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This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the 14th Waffen SS Division in Lviv, Ukraine in summer of 2018.
Introduction: We proceed from our previous program with continued reading of an article about the rise of fascism in Ukraine that details the numerous, multi-faceted examples of the capture of Ukrainian society and government by the OUN/B successor organizations elevated to power through the Maidan coup.
* The elevation of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion that was formally incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces yet remains a neo-Nazi battalion.
* Azov is now engaged in policing with its National Druzhina street patrol units that have engaged in anti-Roma pogroms
* Azov’s campaign to turn Ukraine into an international hub of white supremacy
* Andriy Parubiy’s role in creating Ukraine’s Nazi Party that he continues to embrace and that’s routinely ignored as he has become the parliament speaker
* The deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is a veteran of Azov, Vadim Troyan
* Government sponsorship of historical revisionism and holocaust denial though agencies like Ukrainian Institute of National Memory
* Torchlight parades are now normal
* Within several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes
* Books that criticize the now-glorified WWII Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera are getting banned
* Public officials make threats against Ukraine’s Jewish community with no repercussions
* The neo-Nazi C14’s street patrol gangs are both responsible for anti-Roma pogroms and also the recipient of government funds to run a children’s educational camp. Last October, C14 leader Serhiy Bondar was welcomed at America House Kyiv, a center run by the US government
* It’s open season on the LGBT community and far right groups routinely attack LGBT gatherings
* Ukraine is extremely dangerous for journalists and the government has supported the doxxing and intimidation of journalist by the far right like Myrovorets group
* The government is trying to repeal laws protecting the many minority languages used in Ukraine
Yet, as the article notes at the end, its many examples were just a small sampling of what has transpired in Ukraine since 2014.
We have spoken repeatedly about the Nazi tract Serpent’s Walk, in which the Third Reich goes underground, buys into the opinion-forming media and, eventually, takes over.
Hitler, the Third Reich and their actions are glorified and memorialized. The essence of the book is synopsized on the back cover:
“It assumes that Hitler’s warrior elite — the SS — didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War. Instead their survivors went underground and adopted some of their tactics of their enemies: they began building their economic muscle and buying into the opinion-forming media. A century after the war they are ready to challenge the democrats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Americans, who have begun to have their fill of government-enforced multi-culturalism and ‘equality.’ ”
Something analogous is happening in Ukraine and India.
In Ukraine, fascism in being remade as a heroic bulwark against communism and Russia. In India, it is being remade as a liberating anti-colonial, anti-imperial force.
In FTR #889, we noted that Pierre Omidyar, a darling of the so-called “progressive” sector for his founding of The Intercept, was deeply involved with the financing of the ascent of both Narendra Modi’s Hindutva fascist BJP and the OUN/B successor organizations in Ukraine.
Omidyar’s anointment as an icon of investigative reporting could not be more ironic, in that journalists and critics of his fascist allies in Ukraine and India are being repressed and murdered, thereby furthering the suppression of truth in those societies. This suppression of truth feeds in to the Serpent’s Walk scenario.
The Snake is doing wind sprints in the U.S. as well.
We have noted the photo of Baraboo, Wisconsin high school students giving the Nazi salute at their junior prom.
Now, Baraboo Ukrainian-American youth have erected statues of Ukrainian pogromist Simonon Petlura (transliterated spellings vary), along with Ukrainian Nazi leaders Roman Shukhevych and Stephan Bandera.
This is to be seen against the background of the re-institution of OUN/B fascists in Ukraine.
To provide historical and political context to the discussion, we conclude the broadcast with information supplementing previous analysis of the development of “The Christian West.” It is within the creation of The Christian West that the foundation of the present, unfortunate developments is to be found.In FTR #‘s 1058, 1059, 1060, we revisited the concept of “The Christian West”: ” . . . . When it became clear that the armies of the Third Reich were going to be defeated, it opened secret negotiations with representatives from the Western Allies. Representatives on both sides belonged to the transatlantic financial and industrial fraternity that had actively supported fascism. The thrust of these negotiations was the establishment of The Christian West. Viewed by the Nazis as a vehicle for surviving military defeat, ‘The Christian West’ involved a Hitler-less Reich joining with the U.S., Britain, France and other European nations in a transatlantic, pan-European anti-Soviet alliance. In fact, The Christian West became a reality only after the cessation of hostilities. The de-Nazification of Germany was aborted. Although a few of the more obvious and obnoxious elements of Nazism were removed, Nazis were returned to power at virtually every level and in almost every capacity in the Federal Republic of Germany. . . .”
In FTR #1009, we detailed “Christian West” negotiations to have a Hitler-less Third Reich join with the Western Allies, undertaken by OSS representatives Allen Dulles and William Donovan, networking with Prince Max Egon von Hohenlohe, a proxy for SD officer Walter Schellenberg.
In in his 1985 volume American Swastika, the late author Charles Higham provides us with insight into the Christian West concept, revealing the extent to which these SS/OSS negotiations set the template for the post-World War II world, as well as the degree of resonance that key Americans, such as Allen Dulles, had with Nazi ideology, anti-Semitism in particular.
The postwar political and economic realities of the Dulles, Hohenlohe, Schellenberg meetings were further solidified when William (Wild Bill) Donovan entered into his “M” Project.
Important to note in this context, is the dominant role in world affairs played by cartels, the fundamental element in the industrial and financial axis that was essential to the creation and perpetuation of fascism. Much of the Third Reich’s military industrial complex, the primacy of Germany in the postwar EU, as well as the correlation between postwar Europe as constructed in the Christian West negotiations and long-standing German plans for European domination are derivative of the power of cartels.
The Christian West and “M” Projects:
- Revealed that Allen Dulles’ views resonated with Third Reich anti-Semitism, and that his opinions were shared by other, like-minded American power brokers: ” . . . . He said that it would be unbearable for any decent European to think that the Jews might return someday, and that there must be no toleration of a return of the Jewish power positions. . . . He made the curious assertion that the Americans were only continuing the war to get rid of the Jews and that there were people in America who were intending to send the Jews to Africa. . . .”
- Set the template for the postwar Federal Republic of Germany and the EU: ” . . . . He [Dulles] reiterated his desire for a greater European political federation–and foresaw the federal Germany that in fact took place. . . . Germany would be set up as the dominating force in industry and agriculture in continental Europe, at the heart of a continental state run by Germany, the U.S.A., and Great Britain as a focus of trade. . . .”
- Were the vehicle for Allen Dulles to betray much of the Allied military plans for Southern Europe to the Third Reich: “. . . . Dulles now proceeded to supply Hohenlohe with dollops of secret intelligence, announcing that the U.S. Army would not land in Spain but, after conquering Tunisia, would advance from Africa toward the Ploesti oil fields to cut off the German oil supplies. He said it was likely the Allies would land in Sicily to cut off Rommel and control Italy from there, and thus secure the advance in the Balkans. Having given virtually the entire battle plan for Europe, top secret at the time, to one of Germany’s agents, Allen Dulles proceeded to the almost unnecessary rider that he had very good relations with the Vatican. . . .”
- Directly foreshadowed the confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union which became the Cold War. “. . . . In other meetings, Dulles . . . . predicted that ‘the next world war would be between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union.’ . . . .”
- Were the occasion for Dulles to laud the “genius” of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “He . . . . described a recent speech by Dr. Goebbels as ‘a work of genius; I have rarely read a speech with such rational pleasure.’ . . . .”
1. We proceed from our previous program with an article about the rise of fascism in Ukraine that details the numerous, multi-faceted examples of the capture of Ukrainian society and government by the OUN/B successor organizations elevated to power through the Maidan coup.
* The elevation of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion that was formally incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces yet remains a neo-Nazi battalion.
* Azov is now engaged in policing with its National Druzhina street patrol units that have engaged in anti-Roma pogroms
* Azov’s campaign to turn Ukraine into an international hub of white supremacy
* Andriy Parubiy’s role in creating Ukraine’s Nazi Party that he continues to embrace and that’s routinely ignored as he has become the parliament speaker
* The deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is a veteran of Azov, Vadim Troyan
* Government sponsorship of historical revisionism and holocaust denial though agencies like Ukrainian Institute of National Memory
* Torchlight parades are now normal
* Within several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes
* Books that criticize the now-glorified WWII Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera are getting banned
* Public officials make threats against Ukraine’s Jewish community with no repercussions
* The neo-Nazi C14’s street patrol gangs are both responsible for anti-Roma pogroms and also the recipient of government funds to run a children’s educational camp. Last October, C14 leader Serhiy Bondar was welcomed at America House Kyiv, a center run by the US government
* It’s open season on the LGBT community and far right groups routinely attack LGBT gatherings
* Ukraine is extremely dangerous for journalists and the government has supported the doxxing and intimidation of journalist by the far right like Myrovorets group
* The government is trying to repeal laws protecting the many minority languages used in Ukraine
And yet, as the article notes at the end, its many examples were just a small sampling of what has transpired in Ukraine since 2014:
“Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine” by Lev Golinkin; The Nation; 02/22/2019.
Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.
Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.
These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.
Five years after Maidan, the beacon of democracy is looking more like a torchlight march.
Combat helmets of the Azov Battalion.
A neo-Nazi battalion in the heart of Europe
“Volunteer Ukrainian Unit Includes Nazis.”—USA Today, March 10, 2015
The DC establishment’s standard defense of Kiev is to point out that Ukraine’s far right has a smaller percentage of seats in the parliament than their counterparts in places like France. That’s a spurious argument: What Ukraine’s far right lacks in polls numbers, it makes up for with things Marine Le Pen could only dream of—paramilitary units and free rein on the streets.
Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the gang’s leader who became Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Biletsky is now a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament.
In the fall of 2014, Azov—which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watchand the United Nations—was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard.
While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Times called the battalion“openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretzdocumented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.
In January 2018, Azov rolled out its National Druzhina street patrol unit whose members swore personal fealty to Biletsky and pledged to “restore Ukrainian order” to the streets. The Druzhina quickly distinguished itself by carrying out pogroms against the Roma and LGBTorganizations and storming a municipal council. Earlier this year, Kiev announced the storming unit will be monitoring polls in next month’s presidential election.
In 2017, Congressman Ro Khanna led the effort to ban Azov from receiving U.S. arms and training. But the damage has already been done: The research group Bellingcat proved that Azov had already received access to American grenade launchers, while a Daily Beast investigation showed that US trainers are unable to prevent aid from reaching white supremacists. And Azov itself had proudly posted a video of the unit welcoming NATO representatives.
(Azov isn’t the only far-right formation to get Western affirmation. In December 2014, Amnesty International accused the Dnipro‑1 battalion of potential war crimes, including “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Six months later, Senator John McCain visited and praised the battalion.)
Particularly concerning is Azov’s campaign to transform Ukraine into a hub for transnational white supremacy. The unit has recruited neo-Nazis from Germany, the UK, Brazil, Sweden, and America; last October, the FBI arrested four California white supremacists who had allegedly received training from Azov. This is a classic example of blowback: US support of radicals abroad ricocheting to hit America.
Far right ties to government
“Ukrainian police declare admiration for Nazi collaborators”—RFE, February 13, 2019
Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiycofounded and led two neo-Nazi organizations: the Social-National Party of Ukraine(later renamed Svoboda), and Patriot of Ukraine, whose members would eventually form the core of Azov.
Although Parubiy left the far right in the early 2000’s, he hasn’t rejected his past. When asked about it in a 2016 interview, Parubiy replied that his “values” haven’t changed. Parubiy, whose autobiography shows him marching with the neo-Nazi wolfsangel symbol used by Aryan Nations, regularly meets with Washington think tanksand politicians; his neo-Nazi background is ignored or outright denied.
Even more disturbing is the far right’s penetration of law enforcement. Shortly after Maidan, the US equipped and trainedthe newly founded National Police, in what was intended to be a hallmark program buttressing Ukrainian democracy.
The deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is Vadim Troyan, a veteran of Azov and Patriot of Ukraine. In 2014, when Troyan was being considered for police chief of Kiev, Ukrainian Jewish leaders were appalled by his neo-Nazi background. Today, he’s deputy of the department running US-trained law enforcement in the entire nation.
Earlier this month, RFE reportedon National Police leadership admiring Stepan Bandera—a Nazi collaborator and Fascist whose troops participated in the Holocaust—on social media.
The fact that Ukraine’s police is peppered with far-right supporters explains why neo-Nazis operate with impunity on the streets.
State-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators
“Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions…in the middle of a major Ukrainian city”—Anti-Defamation League Director of European Affairs, April 28, 2018
It’s not just the military and street gangs: Ukraine’s far right has successfully hijacked the post-Maidan government to impose an intolerant and ultranationalist culture over the land.
In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation making two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of Ukraine, and made it a criminal offenseto deny their heroism. The OUN had collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the Holocaust, while the UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and 70,000–100,000 Poles on their own volition.
The government-funded Ukrainian Institute of National Memory is institutionalizing the whitewashing of Nazi collaborators. Last summer, the Ukrainian parliament featured an exhibit commemorating the OUN’s 1941 proclamation of cooperation with the Third Reich (imagine the French government installing an exhibit celebrating the Vichy state!).
Torchlight marches in honor of OUN/UPA leaders like Roman Shukhevych (a commander in a Third Reich auxiliary battalion) are a regular feature of the new Ukraine. The recuperation even extends to SS Galichina, a Ukrainian division of the Waffen-SS; the director of the Institute of National Memory proclaimed that the SS fighters were “war victims.” The government’s embrace of Bandera is not only deplorable, but also extremely divisive, considering the OUN/UPA are reviledin eastern Ukraine.
Predictably, the celebration of Nazi collaborators has accompanied a rise in outright anti-Semitism.
“Jews Out!” chanted thousands during a January 2017 march honoring OUN leader Bandera. (The next day the police denied hearing anything anti-Semitic.) That summer, a three-day festivalcelebrating the Nazi collaborator Shukhevych capped off with the firebombing of a synagogue. In November 2017, RFE reported Nazi salutes as 20,000 marched in honor of the UPA. And last April, hundreds marched in L’viv with coordinated Nazi salutes honoring SS Galichina; the march was promotedby the L’viv regional government.
The Holocaust revisionism is a multi-pronged effort, ranging from government-funded seminars, brochures, and board games, to the proliferation of plaques, statues, and streetsrenamed after butchers of Jews, to far-right children camps, where youth are inculcated with ultranationalist ideology.
Within several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes.
Book bans
“No state should be allowed to interfere in the writing of history.”—British historian Antony Beevor, after his award-winning book was banned in Ukraine, The Telegraph, January 23, 2018
Ukraine’s State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting is enforcing the glorification of Ukraine’s new heroes by banning“anti-Ukrainian” literature that goes against the government narrative. This ideological censorship includes acclaimed books by Western authors.
In January 2018, Ukraine made international headlines by banning Stalingrad by award-winning British historian Antony Beevor because of a single paragraphabout a Ukrainian unit massacring 90 Jewish children during World War II. In December, Kiev bannedThe Book Thieves by Swedish author Anders Rydell (which, ironically, is about the Nazis’ suppression of literature) because he mentioned troops loyal to Symon Petliura(an early 20th-century nationalist leader) had slaughtered Jews.
This month, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington exported this intolerance to America by brazenly demanding the United States ban a Russian movie from American theaters. Apparently, the billions Washington invested in promoting democracy in Ukraine have failed to teach Kiev basic concepts of free speech.
Anti-Semitism
“I’m telling you one more time—go to hell, kikes. The Ukrainian people have had it to here with you.”—Security services reserve general Vasily Vovk, May 11, 2017
Unsurprisingly, government-led glorification of Holocaust perpetrators was a green light for other forms of anti-Semitism. The past three years saw an explosion of swastikas and SS runes on city streets, death threats, and vandalism of Holocaustmemorials, Jewish centers, cemeteries, tombs, and places of worship, all of which led Israel to take the unusual step of publicly urging Kiev to address the epidemic.
Public officials make anti-Semitic threats with no repercussions. These include: a security services general promising to eliminate the zhidi (a slur equivalent to ‘kikes’); a parliament deputy going off on an anti-Semitic rant on television; a far-right politician lamenting Hitler didn’t finish offthe Jews; and an ultranationalist leader vowing to cleanse Odessa of zhidi.
For the first few years after Maidan, Jewish organizations largely refrained from criticizing Ukraine, perhaps in the hope Kiev would address the issue on its own. But by 2018, the increasing frequency of anti-Semitic incidents led Jewish groups to break their silence.
Last year, the Israeli government’s annual reporton anti-Semitism heavily featured Ukraine, which had more incidents than all post-Soviet states combined. The World Jewish Congress, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and 57 membersof the US Congress all vociferously condemned Kiev’s Nazi glorification and the concomitant anti-Semitism.
Ukrainian Jewish leaders are also speaking out. In 2017, the director of one of Ukraine’s largest Jewish organizations published a New York Times op-ed urging the West to address Kiev’s whitewashing. Last year, 41 Ukrainian Jewish leaders denounced the growth of anti-Semitism. That’s especially telling, given that many Ukrainian Jewish leaders supported the Maidan uprising.
None of these concerns have been addressed in any meaningful way.
Roma pogroms
“‘They wanted to kill us’: masked neo-fascists strike fear into Ukraine’s Roma.”—The Guardian , August 27, 2018
Ukraine’s far right has resisted carrying out outright attacks on Jews; other vulnerable groups haven’t been so lucky.
Last spring, a lethal wave of anti-Roma pogroms swept through Ukraine, with at least six attacks in two months. Footage from the pogroms evokes the 1930s: Armed thugs attack women and children while razing their camps. At least one man was killed, while others, including a child, were stabbed.
Two gangs behind the attacks—C14 and the National Druzhina—felt comfortable enough to proudly post pogrom videos on social media. That’s not surprising, considering that the National Druzhina is part of Azov, while the neo-Nazi C14 receives government funding for “educational” programs. Last October, C14 leader Serhiy Bondar was welcomed at America House Kyiv, a center run by the US government.
Appeals from international organizations and the US embassy fell on deaf ears: Months after the United Nations demanded Kiev end “systematic persecution” of the Roma, a human-rights group reported C14 were allegedly intimidating Roma in a jointpatrol with the Kiev police.
LGBT and Women’s‑rights groups
“‘It’s even worse than before’: How the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ Failed LGBT Ukrainians.”—RFE, November 21, 2018
In 2016, after pressure from the US Congress, the Kiev government began providing security for the annual Kiev Pride parade. However, this increasingly looks like a Potemkin affair: two hours of protection, with widespread attacks on LGBT individuals and gatherings during the rest of the year. Nationalist groups have targeted LGBT meetings with impunity, going so far as to shut down an event hosted by Amnesty International as well as assault a Western journalist at a transgender rights rally. Women’s‑rights marches have also been targeted, including brazen attacks in March.
Attacks on press
“The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Ukrainian law enforcement raid at the Kiev offices of Media Holding Vesti…more than a dozen masked officers ripped open doors with crowbars, seized property, and fired tear gas in the offices.”—The Committee to Protect Journalists, February 9, 2018
In May 2016, Myrotvorets, an ultranationalist website with links to the government, published the personal data of thousands of journalists who had obtained accreditation from Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Myrotvorets labeled the journalists “terrorist collaborators.”
A government-tied website declaring open season on journalists would be dangerous anywhere, but it is especially so in Ukraine, which has a disturbing track record of journalist assassinations. This includes Oles Buzina, gunned down in 2015, and Pavel Sheremet, assassinated by car bomb a year later.
The Myrotvorets doxing was denounced by Western reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and ambassadorsfrom the G7 nations. In response, Kiev officials, including Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, praised the site: “This is your choice to cooperate with occupying forces,” Avakov told journalists, while posting“I Support Myrotvorets” on Facebook. Myrotvorets remains operational today.
Last fall brought another attack on the media, this time using the courts. The Prosecutor General’s office was granted a warrant to seize records of RFE anti-corruption reporter Natalie Sedletska. An RFE spokeswoman warned that Kiev’s actions created “a chilling atmosphere for journalists,” while parliament deputy Mustafa Nayyem called it “an example of creeping dictatorship.”
Language laws
“[Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk] also made a personal appeal to Russian-speaking Ukrainians, pledging to support…a special status to the Russian language.”—US Secretary of State John Kerry, April 24, 2014
Ukraine is extraordinarily multilingual: In addition to the millions of Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians, there are areas where Hungarian, Romanian, and other tongues are prevalent. These languages were protected by a 2012 regional-language law.
The post-Maidan government alarmed Russian-speaking Ukrainians by attempting to annul that law. The US State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry sought to assuage fears in 2014 by pledgingthat Kiev would protect the status of Russian. Those promises came to naught.
A 2017 law mandated that secondary education be conducted strictly in Ukrainian, which infuriatedHungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Several regions passed legislation banningthe use of Russian in public life. Quotas enforce Ukrainian usage on TV and radio. (This would be akin to Washington forcing Spanish-language media to broadcast mostly in English.)
And in February 2018, Ukraine’s supreme court struck down the 2012 regional language law—the one Kerry promised eastern Ukrainians would stay in effect.
Currently, Kiev is preparing to pass a draconian law that would mandate the use of Ukrainian in most aspects of public life. It’s another example of Kiev alienating millions of its own citizens, while claiming to embrace Western values.
The price of willful blindness
These examples are only a tiny fraction of Ukraine’s slide toward intolerance, but they should be enough to point out the obvious: Washington’s decision to ignore the proliferation of armed neo-Nazi groups in a highly unstable nation only led to them gaining more power.
…
In essay after essay, DC foreign-policy heads have denied or celebrated the influence of Ukraine’s far right. (Curiously, the same analysts vociferously denounce rising nationalism in Hungary, Poland, and Italy as highly dangerous.) Perhaps think-tankers deluded themselves into thinking Kiev’s far-right phase would tucker itself out. More likely, they simply embraced DC’s go-to strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Either way, the ramifications stretch far beyond Ukraine.
America’s backing of the Maidan uprising, along with the billions DC sinks into post-Maidan Kiev, make it clear: Starting February 2014, Ukraine became Washington’s latest democracy-spreading project. What we permit in Ukraine sends a green light to others.
By tolerating neo-Nazi gangs and battalions, state-led Holocaust distortion, and attacks on LGBT and the Roma, the United States is telling the rest of Europe: “We’re fine with this.” The implications—especially at a time of a global far-right revival—are profoundly disturbing.
2. The essence of the book Serpent’s Walk is presented on the back cover:
It assumes that Hitler’s warrior elite — the SS — didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War. Instead their survivors went underground and adopted some of the tactics of their enemies: they began building their economic muscle and buying into the opinion-forming media. A century after the war they are ready to challenge the democrats and Jews for the hearts and minds of White Americans, who have begun to have their fill of government-enforced multi-culturalism and ‘equality.’
3. This process is described in more detail in a passage of text, consisting of a discussion between Wrench (a member of this Underground Reich) and a mercenary named Lessing.
. . . . The SS . . . what was left of it . . . had business objectives before and during World War II. When the war was lost they just kept on, but from other places: Bogota, Asuncion, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Colombo, Damascus, Dacca . . . you name it. They realized that the world is heading towards a ‘corporacracy;’ five or ten international super-companies that will run everything worth running by the year 2100. Those super-corporations exist now, and they’re already dividing up the production and marketing of food, transport, steel and heavy industry, oil, the media, and other commodities. They’re mostly conglomerates, with fingers in more than one pie . . . . We, the SS, have the say in four or five. We’ve been competing for the past sixty years or so, and we’re slowly gaining . . . . About ten years ago, we swung a merger, a takeover, and got voting control of a supercorp that runs a small but significant chunk of the American media. Not openly, not with bands and trumpets or swastikas flying, but quietly: one huge corporation cuddling up to another one and gently munching it up, like a great, gubbing amoeba. Since then we’ve been replacing executives, pushing somebody out here, bringing somebody else in there. We’ve swing program content around, too. Not much, but a little, so it won’t show. We’ve cut down on ‘nasty-Nazi’ movies . . . good guys in white hats and bad guys in black SS hats . . . lovable Jews versus fiendish Germans . . . and we have media psychologists, ad agencies, and behavior modification specialists working on image changes. . . .
4. The broadcast addresses the gradual remaking of the image of the Third Reich that is represented in Serpent’s Walk. In the discussion excerpted above, this process is further described.
. . . . Hell, if you can con granny into buying Sugar Turds instead of Bran Farts, then why can’t you swing public opinion over to a cause as vital and important as ours?’ . . . In any case, we’re slowly replacing those negative images with others: the ‘Good Bad Guy’ routine’ . . . ‘What do you think of Jesse James? John Dillinger? Julius Caesar? Genghis Khan?’ . . . The reality may have been rough, but there’s a sort of glitter about most of those dudes: mean honchos but respectable. It’s all how you package it. Opinion is a godamned commodity!’ . . . It works with anybody . . . Give it time. Aside from the media, we’ve been buying up private schools . . . and helping some public ones through philanthropic foundations . . . and working on the churches and the Born Agains. . .
5. We have noted the photo of Baraboo, Wisconsin high school students giving the Nazi salute at their junior prom.
Now, Baraboo Ukrainian-American youth have erected statues of Ukrainian pogromist Simonon Petlura (transliterated spellings vary), along with Ukrainian Nazi leaders Roman Shukhevych and Stephan Bandera.
This is to be seen against the background of the re-institution of OUN/B fascists in Ukraine. We will resume our examination of the return of fascism to Ukraine in a For The Record series to begin next week.
What a shame! US based Ukrainian Youth Union in summer camp in Baraboo, Wisconsin erected monuments in honor of Ukrainian nationalists, antisemites, organizers of Jewish pogroms, perpetrators of Holocaust, mass killings of Poles: Simon Petlura, Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera
6. To provide historical and political context to the discussion, we present information supplementing previous analysis of the development of “The Christian West.” It is within the creation of The Christian West that the foundation of the present, unfortunate developments is to be found.In FTR #‘s 1058, 1059, 1060, we revisited the concept of “The Christian West”: ” . . . . When it became clear that the armies of the Third Reich were going to be defeated, it opened secret negotiations with representatives from the Western Allies. Representatives on both sides belonged to the transatlantic financial and industrial fraternity that had actively supported fascism. The thrust of these negotiations was the establishment of The Christian West. Viewed by the Nazis as a vehicle for surviving military defeat, ‘The Christian West’ involved a Hitler-less Reich joining with the U.S., Britain, France and other European nations in a transatlantic, pan-European anti-Soviet alliance. In fact, The Christian West became a reality only after the cessation of hostilities. The de-Nazification of Germany was aborted. Although a few of the more obvious and obnoxious elements of Nazism were removed, Nazis were returned to power at virtually every level and in almost every capacity in the Federal Republic of Germany. . . .”
In FTR #1009, we detailed “Christian West” negotiations to have a Hitler-less Third Reich join with the Western Allies, undertaken by OSS representatives Allen Dulles and William Donovan, networking with Prince Max Egon von Hohenlohe, a proxy for SD officer Walter Schellenberg.
In in his 1985 volume American Swastika, the late author Charles Higham provides us with insight into the Christian West concept, revealing the extent to which these SS/OSS negotiations set the template for the post-World War II world, as well as the degree of resonance that key Americans, such as Allen Dulles, had with Nazi ideology, anti-Semitism in particular.
The postwar political and economic realities of the Dulles, Hohenlohe, Schellenberg meetings were further solidified when William (Wild Bill) Donovan entered into his “M” Project.
Important to note in this context, is the dominant role in world affairs played by cartels, the fundamental element in the industrial and financial axis that was essential to the creation and perpetuation of fascism. Much of the Third Reich’s military industrial complex, the primacy of Germany in the postwar EU, as well as the correlation between postwar Europe as constructed in the Christian West negotiations and long-standing German plans for European domination are derivative of the power of cartels.
The Christian West and “M” Projects:
- Revealed that Allen Dulles’ views resonated with Third Reich anti-Semitism, and that his opinions were shared by other, like-minded American power brokers: ” . . . . He said that it would be unbearable for any decent European to think that the Jews might return someday, and that there must be no toleration of a return of the Jewish power positions. . . . He made the curious assertion that the Americans were only continuing the war to get rid of the Jews and that there were people in America who were intending to send the Jews to Africa. . . .”
- Set the template for the postwar Federal Republic of Germany and the EU: ” . . . . He [Dulles] reiterated his desire for a greater European political federation–and foresaw the federal Germany that in fact took place. . . . Germany would be set up as the dominating force in industry and agriculture in continental Europe, at the heart of a continental state run by Germany, the U.S.A., and Great Britain as a focus of trade. . . .”
- Were the vehicle for Allen Dulles to betray much of the Allied military plans for Southern Europe to the Third Reich: “. . . . Dulles now proceeded to supply Hohenlohe with dollops of secret intelligence, announcing that the U.S. Army would not land in Spain but, after conquering Tunisia, would advance from Africa toward the Ploesti oil fields to cut off the German oil supplies. He said it was likely the Allies would land in Sicily to cut off Rommel and control Italy from there, and thus secure the advance in the Balkans. Having given virtually the entire battle plan for Europe, top secret at the time, to one of Germany’s agents, Allen Dulles proceeded to the almost unnecessary rider that he had very good relations with the Vatican. . . .”
- Directly foreshadowed the confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union which became the Cold War. “. . . . In other meetings, Dulles . . . . predicted that ‘the next world war would be between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union.’ . . . .”
- Were the occasion for Dulles to laud the “genius” of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “He . . . . described a recent speech by Dr. Goebbels as ‘a work of genius; I have rarely read a speech with such rational pleasure.’ . . . .”
. . . . Dulles pressed ahead. He said that it would be unbearable for any decent European to think that the Jews might return someday, and that there must be no toleration of a return of the Jewish power positions. He reiterated his desire for a greater European political federation–and foresaw the federal Germany that in fact took place. . . . He made the curious assertion that the Americans were only continuing the war to get rid of the Jews and that there were people in America who were intending to send the Jews to Africa. This was Hitler’s dream of course: that the Jews would go to Madagascar and stay there. . . .
. . . . Dulles now proceeded to supply Hohenlohe with dollops of secret intelligence, announcing that the U.S. Army would not land in Spain but, after conquering Tunisia, would advance from Africa toward the Ploesti oil fields to cut off the German oil supplies. He said it was likely the Allies would land in Sicily to cut off Rommel and control Italy from there, and thus secure the advance in the Balkans.
Having given virtually the entire battle plan for Europe, top secret at the time, to one of Germany’s agents, Allen Dulles proceeded to the almost unnecessary rider that he had very good relations with the Vatican. . . .
. . . . In other meetings, Dulles . . . . predicted that “the next world war would be between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union.” . . . . Dulles obtained a great deal of information relating to Germany and plans for its reconstruction after the war. He . . . . described a recent speech by Dr. Goebbels as “a work of genius; I have rarely read a speech with such rational pleasure.” . . . .
. . . . In July, [OSS chief William] Donovan and the OSS began to take matters into their own hands. No doubt inspired by the invigorating meeting in Switzerland, Donovan embarked on the so-called “M” project. . . .
. . . . By now, the German [Franz Von Papen] had read the details of the peace proposal on microfilm and learned that it was more or less on the same lines as the Dulles proposals. Germany would be set up as the dominating force in industry and agriculture in continental Europe, at the heart f a continental state run by Germany, the U.S.A., and Great Britain as a focus of trade. . . .
The Political Implications of the UFO Phenomenon and the "ET" Myth
This is an unexpected turn of events for Ukraine: The district administrative court of Kiev ordered the reversal of the 2016 renaming of two main streets in Kiev. The streets were renamed after Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. The court hasn’t revealed the reasoning for its ruling yet, and the actually renaming of the streets back to their old names won’t take place until an appeal is considered, so it’s possible the return of the old names won’t actually happen, but given the aggressive official embrace of Nazi collaborators as national heroes it’s still pretty remarkable that this even being considered at all:
“Also, he added that until the appeal is considered, the decision of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv to return the avenues their old names will not take effect.”
So this name reversal might happen, but it’s an open question. And as the following article notes, the court’s ruling does not have the support of Kiev’s Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, who announced that the city will be appealing the ruling:
“But Mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Wednesday wrote on Facebook that the city will appeal the ruling, the Regnum news agency reported. In the meantime, the streets in question will be renamed Moscow Avenue and another will be named for Nikolai Vatutin, a Soviet general who was killed in 1944 by soldiers from Shukhevych’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA.”
So this is going to be a story to watch, in part because it’s unclear at this point how much popular support there is for returning the names of those streets to Moscow Avenue and Nikolai Vatutin Ave. But it’s worth noting that changing the name of Vatutin Ave to Shukhevych Ave wasn’t uncontroversial at the time. There were protests. And as the following article notes, when the Kiev City Council voted to rename the street Roman Shukhevych Avenue back in June of 2017, the Kyiv District Administrative Court banned the City Council from signing and publishing this resolution. As the article also notes, the renaming to Shukhevych Ave was done at the recommendation of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. So the Nazi-coddling Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance will presumably be involved in any upcoming fights over these name changes:
“It was reported earlier that a toponymy commission at Kyiv City Council recommended in June 2016 that the Kyiv mayor submit a motion to the City Council on renaming a number of city toponyms, including renaming Vatutin Avenue Roman Shukhevych Avenue, in line with a proposal by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. However, Kyiv City Council did not support this proposal in December 2016.”
And note how, in addition to the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (Ukrainian Institute of National Memory), there were around 100 members of the Azov’s National Corps counter-protesting:
And that points towards one of the more ominous outcomes to watch out for: Ukraine’s far right has long threatened to ‘march on Kiev’ and overthrow the government. Placating far right had been the Poroshenko government’s primary defense against this threat. So it’s important to keep in mind that kind of street name battle is exactly the kind of symbolic issue the far right could use as a dangerous rallying cry.
Along those lines, the city council of Kharkiv just voted to return the name of Petro Hryhorenko Avenue back to Marshal Georgy Zhukov Avenue. This was a couple of weeks after National Corps members tore down the statue of Zhukov, a Soviet military hero, and covered it with red paint. How did the National Corps respond to the city council vote reversing the name change? By staging a mock execution of Kharkiv’s city council deputies. It’s an example of why we shouldn’t assume the good news of these street name reversals won’t be followed by some really bad news about Ukraine’s Nazis behaving like Nazis.
Ukraine political establishment just experienced another earthquake over the weekend: a snap election called for by President Volodymyr Zelensky (Zelenskiy) resulted in his party winning big and potentially holding the first ever one-party majority in the parliament. Early results put Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party at more than 42 percent of the vote. The Opposition Bloc (formerly the Party of Regions) came in second place with around 12 percent of the support. Three other smaller pro-EU parties were each expected to get around 6–9 percent of the vote. Zelensky maintained his pledged to So if Zelensky’s party can end up with a majority of the MP it can form its own ruling government but otherwise it will presumably need to form a coalition with one of those smaller pro-EU parties.
A key part of Zelensky’s political appeal has been his pledge to tackle corruption. Recall that anti-corruption campaigns were a key part of the Poroshenko government’s campaign strategy, manifesting as the “lustration laws” demanded by the far right and designed to systematically remove and investigate people associated with the Yanukovych government. The lustration laws also legally banned criticisms of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborator groups like the UPA and OUN. Lustration was supported by Kiev’s Western backers following the 2014 Maidan protests. Interestingly, Kiev’s Western backers don’t seem to be very supportive of Zelensky similar calls for investigations into the Poroshenko government’s corruption, with G7 governments coming out against this latest round of lustration.
One area that does appear to have Western governments pleased along with international investors is the hope that Zelensky will follow through with the IMF’s “reform” program. This is basically going to be austerity policies because that’s what virtually all IMF ‘reform’ packages are centered on. Tax cuts for business and the gutting of public programs, with the promise that this will create a booming economy that rarely ever emerges. Zelensky has hinted at his commitment to these ‘reforms’ by suggesting that the next prime minister should be a “technocratic” and an “independent economist”. That’s a strong signal that he’s going to be implementing harsh austerity and using garbage supply-side economic arguments to justify it to the public. So Zelensky has achieved a historic level of popular support, but he also has the support of the international investment class that demands exactly the kind of austerity the rightfully hates. How’s that going to work out?
The other obvious question raised by the likely embrace of austerity is whether or not the inevitable backlash is going to end up creating a political opportunity for Ukraine’s far right. As the following article reminds us, part of Zelensky’s support comes from oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, an early sponsor of the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion. So it’s going to be interesting to see how Kolomoisky’s support for Zelenksy’s party shapes the likely far right threats against the government, especially if the IMF austerity ‘reforms’ end up predictably destroying Zelensky’s popular support:
“The result, if confirmed, suggests the novice president’s newly formed party stands to secure more than 240 seats in parliament — a comfortable majority — cementing his power in forming the country’s next government.”
The first ever one party parliamentary majority. It’s quite a historic moment for Ukraine, especially given the context of the civil war of that last 5 years. And one of the key elements of this widespread popular support is apparently the IMF’s austerity agenda, as Zelensky signals with his call for a professional economist technocratic prime minister. That’s why international investors are so pleased with the results:
At the same time, Kiev’s Western backers don’t appear to be very interested in seeing Zelensky pursue the anti-corruption agenda he campaigned on if that means an investigation of the Western-backed Poroshenko government:
So Zelensky wins big on an anti-corruption and ‘reform’ agenda, he calls for a snap elections, wins that election, and now his party might have enough votes to form its own government. And while Kiev’s Western backers are very much in favor of the ‘reform’ (austerity), they aren’t so keen on seen a new round of anti-corruption investigations targeted at the outgoing Poroshenko government. Poroshenko himself is obviously not happy about the idea either. As the following article also describes, Poroshenko is characterizing this new lustration push as a Kremlin plot. He also lists examples of elected officials who could, unfairly in his mind, end up being targeted by lustration this time around. He lists Right Sector neo-Nazi leader Dmytro Yarosh on that list. It points towards the possibility that the outgoing government officials and the oligarchs behind them might end up trying to enlist the help of the far right militias in intimidating the government into end the anti-corruption investigations.
At the same time, the article notes that one of the concerns the IMF has with the lustration law is that it might be use to push out the current head Ukraine’s central bank and replace them with someone close to Kolomoisky. This is a touchy subject because Kolomoisky is locked in an ongoing legal dispute with the central bank over the 2016 nationalization of his PrivatBank, previously the largest bank in the country. The IMF feels that nationalization as a major victory in the push to clean up Ukraine’s banking sector. So Kolomoisky, sponsor of the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion, has an additional incentive to promote a new round of lustration at the same time Poroshenko appears to be enlisting Right Sector in opposing it. That’s all part of what makes the latest lustration push potentially so explosive
“Zelenskiy wants the lustration law to apply to Ukrainian MPs and government members of this period as well as others holding high-level positions, the president’s media office said in a statement on July 11.”
Zelensky wants to treat the last government the same way the last government treated the previous pre-Maidan government: as so corrupt that officials from that government need to be kept out of the new government. It’s the kind of pitch that presumably appealed to much of the Ukrainian electorate given the election results. But the G7 sees the Poroshenko government as fundamentally different and less corrupt than the Yanukovych government and the US ambassador to Ukraine agrees with that assessment:
So the same international community that is demanding harsh austerity for the Ukrainian people wants to see Zelensky go easy on the last government.
Poroshenko, unsurprisingly, is portraying this all as a Kremlin plot. A Kremlin plot targeting patriotic politicians like neo-Nazi Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh:
Adding to the complex political dynamic here is the fact that lustration could end up replacing the IMF-favored head of the Ukrainian central bank (the NBU) and Kolomoisky has a big ongoing dispute with central bank of the nationalism of PrivatBank. A nationalization that the IMF feels was the right move:
On top of all that is the fact that Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, is a top lawyer for Kolomoisky and Bohdan is, himself, someone who’s appointment might technically violate the existing lustration law. So at the same time there’s opposition to Zelensky’s new push for lustration, there’s also a call for the old lustration laws to apply against Zelensky’s appointments:
So while Kiev’s backers in the international community are clearly excited about the prospects of a new round of austerity and pro-international investor legislation, there’s a lot less enthusiasm for his anti-corruption campaign now that the anti-corruption isn’t exclusively targeting the Party of Regions/Opposition Bloc. Some might call that a rather corrupt anti-corruption position.
At the same time, the point about not wanting to normalize lustration after each election is a valid complaint. It would just be a lot more valid if the last government hadn’t been so corrupt.
At this point, it’s looking like austerity is basically guaranteed for Ukraine’s future while Zelensky’s signature anti-corruption drive is very much an open question. So Zelensky better enjoy his widespread popularity while he’s still got it. Hopefully he uses it for something that will actually help the Ukrainian public.
Following up on the report of monuments recently erected in honor of Simon Petlura, Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera at a Ukrainian Youth Union summer camp in Baraboo, Wisconsin, here’s an interesting report in the Kyiv Post about the New York-based Ukrainian-American Youth Association camp and resort. The report mostly just describes the kinds of activities that go on that camp and notes that it’s one of four camps run by the group in the US. The Baraboo camp is also one of these camps. So given the reports of monuments those monuments at the camp in Baraboo, we shouldn’t be surprised that the description of activities at the camp in New York includes a focus on Bandera along with lessons on “Russian disinformation and distortion of Ukraine’s history in the past and present attempts by Moscow to pervert the truth and perceptions about Ukraine using “hybrid-war” techniques”:
“Lenczuk, who lives in Passaic, New Jersey, where he is an English teacher at a school, said: “My number one focus is helping children to develop a national consciousness about Ukraine while not living in Ukraine. Countering assimilation. A lot of the kids who come to this camp are already second, third, fourth generation Ukrainian-American. The purpose of CYM is to continue that national consciousness. But also as a teacher, as with my own students in school, I want them to have practical knowledge and to develop their own leadership skills.””
Countering assimilation and helping the kids developing a national consciousness about Ukraine while not living in Ukraine. That was the description of Dmitri Lenzcuk, the camp’s chief instructor who is responsible for working out the lessons and activities for the camp. And a big part of the development of that national consciousness about Ukraine appears to be teaching the kids about Stepan Bandera...along with lessons on Russian “hybrid warfare”, which is presumably a ‘lesson’ about how the kids should ignore all the horrible things they might hear about Bandera:
The indoctrination of kids with Ukrainian nationalism. That’s exactly what we should expect and that’s what we find. So there isn’t anything particularly surprising in that description of these Ukrainian Youth camps. Unfortunately.
Oh look, a Ukrainian court just ruled in favor C14 in its lawsuit against the Ukraine news outlet Hromadske TV. The suit was over Hromadske TV labeling C14 a neo-Nazi group in a May 2018 tweet. That’s seriously what the suit was about. A lawyer for C14 asserts that the group, while nationalist, is not neo-Nazi in nature and labeling it a neo-Nazi group hurt its “business reputation”. And the Kyiv City Commercial Court agreed, ruling that Hromadske TV couldn’t establish that C14 — a group named after David Lane’s “14 words” white supramacist slogan — was actually a neo-Nazi group. As a result, Hromadske TV has to retract its tweet and pay 3,500 hryvnyas ($136) in court fees for C14.
It’s a sign of how far along the mainstreaming of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi groups is in Ukraine: if you call the open neo-Nazis “neo-Nazis”, they can sue you and win:
“The independent Hromadske TV said in a statement on August 6 that the Kyiv City Commercial Court decided that the outlet could not provide sufficient evidence to support its claim that C14, which takes its name from a 14-word phrase used by white supremacists, and whose own members have admitted to joining it because of its neo-Nazi ideology, was, in fact, a neo-Nazi organization.”
The Kyiv City Commercial Court appears to enjoy the same kind of trolling neo-Nazis are known to love. It’s also somewhat comical that C14 claims its “business reputation” was damaged by the label, a claim that presumes some people are doing business with C14 and don’t realize its a neo-Nazi organizations. So it’s worth keeping in mind one of the primary ‘businesses’ that C14 engages in at this point: running state-funded youth camps:
Who knows, maybe being labeled a neo-Nazi organization limited the number of parents who wanted to send their kids to the C14 youth camps for “national-patriotic education.” Problem solved.
There’s a disturbing, if predictable, emergency unfolding in Ukraine right now: In protest of the peace plan agenda that was at the heart of the platform that got Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy elected in a landslide, Ukraine’s far right parties have staged a large street march through Kyiv to oppose any such peace plans. Even more disturbing is that former president Petro Poroshenko is openly backing this anti-peace protest.
On October 1, Ukraine, Russia, and mediators Germany and France signed a tentative agreement with the separatists on guidelines for holding local elections in eastern Ukraine and special self-governing status following the removal of all armed forces for the separatist areas. This proposal triggered an initial round of street protests through Kyiv, primarily by the far right.
The far right protests have continued. As the following article also notes, the Zelenskiy government had been trying appease the far right in recent days. Zelenskiy himself held a closed-door meeting with far right ‘nationalist’ groups last week. And on Sunday night, Ukrainian prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk spoke at a rally organized by Andriy Medvedko, a prominent member of C14 (it’s labeled “S14” in the article). There are pictures available.
And now we’re getting reports that the far right has issued a 10-day ultimatum to Zelenskey that warns of a “political collapse of the government” and a “social explosion that will sweept them away” if Zelenskiy doesn’t end the peace negotiations:
So it’s looking like Zelenskiy’s efforts to directly placate the far right have failed and now the far right is using the threat of political violence to end a peace process that was overwhelmingly supported by the electorate. And the former Poroshenko forces might be supportive of that threat:
“The protests are part of a backlash against Zelenskiy’s policies on the war against Russian-backed separatists in east Ukraine. This month, the president approved a plan that would allow elections in separatist-held Ukraine and then grant special status to the region on the condition the vote was seen as free and fair.”
Peace with the separatist is the ‘line’ that cannot be crossed for Ukraine’s far right. Even Petro Poroshenko, who Zelenskiy sounded defeated in this year’s election, appears to be voicing his support of the far right protests. That’s how much Ukraine’s embrace of the far right has broken Ukraine’s democracy and potentially doomed the country to perpetual war:
As one of the marchers put it, the proposed peace plan was a step towards “forgiving the people who fought against us. I think that’s unforgivable.” That’s how doomed Ukraine is at this point. The only acceptable resolution to the civil war is the military slaughter of the separatists.
And as a sign of just how powerful the far right is in Ukraine, both Zelenskiy and Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk have been holding direct meetings with far right groups. Meetings that clearly failed in placating the far right’s demands. Largely because those demands appear to be that there is no peace plan at all:
As Ukraine’s far right has made clear, the only end to Ukraine’s civil war that they will accept is one where the separatists have been militarily crushed. Forgiveness is unforgivable. Keep in mind that the primary driver of the separatism in the first place was the prominent role these far right groups were given in the post-Maidan government and the fact that these groups are overtly bigoted against Ukraine’s ethnic Russian population. So, in disturbingly predictable fashion, the same groups that sparked this civil war are now credibly threatening to overthrow the government if it tries to end it.
Uh oh. We’re getting more warnings about an imminent Russian invasion plot threatening Ukraine. A false-flag plot that will be designed to provide a pretext for a Russian invasion. And it’s a warning based on credible intelligence. That’s the warning we were getting from both the Biden administration and the Ukrainian military intelligence service on Friday. An extremely explicit warning at that, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki bluntly assert, “Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion, including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.” Sabotage and information operations, including accusations that Ukraine is preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
Once senior Biden administration official was warning of possible false flag attacks in Kiev that could create the pretext for a coup. Ukraine’s military intelligence service expanded on the plot by suggesting it could involve an attack on Russian troops stationed in ‘a disputed region of Moldova’, which is obviously a reference to Transnistria.
So there’s two possible false-flag plots we are being warned about: a false-flag attack in Kiev that could provoke a coup or a false-flag attack on Russian troops that could provoke a Russian invasion. And at the same time, we’re being warned about information operations that accuse Ukraine of getting ready for an attack on Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.
All in all, it’s kind of a muddled mess of warnings. And yet we are assured from the US that it’s based on “very credible” intelligence. Although we don’t get to see it. Not revealing any of the intelligence these claims are based on is one of the concerns expression by officials in the story but we are assured that it’s all very credible.
But there’s another part of the context about this report that we can’t ignore: this came a day after the exclusive Yahoo! News report about the CIA’s covert paramilitary training program in Ukraine that’s been up and running since 2015 and poised to expand dramatically in the event of a conflict. And as we saw, that report was based exclusively on anonymous US intelligence officials. It was a deliberate leak. So first we get a deliberate US intelligence leak warning touting a CIA paramilitary training program, and the next day we get this twin PR push by the US and Ukraine warning the world about a “very credible” plot to execute false-flag attacks that sound like the kind of attacks that would be pinned on those exact same Ukrainian paramilitaries. After all, while it would be possible to execute a false flag framing the Ukrainian military, it would be a lot easier to frame an irregular paramilitary unit.
This is also probably a good time to recall the recent coup plot accusations by Volodymyr Zelenskiy centered on Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. A coup plot that never looked serious and obviously never came to fruition. And now this. ‘Tis the season of coup plots for the US and Ukraine:
““Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion,” Ms. Psaki said, “including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.””
That’s some extremely non-ambiguous language. No warnings about a possible false-flag plot. It’s a warning about an active plot that the Russian government is currently laying the groundwork to execute. Based on evidence we are told is “very credible”. Just don’t ask to see any of that evidence:
It sounds like the plot might involving staging attacks in Kiev. But according to Ukraine’s military intelligence service, it also might instead be an attack on Russian troops stations in Transnistria (the ‘disputed territory in Moldova’), creating a pretext for a Russian invasion. It’s worth recalling how Russian analysts were warning about an analogous scenario back in 2015, after Ukraine’s parliament voted to restrict Russia’s military rights to travel through Ukraine to reach Transnistria, which borders Odessa. The point being that Transnistria has long been seen as one of the ‘frozen-conflict’ flash points that could act as a spark for a broader regional conflict. It’s that time again:
Here’s a report on the Jan 6 Capitol insurrection that underscores one of the lessons we are forced to repeatedly learn about fascist movements: despite all the nationalist rhetoric, fascism is an international movement.
The latest example of this lesson comes from the investigations into the origins of the Oath Keeper’s planning and actions leading up to the breach of the Capitol. In particular, the days immediately following the Nov 3, 2020 Election Day, when the Oath Keepers more or less put themselves on a trajectory for precisely what ended up transpiring. Recall how Oath Keepers found Stewart Rhodes — who was recently indicted on seditious conspiracy charges — was publicly posting in an encrypted chat group about how “We must now do what the people of Serbia did when Milosevic stole their election”, and “Refuse to accept it and march en-masse on the nation’s Capitol.” For all the normalization of far right weirdness in recent years, it was still kind of weird seeing Serbia’s anti-Milosevic protests end up as the Oath Keepers’ internal rallying cry. What was up with that?
So it turns out the anti-Milosevic rallying cry came from a video titled “STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE, HOW WE WON WHEN MILOSEVIC STOLE OUR ELECTIONS.” It’s described as a guide to overturning Biden’s election, citing the model of the popular revolt which ended the rule of Slobodan Milosevic twenty years earlier. This was a reference to the “Bulldozer Revolution” of 2000, when protestors occupied the federal parliament building and the offices of Serbian state television in the middle of a contested election that Milosovic was looking to postpone. Part of what’s so interesting about this is the undeniable parallels between that Bulldozer Revolution and Ukraine’s Maidan’s revolution in 2014. That’s the broader context here: Rhodes was inspired by a video that was celebrating the Serbia revolution model, but also doubled as an instruction manual for starting a Maidan-like occupation of the Capitol. As we’re going to see in the second article excerpt below, the head of the Oath Keepers’s “Quick Reaction Force” (QRF) bragged about having 30 days of food stored in their hotel in DC. They were prepared for an extended occupation.
But Rhodes wasn’t just inspired by this video. Rhodes sent that video to a group of Oath Keepers and claimed to be in contact with the video’s creator who was advising his group with a plan of action. A Nov 11, 2020, post on the Oath Keepers’ website shows a letter from Rhodes embedded with the same video, thanking its creator, a “patriot from Serbia,” for “show[ing] us the way.”
That “patriot from Serbia” is Serbian-born Aleksandar Savic, now living in Texas. Savic has a PhD in physical chemistry and worked as a researcher in academia and the private sector in Europe before coming to the U.S. in early 2021. Savic is featured in the video itself, telling the audience, “When they declare their fake victory, you need to start massive civil disobedience.” Savic also says explicitly that violence might be needed. “This is what you must put in their hearts: They must feel fear. And while they are counting fake ballots, they must think about, are they going to get out of there alive?” Savic says. “Yes, I’m calling you for violence, if that is the only way. Who cares? Yes, I do. Here: taboo, broken.”
Today, when interviewed by TPM, Savic denies his video played any role in the actions the Oath Keepers took and that the video was “nothing but recapitulation of the things that people already knew.” Savic also tells TPM that he hasn’t met with Rhodes or any Oath Keepers in person since arriving in Texas, which isn’t exactly shocking given their legal troubles. Of course, in the era of modern communications, it’s not like meeting in person is really necessary.
So it turns out Stewart Rhodes was inspired by a revolution template being pushed by a ‘patriot from Serbia’ in the days following the 2020 election. A template that follows along the Serbian Bulldozer Revolution model of 2000, but sure looks awfully similar to the Ukraine’s Maidan template of 2014:
“The target was to be the U.S. Capitol. According to a federal grand jury indictment last week, Rhodes shared his plan to march on the Capitol after coming across a video titled “STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE, HOW WE WON WHEN MILOSEVIC STOLE OUR ELECTIONS.” It was a guide to overturning Joe Biden’s election, citing the model of the popular revolt which ended the rule of Slobodan Milosevic twenty years earlier.”
A step by step guide to overturning the election results. Just follow Serbia’s 2000 Bulldozer Revolution template of occupying the Capitol. A template that double’s as the start of a Maidan-style extended occupation, including the possible use of violence:
And as a sign of the viral potency of Savic’s video at that moment when it was released in the days following the election, note who else was citing it: far right congresswoman Kelli Ward, a long-standing ally of movements threatening political violence. Ward is like the target audience for a video like that:
And now, here’s another TPM piece about the sedition charges facing a second Oath Keeper, Edward Vallejo. It was Vallejo who was actually sitting with the large cache of weapons awaiting orders to move the weapons to their comrades at the Capitol. Those orders never happened, but recall how we’ve seen evidence that they were literally awaiting orders from Trump himself. Its one of those details to underscores how this entire discussion can’t be compartmentalized into a story about the Oath Keepers. It’s a story about the Oath Keepers secretly scheming with the Trump White House. And those schemes apparently involved planning for an extended occupation of the Capitol. As Vallejo was bragging to his fellow Oath Keepers on the evening of Jan 6, “We’ll be back to 6am to do it again. We got food for 30 days”:
“By nightfall, Vallejo allegedly wrote, “We’ll be back to 6am to do it again. We got food for 30 days” and “We have only [begun] to fight … ‘After Action Reports’ will be dated 1/21/21” — an apparent reference to Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration day.”
We got food for 30 days. They had an abundance of food and ambition. Edward Vallejo wasn’t just ready for a Bulldozer-Revolution-style short occupation of the Capitol. He was thinking about weeks of occupation. And he was still thinking along these lines on the morning of Jan 7. It’s as if everything that happened on Jan 6 was more or less expected. In other words, they weren’t planning on storming the Capitol in order to force the government into keeping Trump in office. They were planning on storming the Capitol and potentially holding it for weeks in order to force their demands:
Except this wasn’t just some pro-Trumpian ‘Occupy DC’. Like the Maidan, it was to be an occupation with guns they were ready to use:
And that gives us a greater level of clarity on what exactly Trump’s most militant supporters had in mind for Jan 6. But, of course, this wasn’t just the plan for Jan 6. It was a much larger, longer-term plan. And a plan with obvious potential applications for Jan 6 2025. So we had better hope this investigation can meaningfully disrupt any future plots for an American Maidan. The political violence might take different forms the next time around according as long as they’re following this general playbook. An international fascist playbook with a global audience.
And just like that, it’s a call to war. A barely veiled war cry made by Donald Trump at a rally in Texas over the weekend. It was a two-part war cry: First, Trump started with pledge to potentially pardon any of the people prosecuted in relation to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. It’s the kind of pledge that doubles as an obvious pledge to pardon anyone involved with any upcoming insurrections in 2024/25. It’s a ‘get me into power through any means necessary and I’ll absolve you of the consequences as long as you succeed’ call to action.
Keep in mind the recent context of this speech: the growing indications that the Jan 6 congressional investigators really have obtained compelling evidence that Trump was directly involved in planning and fomenting the violence on Jan 6. He’s guilty, he knows it, and he knows they know it
But that pledge to pardon the insurrectionists wasn’t only terrifying part of Trump’s speech. And wasn’t necessarily the most terrifying part. Because it sounds like Trump is basically calling for a national Maidan-like movement of mass protests in major cities around the country should Trump himself face any legal consequences over the insurrection or other criminal probes of Trump’s business. Yep, we could see a multi-city Maidan movement erupt over something as sad as Trump’s criminal tax practices. As Trump put it, “If these radical, vicious racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had ... in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.”
Don’t forget that we’ve already seen evidence suggesting that the Oath Keepers’ plans for the insurrection were inspired by a Serbian activist who was promoting the idea of following the template used by Serbian protestors to drive Slobodan Milosevic out of office in 2000. A plan that had a number of parallels with what played out in Ukraine in 2014. And as we also saw, the Oath Keepers not only had a “Quick Reaction Force” in place in a DC area hotel with a stockpile of weapons they had ready to transport to the insurrectionists at the Capitol, but they also had food and water supplies for a month and plans to potentially camp out for a month. In other words, they were planning on a potential Maidan. You have to wonder how long it will be before we get reports about Azov sending the GOP special ‘advisors’ to help with the effort.
Finally, Trump didn’t just make a call for nationwide Maidan-like massive protests larger than anything seen before. By calling the prosecutors investigating him “radical, vicious racist prosecutors”, Trump is implicitly framing the call to civil war in race war terms. They’re coming after him because they’re coming after white people. He didn’t have to say anything more than strategically dropping that “racists prosecutors” phrase. The dog whistle was heard loud and clear.
So that’s the latest development in America’s ongoing descent into a smoldering pile of sociopolitical chaos. Trump issue his call to war. A call for a national ‘Maidan’ in the name of both keeping Trump out of jail and then putting him back into office, or burning it all down. Either/or:
“In fact, the man who’d occupied the White House little more than one year ago delivered one of the most incendiary and most dangerous speeches in America’s 246-year history. It included an appeal for all-out mayhem in the streets to thwart the U.S. justice system and prevent Trump from going to jail, as the vise tightens from overlapping criminal probes in multiple jurisdictions. And it also featured a stunning campaign promise — that Trump would look to abuse the power of the presidency to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.”
It raises the question: can anyone think of any speech given by a current or former US president that’s more dangerous than the speech Trump just gave? After all, it’s not like Trump merely obstructed justice in plain view. Or merely called for a national insurrection should he face prosecution. Or merely frame this insurrection as a race war. It was all of that in a single speech. He managed to effective squeeze in a call to arms for a Civil Race War, fought for the glory of Trump, into a single rambling speech. First he promises to pardon the insurrectionists. A pledge that implicitly applies to future insurrectionists:
And that implicit applicability of the pardon pledge towards future insurrections obviously also applies to the call for “biggest protest we have ever had ... in Washington D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.” If he’s calling for the biggest protests the US has ever had he’s basically calling for a Maidan-style paramilitary occupation. A paramilitary occupation of multiple cities. And the trigger for this wasn’t that Trump be prosecuted for his role in Jan 6. Any prosecutions targeting Trump, including prosecutions over his corrupt tax practices, are potential triggers. The US could fight a civil war over Trump’s taxes. That’s now an acute possibility. This is how dangerously stupid the situation has gotten:
Finally, there’s the fact that Trump didn’t just lay out a call for a civil war to be fought to keep him out of jail. It’s going to be a Civil Race War. That’s how Trump framed it by calling the prosecutors “racists” when warning about the “these radical, vicious racist prosecutors.” It was the kind of strategic dog whistle that ensure the rest of his rhetoric should be viewed in the same kind of worldview framework as Dylann Roof, where conservative white America faces an existential threat from a liberal anti-white globalist plot to destroy white America. So, you know, you’re not just fighting to keep Trump out of jail. You’re also fighting for the white race:
Keep in mind that this speech was probably just the opening salvo in what will likely be a growing war of words between Trump and the prosecutors investigating him. We should expect more of this as Trump’s legal threats grow closer. It’s going to be a a war of words fought with new public indictments by the prosecutors and new calls for civil war by Trump.
So the good news is that at least it looks like Trump is finally fearing real consequences for his numerous high crimes. The bad news is it looks like Trump is finally fearing real consequences for his numerous high crimes, and is now desperate enough to try a some higher crimes that he hopes might get him out of this situation. A national Maidan civil race war cynically waged to stay out of jail. If that’s not the highest crime, it’s got to be close.
Here’s a pair of articles about the ongoing COVID-related trucker protests in Canada that appears to be on the verge of spreading to the US:
First, Josh Marshall has a post pointing us towards a very disturbing reality that’s unfolding in Ottawa: the authorities have effectively lost control of the situation on the ground as the same time the most non-violent protestors have become infused with groups of anti-democracy far right street brawlers. And it appears this capture of the capitol almost happened overnight without authorities recognizing what was happening. The truck blockades effectively created protest fortresses authorities can’t enter.
Then, as we see in the second TPM piece below, it looks like one of the leaders to emerge from this movement is a California far right attorney, Leigh Dundas, who also happens to be a Scientologist. Dundas has been working with the Canadian protestors to identify strategic locations for blockades along the US-Canadian border. But she’s interested in far more than just opposing vaccine mandates. As we should expect, Dundas spoke in DC on Jan 6 and remains a figure pushing the ‘stolen election’ narrative about 2020, having appeared alongside people like Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne at an event in Oct 2021.
Don’t forget what Donald Trump himself recently called for: massive occupations of major cities should he face jail time over his role in the insurrection. And then there’s the fact that Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers appeared to have plans and supplies to potentially occupy DC for at least a month during the Jan 6 Capitol insurrection. A growing number of signs point towards a far right strategy of Maidan-like occupations in cities across the US. It’s becoming a ‘when’, not ‘if’, situation.
So we have a situation where the far right has learned that it can shut down cities with mobile truck fortresses and big plans to expand that tactic to cities across the US. Far right trucker Maidans across North America. That’s the plan:
“Part of what reporter and columnist Matt Gurney discusses in the article is an encampment of people in the latter category, which has become a fortress type setting. (You can build a pretty powerful fortress if you can move around a bunch of 18 wheelers.) It seems clear – and the police chief in Ottawa has been saying this – that local police can’t resolve this situation. The country has essentially lost control of its own capital. And now those ‘protestors’ are expanding toward shutting down trade links between the two countries.”
Canada has essentially lost control of its own Capitol and it seemingly happened overnight. The trucks pulled up, the street brawlers moved in, and now Ottawa has its own Maidan-like occupation. And as the following TPM piece makes clear, this Maidan-like movement isn’t going to stay in Ottawa. There are much bigger plans in mind. Plans that will synergize heavily with the ongoing right-wing narrative about a stolen 2020 election:
“Politico first reported the involvement of Dundas and her non-profit, Freedom Fighter Nation, on Wednesday. TPM reviewed Telegram chats focused on organizing a U.S. convoy in which organizers referred to Dundas and her nonprofit as part of the movement’s leadership, saying that they are playing a role in planning upcoming rallies.”
Leigh Dundas is clearly a leader in this movement. Both on the US side and Canadian side, facilitating the border-crossing shutdowns. But her plans aren’t limited to Canada. Dundas wants to see these anti-vax protests spread across the US:
But Dundas’s focus isn’t limited to vaccine mandates and COVID restrictions. She spoke in DC on Jan 6, and has continued to appear at events with figures like Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne. In other words, the protests Dundas has in mind for the US probably won’t be limited to protesting COVID measures:
And that’s part of what makes Ottawa’s apparent loss of control, seemingly overnight, so disturbing. It’s not just an example of how easy these kinds of movements can create what amounts to a fortress of trucks right in a nation’s capital. It’s literally practice for Maidan-like militant occupations. So if you thought the globe’s supply-chain crisis was bad, get ready for the far right multi-city Maidan phase of the supply-chain crisis.
Following up on the story of the far right ‘trucker convoy blockades’ gripping Canada and the growing enthusiasm for replicating those blockade with Maidan-like occupations of cities across the US, here’s a pair of articles about how the existing online financial infrastructure that has long been fueling movements like QAnon is being rapidly repurposed for convoy fundraising. Even foreign troll farms are getting in on the action, although it sounds like they’ve been hired to do this by the movement organizers in Canada. Figures like Tucker Carlson and Rand Paul are even supporting the spread of these blockades to the US, so the mainstream rightwing media is already onboard. And as we should expect, Facebook appears to be at the center of this online fundraising effort. So the ‘usual suspects’ are up to their usual activity. Which means we should probably expect a continued explosion of these trucker blockades:
“Some Facebook groups that have promoted American “trucker convoys” similar to demonstrations that have clogged roads in Ottawa are being run by fake accounts tied to content mills in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and several other countries, Facebook officials told NBC News on Friday.”
The malicious social-media profit-driven commercialization of the right-wing trucker convoy movement is already underway, amplifying the truckers’ message across social media landscape with promises to expand the convoy blockades to cities across the US. All of a sudden, one QAnon group after another is rebranding as a convoy group. It’s like QAnon 2.0, now with street blockades:
And as we should expect, Facebook remains a key platform in putting out this message. Fake accounts previous pushing QAnon and anti-vaccine content have been suddenly retooled into trucker convoy sites. This really is like the next-gen QAnon:
Now here’s the report from GRID on their investigation into this online funding infrastructure. An existing infrastructure that was simply retooled from QAnon-related fundraising to convoy fundraising almost overnight. And it wasn’t until Grid informed Facebook about this activity that it was stopped. For now. Until Facebook allows it to start up again as usual
“Online groups on platforms like Facebook and Telegram, together with fundraising campaigns on the GiveSendGo site, have formed digital lifelines for the ongoing Canadian action. They funnel moral support, supplies, manpower and money to the effort, even as they help spread baseless conspiracy theories and toxic rhetoric.”
Facebook and Telegram have emerged as the digital lifelines for this convoy movement. Because of course they have. How could we expect anything different? Just as we should also expect that Facebook only removed the fake groups that comprise this digital lifeline after the Grid study pointed them out:
Also note how the founder of the Bangladeshi troll farm, Jakir Saikot, apparently told reporters that the cost of his companies services are only ~$23/day. Fomenting the national trucker shutdown is remarkably affordable these days:
Also note how the bulk of the online donations fueling this movement appear to be largely anonymous. So while it appears the ~$8 million raised by this movement online was mostly small donors, we don’t actually know that’s the case. It’s not like large donors can’t break these donations up:
But what is perhaps the biggest development in this story is the fact that major right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson and Rand Paul are already voicing full support. At Paul put it, “I hope they clog up cities”. That’s the kind of rhetoric that can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy:
How soon can we expect full blown trucker ‘protest’ to erupt in the US? Presumably as soon as the people organizing this movement can manage to whip up enough people into joining them. So any time now it seems. Sooner rather than later.
Was it an escalation or a reiteration of the status quo that’s existed since 2014? That’s one of the big questions raised by Russia’s formal recognition of the separatists republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. On the one hand, the formal recognition of these republics as independent does represent an abandonment of any plausible peaceful reunification of Ukraine. But on the other hand, it’s not like there has any meaningful attempt to find a plausible peaceful resolution for the conflict at all since the conflict broke out, in large part because there’s never been a meaningful recognition by Ukraine and the West that those separatist republics had the overwhelming backing of populations living there and weren’t simply ‘Russian occupied territories’. Following the their declarations of independence, there was always only two realistic options for fully reunifying Ukraine: Kiev militarily reconquering those breakaway republics or some sort of peaceful settlement the populations of those republics agree to. In other words, more war or the meaningful implementation of the Minsk II Agreement of 2015.
The fact that countries like France and China have been calling for a renewed push to actually attempt to implement Minsk II underscores the reality that it was never actually implemented, largely because the Minsk II agreement was wildly unpopular with Ukraine’s far right ‘nationalists’. Recall the August 2015 grenade attack on Ukraine’s parliament by a far right nationalist that killed multiple police officers and injured over 100. The attack came amid a wave of riots by Ukrainian far right groups against the implementation of the Minsk II peace accords that would have granted the separatist republics greater autonomy. Ukraine’s far right would not allow for a peaceful resolution of this conflict. That’s been the case all along, which is why the formal recognition of these separatist republics raises the question of what’s actually changed? Ukraine’s far right was never going to allow for a peaceful settlement anyway. This was a frozen conflict with no realistic end in sight.
So with that context in mind, here’s a reminder that groups like the Azov Battalion are absolutely giddy with the opportunities a new outbreak of war presents them. Opportunities for greater glory on the battlefield that can be converted into real political power. The kind of political power that comes from the widespread public adulation Azov is hoping to achieve now that open warfare is back on the agenda:
“As the world waits to see whether President Vladimir Putin uses the more than 100,000 troops massed at Ukraine’s border to escalate his 8‑year-long war against the country, Ukrainians are preparing to fight back. Among them are far-right paramilitary forces that also see this moment as a way to raise their profile, secure popular favor, and possibly gain political influence.”
This is their moment. Ukraine’s far right is poised to shine like never before. Well, ok, the last eight years since the outbreak of civil war have been their moment. But that moment is going to become a lot more powerful should we see a renewal of the full blown warfare between separatists and these ‘volunteer battalions’ that marked the early phases of the civil war. Azov official status in this war has been elevated significantly from 2014: the unit has already been incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard and appears to be receiving secret military training from foreign militaries. Recall the implausible denials issued by Canada’s military after Canada’s training of Azov Battalion members was revealed last year. The group is clearly viewed by Ukraine’s western allies as a highly useful tool in a conflict with Russia. Azov has been mainstreamed inside Ukraine at the same time its received outside training. Given that incredibly warm embrace, it’s no surprise that Azov views the current crisis as the moment when Azov goes mainstream:
But part of what makes the mainstreaming of Azov so disturbing is that the group doesn’t appear to be interested in obscuring the extremist nature of its ideology. Azov isn’t doing the “we’re not actually extremists” song and dance we so often see from far right groups trying to broaden their appeal. Instead, it looks like Azov is just hoping the overall crisis situation creates the kind of environment where open Nazis can be openly embraced by the public. Azov’s supporters aren’t interested in simply seeing Azov members elected to office. They want a “nationalist-socialist” government and aren’t scared of saying it:
So as we can see with this latest look at Ukraine’s far right, the status quo will indeed remain intact. But it’s also an escalation. A status quo of escalating Nazism. That status quo of the escalating mainstreaming of extremist movements in Ukraine will indeed continue.
All eyes are on the war breaking out in Ukraine. Or rather, one of the possible wars that might break out in Ukraine: a war between Russia and Ukraine. But as we’ve seen, when you have neo-Nazi militant group like Azov openly gloating about their prospects of translating military glory into into political power, we have to keep in mind the risks of another civil war breaking out in Ukraine: a civil war between the fascists who want to use this conflict to seize control of what remains of Ukraine and those who would oppose them.
So with that elevated risk of far right coup in Ukraine in mind, here’s an interesting Feb 2019 piece by Jonathan Brunson — no fan of the Kremlin — published in War on the Rocks discussing how the Minsk agreements were already dead. Killed by deep opposition held by the Ukrainian public at large to the underlying framework of the Minsk agreements. Opposition initially lead by Ukraine’s far right ‘nationalists’ but eventually adopted by mainstream politicians include former president Petro Poroshenko, one of the authors of the agreement.
So what was it that the Ukrainian public found so unacceptable about the Minsk agreements? The fact that they were predicated on a peaceful reintegration of the separatist republics back in to Ukraine and a national discourse to help resolve their differences. That was deemed to be totally politically unacceptable. Former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov — notoriously friendly with Ukraine’s far right — openly declared “Minsk is dead”.
So as the world watches to see what’s next from Russia, the history of Ukraine’s open rejected the Minsk accords hints at what to expect next from Ukraine. And that would be an ongoing political elevation of Ukraine’s far right as the overall situation plays out exactly the way they’ve been trying force it ever since the prospect of peace was dangled over seven years ago:
“Can Ukraine implement Minsk? No. Does Ukraine want to reintegrate residents of pro-Russian breakaways Crimea and Donbas? No. Do anti-Ukrainian separatists want to reunify with Ukraine? No. Ukrainian patriots think Minsk is designed to destroy their country. Ukrainians — especially the nationalist activist part of civil society — care a lot about the damage they claim Minsk could inflict on their country, and remain prone to revolutionary rhetoric a mere five years after their last unfinished revolution. Only a pro-Russian government would ever dare to implement Minsk as currently written — and that might spark a real civil war.”
Minsk is unimplementable because none of the parties involved actually want real peace. The separatists don’t want to reintegrate with the rest of Ukraine. But, crucially, it appears that a dominant portion of Ukrainians don’t want to see the Donbass reintegrated into Ukraine either, following a narrative that treats the breakaway republics as an anti-Ukrainian rot that can’t be welcomed back into the fold. It points towards one of the more remarkable aspects of this civil war: despite deep open antipathy between the separatists and the Ukrainian nationalists that poisons any hope of a reunification, the separatist republics are routinely characterized as merely occupied territories that Russia invaded and not regions that genuinely wanted to break away as a result of these deep social divisions. And yet Ukraine has demanded that the separatists themselves not take part in the peace talks. It the kind of delusional framework that’s am example of why any peaceful resolution of this conflict has remained out of reach:
And then there’s the fact that the Ukrainian leaders openly came out against Minsk, including authors of the agreement like former President Petro Poroshenko. Also, regarding former interior minister Arsen Avakov’s declaration that “Minsk is dead”, recall how Avakov’s People’s Front coalition party filled with neo-Nazis was one of Poroshenko’s main governing partners during Poroshenko’s time in office. According to Brunson, only the ‘pro-Russian’ parties actually supported Minsk in 2019 because the far right views on reintegrating the Donbass — seeing reintegration and reconciliation as a diabolical Russian plot — had gone completely mainstream. Minsk really has been dead for years now:
And regarding the observation by ‘preeminent Ukraine scholar Alexander Motyl’ that reintegrating millions of ethnic Russians back into Ukrainian society would be a bad idea, recall how Motyl not only endorsed Ukraine’s Orwellian ‘history regulation laws’ — which essentially ban open discussion of Ukrainian history involving Nazi collaboration and the Holocaust — but he compared the history laws to civil rights laws, women’s rights, and laws protecting the gay community in the US. So we probably shouldn’t be shocked to learn that Motyl is in favor or relegating the populations of the separatist regions to some sort of ‘not-actually-Ukrainian’ second-class status going forward:
How much longer will it be before Ukrainian fascists achieve international celebrity status? That’s the question raised by the following Grayzone piece about a disturbing military athletic competition that just took place at the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando. The games themselves weren’t disturbing. They’re an annual event for wounded veterans and this year’s event was hosted by Jon Stewart, known for but his propensity to speak truth to power and also his years of lobbying on behalf of veterans. Back in July, Stewart even helped publicly shame Republicans in Congress into supporting legislation to help veterans suffering from burn pit injuries. He was in many ways a natural choice for host of this kind of event celebrating US military veterans.
But this year’s event didn’t just include US military athletes. A pair of international competitors were invited to participate: Canada and Ukraine. It was Ukraine’s first time participating in the games.
So, of course, Ukraine’s team included a number of members drawn from Ukraine’s Nazi battalions. Azov and Right Sector in particular had representation on the team. One Azov member, Ihor Halushka, has a large Black Sun tattoo on his elbow. He ended up winning the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.” Jon Stewart, ever the dutiful host for what was supposed to be an event for US veterans, ended up presenting the award.
Halushka wore an arm band over his elbow to cover the tattoo during the ceremony. But as we’re going to see, Ukraine’s team was far less covert about their extremist sympathies on the team’s Facebook page, which included photos of members holding the flag for Right Sector and the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS (the 1st Galician). In other words, when the Pentagon decided to invite the Ukrainian team to participate for the first time, it’s not like they didn’t know what they were going to get.
But the warnings about the extremists on this team were even more glaring. Because it turns out a number of these extremist team members were also part of Ukraine’s team for the Invictus Games, an kind of international version of the Warrior Games created by Prince Harry. Halushka was a member of that Invictus team and even whipped out an Azov flag as he received his gold member. Another star member of the Invictus team who attended the Warrior Games in Orlando was Yulia “Taira” Palevkska, a ‘former’ member of Right Sector who once told journalists that there’s no such thing as ‘ex-Right Sector’. Recall how, When she was unable to compete in this year’s games in April, her 19-year old daughter was permitted to compete in her place instead, a sign of her celebrity status. Also recall how the Mariupol footage that she handed off to AP journalists was only collected in the first place because she happened to have a body camera on hand when the war broke out as part of a Netflix documentary produced by Prince Harry about inspiring figures. Taira is an international super star. And a member of Right Sector. Well, ‘ex’ member.
And that happened. A Ukrainian team that everyone knew was going to have star Nazi athletes was invited to compete at what is otherwise a domestic US competition for veterans. And a Nazi won the “heart of the team” award for his “personal example”. The precedent has been set and no feathers appear to have been ruffled by the entire affair. It basically happened without comment. The international mainstreaming of Ukrainian fascism is complete. So at this point, one of the big questions surrounding this story is the question of how many Nazis are going to be invited to next year’s Warrior Games. Because they’re clearly very welcome:
“This year’s Warrior Games are taking place at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort. Competitions include shooting, wheelchair rugby, cycling, powerlifting, indoor rowing, wheelchair basketball, field, golf, track, swimming, sitting volleyball and archery.”
The ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort. It’s not a mystery why a location like that was chosen for a sporting event dedicated to wounded veterans.
What is a bit of a mystery is why anyone thought it was going to be a good idea to invite a Ukrainian team to the event. This wasn’t an international event and it’s not exactly a surprise that the Ukrainian team was going to be filled with members from Nazi battalions sporting far right tattoos. But that decision was made and, lo and behold, Azov member Ihor Halushka ends up winning the “Heart of the Team” award. It’s almost what we should expect at this point. Jon Stewart, a longtime champion for veterans, had to play the part as host. And thus we had a Nazis winning “Heart of the Team” awards at Disney World, presented by one of the US’s icons for speaking truth to power. The mainstreaming of Ukrainian fascism is complete. Mystery solved:
This mainstreaming of Ukrainian fascism as simply patriotic nationalism is of course by no means limited the Pentagon. It’s the mainstream media that’s been leading the way:
Now, regarding the appearance by the head of Ukraine’s veterans affairs agency at a 2019 neo-Nazi black metal concert featuring several antisemitic metal bands, recall how one of those figures they appeared with on stage was Andriy Medvedko, a C14 figure and accused murderer. On February 5, 2022, as war with Russia was building, Yevhen Karas of C14 delivered a stem-winding public address in Kiev intended to highlight the influence his organization and others like it enjoyed over Ukrainian politics. Bellingcat wrote about the appearance of the minister at the concert back in October of 2019, with the headline “How to Mainstream Neo-Nazis: A Lesson from Ukraine’s New Government” The mainstreaming of Ukrainian fascism inside Ukraine was completed a while ago:
And, again, it’s not like this was an international competition where there was an expectation that a Ukrainian team is invited. Ukraine and Canada were the only foreign teams participating in the competition and it was the first time Ukraine participated in the event at all. This was completely unnecessary:
And it’s not like it was at all a surprise that there were going to be members of Azov or Right Sector on the team. The team Ukraine sent to the Invictus Games was also included extremist members like Ihor Halushka, who whipped out an Azov flag as he accepted a gold medal at the event. An event held at the Hague:
And regarding the most famous member of the team, Yulia “Taira” Palevkska, and her Right Sector affiliates, recall how “Taira” was also a star member of Ukraine’s Invictus Games team. When she was unable to compete in this year’s games in April her 19-year old daughter was permitted to compete in her place instead. Also recall how the Mariupol footage that she handed off to AP journalists was only collected in the first place because she happened to have a body camera on hand when the war broke out as part of a Netflix documentary produced by Prince Harry about inspiring figures. It’s a sign of her genuine international celebrity status:
Finally, note how the team literally posts photos on its Facebook page showing members performing fascist salutes, and flags for Right Sector and the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a.k.a. the 1st Galician. Recall how it was just 2018 when we had over 50 members of the US congress condemn Ukrainian legislation that they said “glorifies Nazi collaborators”. Ro Khanna’s office issued a statement that noted how city authorities in Lviv allowed the celebration of the anniversary of the 14th Galician division of the Waffen SS at events featuring men parading in Nazi SS uniforms on the street. But that was then and this is now:
Note that the Ukrainian team had only 33 members. It’s not a huge team. It’s not like there was just a relative handful of extremists in a large team. That’s part of the significance of the prominent role that members like Halushka and Taira play in what is ultimately an international public relations stunt. These are public faces chosen by the Ukrainian government to represent the country. Their celebrity extremist status is a feature, not a bug. And thanks to this invitation, that international celebrity status is shining ever brighter.
Historical revisionism is nothing new. Nor is it necessarily wrong. History does indeed need to be revised as new information comes out.
But then there’s the kind of historical revisionism sweeping much of Eastern Europe today. Revisionism that isn’t based on new information but rather old grudges and a lingering desire to expunge information from our collective memories permanently. The kind of information that casts fascism and fascism’s numerous ‘nationalist’ fellow travelers in a negative light. Especially the most negative light of genocide.
And as the following article describes, that desire to deflect culpability of the Holocaust got a big boost in recent years with the promotion of the “double genocide” narrative by none other than Yale historian Timothy Snyder, whose 2010 book Bloodlands is more or less dedicated to the idea that the Nazis and Soviets were basically the ‘authoritarian twins’ of the 20th century. A meme that’s effectively taken on the status of a new ‘common sense’ among the Western punditocracy as a growing hysteria over Russia gets increasingly conflated with some sort of deeply embedded anti-communist ideological reflex.
But as the Cover Action Magazine excerpt below points out, the elevation of the “double genocide” narrative shouldn’t be seen as simply a recent reactionary response to the conflict in Ukraine and the West’s proxy-war against Russia. Instead, this should be viewed as the successful culmination of a WWII revisionism project that started before of war even ended as Nazi war criminals were systematically excuse of their crimes as part of the ‘price’ of recruiting them into the West’s anti-communist efforts. Nazi war criminals like General Franz Halder, who literally personally crafted many of the orders to carry out the Holocaust. Not only was Halder protected by Nuremberg trials by the US and found not-guilty of “aiding the Nazi regime” by a German court, but he was then hired by the US Army to serve as a commentator and “historical consultant” for the Center of Military History (CMH). It was at the CMH where Halder promoted the myth of the ‘clean’ Wehrmacht: the idea that the regular German army had no idea about the atrocities that were being committed in its name. Halder’s ‘academic’ work on the actions of the German army during WWII were considered the gold standard of western academic historians for decades.
But it gets worse. Because Halder wasn’t working alone in his revisionist efforts. Assisting him was none other than Adolf Heusinger, another Nazi war criminal who played a key role in formulating the “security warfare” that resulted in the liquidation of countless villages. Recall how, not only did Heusinger work as a secret CIA agent, but we also learned in 2014 about the revelations about the role Heusinger played in approving the 1949 creation of an illegal “underground army” of ‘ex’ Nazis in West Germany. Heusinger went on to become the Chairman of the NATO military Committee from 1961 to 1964. That’s Halder’s deputy in his revisionist efforts: a Nazi war criminal who was setting up an illegal secret army of ‘ex’ Nazis while working as a secret CIA agent and went on to become a leading NATO figure.
And as the following Jacobin piece reminds us at the end, the growing “double genocide” narrative isn’t just being used to excuse the crimes of the Nazis while simultaneously generating a new ‘Red Scare’ sort of anti-Russian hysteria. The “double genocide,” meme is also a kind of rhetorical bridge to the “white Genocide,” “Weimar 2.0,” and “race war” favorite memes of the global far right. That the kind of fire the West is playing with. The kind of fire designed to not only burn down our understanding of history but also replace it with Nazi-coddling fascist narrative:
“Today’s revisionist damnatio memoriae is now riding the wave, not coincidentally, of far-right “occidentalist” ultranationalism supplanting traditional conservatism. What was earlier a steady hum has since roared into overdrive: this intellectual casualty of the Ukraine war is a collectively binding narrative of World War II that set anti-fascism front and center. This rising drumbeat of obsessive revisionism might well be the new neoliberal orthodoxy, as well as a desperate revival of opportunistic anti-communism. The zombie-like struggle against communism, bizarrely waged some three decades after the collapse of the USSR is more than a back door for ultranationalism. It is a cultural cannibal, consuming memory and history. After all, just behind “double genocide,” are the specters of “white Genocide,” “Weimar 2.0,” and “race war.””
Yep, the “double genocide” narrative isn’t just a highly ahistorical attempt to white-wash the crimes of WWII fascism by drawing false equivalencies to the actions of the Soviets. It’s also a stepping-stone to “white Genocide,” “Weimar 2.0,” and “race war.” It’s wildly dangerous revisionism. Made all the more dangerous by the anti-Russia hysteria across the West generated by the conflict in Ukraine. So when we have major academic figures like Timothy Snyder promoting a version of the “double genocide” narrative across the Western media at the same time Eastern European nations are using the power of the state to promote that narrative by knocking out monuments and building new revisionism museums, it’s more a question of “when” we’re going to see the increasingly-official “double genocide” narratives officially morph into a “communist anti-white genocide”/“race war” movements. Because that’s the trajectory we’re on. We’ve seen this movie before:
And that brings us to the following piece in Covert Action Magazine describing some rather salient history when it understanding the growing trends of major WWII-era historical revisionism sweeping the West: the person who was producing what was seen as the academic gold standard during the Cold War for research on the conduct of the German military during WWII was none other than Franz Halder, who worked as a commentator and “historical consultant” for the US Army at the Center of Military History (CMH).
Oh, and it turns out Franz Halder has some pretty direct knowledge of the actions of the German army during WWII seeing as he was one of the Wehrmacht’s top generals who personally crafted a number of the orders to carry out the Holocaust. So how to Halder avoid facing justice for being one of the leading figures in the Holocaust? It turns out the US refused to try him at Nuremberg, Instead, he faced a minor trial for “aiding the Nazi regime” in a German court, where he denied any knowledge of war crimes. Those denials were accepted and Halder was found not-guilty. He then went on to work as one of the US’s leading WWII military historians, where he helped to promote the myth of the ‘clean Wehrmacht’: the idea that the regular German army was largely unaware of the crimes against humanity taking place under its auspices. Halder was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service medal in 1961.
But Halder wasn’t working alone. He had some rather notorious help: Adolf Heusinger, another Nazi war criminal who played a key role in formulating the “security warfare” that resulted in the liquidation of countless villages. Heusinger also served as the Chairman of the NATO military Committee from 1961 to 1964. Then there’s the 2014 revelations about the role Heusinger played in approving the 1949 creation of an illegal “underground army” of ‘ex’ Nazis in West Germany.
It’s an important piece of the historic context of the creeping “double genocide” wave of mass WWII historical revisionism that has now been kicked into overdrive across the West as a consequence of this conflict: The seeds of what’s happening today were planted decades ago, when the multi-generation drive to whitewash the crimes of fascism were just getting underway:
“Even well-meaning researchers were ensnared by Halder’s trap. Halder enjoyed special status, releasing information to only the most privileged journalists and historians. With the legitimacy granted by his title, access to information, and U.S. government backing, Halder’s CMH was considered a gold standard source for academic historians and their information was highly coveted. Halder used this to carefully vet to whom he released information, ensuring he got the maximum impact.”
Franz Halder’s work as a ‘historian’ in the post-war period wasn’t just accepted despite his background as one of the leading Nazi generals and architects of the Holocaust. No, Halder’s work at the US government’s Center of Military History (CMH) was treated as a gold standard for academic historians. It’s hard to imagine a more effectively method of warping our collective understanding of what happened. And Halder was just one example of a much broader phenomena of the systematic rehabilitation of fascism by fascist-leaning ‘anti-communist’ academic work in the West. A rehabilitation that became turbo-charged following the fall of the Soviet Union when large numbers of these academics were allowed to return to Eastern Europe and engage in even more vigorous historical revisionism. It’s those revisions seeds planted decades ago that have been blossoming as the conflict in Ukraine plays out:
And note Halder’s key deputy during his work as a US-sponsored ‘historian’: Nazi war criminal Adolf Heusinger, who went on to become the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1961 to 1964. This is good time to recall that, not only did Heusinger work as a secret CIA agent, but we also learned in 2014 about the revelations about the role Heusinger played in approving the 1949 creation of an illegal “underground army” of ‘ex’ Nazis in West Germany. That’s Halder’s deputy in his revisionist efforts: a Nazi war criminal who was setting up an illegal secret army of ‘ex’ Nazis while working as a secret CIA agent and went on to become a leading NATO figure:
Finally, it’s important to note how the revisionism of Halder and Heusinger isn’t limited to the white washing of the German military’s role in the Holocaust. The revisionism also includes the promotion of the “double genocide” narrative seemingly designed to cast the Nazi atrocities as a kind of ‘lesser Holocaust’ in comparison:
It’s a revisionist infrastructure set up decades ago still at work to this day. With much real-time revisionist work left to be done as the white-washing of the Nazi battalions operating in Ukraine today become ever more embedded in the West’s self-deluiding narratives about the nature of this conflict. Narratives that completely ignore the civil-war sectarian nature of the conflict. A ethno-sectarian conflict driven heavily by the overtly anti-ethnic-Russian chauvinism permeating the Ukrainian ‘nationalist’ movements that now dominate Ukrainian society. Narratives that will also be very convenient should the current conflict spiral out of control. After all, no one wants to learn they fought WWIII based on a pack of pro-Nazi fascist lies. Well, ok, no one other than a Nazis. Or their fascist fellow travelers. It’s all a grim reminder that, while the lies of WWII revisionism may not be ‘noble lies’, the are increasing important lies. The kind of officially important lies that are bound to be ‘Truth’ any day now. Just rinse and repeat.