion of the Ukrain­ian Nation­al Repub­lic cir­ca 1919.

In 2014 that is what final­ly hap­pened. That was what Maid­an was about. When Poroshenko gave his inau­gur­al address he paid homage to this fact. He said that the wars of 1917–1920 had final­ly been won. This was acknowl­edged by his elec­tion. This new Ukraine was now under the laws and tra­di­tions of 1920’s Ukraine as demand­ed by Syme­on Petliu­ra. This was final­ly the Ukraine they had been wait­ing for. Today ultra nation­al­ist Ukraine makes that clear by this geno­ci­dal war through which Kiev is choos­ing its cit­i­zens.

Why does­n’t Europe see or hear the Don­bass Geno­cide?

Europe can’t see Ukraini­ans being mur­dered or tor­tured, bombed or gassed, hacked with axes or beat­en with stones because their long­time friend and ally assures them they would not do that to their own cit­i­zens- the Ukraini­ans.

In Europe’s view the peo­ple in Don­bass are an old Sovi­et rel­ic that nev­er rep­re­sent­ed Ukraine and needs to go away. Don­bass was nev­er a part of the Ukraine they know — then or now.

2. The U.S. was one of three coun­tries to vote against a U.N. res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors as “free­dom fighters”–something the U.S. has been pro­mot­ing since the end of World War II. Ger­many and the EU nations abstained.

Ukraine itself and Cana­da were the oth­er coun­tries that vot­ed against the res­o­lu­tion. The OUN/B dias­po­ra and its influ­ence in the GOP and intel­li­gence ser­vices of the U.S. is the pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion to be weighed in con­nec­tion with this dis­grace­ful episode.

The large OUN/B  dias­po­ra pop­u­la­tion in Cana­da undoubt­ed­ly has much to do with that nation’s behav­ior in this con­text.

“Hon­or­ing Col­lab­o­ra­tors;” german-foreign-policy.com; 11/26/2014.

The Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many has refused to vote in favor of a Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Nation­al Social­ism and Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tion. Last week, the Third Com­mit­tee of the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly passed a res­o­lu­tion strong­ly crit­i­ciz­ing the edi­fi­ca­tion of memo­ri­als to Nazi func­tionar­ies and the styl­iza­tion of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors as “free­dom fight­ers.” Ger­many and the oth­er EU nations abstained, the USA, Cana­da, and Ukraine vot­ed against the doc­u­ment, with 115 nations vot­ing in favor. Berlin and Brus­sels use the excuse of not want­i­ng to sup­port a res­o­lu­tion ini­ti­at­ed by Rus­sia. In fact, a vote in favor of the doc­u­ment would have caused hefty dis­putes with­in the EU, and between the EU and impor­tant allies. With grow­ing fre­quen­cy, noto­ri­ous Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors are being pub­licly hon­ored in such EU coun­tries as Hun­gary or the Baltic coun­tries and in Ukraine, in some cas­es by offi­cials of the respec­tive gov­ern­ments.

Deep Con­cern

The UN res­o­lu­tion express­es its “deep con­cern about the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion, in any form, of the Nazi move­ment, neo-Nazism, and for­mer mem­bers of the Waf­fen SS orga­ni­za­tion.” As exam­ples the doc­u­ment names erect­ing mon­u­ments and memo­ri­als and hold­ing pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the name of the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of the Nazi past but also by “attempt­ing to declare such mem­bers and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coali­tion and col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Nazi move­ment par­tic­i­pants in nation­al lib­er­a­tion move­ments.” The res­o­lu­tion explic­it­ly “empha­sizes that any com­mem­o­ra­tive cel­e­bra­tion of the Nazi regime, its allies and relat­ed orga­ni­za­tions, whether offi­cial or unof­fi­cial” should be pro­hib­it­ed by UN mem­ber states. The res­o­lu­tion espe­cial­ly express­es its con­dem­na­tion “of any denial or attempt to deny the Holo­caust.”[1]

Nazi Glo­ri­fi­ca­tion not reject­ed

Last Fri­day, when the Third Com­mit­tee of the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly put the res­o­lu­tion to a vote, the Ger­man Ambas­sador to the UN found him­self unable to cast his vote in favor. All oth­er EU nations also abstained, along with coun­tries, depen­dent, in one way or the oth­er, on the EU, such as Andor­ra, Bosnia-Herze­gov­ina or Mali. Ukraine, the Unit­ed States, and Cana­da vot­ed point­blank against the res­o­lu­tion. The lat­ter two coun­tries are shel­ter­ing rather influ­en­tial Ukrain­ian exile com­mu­ni­ties, char­ac­ter­ized by for­mer Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors of the “Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists” (OUN). The rea­son gen­er­al­ly giv­en last Fri­day was that they did not want to sup­port a res­o­lu­tion ini­ti­at­ed by Rus­sia. The Sovi­et Union — of which Rus­sia had been its core — was the coun­try account­ing for the most casu­al­ties from Nazi ter­ror — 27 mil­lion. How­ev­er, had Ger­many and the oth­er EU nations vot­ed in favor of the res­o­lu­tion, it would have nec­es­sar­i­ly caused hefty dis­putes. Today, col­lab­o­ra­tors, who had joined the Nazis in the war against Moscow, are com­mem­o­rat­ed in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries.

In the Strug­gle against Rus­sia

This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true of Ukraine, where, since ear­ly 2012, Ger­man orga­ni­za­tions have been work­ing — and inten­sive­ly so, since 2013 — to incor­po­rate the Svo­bo­da Par­ty and its affil­i­at­ed forces into an anti-Russ­ian alliance of orga­ni­za­tions. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[2]) Svo­bo­da hon­ors the OUN and par­tic­u­lar­ly its com­man­der Stepan Ban­dera, who is very pop­u­lar through­out West Ukraine. In 1941, Ban­der­a’s mili­tias active­ly sup­port­ed Nazi Ger­many in its attack on the Sovi­et Union. Svo­bo­da also hon­ors the “Ukrain­ian Par­ti­san Army” (UPA), which, in the wake of the Ger­man war of exter­mi­na­tion, had par­tic­i­pat­ed in mass mur­ders of Euro­pean Jews.[3] In the course of the Maid­an protests, both this par­ty and oth­er fas­cist orga­ni­za­tions, receiv­ing vig­or­ous sup­port from Ger­many, were play­ing a grow­ing role. Con­se­quent­ly, since the end of Feb­ru­ary, Svo­bo­da has had sev­er­al min­is­ters in the Ukrain­ian putsch regime. Today, fas­cist bat­tal­ions are among the most res­olute com­bat­ants in East Ukraine’s civ­il war. Some of their com­man­ders have been elect­ed to par­lia­ment in the Ver­chov­na Rada on elec­toral tick­ets of the par­ties form­ing the future gov­ern­ment. At the begin­ning of the month, an activist of the fas­cist “Right Sec­tor” and deputy com­man­der of the fas­cist “Asov Bat­tal­ion,” had been named police chief of the Dis­trict of Kiev. In their strug­gle against Rus­sia, Ukraine is unin­hib­it­ed­ly devel­op­ing the tra­di­tions of its anti-Sovi­et Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tion — at the side of Ger­many.

Free­dom Fight­ers

Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors are also being hon­ored in EU mem­ber coun­tries, for exam­ple, in the Baltic nations. Reg­u­lar com­mem­o­ra­tion hon­or parades for the Waf­fen SS, spon­sored by their nation­al Waf­fen SS vet­er­ans are orga­nized in Esto­nia, Latvia, and Lithua­nia. In Latvia, one of the most recent march­es was held last spring, with approx. 2,000 par­tic­i­pants — which, in pro­por­tion to the size of the pop­u­la­tion, would cor­re­spond to a demon­stra­tion of 80,000 in Ger­many. Observers point out that in Riga’s state-run Lat­vian “Occu­pa­tion Muse­um” the Lat­vian Waf­fen SS mili­tias are referred to as “free­dom fight­ers” in the strug­gle against Moscow. Orga­niz­ers of the Waf­fen SS memo­r­i­al march are invit­ed to schools to teach cours­es in “patriotism.”[4] The “All for Latvia” nation­al alliance par­ty, which has con­sis­tent­ly been in the gov­ern­ment since 2011, sup­ports these memo­r­i­al parades. The par­ty recur­ring­ly rais­es the issue of the depor­ta­tion (“repa­tri­a­tion”) of the coun­try’s Russ­ian-speak­ing minor­i­ty. One of the par­ty’s lead­ers had once declared that the Russ­ian minor­i­ty — near­ly one quar­ter of the pop­u­la­tion — are “occu­piers” or “ille­gal colo­nial­ists.” A crit­i­cal appraisal of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tion is not wel­come in this coun­try. As the his­to­ri­an Maris Ruks notes, Lat­vian schol­ars risk “set­backs in their careers, if they engage in too detailed research into the Holocaust.”[5] In the cur­rent con­fronta­tion with Rus­sia, the Baltic coun­tries are among the EU’s most aggres­sive forces.

Hitler’s Part­ner is being reha­bil­i­tat­ed

Also in Hun­gary fas­cist tra­di­tions are becom­ing more preva­lent. Show­case exam­ples are the new memo­ri­als to the “Reich’s Deputy” and Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor Mik­lós Hor­thy, which have been inau­gu­rat­ed since 2012. After chang­ing the name “Free­dom Square” to “Hor­thy Square,” in April 2012, in Gyöm­rö, near Budapest, a Hor­thy stat­ue was erect­ed in the vil­lage of Kere­ki in south­ern Hungary.[6] A Hor­thy com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque was installed on its premis­es of the Calvin­ist Col­lege in Debre­cen in May 2012. Oth­er memo­ri­als have fol­lowed. For exam­ple, in June 2013 in the East Hun­gar­i­an vil­lage of Hen­ci­da [7] and in Novem­ber of the same year right in Budapest. “Hitler’s Hun­gar­i­an part­ner is being reha­bil­i­tat­ed,” wrote Ger­man press organs back in 2012, atten­tive­ly not­ing that, at Hitler’s side, Hor­thy had led Hun­gary “into war against the Sovi­et Union.”[8] How­ev­er, cur­rent­ly, Hun­gary is not one of those coun­tries tak­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly aggres­sive stand toward Rus­sia. The reha­bil­i­ta­tion of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors extends far beyond Hor­thy. Since the 1990s, there have been many com­mem­o­ra­tive plaques ded­i­cat­ed to the eth­nic, anti-Semit­ic writer, Albert Wass, who had been a loy­al fol­low­er of Hor­thy and the Nazi Reich. His writ­ings have been as accept­ed into the coun­try’s cur­ricu­lums as those of Jozsef Nyiro, who still in 1944 was active in the Nazi Arrow Cross Party.[9] Hun­gary’s “Job­bik” Par­ty — which polled 20.5 per­cent in the April 6, 2014 elec­tions, its great­est suc­cess ever — stands in the tra­di­tion of the Arrow Cross Par­ty.

“Counter Insur­gency”

This is hard­ly an exhaus­tive list of EU coun­tries pub­licly hon­or­ing Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tors. In Croa­t­ia, for exam­ple, mon­u­ments to Nazi oppo­nents were destroyed, while, streets were being named after Mile Budak, the fas­cist Ustasha’s lead­ing pro­pa­gan­dist and, for awhile, Croa­t­i­a’s For­eign Min­is­ter dur­ing the peri­od of Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tion. In Italy’s Affile, to the east of Rome, a mau­soleum to the fas­cist war crim­i­nal, Rodol­fo Graziani was inau­gu­rat­ed in 2012. Graziani, who had ini­tial­ly been engaged in “counter insur­gency” in Libya, ordered hostages shot and used poi­soned gas in Ethiopia. Toward the end of the war, he was hav­ing Ital­ians exe­cut­ed for refus­ing to col­lab­o­rate with the Nazi pup­pet regime in Salò. Had Ger­many and the oth­er EU coun­tries not refused to vote in favor of last Fri­day’s UN res­o­lu­tion, they would — had they tak­en the doc­u­ment seri­ous­ly — be fac­ing seri­ous con­flicts with one anoth­er and with their close allies, e.g. their part­ners in Ukraine.

[1] Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly: Six­ty-ninth ses­sion of the Third Com­mit­tee. Agen­da item 66 (a): Elim­i­na­tion of racism, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, xeno­pho­bia and relat­ed intol­er­ance. A/C.3/69/L.56/Rev.1. 19.11.2014.
[2] See A Broad-Based Anti-Russ­ian AllianceTer­min beim Botschafter and Juschtschenkos Mythen.
[3] See Zwis­chen Moskau und Berlin (IV).
[4] See Tag der Kol­lab­o­ra­teure and “Lib­er­a­tion Fight­ers” and “Occu­pi­er”.
[5] Frank Bren­dle: Inter­na­tion­al gegen SS-Ver­her­rlichung. www.neues-deutschland.de 17.03.2014.
[6] Györ­gy Dalos: Hor­thy im Hoch. www.nzz.ch 03.07.2012.
[7] Job­bik und Neue Ungarische Garde wei­hen neues Hor­thy-Denkmal ein. pusztaranger.wordpress.com 23.06.2013.
[8] Paul Jan­dl: Hitlers ungarisch­er Part­ner wird reha­bil­i­tiert. www.welt.de 05.06.2012.
[9] See Ein pos­i­tives Ungarn-Bild.

3. Fol­low­ing the anti-Russ­ian “lus­tra­tion” laws, Petro Poroshenko is mov­ing to alter the cit­i­zen­ship laws to allow select for­eign­ers to get fast-tracked cit­i­zen­ship in order to allow them to hold cab­i­net posi­tions. It sounds like he’s also con­sid­er­ing just allow­ing for­eign­ers to fill those posts with­out the cit­i­zen­ship require­ment. It sounds as if he wish­es to install per­son­nel from the OUN/B dias­po­ra in Ukraine’s law enforce­ment and nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus.

“Poroshenko Wants to See For­eign­ers Head­ing ‘Ukraine’s FBI,’ Fill Cab­i­net Posi­tions” by Katya Gorchin­skaya; Kyiv Post; 11/27/2014.

Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko asked the new par­lia­ment to amend leg­is­la­tion to allow for­eign­ers to take top jobs in the nation, includ­ing head of the Anti-Cor­rup­tion Bureau.

“I have a con­crete sug­ges­tion to all who is involved, accord­ing to pro­ce­dure spelled out in law, to the appoint­ment of this extreme­ly impor­tant insti­tu­tion. I sug­gest invit­ing to this job a per­son from out­side of Ukraine,” Poroshenko told the new par­lia­ment on Thurs­day, the day of its open­ing.

“Thus we will have an advan­tage – an absence of con­nec­tions in the Ukrain­ian polit­i­cal elite,” Poroshenko explained.

The Anti-Cor­rup­tion Bureau is yet to be cre­ated, and is sup­posed to fight top-lev­el cor­rup­tion. It has already been dubbed “Ukraine’s FBI,” and the process of its cre­ation is close­ly watched by Ukraine’s for­eign cred­i­tors and local busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

...

More­over, Poroshenko said he want­ed to amend the law to allow for­eign­ers to take oth­er top jobs, or sim­plify the pro­ce­dure for grant­ing Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship to for­eign­ers.

“My idea is, by chang­ing the law, to allow for­eign­ers into state ser­vice, includ­ing gov­ern­ment seats, or extend the list of per­sons the pres­i­dent can grant Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship, through fast track­ing,” Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko’s admin­is­tra­tion hired an inter­na­tional recruit­ing com­pany, Korn Fer­ry, and its local branch WE Part­ners, to iden­tify can­di­dates for the next gov­ern­ment. They approached for­eign­ers in Ukraine and abroad. They are Amer­i­can, Lithuan­ian and Geor­gian nation­als, accord­ing to Insider.ua, a Ukrain­ian site that spe­cial­izes in polit­i­cal news.

Cur­rently, the law has a lim­ited list of rea­sons to gain Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship. It can hap­pen through birth, adop­tion or in cas­es when at least of the par­ents has such cit­i­zen­ship. For­eign­ers wish­ing to gain Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship have to give up their orig­i­nal pass­ports.

Poroshenko implied in his speech that there may be peo­ple who are pre­pared to con­sider such an option. “The deci­sive steps of such for­eign­ers, which will be pre­pared to turn down their own cit­i­zen­ship and accept a Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship, will be a con­fir­ma­tion of their deci­sive­ness of the inten­tions of our poten­tial part­ners and can­di­dates,” he said.

Poroshenko’s sug­ges­tion to appoint for­eign­ers was met with some skep­ti­cism in the ses­sion hall, which the pres­i­dent also not­ed: “I can see that not every­one in this hall likes this idea.”

4. Robert Par­ry informs us that Ukraine’s new finance min­is­ter is a for­mer US State Depart­ment offi­cer and Ukrainian/American from the Chica­go area who just got her Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship this week. Jaresko is–obviously–part of the Ukrain­ian dias­po­ra in the Unit­ed States. She was pres­i­dent and CEO of a USAID-backed fund (sound famil­iar?) that was intend­ed to ‘kick start’ the pri­vate equi­ty busi­ness in the region fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union. You read that right: an Amer­i­can that ran a USAID pri­vate equi­ty fund is now Ukraine’s Min­is­ter of Finance:

“Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Min­is­ter” by Robert Par­ry; Con­sor­tium News; 12/5/2014.

A top prob­lem of Ukraine has been cor­rup­tion and crony­ism, so it may raise eye­brows that new Finance Min­is­ter Natal­ie Jaresko, an ex‑U.S. diplo­mat and new­ly mint­ed Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen, was involved in insid­er deal­ings while man­ag­ing a $150 mil­lion U.S. AID-backed invest­ment fund, writes Robert Par­ry.

Ukraine’s new Finance Min­is­ter Natal­ie Jaresko, a for­mer U.S. State Depart­ment offi­cer who was grant­ed Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship only this week, head­ed a U.S. gov­ern­ment-fund­ed invest­ment project for Ukraine that involved sub­stan­tial insid­er deal­ings, includ­ing $1 mil­lion-plus fees to a man­age­ment com­pany that she also con­trolled.

Jaresco served as pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of West­ern NIS Enter­prise Fund (WNISEF), which was cre­ated by the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment (U.S. AID) with $150 mil­lion to spur busi­ness activ­ity in Ukraine. She also was cofounder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Hori­zon Cap­i­tal which man­aged WNISEF’s invest­ments at a rate of 2 to 2.5 per­cent of com­mit­ted cap­i­tal, fees exceed­ing $1 mil­lion in recent years, accord­ing to WNISEF’s 2012 annu­al report.

The growth of that insid­er deal­ing at the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF is fur­ther under­scored by the num­ber of para­graphs com­mit­ted to list­ing the “relat­ed par­ty trans­ac­tions,” i.e., poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est, between an ear­ly annu­al report from 2003and the one a decade lat­er.

...

Jaresko, who served in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev after the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union, has said that West­ern NIS Enter­prise Fund was “fund­ed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment to invest in small and medi­um-sized busi­nesses in Ukraine and Moldo­va – in essence, to ‘kick-start’ the pri­vate equi­ty indus­try in the region.”

While the ulti­mate suc­cess of that U.S.-funded endeav­or may still be unknown, it is clear that the U.S. AID mon­ey did “kick-start” Jaresko’s career in equi­ty invest­ments and put her on the path that has now tak­en her to the job of Ukraine’s new finance min­is­ter. Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko cit­ed her expe­ri­ence in these invest­ment fields to explain his unusu­al deci­sion to bring in an Amer­i­can to run Ukraine’s finances and grant her cit­i­zen­ship.

...

 

Discussion

6 comments for “FTR #824 Bringing It All Back Home, Ukrainian-Style: The Evolution and Triumph of Ukrainian Fascism”

  1. Robert Par­ry has a doozy over at Con­sor­tium News: So Ukraine’s new finance min­is­ter is a for­mer US State Depart­ment offi­cer who just got her Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship this week. And before that she was pres­i­dent and CEO of a USAID-backed fund (sound famil­iar?) that was intend­ed to ‘kick start’ the pri­vate equi­ty busi­ness in the region fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union. You read that right: an Amer­i­can that ran a USAID pri­vate equi­ty fund is now Ukraine’s Min­is­ter of Finance:

    Con­sor­tium News
    Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Min­is­ter
    Decem­ber 5, 2014

    Exclu­sive: A top prob­lem of Ukraine has been cor­rup­tion and crony­ism, so it may raise eye­brows that new Finance Min­is­ter Natal­ie Jaresko, an ex‑U.S. diplo­mat and new­ly mint­ed Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen, was involved in insid­er deal­ings while man­ag­ing a $150 mil­lion U.S. AID-backed invest­ment fund, writes Robert Par­ry.

    By Robert Par­ry

    Ukraine’s new Finance Min­is­ter Natal­ie Jaresko, a for­mer U.S. State Depart­ment offi­cer who was grant­ed Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship only this week, head­ed a U.S. gov­ern­ment-fund­ed invest­ment project for Ukraine that involved sub­stan­tial insid­er deal­ings, includ­ing $1 mil­lion-plus fees to a man­age­ment com­pa­ny that she also con­trolled.

    Jaresco served as pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of West­ern NIS Enter­prise Fund (WNISEF), which was cre­at­ed by the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (U.S. AID) with $150 mil­lion to spur busi­ness activ­i­ty in Ukraine. She also was cofounder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Hori­zon Cap­i­tal which man­aged WNISEF’s invest­ments at a rate of 2 to 2.5 per­cent of com­mit­ted cap­i­tal, fees exceed­ing $1 mil­lion in recent years, accord­ing to WNISEF’s 2012 annu­al report.

    The growth of that insid­er deal­ing at the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF is fur­ther under­scored by the num­ber of para­graphs com­mit­ted to list­ing the “relat­ed par­ty trans­ac­tions,” i.e., poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est, between an ear­ly annu­al report from 2003 and the one a decade lat­er.

    ...

    Jaresco, who served in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev after the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union, has said that West­ern NIS Enter­prise Fund was “fund­ed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment to invest in small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es in Ukraine and Moldo­va – in essence, to ‘kick-start’ the pri­vate equi­ty indus­try in the region.”

    While the ulti­mate suc­cess of that U.S.-funded endeav­or may still be unknown, it is clear that the U.S. AID mon­ey did “kick-start” Jaresco’s career in equi­ty invest­ments and put her on the path that has now tak­en her to the job of Ukraine’s new finance min­is­ter. Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko cit­ed her expe­ri­ence in these invest­ment fields to explain his unusu­al deci­sion to bring in an Amer­i­can to run Ukraine’s finances and grant her cit­i­zen­ship.

    ...

    With an Amer­i­can for­mer pri­vate equi­ty fund man­ag­er now Ukraine’s Min­is­ter of Finance, you have to won­der what’s next for the coun­try. Hmm­mm.....

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 5, 2014, 6:30 pm
  2. Here’s a bit more from John Helmer’s report (ref­er­ence in Par­ry’s piece) on Natal­ie Jaresco and her fam­i­ly’s long-stand­ing rela­tion­ships to both Wash­ing­ton and Kiev:

    Dances with Bears
    MEET AND GREET NATALIE JARESKO, US GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE, UKRAINE FINANCE MINISTER

    By John Helmer, Moscow

    The new finance min­is­ter of Ukraine, Natal­ie Jaresko, may have replaced her US cit­i­zen­ship with Ukrain­ian at the start of this week, but her employ­er con­tin­ued to be the US Gov­ern­ment, long after she claims she left the State Depart­ment. US court and oth­er records reveal that Jaresko has been the co-own­er of a man­age­ment com­pa­ny and Ukrain­ian invest­ment funds reg­is­tered in the state of Delaware, depen­dent for her salary and for invest­ment funds on a $150 mil­lion grant from the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment. The US records reveal that accord­ing to Jaresko’s for­mer hus­band, she is cul­pa­ble in finan­cial mis­con­duct.

    Jaresko was appoint­ed on Mon­day, and approved by a vote of the Verk­hov­na Rada on Tues­day evening. A pres­i­den­tial tweet and an announce­ment from the office of Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko say a decree has been signed grant­i­ng Jaresko Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ship to qual­i­fy her to take office. The legal­i­ty of the decree was chal­lenged today by the head of Poroshenko’s bloc in par­lia­ment, Yury Lut­senko.

    For the record of Jaresko’s pre­de­ces­sor at the Finance Min­istry in Kiev, Alexan­der Shla­pak, click.

    On Tues­day at the State Depart­ment, spokesman Marie Harf was asked: “appar­ent­ly a U.S. nation­al has been appoint­ed finance min­is­ter. Has Wash­ing­ton some­thing to do with this appoint­ment?” Harf replied: “No, this is a choice for the Ukrain­ian peo­ple and their elect [sic] rep­re­sen­ta­tives. This is their deci­sion. Cer­tain­ly, I don’t think we had any­thing to do with it at all… the Ukrain­ian peo­ple and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives are able to pick who­ev­er they want to be part of their gov­ern­ment. That’s the beau­ty of how this process works.”

    Jaresko was born into the Ukrain­ian émi­gré com­mu­ni­ty of Chica­go, tak­ing her name from her father John Jaresko. Her broth­er, also named John, has been active in Ukrain­ian move­ments and received a medal in 2010 from then Pres­i­dent Vic­tor Yushchenko. At the time, sis­ter Natal­ie was an appointee of Yushchenko’s For­eign Investors Advi­so­ry Coun­cil and the Advi­so­ry Board of the Ukrain­ian Cen­ter for Pro­mo­tion of For­eign Invest­ment. Yushchenko had giv­en her the St. Olga medal in 2003.

    Old­er sis­ter, Kather­ine, mar­ried a Ukrain­ian, as did Natal­ie, who is 49. In 1989 Natal­ie Jaresko mar­ried Ihor Figlus, and took his name until their mar­riage end­ed in divorce in 2010.

    For a study of the influ­ence in Kiev of Katery­na Chu­machenko and oth­er Ukrain­ian-Amer­i­can women employed by the State Depart­ment, includ­ing Jaresko, read this. Chu­machenko (below 2nd from left, with Pres­i­dent George Bush in 2005) is the sec­ond wife of Vic­tor Yushchenko, the Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent between 2005 and 2010.

    ...

    Accord­ing to remarks pub­lished in Kiev by Tim­o­thy Ash (right), an ana­lyst at Stan­dard bank Lon­don, Jaresko is “very well-pre­pared, high­ly expe­ri­enced and tough as nails, she brings with her the unique abil­i­ty to pick up the phone and reach vir­tu­al­ly any deci­sion mak­er in Wash­ing­ton with­out any intro­duc­tion nec­es­sary; they know her – and they trust her.” Ash also says: “she fits the bill as an inter­na­tion­al expert, clean, and like­ly to be a rad­i­cal thinker – able to think out­side the box in terms of ideas. Ukrain­ian speak­er, and has been res­i­dent in Ukraine for years so knows how things work, or rather don’t work.”

    Inter­viewed by tele­phone, Ash said he did not know the US Gov­ern­ment was financ­ing Jaresko’s invest­ment fund. “The US does do that”, he con­ced­ed. Asked for what he knows of the suc­cess of her invest­ment port­fo­lio and expe­ri­ence, Ash said he lacked details. “She’s been in the coun­try [Ukraine] for twen­ty years… I don’t know any­thing about the suc­cess [of the invest­ment firm].” To be a finance min­is­ter, Ash added, “you don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to be a finance min­istry per­son.”

    “She is extreme­ly well qual­i­fied for this posi­tion – no doubt at all and any rea­son­able per­son read­ing this CV would say the same. Did a career in pol­i­tics, not finance, make UK Chan­cel­lor George Osborne qual­i­fied for his posi­tion, or even Gor­don Brown before him.” Asked what Ash means by char­ac­ter­iz­ing Jaresko as “clean”, and what he knows about her links to the Ukrain­ian oli­garchs, he said: “I don’t think she’s aligned with any oli­garch.”

    ...

    When the new finance min­is­ter of your almost bank­rupt coun­try is a pri­vate-equi­ty pro­mot­er that and your new gov­ern­ment is also in the midst of an anti-cor­rup­tion cam­paign, one of the last things you want to hear is that this per­son is “like­ly to be a rad­i­cal thinker – able to think out­side the box in terms of ideas”. As Anders Aslund of the pro-aus­ter­i­ty Peter­son Insti­tute sug­gest­ed in the Wall Street Jour­nal recent­ly, pri­va­tiz­ing Ukraine’s assets is, itself, one of the cures for cor­rup­tion. Plus cuts in pub­lic spend­ing and dereg­u­la­tions. In oth­er words, the “box” that Natal­ie Jaresco needs to “think out­side of” might be con­tained with­in a larg­er box filled with far right eco­nom­ics so think­ing out­side that box might not actu­al­ly help. Surpise:

    The Wall Street Jour­nal
    Opin­ion Europe
    Ukraine’s Ene­my With­in
    Even with Yanukovych gone, cor­rup­tion is a prob­lem that still plagues the coun­try.
    By
    Anders Åslund
    Oct. 1, 2014 3:17 p.m. ET

    Exter­nal threats to Ukraine from Rus­sia have dom­i­nat­ed the news for months, but as that sit­u­a­tion starts to sta­bi­lize the coun­try will need to con­front an old, inter­nal ene­my: cor­rup­tion. Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al ranks Ukraine 144 out of 177 coun­tries on its cor­rup­tion-per­cep­tion index. Cor­rup­tion was at the heart of pop­u­lar dis­con­tent with the deposed regime of Vik­tor Yanukovych, and wide­spread graft helps explain why the econ­o­my stalled in 2012 and 2013. Kiev must tack­le this prob­lem urgent­ly, even as its lead­ers con­front Rus­si­a’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al ambi­tions.

    The scale of the graft under the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion, if the alle­ga­tions turn out to be true, is breath­tak­ing. Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk has accused the Yanukovych regime of steal­ing $37 bil­lion from the state—equal to one-fifth of Ukraine’s GDP in 2013—during its four years in pow­er.

    This cor­rup­tion is said to have tak­en sev­er­al forms. The Yanukovych admin­is­tra­tion was alleged­ly able to buy nat­ur­al gas at low, state-con­trolled prices and then resell it at mar­ket prices that could be as much as eight times high­er. Volodymyr Groys­man, Ukraine’s cur­rent deputy prime min­is­ter, has said that gas worth $2.5 bil­lion was sold this way.

    Infra­struc­ture projects have also come under sus­pi­cion. In August 2008, for exam­ple, the city of Lviv was accept­ing ten­ders for a foot­ball sta­di­um to host the 2012 Euro­pean cham­pi­onships. Alpine, an Aus­tri­an com­pa­ny, placed a bid at $191 mil­lion, accord­ing to com­pa­ny records, but it was reject­ed since the request was for pro­pos­als of up to $116 mil­lion. In the end, the con­struc­tion of the sta­di­um was award­ed to Donet­sk-based Altkom, accord­ing to the Ukrain­s­ka Prav­da. The total cost came in at $370 mil­lion, accord­ing to gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments. The Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank, which had intend­ed to con­tribute to the financ­ing of the sta­di­um, with­drew in protest.

    ...

    Cleans­ing Ukraine of its cor­rup­tion will require sev­er­al inter­re­lat­ed mea­sures. In this regard, Esto­nia and Geor­gia have shown the way. To begin with, the state needs to lim­it its reg­u­la­to­ry role by abol­ish­ing or merg­ing many state agen­cies. Min­i­miz­ing state inter­fer­ence in the economy—whether by pri­va­tiz­ing state-owned assets or cut­ting regulations—reduces oppor­tu­ni­ties for cor­rup­tion in the first place.

    The gov­ern­ment should also cut pub­lic expen­di­tures, and cor­rupt­ed sub­si­dies must be elim­i­nat­ed. The dereg­u­la­tion of gas and elec­tric­i­ty prices in this case must be seen as a mat­ter of com­bat­ing cor­rup­tion, not as a social issue. The poor can be giv­en tar­get­ed cash com­pen­sa­tion instead. The tax sys­tem also needs to be sim­pli­fied and the tax police abol­ished, to shield tax­pay­ers from law­less per­se­cu­tion. Ukraine has recent­ly adopt­ed a law on pub­lic pro­cure­ment requir­ing open pub­lic ten­ders, and vot­ers should demand their lead­ers fol­low that law to the let­ter.

    Offi­cials also must focus on deliv­er­ing reli­able rule of law. This should entail the cre­ation of an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion scru­ti­niz­ing all the top judges and pros­e­cu­tors in Ukraine and dis­miss­ing those found to have engaged in graft.

    By sign­ing the Asso­ci­a­tion Agree­ment with the Euro­pean Union, Ukraine has com­mit­ted itself to adopt­ing hun­dreds of reform laws, while the EU has com­mit­ted itself to pro­vid­ing sub­stan­tial tech­ni­cal assis­tance in draw­ing up new laws and reor­ga­niz­ing state agen­cies. That deal is on hold for now, but Brus­sels and Kiev can still find ways to move for­ward. Those parts of the agree­ment that tar­get cor­rup­tion, for exam­ple, should be a pri­or­i­ty; as should build­ing a strong and inde­pen­dent judi­cial sys­tem.

    The Ukrain­ian peo­ple have made a choice for Europe. If they stick with it and pur­sue reform with deter­mi­na­tion, they will have their best chance to clean out the Augean sta­bles of a long-cor­rupt sys­tem.

    Mr. Åslund is a senior fel­low at the Peter­son Insti­tute for Inter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ics and author of “How Ukraine Became a Mar­ket Econ­o­my and Democ­ra­cy” (Peter­son Insti­tute, 2009). This arti­cle, adapt­ed from a longer essay that appeared in the Jour­nal of Democ­ra­cy, is the sec­ond of a Jour­nal series of two fea­tures on the Ukrain­ian econ­o­my.

    Natal­ie Jaresco isn’t part of the Peter­son Insti­tute, but it’s pret­ty clear that’s she’s fel­low trav­elor giv­en that the Petetr­son Insti­tute is basi­cal­ly a mouth­piece for the inter­na­tion­al oli­garchs that want to see a world run by finance and bil­lion­aires. So it’s going to be impor­tant to keep in mind that gut­ting the Ukrain­ian pub­lic sec­tor, slash­ing pub­lic spend­ing, dereg­u­lat­ing busi­ness, and gen­er­al­ly sell­ing off the state assets to the oli­garchs and inter­na­tion­al investors is prob­a­bly going to be the tem­plate for the offi­cial “anti-cor­rup­tion” cam­paigns going forard. Are cor­rupt oli­garchs cor­rupt­ing your gov­ern­ment? Why not sell off state assets to them to end the cor­rup­tion.

    So is pri­va­ti­za­tion, gut­ting state spend­ing, and dereg­u­la­tions (the ol’ eco­nom­ic shock doc­tine) the kind of “rad­i­cal” “out­side the box” think­ing we should expect? Prob­a­bly, espe­cial­ly when you con­sid­er that this was the same plan Petro Poroshenko had back in 2012 when he was Vic­tor Yanukovich’s eco­nom­ic min­ster:

    Ukraine set to pri­va­tize hun­dreds of state firms: paper

    KIEV Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:07am EDT

    (Reuters) — The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment has draft­ed a law that paves the way for the pri­va­ti­za­tion of hun­dreds of state-owned com­pa­nies pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered strate­gic, Kom­m­er­sant-Ukraine news­pa­per report­ed on Wednes­day cit­ing a leaked draft doc­u­ment.

    Ukrain­ian Econ­o­my Min­is­ter Petro Poroshenko said this week the gov­ern­ment planned to remove about 1,200 enter­pris­es from the list of strate­gic assets that can­not be pri­va­tized, Ukrain­ian media report­ed, but did not name any.

    Accord­ing to Kom­m­er­sant, the draft law lifts the ban on pri­va­tiz­ing numer­ous coal mines, oil and gas pipelines, grain silos and oth­er indus­tri­al assets.

    The sell-off could pro­vide extra bud­get rev­enues for the cash-strapped for­mer Sovi­et repub­lic and also harks back to 1990s moves that freed up busi­ness and drove devel­op­ment of the Euro­pean Union’s east­ern mem­ber states.

    “Should the new list pass through the Rada (par­lia­ment), it might pave the way for a new round of mas­sive pri­va­ti­za­tion in Ukraine,” VTB Cap­i­tal said in a note on Wednes­day.

    “Car­ry­ing out the process in a trans­par­ent and com­pet­i­tive way would pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant boost to the state bud­get in the com­ing years, and to the over­all finan­cial posi­tion.”

    But, since Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovich’s elec­tion in ear­ly 2010, many pri­va­ti­za­tion auc­tions have been won by his cam­paign’s main finan­cial back­ers, indus­tri­al­ists Rinat Akhme­tov and Dmytro Fir­tash.

    Com­pa­nies close to Akhme­tov, in par­tic­u­lar, have pur­chased stakes in a num­ber of elec­tric pow­er com­pa­nies while Fir­tash’s group has won most auc­tions for region­al gas dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­nies.

    “...Exam­ples of pri­va­ti­za­tion in Ukraine sug­gest that such (trans­par­ent and com­pet­i­tive) con­di­tions are not always met in a way that max­i­mizes the ben­e­fits for the state,” VTB Cap­i­tal said.

    ...

    “...Exam­ples of pri­va­ti­za­tion in Ukraine sug­gest that such (trans­par­ent and com­pet­i­tive) con­di­tions are not always met in a way that max­i­mizes the ben­e­fits for the state”. Bet­ter luck this time!

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 6, 2014, 6:40 pm
  3. The inter­na­tion­al mem­bers of Kiev’s “Vol­un­teer Bat­tal­ions” appear to be tak­ing part in the fast-track­ing of Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen­ships. At least, some of them:

    Poroshenko grants cit­i­zen­ship to Beloruss­ian neo-Nazi http://t.co/wawmpjpYOA— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) Decem­ber 8, 2014

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 9, 2014, 6:56 pm
  4. It looks like it’s time for a mas­sive fire sale of state assets. How could it be any oth­er way:

    Finan­cial Times
    IMF warns Ukraine bailout at risk of col­lapse

    Peter Spiegel in Brus­sels and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev
    Last updat­ed: Decem­ber 9, 2014 7:27 pm

    The Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund has iden­ti­fied a $15bn short­fall in its bailout for war-torn Ukraine and warned west­ern gov­ern­ments the gap will need to be filled with­in weeks to avoid finan­cial col­lapse.

    The IMF’s cal­cu­la­tions lay bare the per­ilous state of Ukraine’s econ­o­my and hint at the finan­cial bur­den of prop­ping up Kiev as it bat­tles Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratist rebels in its east­ern regions.

    The addi­tion­al cash need­ed would come on top of the $17bn IMF res­cue announced in April and due to last until 2016. Senior west­ern offi­cials involved in the talks said there is only tepid sup­port for such a size­able increase at a time Kiev has dragged its feet over the eco­nom­ic and admin­is­tra­tive reforms required by the pro­gramme.

    “It’s not going to be easy,” said one offi­cial involved in the talks. “There’s not that much mon­ey out there.”

    ...

    With­out addi­tion­al aid, Kiev would have to mas­sive­ly slash its bud­get or be forced to default on its sov­er­eign debt oblig­a­tions. Since the bailout pro­gramme began in April, Ukraine has received $8.2bn in fund­ing from the IMF and oth­er inter­na­tion­al cred­i­tors.

    Pierre Moscovi­ci, the EU eco­nom­ics chief, said the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion was weigh­ing a third res­cue pro­gramme on top of the €1.6bn ($2bn) it has already com­mit­ted to Kiev; the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment has request­ed an addi­tion­al €2bn from Brus­sels.

    But Pier Car­lo Padoan, the Ital­ian finance min­is­ter who chaired a dis­cus­sion of Ukraine’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion at a meet­ing of his EU coun­ter­parts on Tues­day, said EU resources should only be mobilised if Kiev made a “stronger effort” towards imple­ment­ing reforms.

    At a meet­ing of his cab­i­net in Kiev, Ukraine’s prime min­is­ter, Arseniy Yat­se­niuk, insist­ed his gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to put in place unpop­u­lar mea­sures, includ­ing deep cuts in spend­ing, a crack­down on the mas­sive shad­ow econ­o­my and moves to dereg­u­late the country’s uncom­pet­i­tive econ­o­my.

    ...

    Under IMF rules, the fund can­not dis­trib­ute aid unless it has cer­tain­ty a donor coun­try can meet its financ­ing oblig­a­tions for the next 12 months, mean­ing the fund is unlike­ly to be able to send any addi­tion­al cash to Kiev until the $15bn gap is closed.

    The scale of the prob­lem became clear­er last week after Ukraine’s cen­tral bank revealed its for­eign cur­ren­cy reserves had dropped from $16.3bn in May to just $9bn in Novem­ber. The data also showed the val­ue of its gold reserves had dropped by near­ly half over the same peri­od. A per­son with direct knowl­edge of the cen­tral bank’s pol­i­cy said part of the drop had been due to large-scale gold sales.

    ...

    Accord­ing to two peo­ple who attend­ed the EU meet­ing, con­cern over Ukrain­ian finances has become so severe that Wolf­gang Schäu­ble, the Ger­man finance min­is­ter, said he had called his Russ­ian coun­ter­part, Anton Silu­anov, to ask him to roll over a $3bn loan the Krem­lin made to Kiev last year.

    George Osborne, the UK finance min­is­ter, expressed sur­prise at the request, atten­dees said, say­ing the EU was now ask­ing for help from Rus­sia at the same time it was sanc­tion­ing the Krem­lin for its actions in Ukraine.

    So Ukraine can’t even get an addi­tion­al loan from the EU? Oh right. Pri­or­i­ties.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 10, 2014, 3:29 pm
  5. “Ukrain­ian Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk told the par­lia­ment on Thurs­day that Ukraine, which has sought for­eign help to avoid default, has to increase defense expen­di­ture at the expense of social pay­ments”:

    Ukraine defense chief wants bud­get dou­bled to fight sep­a­ratists

    12/12/2014

    KIEV (Reuters) — Ukraine’s defense min­is­ter called on Fri­day for a dou­bling of the mil­i­tary bud­get next year to allow the army to buy weapons abroad and bet­ter equip itself to fight Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratists in the east.

    Num­bers of sol­diers serv­ing in the east, where gov­ern­ment forces have been bat­tling sep­a­ratists since April, would also be increased to a quar­ter of a mil­lion next year from 232,000 cur­rent­ly, the min­is­ter, Stepan Poltorak, told par­lia­ment.

    Poltorak said the armed forces planned to spend about $110 mil­lion on buy­ing new weapons abroad next year in addi­tion to $365 mil­lion spent on domes­tic arms pro­cure­ments.

    Ukrain­ian Prime Min­is­ter Arseniy Yat­senyuk told the par­lia­ment on Thurs­day that Ukraine, which has sought for­eign help to avoid default, has to increase defense expen­di­ture at the expense of social pay­ments.

    He did not spec­i­fy which coun­tries Ukraine was eying for finan­cial help.

    NATO coun­tries have so far been reluc­tant to arm non-mem­ber Ukraine against the well-equipped rebels in order to avoid antag­o­niz­ing Rus­sia. But NATO mem­bers, the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and Poland, have pro­vid­ed non-lethal aid.

    ...

    Ukraine would also shift some of its mil­i­tary units clos­er to Moldo­va, its south-west­ern neigh­bor, because of what it saw as a threat from Moldova’s pro-Russ­ian break­away region of Trans­d­nies­tria, Poltorak said.

    “We are fac­ing the threat from our east­ern bor­der. But there is also a threat from Trans­d­nies­tria and from the south and the quan­ti­ty of our units there will be increased,” he said.

    Wait, so is Kiev now plan­ning on thwart­ing an inva­sion from Trans­d­nies­tria? That’s not going to be cheap. Sor­ry pen­sion­ers.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 12, 2014, 7:15 pm
  6. As this arti­cle from 1996 reminds us, it’s good to be the king. Just ask an ex-impe­r­i­al dynasty:

    The Inde­pen­dent
    Descen­dants of last Hab­s­burg emper­or climb lad­der to pow­er Hun­gary looks to its empire of the past for a new begin­ning
    Ancient dynasty stages a sur­prise come­back in lands it ruled for cen­turies, reports Adri­an Bridge

    Adri­an Bridge

    Mon­day 23 Decem­ber 1996

    Budapest — In what must rank as one of the most unlike­ly polit­i­cal come­backs of the cen­tu­ry, the descen­dants of the last Hab­s­burg emper­or are once again mak­ing their mark in the Cen­tral Euro­pean ter­ri­to­ries that their fam­i­ly ruled for hun­dreds of years.

    Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the come­back revolves around the cities of Vien­na and Budapest, the twin cen­tres of pow­er in the lat­ter years of the Aus­tro- Hun­gar­i­an empire, which at its peak stretched from the Adri­at­ic to what is now Ukraine.

    The most strik­ing exam­ple of the trend is the appoint­ment this week of Georg von Hab­s­burg, the 32-year-old grand­son of Emper­or Karl I, to the posi­tion of Hun­gary’s ambas­sador for Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion.

    In neigh­bour­ing Aus­tria, the tra­di­tion­al heart of Hab­s­burg pow­er, Georg’s broth­er, Karl, 35, was recent­ly elect­ed to rep­re­sent the coun­try in the Euro­pean par­lia­ment. In addi­tion to this, he serves as the pres­i­dent of the Aus­tri­an branch of the Pan-Euro­pean move­ment.

    The appoint­ment in Budapest, where Karl I and his more famous pre­de­ces­sor, Franz Josef I, both held the title King of Hun­gary, marks the first time that a Hab­s­burg has been giv­en any offi­cial post in that coun­try since the col­lapse of the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an empire in 1918 fol­low­ing defeat in the First World War.

    In addi­tion to com­ing as a sur­prise, the move is full of his­tor­i­cal irony. While Georg von Hab­s­burg’s pre­de­ces­sors did all that they could to keep the clock turned back to an impe­r­i­al past, he is now being asked to help pro­pel the coun­try into the future through inte­gra­tion with West­ern Europe.

    ...

    The new ambas­sador, who holds Hun­gar­i­an cit­i­zen­ship and has worked as direc­tor of a film com­pa­ny in Budapest since 1993, was quick to deny that he saw his new job as a step­ping stone to the restora­tion of the monar­chy.

    “Let’s for­get about all that,” he told The Inde­pen­dent. “We have got much more impor­tant things to do now — such as bring­ing Hun­gary back into Europe. We Hab­s­burgs are a polit­i­cal fam­i­ly. We have been in the past, and why not again in the future?”

    Otto von Hab­s­burg, 83, him­self a keen advo­cate of the Hun­gar­i­an cause, has long since renounced any claim to his father’s throne.

    But the same is not true of all the mem­bers of the fam­i­ly. Before his elec­tion to the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Octo­ber, Georg von Hab­s­burg’s old­er broth­er, Karl, refused to be drawn when he was quizzed on the issue.

    When he was asked if he believed the Hab­s­burg monar­chy could return, his cir­cum­spect reply was: “Nev­er say nev­er again.”

    Yes, the Hab­s­burg dynasty has no inten­tion of going qui­et­ly into the night. Democ­ra­cy might be going in that direc­tion, but not the Hab­s­burgs:

    The Econom­nist
    The princess and the bear
    Europe’s aris­toc­ra­cy, alive and kick­ing
    Feb 18th 2010

    GEORGIA strug­gles to make its case in Ger­many, which sees trade ties with Rus­sia as vital and the ex-Sovi­et Cau­casian repub­lic as trou­ble­some. So who bet­ter to bur­nish Geor­gia’s image there than a Ger­man-edu­cat­ed Hab­s­burg? Geor­gia’s new ambas­sador to Berlin, once she presents her cre­den­tials to the pres­i­dent next month, will be Gabriela Maria Char­lotte Felic­i­tas Elis­a­beth Anto­nia von Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen, princess Impe­r­i­al and Arch­duchess of Aus­tria, Princess Roy­al of Hun­gary and Bohemia. A name like that, says Geor­gia’s pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili, should open doors.

    The tow­er­ing fig­ure on the Berlin diplo­mat­ic scene is the Russ­ian ambas­sador to Ger­many, Vladimir Kotenev, an inde­fati­ga­ble socialite who runs what is prob­a­bly the biggest embassy in Europe. Ms von Hab­s­burg (the name she prefers) will not, despite her titles, have the cash to match his efforts. But she may still help Ger­mans think again about Geor­gia’s Euro­pean roots and future. Born in Lux­em­bourg, brought up in Ger­many and Aus­tria, the poly­glot Ms von Hab­s­burg is an avant-garde sculp­tor, spe­cial­is­ing in large steel out­door works. She has lived in Geor­gia since 2001, has become a Geor­gian cit­i­zen and gained a com­mand of the lan­guage (it is “improv­ing every day”, says Mr Saakashvili).

    By the stan­dards of her fam­i­ly, a spot of diplo­ma­cy in Berlin is not par­tic­u­lar­ly exot­ic. The heirs to the Hab­s­burg emper­ors helped speed the down­fall of the Sovi­et empire, par­tic­u­lar­ly by arrang­ing the cross-bor­der exo­dus from Hun­gary to Aus­tria in the sum­mer of 1989 that punched the first big hole in the iron cur­tain. Among Ms von Hab­s­burg’s six sib­lings, her younger sis­ter Wal­bur­ga is a lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cian in Swe­den; her broth­er Georg is an ambas­sador-at-large for Hun­gary. Anoth­er used to be in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment.

    ...

    “Among Ms von Hab­s­burg’s six sib­lings, her younger sis­ter Wal­bur­ga is a lead­ing con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cian in Swe­den; her broth­er Georg is an ambas­sador-at-large for Hun­gary. Anoth­er used to be in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment.”

    That last Haps­burg being ref­er­enced, the one that used to be in the Euro­pean par­lia­ment, is Karl von Hab­s­burg. We can’t for­get about Karl. He won’t allow. Espe­cial­ly if you live in Ukraine:

    Kyiv Post
    Karl von Hab­s­burg keeps ances­tors’ pro­file alive in Lviv

    April 20, 2010, 5:25 p.m. | Ukraine — by Natalia A. Feduschak

    LVIV, Ukraine – Karl von Hab­s­burg laughed hearti­ly when asked what it feels like to walk the streets of Lviv, a city that was once ruled by his ances­tors. “I look at it from an aca­d­e­m­ic point of view,” he said with a smile. “It had noth­ing to with me.”

    Despite his easy man­ner, how­ev­er, von Hab­s­burg evi­dent­ly has no inten­tion of let­ting the past, par­tic­u­lar­ly his ances­tors’ role, remain life­less in his­to­ry books. Near­ly a cen­tu­ry after the Hab­s­burg monarchy’s rule end­ed in Europe, he is ded­i­cat­ing him­self to ensure its lega­cy lives on in west­ern Ukraine.

    The 49-year-old von Hab­s­burg was in Lviv in March to announce the cre­ation of a foun­da­tion that car­ries his family’s name. Based in Ivano-Frankivsk, the Hab­s­burg Foun­da­tion will pro­mote and pre­serve the cul­tur­al lega­cy that for cen­turies shaped and gave Cen­tral and East­ern Europe its iden­ti­ty.

    Along with trans­lat­ing books about the Hab­s­burgs, the foun­da­tion is also plan­ning to cre­ate the Haly­chy­na Award, a prize that will hon­or indi­vid­u­als who pro­mote the region’s cul­ture through art, books or media.

    While the foun­da­tion is still in its infan­cy, von Hab­s­burg says its mis­sion is vital.

    “In this area, we need to do some­thing about keep­ing the her­itage alive, the his­to­ry and the intel­lec­tu­al his­to­ry. Authors came here because they got their inspi­ra­tion here,” he told the Kyiv Post in an inter­view.

    ...

    At the turn of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire – which gave Cen­tral and East­ern Europe much of its art, cul­ture and archi­tec­ture – spanned from Ukraine’s Carpathi­an Moun­tains, down to the Adri­at­ic Sea in the south. It encom­passed more that twelve Euro­pean peo­ples and its monar­chy, the Hab­s­burgs, had enjoyed over six cen­turies of unin­ter­rupt­ed pow­er.

    A recent book by renowned his­to­ri­an Tim­o­thy Sny­der chron­i­cles the life of Wil­helm von Hab­s­burg, the mem­ber of the Hab­s­burg fam­i­ly who was clos­est aligned with Ukraini­ans. Titled The Red Prince, it brought renewed atten­tion to the family’s con­nec­tions with the region.

    Bet­ter known as Vasyl Vashy­vaniy, Wil­helm was the younger son of Arch­duke Karl Stephan, who was in line to even­tu­al­ly become King of Poland. In a bid to save his crum­bling world, in 1916, Emper­or Franz Josef I, along with his Ger­man coun­ter­part, had cre­at­ed a Pol­ish king­dom as an inde­pen­dent state with a hered­i­tary monar­chy.

    Wil­helm, how­ev­er, had his own goal: He want­ed to estab­lish a monar­chy on the ter­ri­to­ry of what is today’s west­ern Ukraine. Sny­der writes that the idea was well-received, par­tic­u­lar­ly among some Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary lead­ers and the Church.

    A mil­i­tary offi­cer by train­ing, Wil­helm sup­port­ed Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence strug­gle dur­ing World War I. He fought with Ukrain­ian troops against the Rus­sians, and had schemed and cajoled a myr­i­ad of politi­cians to sup­port his monar­chial aspi­ra­tions. Almost until his death at the hands of the Sovi­ets in 1948 – he was snatched off the streets of Vien­na and trans­port­ed to a prison in Kyiv for work­ing as an agent against the Sovi­et Union – Wil­helm believed this slice of the family’s empire could be his.

    Although Wil­helm remains a less­er known fig­ure in his­to­ry books, von Haps­burg said he is aware of the role he played both with­in the family’s and Ukraine’s his­to­ry.

    “I knew about his exis­tence and I know of the impor­tant polit­i­cal dimen­sion,” von Hab­s­burg said. “I read [Snyder’s book] and kept ask­ing my father, ‘Is this true?’”

    ...

    The Hab­s­burg era has under­gone some­what of a renais­sance late­ly in west­ern Ukraine; the new foun­da­tion is just the lat­est in that trend. A con­fer­ence held late last year brought schol­ars from around the coun­try to Cher­nivt­si, which along with Lviv was con­sid­ered an impor­tant city in the region. A Ukrain­ian-lan­guage book on Wil­helm titled The Ukrain­ian Patri­ot from the Hab­s­burg Dynasty was pub­lished in 2008. It out­lines not only his biog­ra­phy, but also con­tains archival doc­u­ments and Wilhelm’s cor­re­spon­dence with Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary and reli­gious lead­ers.

    Yet as much as his family’s lega­cy may be mak­ing a come­back in Ukraine, the Hab­s­burgs have had a hard­er time in Aus­tria, von Hab­s­burg said. Otto was only allowed to return to Aus­tria in the ear­ly 1960s after renounc­ing claims to the throne.

    Still, von Hab­s­burg and his rel­a­tives remain polit­i­cal­ly active. Von Hab­s­burg was once a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment, while oth­ers cur­rent­ly hold posts there. One rel­a­tive even became a cit­i­zen of Geor­gia and is her new country’s ambas­sador in Ger­many.

    “It’s a fam­i­ly that hasn’t focused on just one part of the world,” von Hab­s­burg said.

    “It’s a fam­i­ly that hasn’t focused on just one part of the world,” von Hab­s­burg said. LOL! Yeah, that’s cer­tain­ly true. Espe­cial­ly for Karl.

    But it’s also quite appar­ent that Ukraine is a top glob­al pri­or­i­ty for expand­ing the Hab­s­burg’s influ­ence. Actions speak loud­er than words, and Kar­l’s new Ukrain­ian radio sta­tion says a lot:

    Eurac­tiv
    Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen: We now have a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion in Ukraine

    Geor­gi Gotev
    Pub­lished: 22/01/2015 — 07:48 | Updat­ed: 22/01/2015 — 08:26

    Since 20 Jan­u­ary, a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion is broad­cast­ing in Ukraine, its main spon­sor, Karl-Hab­s­burg Lothrin­gen, told EurAc­tiv in an exclu­sive inter­view

    Karl Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen is an Aus­tri­an politi­cian and head of the House of Hab­s­burg. Since 1986, he has served as Pres­i­dent of the Aus­tri­an branch of the Paneu­ro­pean Union. Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen was an MEP between 1996 to 1999. He is Chair­man of Blue Shield, the organ­i­sa­tion for pro­tec­tion of cul­tur­al her­itage in armed con­flicts.

    He spoke to Senior Edi­tor, Geor­gi Gotev.

    You are behind a new radio sta­tion that was launched in Ukraine yes­ter­day (20 Jan­u­ary), a Euro­pean sta­tion, as it is called, broad­cast­ing on 100.00 FM. Can you describe it?

    We now have a tru­ly Euro­pean radio sta­tion in Ukraine. There was already a radio sta­tion, but it was rebrand­ed in such a way that now it bears the name of the EU, it has the con­no­ta­tion; it is known as the Euro­pean sta­tion. And of course, what it real­ly has as a goal is to cre­ate a bit of the Euro­pean spir­it in Ukraine, which I think is quite impor­tant, because in com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Ukraine, a lot of things have gone bad­ly or wrong­ly late­ly, so I think it would be very good to have an out­let there that car­ries a strong Euro­pean mes­sage.

    Does it mean that this project is designed to counter the Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da? There is a lot of talk about the Euro­pean Union need­ing to do some­thing about it. Are you part of this effort, or is it some­thing you have decid­ed on your own?

    The main role should not be pro­pa­gan­da. The main role should be to deliv­er bal­anced infor­ma­tion, because we shouldn’t for­get that Ukraine is very much a Cen­tral Euro­pean coun­try. It has a very long Euro­pean his­to­ry, even from being part­ly in the Hanseat­ic League, and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions. There­fore, I think it is impor­tant to empha­sise the strong Euro­pean point that exists there. And of course the con­flict that we have been see­ing, the war in east­ern Ukraine, and the inva­sion of Crimea, these ques­tions have led to a con­flict where a lot of com­mu­ni­ca­tion went wrong. A con­flict that also led to the fact that in the east­ern Ukraine, due to some prob­lems with­in Ukraine, most of the infor­ma­tion to reach the Russ­ian-speak­ing pop­u­la­tion was infor­ma­tion com­ing exclu­sive­ly out of Rus­sia. So it is very impor­tant to have a media out­let that is cov­er­ing Ukraine and that is car­ry­ing the Euro­pean news.

    What lan­guages will you use?

    There will def­i­nite­ly be both the Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian lan­guages, and we have the pos­si­bil­i­ty to weigh it accord­ing to where we are broad­cast­ing.

    And are you get­ting some sup­port from the EU or else­where? You should be trans­par­ent, or you will end up being brand­ed as an Amer­i­can out­let….

    Cur­rent­ly, the project is fund­ed entire­ly by indi­vid­u­als. There is no state involved, there are no insti­tu­tions involved. There is a group of real­ly inter­est­ed indi­vid­u­als that have brought it togeth­er, and we will def­i­nite­ly try to keep our inde­pen­dence, by all means.

    ...

    Are you per­son­al­ly inter­est­ed in Ukraine?

    I have a fam­i­ly link to Ukraine, because part of Ukraine was very close­ly linked to Aus­tria not that long ago. I think that radio is a very inter­est­ing media, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty to reach a lot of peo­ple in an imme­di­ate way. So it is of per­son­al inter­est to me that I have the chance to con­tin­ue being active in Ukraine. I was very active there when I was an MEP, on the ques­tion of EU enlarge­ment. I nev­er had this reduced view of Europe being just the EU. I think it is very impor­tant to say that we have a greater Europe.

    “I have a fam­i­ly link to Ukraine, because part of Ukraine was very close­ly linked to Aus­tria not that long ago. I think that radio is a very inter­est­ing media, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty to reach a lot of peo­ple in an imme­di­ate way. So it is of per­son­al inter­est to me that I have the chance to con­tin­ue being active in Ukraine.” Yep.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | January 22, 2015, 10:44 pm

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