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“Polit­i­cal language…is designed to make lies sound truth­ful and mur­der respectable, and to give an appear­ance of solid­i­ty to pure wind.”

— George Orwell, 1946

­­­FTR#1233 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: This pro­gram con­tin­ues our cov­er­age of the Ukraine War, embod­ied by the quote from Mort Sahl that is the title of this series.

We begin by high­light­ing a full-page ad in the New York Times, attack­ing Rus­sia for its inva­sion of Ukraine. 

“Nobel Lau­re­ates Sup­port Ukraine;” Full Page Ad in The New York Times; 3/10/2022; p. A7 [West­ern Edi­tion]. The ad was paid for by the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress.

As not­ed in pre­vi­ous pro­grams: ” . . . . In 1967, the World Con­gress of Free Ukraini­ans was found­ed in New York City by sup­port­ers of Andriy Mel­nyk. [The head of the OUN‑M, also allied with Nazi Germany.–D.E.] It was renamed the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress in 1993. In 2003, the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress was rec­og­nized by the Unit­ed Nations Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil as an NGO with spe­cial con­sul­ta­tive sta­tus. It now appears as a spon­sor of the Atlantic Coun­cil . . . . The con­ti­nu­ity of insti­tu­tion­al and indi­vid­ual tra­jec­to­ries from Sec­ond World War col­lab­o­ra­tionists to Cold War-era anti-com­mu­nist orga­ni­za­tions to con­tem­po­rary con­ser­v­a­tive U.S. think tanks is sig­nif­i­cant for the ide­o­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of today’s Inter­mar­i­um revival. . . .”

Oleh Tihany­bok, leader of the OUN/B suc­ces­sor orga­ni­za­tion Svo­bo­da.

Mr. Emory takes note of a PBS New­shour inter­view with Artem Semenikhin of the neo-Nazi Svo­bo­da par­ty. Por­tray­ing him as an anti-Russ­ian hero, the pro­gram does not note that the por­trait of OUN/B leader Stephan Ban­dera is clear­ly vis­i­ble in the back­ground, despite the Zoom blur­ring effect.

Next, we tack­le “Volodymyr Zelen­sky and the ‘Jew­ish Ques­tion.’ ” (This is a grim pun. “The Jew­ish Ques­tion” was the Third Reich’s euphemism for the impend­ing “Final Solu­tion” to “The Jew­ish Ques­tion.”)

The alto­geth­er valid Russ­ian mil­i­tary goal of the inva­sion was “De-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion.” That jus­ti­fi­ca­tion has been attacked as a ruse by using Zelen­sky’s Jew­ish affil­i­a­tion as a rebut­tal.

In that regard we note:

• ” . . . . Zelensky’s top finan­cial backer, the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish oli­garch Igor Kolo­moisky, has been a key bene­fac­tor of the neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion and oth­er extrem­ists mili­tias. . . . Igor Kolo­moisky, a Ukrain­ian ener­gy baron of Jew­ish her­itage, has been a top fun­der of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled pri­vate mili­tias like the Dnipro and Aidar Bat­tal­ions, and has deployed them as a per­son­al thug squad to pro­tect his finan­cial inter­ests. . . .”
• ” . . . . Though Zelen­sky made anti-cor­rup­tion the sig­na­ture issue of his cam­paign, the Pan­do­ra Papers exposed him and mem­bers of his inner cir­cle stash­ing large pay­ments from Kolo­moisky in a shad­owy web of off­shore accounts. . . .”
• ” . . . . They are the ultra­na­tion­al­ist Nation­al Mili­tia, street vig­i­lantes with roots in the bat­tle-test­ed Azov Bat­tal­ion that emerged to defend Ukraine against Rus­sia-backed sep­a­ratists but was also accused of pos­si­ble war crimes and neo-Nazi sym­pa­thies. Yet despite the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing it, the Nation­al Mili­tia was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion to offi­cial­ly mon­i­tor Ukraine’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on March 31. . . .” 
• ” . . . . In March 2019, mem­bers of the Azov Battalion’s Nation­al Corps attacked the home of Vik­tor Medved­chuk, the lead­ing oppo­si­tion fig­ure in Ukraine, accus­ing him of trea­son for his friend­ly rela­tions with Vladimir Putin, the god­fa­ther of Medvedchuk’s daugh­ter. Zelensky’s admin­is­tra­tion esca­lat­ed the attack on Medved­chuk, shut­ter­ing sev­er­al media out­lets he con­trolled in Feb­ru­ary 2021 with the open approval of the U.S.  State Depart­ment, and jail­ing the oppo­si­tion leader for trea­son three months lat­er. Zelen­sky jus­ti­fied his actions on the grounds that he need­ed to ‘fight against the dan­ger of Russ­ian aggres­sion in the infor­ma­tion are­na.’ Next, in August 2020, Azov’s Nation­al Corps opened fire on a bus con­tain­ing mem­bers of Medvedchuk’s par­ty, Patri­ots for Life, wound­ing sev­er­al with rub­ber-coat­ed steel bul­lets. . . .”
• ” . . . . Accord­ing to one Greek res­i­dent in Mar­i­upol recent­ly inter­viewed by a Greek news sta­tion, ‘When you try to leave you run the risk of run­ning into a patrol of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists, the Azov Bat­tal­ion,’ he said, adding ‘they would kill me and are respon­si­ble for every­thing.’ Footage post­ed online appears to show uni­formed mem­bers of a fas­cist Ukrain­ian mili­tia in Mar­i­upol vio­lent­ly pulling flee­ing res­i­dents out of their vehi­cles at gun­point. Oth­er video filmed at check­points around Mar­i­upol showed Azov fight­ers shoot­ing and killing civil­ians attempt­ing to flee. . . .”

Jew­ish iden­ti­ty is not rel­e­vant to the sit­u­a­tion as the Bor­mann group’s busi­ness oper­a­tions have includ­ed Jew­ish par­tic­i­pants as a mat­ter of strate­gic intent. In turn, this has giv­en the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion con­sid­er­able influ­ence in Israel. 

” . . . . I spoke with one Jew­ish busi­ness­man in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut. He had arrived there quite unknown sev­er­al years before our con­ver­sa­tion, but with Bor­mann mon­ey as his lever­age. Today he is more than a mil­lion­aire, a qui­et leader in the com­mu­ni­ty with a cer­tain share of his prof­its ear­marked, as always, for his ven­ture cap­i­tal bene­fac­tors. This has tak­en place in many oth­er instances across Amer­i­ca and demon­strates how Bor­man­n’s peo­ple oper­ate in the con­tem­po­rary com­mer­cial world, in con­trast to the fan­ci­ful non­sense with which Nazis are described in so much ‘lit­er­a­ture.’ So much empha­sis is placed on select Jew­ish par­tic­i­pa­tion in Bor­mann com­pa­nies that when Adolf Eich­mann was seized and tak­en to Tel Aviv to stand tri­al, it pro­duced a shock wave in the Jew­ish and Ger­man com­mu­ni­ties of Buenos Aires. . . .”

Next, we con­clude with an arti­cle which embod­ies Mr. Emory’s analy­sis of the war and its atten­dant cov­er­age as a “philoso­pher’s stone,” effect­ing an alchem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the U.S., the West in gen­er­al and most of the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions in them into what might be called “the embod­i­ment of the Ukrain­ian Insti­tute of Nation­al Mem­o­ry.”

Golinkin penned an op-ed piece for The New York Times in which he men­tioned none of what he spoke about three years ago. Instead, he repeat­ed anti-Sovi­et and/or anti-Russ­ian mate­r­i­al which is prac­ti­cal­ly insti­tu­tion­al­ized at this point.

At the end of his Nation piece, Golinkin gave voice to a very impor­tant insight: ” . . . . 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. . . .”

Points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion in Golink­in’s old­er work include:

* 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. It is now ille­gal to speak unfa­vor­ably of the OUN/B or the UPA, both of which were Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist orga­ni­za­tions  with bloody, lethal his­to­ries.
* 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:

1a.  We begin by high­light­ing a full-page ad in the New York Times, attack­ing Rus­sia for its inva­sion of Ukraine. 

“Nobel Lau­re­ates Sup­port Ukraine;” Full Page Ad in The New York Times; 3/10/2022; p. A7 [West­ern Edi­tion]. The ad was paid for by the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress.

As not­ed in pre­vi­ous pro­grams: ” . . . . In 1967, the World Con­gress of Free Ukraini­ans was found­ed in New York City by sup­port­ers of Andriy Mel­nyk. [The head of the OUN‑M, also allied with Nazi Germany.–D.E.] It was renamed the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress in 1993. In 2003, the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress was rec­og­nized by the Unit­ed Nations Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil as an NGO with spe­cial con­sul­ta­tive sta­tus. It now appears as a spon­sor of the Atlantic Coun­cil . . . . The con­ti­nu­ity of insti­tu­tion­al and indi­vid­ual tra­jec­to­ries from Sec­ond World War col­lab­o­ra­tionists to Cold War-era anti-com­mu­nist orga­ni­za­tions to con­tem­po­rary con­ser­v­a­tive U.S. think tanks is sig­nif­i­cant for the ide­o­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of today’s Inter­mar­i­um revival. . . .”

1b. Mr. Emory takes note of a PBS New­shour inter­view with Artem Semenikhinof the neo-Nazi Svo­bo­da par­ty. Por­tray­ing him as an anti-Russ­ian hero, the pro­gram does not note that the por­trait of OUN/B leader Stephan Ban­dera is clear­ly vis­i­ble in the back­ground, despite the Zoom blur­ring effect.

“Local Jews in shock after Ukrain­ian city of Kono­top elects neo-Nazi may­or” by SAM SOKOL; The Jerusalem Post; 12/21/2015

. . . . Accord­ing to reports, Semenikhin dri­ves around in a car bear­ing the num­ber 14/88, a numero­log­i­cal ref­er­ence to the phras­es “we must secure the exis­tence of our peo­ple and a future for white chil­dren” and “Heil Hitler”; replaced the pic­ture of Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko in his office with a por­trait of Ukrain­ian nation­al leader and Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor Stepan Ban­dera; and refused to fly the city’s offi­cial flag at the open­ing meet­ing of the city coun­cil because he object­ed to the star of David embla­zoned on it. The flag also fea­tures a Mus­lim cres­cent and a cross.

Svo­bo­da, known as the Social-Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine until 2004, has been accused of being a neo-Nazi par­ty by Ukrain­ian Jews and while par­ty lead­ers have a his­to­ry of mak­ing anti-Semit­ic remarks, their rhetoric has toned down con­sid­er­ably over the past years as they attempt­ed to go main­stream.

While it man­aged to enter main­stream pol­i­tics and gain 36 out of 450 seats in the Rada, Ukraine’s par­lia­ment, the party’s sup­port seemed to evap­o­rate fol­low­ing the 2014 Ukrain­ian rev­o­lu­tion, in which it played a cen­tral role. It cur­rent­ly holds six seats in the leg­is­la­ture.

The par­ty man­aged to improve its stand­ing dur­ing recent munic­i­pal elec­tions, how­ev­er, obtain­ing some 10 per­cent of the vote in Kiev and gar­ner­ing sec­ond place in the west­ern city of Lviv. For the most part, how­ev­er, Svo­bo­da is far from the major wor­ry for Ukrain­ian Jews that it was only two years ago.

“It is a sad, but a real­i­ty when anti-Semi­tes are being elect­ed in local gov­ern­ing bod­ies, even may­ors pro­mot­ing hate and intol­er­ance.

Kono­top is a clear case,” said Eduard Dolin­sky of the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish Com­mit­tee.

For the Jews of Kono­top, how­ev­er, wor­ries per­sist, with Ilya Bezruchko, the Ukrain­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the US-based Nation­al Coali­tion Sup­port­ing Eurasian Jew­ry, say­ing he believed res­i­dents, who gen­er­al­ly get along well with local Jews, vot­ed for Semenikhin because he pro­ject­ed an image of some­one who could bring change and reform a cor­rupt sys­tem.

How­ev­er, Semenikhin him­self has a his­to­ry of fraud, hav­ing been arrest­ed for pos­ing as an elec­tric­i­ty com­pa­ny work­er in order to extract pay­ments from busi­ness­es in Kiev in 2012, Bezruchko charged.

Bezruchko, whose late grand­fa­ther was the head of the com­mu­ni­ty and whose moth­er cur­rent­ly works for the city coun­cil, said Semenikhin and his assis­tant have left angry com­ments on his Face­book page in response to crit­i­cal arti­cles that the Jew­ish activist had post­ed on his blog.

He claimed that some­one close to the may­or claimed that he would be hos­pi­tal­ized if he returned to the city from Kiev, where he cur­rent­ly lives, and that the may­or him­self post­ed to say that his moth­er was cor­rupt and should be fired from her job.

“The reac­tion of [the] com­mu­ni­ty is shock. Peo­ple are shocked it could hap­pen in [a] city and nobody believed it could hap­pen here but it hap­pened some­how,” com­mu­ni­ty activist Igor Nechayev told The Jerusalem Post by phone Mon­day.

While there have been a cou­ple of instances of anti-Semit­ic graf­fi­ti over the past decade and one occa­sion­al­ly hears ref­er­ences to con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries iden­ti­fy­ing Ukrain­ian polit­i­cal lead­ers as Jews, for the most part, rela­tions between the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and their non-Jew­ish neigh­bors are cor­dial, he said.

How­ev­er, while the may­or attempts to make sure his state­ments nev­er cross over into out­right anti-Semi­tism, many things he says can be inter­pret­ed in such a way, he con­tin­ued. As an exam­ple, he referred to a recent state­ment by Semenikhin in which the may­or refused to apol­o­gize for anti-Jew­ish actions tak­en by far-right nation­al­ists in World War II, inti­mat­ing that it was because those respon­si­ble for the Holodomor famine of the 1930s were large­ly Jew­ish.

The Holodomor was a man­made famine that came about dur­ing the col­lec­tiviza­tion of agri­cul­ture in the Sovi­et Union and which led to the starv­ing deaths of mil­lions. Ukraini­ans con­sid­er it a geno­cide.

“The com­mu­ni­ty is dis­cussing the sit­u­a­tion and they under­stand that the may­or is bal­anc­ing between anti-Semi­tism— – he isn’t cross­ing a red­line with state­ments but say­ing bor­der things that can be under­stood as anti-Semit­ic,” he explained.

1c. Next, we tack­le “Volodymyr Zelen­sky and the ‘Jew­ish Ques­tion.’ ” (This is a grim pun. “The Jew­ish Ques­tion” was the Third Reich’s euphemism for the impend­ing “Final Solu­tion” to “The Jew­ish Ques­tion.”)

The alto­geth­er valid Russ­ian mil­i­tary goal of the inva­sion was “De-Naz­i­fi­ca­tion” has been attacked as a ruse using Zelen­sky’s Jew­ish affil­i­a­tion as a rebut­tal.

In that regard we note:

• ” . . . . Zelensky’s top finan­cial backer, the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish oli­garch Igor Kolo­moisky, has been a key bene­fac­tor of the neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion and oth­er extrem­ists mili­tias. . . . Igor Kolo­moisky, a Ukrain­ian ener­gy baron of Jew­ish her­itage, has been a top fun­der of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled pri­vate mili­tias like the Dnipro and Aidar Bat­tal­ions, and has deployed them as a per­son­al thug squad to pro­tect his finan­cial inter­ests. . . .”
• ” . . . . Though Zelen­sky made anti-cor­rup­tion the sig­na­ture issue of his cam­paign, the Pan­do­ra Papers exposed him and mem­bers of his inner cir­cle stash­ing large pay­ments from Kolo­moisky in a shad­owy web of off­shore accounts. . . .”
• ” . . . . They are the ultra­na­tion­al­ist Nation­al Mili­tia, street vig­i­lantes with roots in the bat­tle-test­ed Azov Bat­tal­ion that emerged to defend Ukraine against Rus­sia-backed sep­a­ratists but was also accused of pos­si­ble war crimes and neo-Nazi sym­pa­thies. Yet despite the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing it, the Nation­al Mili­tia was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion to offi­cial­ly mon­i­tor Ukraine’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on March 31. . . .”
• ” . . . . In March 2019, mem­bers of the Azov Battalion’s Nation­al Corps attacked the home of Vik­tor Medved­chuk, the lead­ing oppo­si­tion fig­ure in Ukraine, accus­ing him of trea­son for his friend­ly rela­tions with Vladimir Putin, the god­fa­ther of Medvedchuk’s daugh­ter. Zelensky’s admin­is­tra­tion esca­lat­ed the attack on Medved­chuk, shut­ter­ing sev­er­al media out­lets he con­trolled in Feb­ru­ary 2021 with the open approval of the U.S.  State Depart­ment, and jail­ing the oppo­si­tion leader for trea­son three months lat­er. Zelen­sky jus­ti­fied his actions on the grounds that he need­ed to ‘fight against the dan­ger of Russ­ian aggres­sion in the infor­ma­tion are­na.’ Next, in August 2020, Azov’s Nation­al Corps opened fire on a bus con­tain­ing mem­bers of Medvedchuk’s par­ty, Patri­ots for Life, wound­ing sev­er­al with rub­ber-coat­ed steel bul­lets. . . .”
• ” . . . . Accord­ing to one Greek res­i­dent in Mar­i­upol recent­ly inter­viewed by a Greek news sta­tion, ‘When you try to leave you run the risk of run­ning into a patrol of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists, the Azov Bat­tal­ion,’ he said, adding ‘they would kill me and are respon­si­ble for every­thing.’ Footage post­ed online appears to show uni­formed mem­bers of a fas­cist Ukrain­ian mili­tia in Mar­i­upol vio­lent­ly pulling flee­ing res­i­dents out of their vehi­cles at gun­point. Oth­er video filmed at check­points around Mar­i­upol showed Azov fight­ers shoot­ing and killing civil­ians attempt­ing to flee. . . .”

“How Zelen­sky Made Peace With Neo-Nazis” by Alex Rubin­stein and Max Blu­men­thal [The Gray­zone]; Con­sor­tium News; 3/4/2022.

Back in Octo­ber 2019, as the war in east­ern Ukraine dragged on, Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky trav­eled to Zolote, a town sit­u­at­ed firm­ly in the “gray zone” of Don­bas, where over 14,000 had been killed, most­ly on the pro-Russ­ian side. There, the pres­i­dent encoun­tered the hard­ened vet­er­ans of extreme right para­mil­i­tary units keep­ing up the fight against sep­a­ratists just a few miles away.

Elect­ed on a plat­form of de-esca­la­tion of hos­til­i­ties with Rus­sia, Zelen­sky was deter­mined to enforce the so-called Stein­meier For­mu­la con­ceived by then-Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter Wal­ter Stein­meier which called for elec­tions in the Russ­ian-speak­ing regions of Donet­sk and Lugan­sk. 

In a face-to-face con­fronta­tion with mil­i­tants from the neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion who had launched a cam­paign to sab­o­tage the peace ini­tia­tive called “No to Capit­u­la­tion,” Zelen­sky encoun­tered a wall of obsti­na­cy. 

With appeals for dis­en­gage­ment from the front­lines firm­ly reject­ed, Zelen­sky melt­ed down on cam­era. “I’m the pres­i­dent of this coun­try. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a los­er. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons,” Zelen­sky implored the fight­ers.

Once video of the stormy con­fronta­tion spread across Ukrain­ian social media chan­nels, Zelen­sky became the tar­get of an angry back­lash.

Andriy Bilet­sky, the proud­ly fas­cist Azov Bat­tal­ion leader who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semi­te-led Unter­men­schen,” vowed to bring thou­sands of fight­ers to Zolote if Zelen­sky pressed any fur­ther. Mean­while, a par­lia­men­tar­i­an from the par­ty of for­mer Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko open­ly fan­ta­sized about Zelen­sky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade. . . .

. . . . This Feb. 24, when Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ry on a stat­ed mis­sion to “demil­i­ta­rize and denaz­i­fy” the coun­try, U.S. media embarked on a mis­sion of its own: to deny the pow­er of neo-Nazi para­mil­i­taries over the country’s mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal sphere. As the U.S. gov­ern­ment-fund­ed Nation­al Pub­lic Radio insist­ed, “Putin’s lan­guage [about denaz­i­fi­ca­tion] is offen­sive and fac­tu­al­ly wrong.”

In its bid to deflect from the influ­ence of Nazism in con­tem­po­rary Ukraine, U.S.  media has found its most effec­tive PR tool in the fig­ure of Zelen­sky, a for­mer TV star and come­di­an from a Jew­ish back­ground. It is a role the actor-turned-politi­cian has eager­ly assumed.

But as we will see, Zelen­sky has not only ced­ed ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrust­ed them with a front line role in his country’s war against pro-Russ­ian and Russ­ian forces.

 Jew­ish­ness as West­ern Media PR Device 

Hours before Putin’s Feb. 24 speech declar­ing denaz­i­fi­ca­tion as the goal of Russ­ian oper­a­tions,  Zelen­sky “asked how a peo­ple who lost 8 mil­lion of its cit­i­zens fight­ing Nazis could sup­port Nazism,” accord­ing to the BBC.

Raised in a non-reli­gious Jew­ish fam­i­ly in the Sovi­et Union dur­ing the 1980s, Zelen­sky has down­played his her­itage in the past. “The fact that I am Jew­ish bare­ly makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked dur­ing a 2019 inter­view in which he declined to go into fur­ther detail about his reli­gious back­ground.

Today, as Russ­ian troops bear down on cities like Mar­i­upol, which is effec­tive­ly under the con­trol of the Azov Bat­tal­ion, Zelen­sky is no longer ashamed to broad­cast his Jew­ish­ness. “How could I be a Nazi?” he won­dered aloud dur­ing a pub­lic address. For a U.S. media engaged in an all-out infor­ma­tion war against Rus­sia, the president’s Jew­ish back­ground has become an essen­tial pub­lic rela­tions tool. 

A few exam­ples of the U.S. media’s deploy­ment of Zelen­sky as a shield against alle­ga­tions of ram­pant Nazism in Ukraine are below (see mash-up above for video): 

PBS New­sHour not­ed Putin’s com­ments on denaz­i­fi­ca­tion with a qual­i­fi­er: “even though Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky is Jew­ish and his great uncles died in the Holo­caust.”

On Fox & Friends, for­mer CIA offi­cer Dan Hoff­man declared that “it’s the height of hypocrisy to call the Ukrain­ian nation to denaz­i­fy — their pres­i­dent is Jew­ish after all.”

On MSNBC, Vir­ginia Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen. Mark Warn­er said Putin’s “ter­mi­nol­o­gy, out­ra­geous and obnox­ious as it is — ‘denaz­i­fy’ where you’ve got frankly a Jew­ish pres­i­dent in Mr. Zelen­sky. This guy [Putin] is on his own kind of per­son­al jihad to restore greater Rus­sia.”

Repub­li­can Sen. Mar­sha Black­burn said on Fox Busi­ness she’s “been impressed with Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky and how he has stood up. And for Putin to go out there and say ‘we’re going to denaz­i­fy’ and Zelen­sky is Jew­ish.”

In an inter­view with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Gen. John Allen denounced Putin’s use of the term, “de-Naz­i­fy” while the news­man and for­mer Israel lob­by­ist shook his head in dis­gust. In a sep­a­rate inter­view with Blitzer, the so-called “Ukraine whistle­blow­er” and Ukraine-born Alexan­der Vin­d­man grum­bled that the claim is “patent­ly absurd, there’s real­ly no mer­it… you point­ed out that Volodymyr Zelen­sky is Jew­ish… the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty [is] embraced. It’s cen­tral to the coun­try and there is noth­ing to this Nazi nar­ra­tive, this fas­cist nar­ra­tive. It’s fab­ri­cat­ed as a pre­text.”

Behind the cor­po­rate media spin lies the com­plex and increas­ing­ly close rela­tion­ship Zelensky’s admin­is­tra­tion has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invest­ed with key mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal posts by the Ukrain­ian state, and the pow­er these open fas­cists have enjoyed since Wash­ing­ton installed a West­ern-aligned regime through a coup in 2014. 

In fact, Zelensky’s top finan­cial backer, the Ukrain­ian Jew­ish oli­garch Igor Kolo­moisky, has been a key bene­fac­tor of the neo-Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion and oth­er extrem­ists mili­tias. . . .

Neo-Nazi Wave of intim­i­da­tion

. . . . Igor Kolo­moisky, a Ukrain­ian ener­gy baron of Jew­ish her­itage, has been a top fun­der of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled pri­vate mili­tias like the Dnipro and Aidar Bat­tal­ions, and has deployed them as a per­son­al thug squad to pro­tect his finan­cial inter­ests.

In 2019, Kolo­moisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s pres­i­den­tial bid. Though Zelen­sky made anti-cor­rup­tion the sig­na­ture issue of his cam­paign, the Pan­do­ra Papers exposed him and mem­bers of his inner cir­cle stash­ing large pay­ments from Kolo­moisky in a shad­owy web of off­shore accounts. 

When Zelen­sky took office in May 2019, the Azov Bat­tal­ion main­tained de fac­to con­trol of the strate­gic south­east­ern port city of Mar­i­upol and its sur­round­ing vil­lages. As Open Democ­ra­cy not­ed, “Azov has cer­tain­ly estab­lished polit­i­cal con­trol of the streets in Mar­i­upol. To main­tain this con­trol, they have to react vio­lent­ly, even if not offi­cial­ly, to any pub­lic event which diverges suf­fi­cient­ly from their polit­i­cal agen­da.”

Attacks by Azov in Mar­i­upol have includ­ed assaults on “fem­i­nists and lib­er­als” march­ing on Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Day among oth­er inci­dents.

In March 2019, mem­bers of the Azov Battalion’s Nation­al Corps attacked the home of Vik­tor Medved­chuk, the lead­ing oppo­si­tion fig­ure in Ukraine, accus­ing him of trea­son for his friend­ly rela­tions with Vladimir Putin, the god­fa­ther of Medvedchuk’s daugh­ter. 

Zelensky’s admin­is­tra­tion esca­lat­ed the attack on Medved­chuk, shut­ter­ing sev­er­al media out­lets he con­trolled in Feb­ru­ary 2021 with the open approval of the U.S.  State Depart­ment, and jail­ing the oppo­si­tion leader for trea­son three months lat­er. Zelen­sky jus­ti­fied his actions on the grounds that he need­ed to “fight against the dan­ger of Russ­ian aggres­sion in the infor­ma­tion are­na.”

Next, in August 2020, Azov’s Nation­al Corps opened fire on a bus con­tain­ing mem­bers of Medvedchuk’s par­ty, Patri­ots for Life, wound­ing sev­er­al with rub­ber-coat­ed steel bul­lets.

Zelen­sky Winds Up Col­lab­o­rat­ing

Fol­low­ing his failed attempt to demo­bi­lize neo-Nazi mil­i­tants in the town of Zolote in Octo­ber 2019, Zelen­sky called the fight­ers to the table, telling reporters “I met with vet­er­ans yes­ter­day. Every­one was there – the Nation­al Corps, Azov, and every­one else.”

A few seats away from the Jew­ish pres­i­dent was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.

Dur­ing the Maid­an “Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­ni­ty” that oust­ed Ukraine’s elect­ed pres­i­dent in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plas­tered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before tak­ing shel­ter in the Cana­di­an embassy.

As the for­mer youth wing of the ultra-nation­al­ist Svo­bo­da Par­ty, C14 appears to draw its name from the infa­mous 14 words of U.S.  neo-Nazi leader David Lane: “We must secure the exis­tence of our peo­ple and a future for white chil­dren.” . . .

By offer­ing to car­ry out acts of spec­tac­u­lar vio­lence on behalf of any­one will­ing to pay, the hooli­gans have fos­tered a cozy rela­tion­ship with var­i­ous gov­ern­ing bod­ies and pow­er­ful elites across Ukraine.

C14 neo-Nazi gang offers to car­ry out vio­lence-for-hire: “C14 works for you. Help us keep afloat, and we will help you. For reg­u­lar donors, we are open­ing a box for wish­es. Which of your ene­mies would you like to make life dif­fi­cult for? We’ll try to do that.”

A March 2018 report by Reuters stat­ed that “C14 and Kiev’s city gov­ern­ment recent­ly signed an agree­ment allow­ing C14 to estab­lish a ‘munic­i­pal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effec­tive­ly giv­ing them the sanc­tion of the state to car­ry out pogroms.

As The Gray­zone report­ed, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s rail­way sta­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Kiev police.

Not only was this activ­i­ty sanc­tioned by the Kiev city gov­ern­ment, the U.S.  gov­ern­ment itself saw lit­tle prob­lem with it, host­ing Bon­dar at an offi­cial U.S.  gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tion in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 con­tin­ued to receive state fund­ing through­out 2018 for “nation­al-patri­ot­ic edu­ca­tion.”

Karas has claimed that the Ukrain­ian Secu­ri­ty Serves would “pass on” infor­ma­tion regard­ing pro-sep­a­ratist ral­lies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sec­tor and so on.”

“In gen­er­al, deputies of all fac­tions, the Nation­al Guard, the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine and the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.

Through­out 2019, Zelen­sky and his admin­is­tra­tion deep­ened their ties with ultra-nation­al­ist ele­ments across Ukraine.

Just days after Zelensky’s meet­ing with Karas and oth­er neo-Nazi lead­ers in Novem­ber 2019, Olek­siy Hon­charuk – then the prime min­is­ter and deputy head of Zelensky’s pres­i­den­tial office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi con­cert orga­nized by C14 fig­ure and accused mur­der­er Andriy Medved­ko.

Zelensky’s min­is­ter for vet­er­ans affairs not only attend­ed the con­cert, which fea­tured sev­er­al anti-Semit­ic met­al bands, she pro­mot­ed the con­cert on Face­book.

Also in 2019, Zelen­sky defend­ed Ukrain­ian foot­baller Roman Zolzulya against Span­ish fans taunt­ing him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside pho­tos of the World War II-era Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor Stepan Ban­dera and open­ly sup­port­ed the Azov Bat­tal­ion. Zelen­sky respond­ed to the con­tro­ver­sy by pro­claim­ing that all of Ukraine backed Zolzulya, describ­ing him as “not only a cool foot­ball play­er but a true patri­ot.”

In Novem­ber 2021, one of Ukraine’s most promi­nent ultra-nation­al­ist mili­ti­a­men, Dmytro Yarosh, announced that he had been appoint­ed as an advis­er to the com­man­der-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yarosh is an avowed fol­low­er of the Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tor Ban­dera who led Right Sec­tor from 2013 to 2015, vow­ing to lead the “de-Rus­si­fi­ca­tion” of Ukraine.

A month lat­er, as war with Rus­sia drew clos­er, Zelen­sky award­ed Right Sec­tor com­man­der Dmytro Kot­syubay­lo the “Hero of Ukraine” com­men­da­tion. Known as “Da Vin­ci,” Kosyubay­lo keeps a pet wolf in his front­line base, and likes to joke to vis­it­ing reporters that his fight­ers “feed it the bones of Russ­ian-speak­ing chil­dren.” . . .

‘If We Get killed…We Died Fight­ing a Holy War’

. . . . On Feb.27, the offi­cial Twit­ter account of the Nation­al Guard of Ukraine post­ed video of “Azov Fight­ers” greas­ing their bul­lets with pig fat to humil­i­ate Russ­ian Mus­lim fight­ers from Chech­nya.

A day lat­er, the Azov Battalion’s Nation­al Corps announced that the Azov Battalion’s Kharkiv Region­al Police would begin using the city’s Region­al State Admin­is­tra­tion build­ing as a defense head­quar­ters. Footage post­ed to Telegram the fol­low­ing day shows the Azov-occu­pied build­ing being hit by a Russ­ian airstrike.

Besides autho­riz­ing the release of hard­core crim­i­nals to join the bat­tle against Rus­sia, Zelen­sky has ordered all males of fight­ing age to remain in the coun­try. Azov mil­i­tants have pro­ceed­ed to enforce the pol­i­cy by bru­tal­iz­ing civil­ians attempt­ing to flee from the fight­ing around Mar­i­upol.  

Accord­ing to one Greek res­i­dent in Mar­i­upol recent­ly inter­viewed by a Greek news sta­tion, “When you try to leave you run the risk of run­ning into a patrol of the Ukrain­ian fas­cists, the Azov Bat­tal­ion,” he said, adding “they would kill me and are respon­si­ble for every­thing.”

Footage post­ed online appears to show uni­formed mem­bers of a fas­cist Ukrain­ian mili­tia in Mar­i­upol vio­lent­ly pulling flee­ing res­i­dents out of their vehi­cles at gun­point.

Oth­er video filmed at check­points around Mar­i­upol showed Azov fight­ers shoot­ing and killing civil­ians attempt­ing to flee. . . .

2b. Azov’s Druzhy­na mili­tia was award­ed the job of elec­tion mon­i­tor­ing by the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment in their recent elec­tions. ” . . . . They are the ultra­na­tion­al­ist Nation­al Mili­tia, street vig­i­lantes with roots in the bat­tle-test­ed Azov Bat­tal­ion that emerged to defend Ukraine against Rus­sia-backed sep­a­ratists but was also accused of pos­si­ble war crimes and neo-Nazi sym­pa­thies. Yet despite the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing it, the Nation­al Mili­tia was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion to offi­cial­ly mon­i­tor Ukraine’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on March 31. . . .”

2c. Jew­ish iden­ti­ty is not rel­e­vant to the sit­u­a­tion as the Bor­mann group’s busi­ness oper­a­tions have includ­ed Jew­ish par­tic­i­pants as a mat­ter of strate­gic intent. In turn, this has giv­en the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion con­sid­er­able influ­ence in Israel. 

” . . . . I spoke with one Jew­ish busi­ness­man in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut. He had arrived there quite unknown sev­er­al years before our con­ver­sa­tion, but with Bor­mann mon­ey as his lever­age. Today he is more than a mil­lion­aire, a qui­et leader in the com­mu­ni­ty with a cer­tain share of his prof­its ear­marked, as always, for his ven­ture cap­i­tal bene­fac­tors. This has tak­en place in many oth­er instances across Amer­i­ca and demon­strates how Bor­man­n’s peo­ple oper­ate in the con­tem­po­rary com­mer­cial world, in con­trast to the fan­ci­ful non­sense with which Nazis are described in so much ‘lit­er­a­ture.’ So much empha­sis is placed on select Jew­ish par­tic­i­pa­tion in Bor­mann com­pa­nies that when Adolf Eich­mann was seized and tak­en to Tel Aviv to stand tri­al, it pro­duced a shock wave in the Jew­ish and Ger­man com­mu­ni­ties of Buenos Aires. . . .”

Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile by Paul Man­ning; Lyle Stu­art [HC]; Copy­right 1981 by Paul Man­ning; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp.226–227.

. . . . Since the found­ing of Israel, the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many had paid out 85.3 bil­lion marks, by the end of 1977, to sur­vivors of the Holo­caust. East Ger­many ignores any such lia­bil­i­ty. From South Amer­i­ca, where pay­ment must be made with sub­tle­ty, the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion has made a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion. It has drawn many of the bright­est Jew­ish busi­ness­men into a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry role in the devel­op­ment of many of its cor­po­ra­tions, and many of these Jews share their pros­per­i­ty most gen­er­ous­ly with Israel. If their pro­pos­als are sound, they are even pro­vid­ed with a spe­cial­ly dis­pensed ven­ture cap­i­tal fund.

I spoke with one Jew­ish busi­ness­man in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut. He had arrived there quite unknown sev­er­al years before our con­ver­sa­tion, but with Bor­mann mon­ey as his lever­age. Today he is more than a mil­lion­aire, a qui­et leader in the com­mu­ni­ty with a cer­tain share of his prof­its ear­marked, as always, for his ven­ture cap­i­tal bene­fac­tors. This has tak­en place in many oth­er instances across Amer­i­ca and demon­strates how Bor­man­n’s peo­ple oper­ate in the con­tem­po­rary com­mer­cial world, in con­trast to the fan­ci­ful non­sense with which Nazis are described in so much ‘lit­er­a­ture.’

So much empha­sis is placed on select Jew­ish par­tic­i­pa­tion in Bor­mann com­pa­nies that when Adolf Eich­mann was seized and tak­en to Tel Aviv to stand tri­al, it pro­duced a shock wave in the Jew­ish and Ger­man com­mu­ni­ties of Buenos Aires. Jew­ish lead­ers informed the Israeli author­i­ties in no uncer­tain terms that this must nev­er hap­pen again because a rep­e­ti­tion would per­ma­nent­ly rup­ture rela­tions with the Ger­mans of Latin Amer­i­ca, as well as with the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion, and cut off the flow of Jew­ish mon­ey to Israel. It nev­er hap­pened again, and the pur­suit of Bor­mann qui­et­ed down at the request of these Jew­ish lead­ers. He is resid­ing in an Argen­tine safe haven, pro­tect­ed by the most effi­cient Ger­man infra­struc­ture in his­to­ry as well as by all those whose pros­per­i­ty depends on his well-being. Per­son­al invi­ta­tion is the only way to reach him. . . .

3. Next, we con­clude with an arti­cle which embod­ies Mr. Emory’s analy­sis of the war and its atten­dant cov­er­age as a “philoso­pher’s stone,” effect­ing an alchem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the U.S., the West in gen­er­al and most of the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions in them into what might be called “the embod­i­ment of the Ukrain­ian Insti­tute of Nation­al Mem­o­ry.”

Golinkin penned an op-ed piece for The New York Times in which he men­tioned none of what he spoke about three years ago. Instead, he repeat­ed anti-Sovi­et and/or anti-Russ­ian mate­r­i­al which is prac­ti­cal­ly insti­tu­tion­al­ized at this point.

At the end of his Nation piece, Golinkin gave voice to a very impor­tant insight: ” . . . . 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. . . .”

Points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion in Golink­in’s old­er work include:

* 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. It is now ille­gal to speak unfa­vor­ably of the OUN/B or the UPA, both of which were Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist orga­ni­za­tions  with bloody, lethal his­to­ries.
* 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.

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 Druzhi­nastreet 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 exhib­itcom­mem­o­rat­ing 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.