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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#1228 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
FTR#1229 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Modern Times: Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the 14th Waffen SS Division in Lviv, Ukraine in summer of 2018. THIS is the heritage of the OUN/B.
Introduction: In December of 2021, the U.N. voted 130–2 on a motion to condemn celebrations of Nazism. Only the U.S. and Ukraine voted against it. The EU and UK abstained.
” . . . . ‘By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials, holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, and declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition, collaborated with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity ‘participants in national liberation movements’. . . .”
Look at the picture at right:
That embodies the political dynamic underlying the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
The first two of a number of programs that will deal with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, these programs begin the detailed documentation of the ascent of the OUN/B successor groups to positions of power in the national security, police, educational and political establishments in Ukraine.
(Among our previous programs about the OUN/B are FTR#‘s 777, 778 [which are collations of roughly twenty years of previous programs on the organization] and FTR#‘s 876, 1224 which highlight the group’s involvement with the JFK assassination.)
These program will highlight and recap the exhaustive documentation presented over the roughly eight-year period since the Maidan coup, documenting the OUN/B Nazi dominance in Ukraine.
Attempts at whitewashing the OUN/B’s activities on behalf of the Third Reich should be considered in the context of the following:
c
Note that Putin’s stated war aim: “De-Nazification” is not only substantively relevant, but just.
Mr. Emory doubts that the war will go well. The fighting may well have been sparked by a looming attempt by the Ukrainian government to seize the breakaway provinces by force, supported by U.S. and other Western military supply and clandestine special operations troops–the only circumstance that Mr. Emory felt would precipitate Russian intervention.
The historical and institutional evolution of the fascist OUN/B successor groups in control of Ukraine is excerpted in sections of a Covert Action Magazine article:
Some of the most important U.S. think tanks and associated military individuals and institutions embody this continuity: ” . . . . 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. . . .”
We present key excerpts of the paper to underscore dominant features of this evolutionary continuity:
- A key player in the events that brought the OUN successor organizations to power in Ukraine has been the Atlantic Council. It receives backing from NATO, the State Department, Lithuania and Ukrainian Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. The think tank also receives major funding from the Ukrainian World Congress, which evolved from the OUN. Read an Atlantic Council paper extolling the Nazi Azov Battalion HERE: ” . . . . 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. . . .”
- Ukrainian proto-fascist forces were at the core of Josef Pilsudski’s Polish-led Intermarium and overlapping Promethean organizations. Those forces coalesced into the OUN. ” . . . . According to the British scholar and journalist Stephen Dorril, the Promethean League served as an anti-communist umbrella organization for anti-Soviet exiles displaced after the Ukrainian government of Simon Petlura (1879–1926) gave up the fight against the Soviets in 1922.[12] . . . . as Dorril affirms, ‘the real leadership and latent power within the Promethean League emanated from the Petlura-dominated Ukrainian Democratic Republic in exile and its Polish sponsors. The Poles benefited directly from this arrangement, as Promethean military assets were absorbed into the Polish army, with Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian contract officers not uncommon in the ranks.’[13] The alliance between Piłsudski and Petlura became very unpopular among many Western Ukrainians, as it resulted in Polish domination of their lands. This opposition joined the insurgent Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainska viiskova orhanizatsiia, UVO—founded 1920), which later transformed into the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, OUN). . . .”
- According to former Army intelligence officer William Gowen (a source used and trusted by John Loftus and Mark Aarons) the Intermarium and Promethean network assets were used by Third Reich intelligence during World War II. ” . . . . Based on Gowen’s reports, such authors as Christopher Simpson, Stephen Dorril, Mark Aarons, and John Loftus have suggested that the networks of the Promethean League and the Intermarium were utilized by German intelligence. . . .”
- Not surprisingly, the Intermarium/Promethean milieu appears to have been centrally involved in the Nazi escape networks, the Vatican-assisted “Ratlines,” in particular. ” . . . . American intelligence began to take notice of the Intermarium network in August 1946[42] in the framework of Operation Circle, a Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) project the original goal of which was to determine how networks inside the Vatican had spirited away so many Nazi war criminals and collaborators, mostly to South America.[43] Among the group of CIC officers involved in the operation was Levy’s source William Gowen. Then a young officer based in Rome, Gowen suspected the Intermarium network to be behind Nazi war criminals and collaborators’ extensive escape routes from Europe. . . .”
- It comes as no surprise, as well, that U.S. intelligence absorbed the Intermarium/Promethean networks after the war. ” . . . . According to Aarons and Loftus, although he had initially been thoroughly opposed to this course of action, by ‘early July 1947, Gowen was strongly advocating that American intelligence should take over Intermarium; before long, the CIC officer was no longer hunting for Nazis, but recruiting them.’[49] . . . .”
- One of the main components of the “Intermarium continuity” is the ABN—the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. The OUN and associated elements constitute the most important element of the ABN. ” . . . . a vast number of anti-communist organizations were formed in the immediate post-war period and supported by the US.[57] They constitute one of the main components of the Intermarium ‘genealogical tree,’ in the sense that they revived the memory of Piłsudski’s attempts to unify Central and Eastern Europe against Soviet Russia and gave them new life, but blended this memory with far-right tones inspired by collaboration with Nazi Germany.[58] The most important of the European anti-communist organizations was the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). . . . Because fascist movements were, in the 1930s, the first to organize themselves against the Soviet Union, the ABN recruited massively among their ranks and served as an umbrella for many former collaborationist paramilitary organizations in exile, amongst them the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera (OUN‑B), the Croatian Ustaše, the Romanian Iron Guard, and the Slovakian Hlinka Guard.[59] It thus contributed to guaranteeing the survival of their legacies at least until the end of the Cold War. According to the liberal Institute for Policy Studies think tank, created by two former aides to Kennedy advisors, the ABN was the ‘largest and most important umbrella for former Nazi collaborators in the world.’ . . . .”
- In addition to the OUN/Ukrainian fascist milieu, the Croatian Ustashe fascists became a dominant element. This is fundamental to the Azov Battalion’s Intermarium project, discussed in FTR #‘s 1096 and 1097. ” . . . . The most active groups within the ABN became the Ukrainian and Croatian organizations, particularly the Ukrainian OUN.[61] The OUN, under the leadership of Andriy Melnyk (1890–1964), collaborated with the Nazi occupiers from the latter’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. The Gestapo trained Mykola Lebed and the adherents of Melnyk’s younger competitor, Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), in sabotage, guerrilla warfare, and assassinations. The OUN’s 1941 split into the so-called OUN‑B, following Stepan Bandera, and OUN‑M, following Andriy Melnyk,[62] did not keep both factions from continuing to collaborate with the Germans. . . .”
- Former SS and Abwehr officer Theodor Oberlaender–the political officer for the UPA and the Nachtigall Battalion during the Lviv Pogrom of June 1941–was vital to the continuity of the OUN and UPA and thus, the Intermarium” . . . .While in Soviet Ukraine the UPA kept on fighting against Moscow until the early 1950s, their capacities were exhausted. . . . As Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and the War-Damaged during the Adenauer government, Oberländer played a crucial role in the rise of the ABN and allowed Ukrainian collaborationists to take the lead in it. Yaroslav Stetsko (1912–1986), who presided over the Ukrainian collaborationist government in Lviv from as early as 30 June 1941, led the ABN from its creation in 1946 until his death in 1986. . . .”
- The Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) confirmed the primacy of the OUN/B within the ABN. Note the continuity of OUN and UPA guerilla warfare in Ukraine, begun under third Reich auspices and enjoying post World War II support from CIA, and OPC. This has been covered in AFA #1 and FTR #777.) : ” . . . . CIC confirmed that by 1948 both the ‘Intermarium’ and the UPA (Ukrainian partisan command) reported to the ABN president, Yaroslav Stetsko. The UPA in turn had consolidated all the anti-Soviet partisans under its umbrella. Yaroslav Stetsko was also Secretary of OUN/B and second in command to Bandera, who had the largest remaining partisan group behind Soviet lines under his direct command. Thus, OUN/B had achieved the leadership role among the anti-Communist exiles and was ascendant by 1950 . . . .”
- Contemporary Ukraine is the focal point of the reincarnated Intermarium concept. ” . . . . The most recent reincarnation of the Intermarium has taken form in Ukraine, especially among the Ukrainian far right, which has re-appropriated the concept by capitalizing on the solid ideological and personal continuity between actors of the Ukrainian far right in the interwar and Cold War periods and their heirs today. . . .”
- The continuity of the Intermarium concept as manifested in contemporary Ukraine is epitomized by the role of Yaroslava Stetsko (Yaroslav’s widow and successor as a decisive ABN and OUN leader). Note the networking between her Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and Svoboda. “. . . . This continuity is exemplified by the wife of long-time ABN leader Yaroslav Stetsko, Yaroslava Stetsko (1920–2003), a prominent figure in the Ukrainian post-Second World War émigré community who became directly involved in post-Soviet Ukrainian politics. Having joined the OUN at the age of 18, she became an indispensable supporter of the ABN after the war . . . . In July 1991, she returned to Ukraine, and in the following year formed the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), a new political party established on the basis of the OUN, presiding over both.[129] Although the CUN never achieved high election results, it cooperated with the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), which later changed its name to Svoboda, the far-right Ukrainian party that continues to exist. . . .”
- Yaroslava Stetsko’s CUN was co-founded by her husband’s former secretary in the 1980s, Roman Svarych. Minister of Justice in the Viktor Yuschenko government (as well as both Timoshenko governments), Svarych became the spokesman and a major recruiter for the Azov Battalion. ” . . . . The co-founder of the CUN and formerly Yaroslav Stetsko’s private secretary, the U.S.-born Roman Zvarych (1953), represents a younger generation of the Ukrainian émigré community active during the Cold War and a direct link from the ABN to the Azov Battalion. . . . Zvarych participated in the activities of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations in the 1980s. . . . In February 2005, after Viktor Yushchenko’s election, Zvarych was appointed Minister of Justice. . . . According to Andriy Biletsky, the first commander of the Azov battalion, a civil paramilitary unit created in the wake of the Euromaidan, Zvarych was head of the headquarters of the Azov Central Committee in 2015 and supported the Azov battalion with ‘volunteers’ and political advice through his Zvarych Foundation. . . .”
- The “Intermarium Continuity” is inextricable with the historical revisionism about the roles of the OUN and UPA in World War II. That revisionism is institionalized in the Institute of National Remembrance. ” . . . .The reintroduction of the Intermarium notion in Ukraine is closely connected to the broad rehabilitation of the OUN and UPA, as well as of their main hero, Stepan Bandera. . . . During his presidency (2005–2010), and particularly through the creation of the Institute for National Remembrance, Viktor Yushchenko built the image of Bandera as a simple Ukrainian nationalist fighting for his country’s independence . . . .”
- As discussed in numerous programs, another key element in the “Intermarium Continuity” is Kateryna Chumachenko, an OUN operative who served in the State Department and Ronald Reagan’s administration. She married Viktor Yuschenko. ” . . . . It is not unlikely Yushchenko’s readiness during his presidency (2005–2010) to open up to right-wing tendencies of the Ukrainian exile leads back to his wife, who had connections to the ABN. Kateryna Chumachenko [Yushchenko], born 1961 in Chicago, was socialised there in the Ukrainian exile youth organisation SUM (Spilka Ukrajinskoji Molodi, Ukrainian Youth Organisation) in the spirit of the OUN. Via the lobby association Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) she obtained a post as ‘special assistant’ in the U.S. State Department in 1986, and was from 1988 to 1989 employed by the Office of Public Liaison in the White House. . . .”
- Embodying the “Intermarium Continuity” are the lustration laws, which make it a criminal offence to tell the truth about the OUN and UPA’s roles in World War II. Note Volodymyr Viatrovych’s position as minister of education. ” . . . . This rehabilitation trend accelerated after the EuroMaidan. In 2015, just before the seventieth anniversary of Victory Day, Volodymyr Viatrovych, minister of education and long-time director of the Institute for the Study of the Liberation Movement, an organization founded to promote the heroic narrative of the OUN–UPA, called on the parliament to vote for a set of four laws that codified the new, post-Maidan historiography. Two of them are particularly influential in the ongoing memory war with Russia. One decrees that OUN and UPA members are to be considered ‘fighters for Ukrainian independence in the twentieth century,’ making public denial of this unlawful. . . .”
- As discussed discussed in FTR #‘s 1096 and 1097, the Azov Battalion is in the leadership of the revival of the Intermarium concept.” . . . . In this context of rehabilitation of interwar heroes, tensions with Russia, and disillusion with Europe over its perceived lack of support against Moscow, the geopolitical concept of Intermarium could only prosper. It has found its most active promoters on the far right of the political spectrum, among the leadership of the Azov Battalion. . . .”
- Azov’s Intermarium Support Group has held three networking conferences to date, bringing together key figures of what are euphemized as “nationalist” organizations. In addition to focusing on the development of what are euphemized as “nationalist” youth organizations, the conference is stressing military organization and preparedness: ” . . . . In 2016, Biletsky created the Intermarium Support Group (ISG),[152] introducing the concept to potential comrades-in-arms from the Baltic-Black Sea region.[153] The first day of the founding conference was reserved for lectures and discussions by senior representatives of various sympathetic organizations, the second day to ‘the leaders of youth branches of political parties and nationalist movements of the Baltic-Black Sea area.’ . . . . It also included ‘military attaches of diplomatic missions from the key countries in the region (Poland, Hungary, Romania and Lithuania). . . .”
- Azov’s third ISG conference continued to advance the military networking characteristics of the earlier gatherings, involving military officials from Eastern European countries and including the necessity of giving military training to what are euphemized as “nationalist” youth organizations. Note the continued manifestation in the “new” Croatia of Ustachi political culture. ” . . . . On October 13, 2018, the ISG organized its third congress. Besides the Ukrainian hosts, a large share of the foreign speakers from Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia had a (para-)military background, among them advisor to the Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Targalski and retired Brigadier General of the Croatian Armed Forces Bruno Zorica.[156] Among the talking points of Polish military educator Damien Duda were ‘methods of the preparation of a military reserve in youth organizations” and the “importance of paramilitary structures within the framework of the defence complex of a modern state.’ . . . .”
Program Highlights Include: The appointment of former Pravy Sektor chief Dymytro Yarosh as advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces; Yarosh’s affiliation with the ideology of OUN/B head Stephan Bandera; the evolution of Pravy Sektor–a political front for the final military incarnation of the UPA, the military branch of the OUN/B; The formation of the Werewolf guerilla groups by Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, including elements of UPA; the battle cry of the Werewolves, broadcast by Radio Werewolf: “Rather Dead Than Red,” a phrase that lived long after; The genesis of the term “Iron Curtain,” minted by Nazi finance minister Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk; the apparent genesis of the French OAS as part of the Werewolf operation; The continuation of UPA guerilla activity by units fighting with their German SS officers in Ukraine until 1952; The institutionalization of the civilian militia of Azov Battalion (National Druzhyna Militia) and the C14 Militia of the Nazi Svoboda group as auxiliary police forces, enjoying law-enforcement powers in 21 Ukrainian cities, including Kiev; the launching of anti-Roma pogroms by National Dryzhyna and C14 groups, with the apparent connivance of the police authorities; The career of former Azov Battalion officer Vadim Troyan, who became the national police chief in Ukraine and then a top aide to the Interior Minister of Ukraine; The adoption by the Ukrainian military and police of the “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to The Heroes!” salute of the OUN/B and UPA in World War II; The naming of streets in Ukraine for Nazi war criminals; The brutal anti-Polish massacres by UPA in the Ukraine-Polish War, a “sub-war” of WWII; Suppression of freedom of speech and press in Ukraine; The outlawing of accurate historical documentation of the Nazi collaborators and ethnic cleansing of the OUN/B and UPA.
1a. A revealing vote at the UN shone a rare spotlight on the pro-fascist and Nazi strategic agenda that the US and much of the rest of the West has pursued since before the guns of World War II fell silent.
Exemplifying this dynamic are FTR#‘s 1146, 1147, 1148, 1149, 1150.
With the EU and UK abstaining from the vote, the US and Ukraine were the only nations voting against the resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism.
” . . . . ‘By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials, holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, and declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition, collaborated with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity ‘participants in national liberation movements’. . . .”
We have exhaustively documented the renaissance enjoyed in Ukraine post-Maidan by the forces embodied in, and aligned with, the OUN/B.
Professor Ivan Katchanovski has documented the fact that the shots that felled police and protesters alike at the Maidan coup came from buildings occupied by members of Svoboda, whose leader is seen at right.
“US and Ukraine at UN Refuse to Condemn Nazism” by Craig Murray; Consortium News; 12/23/2021.
The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that, writes Craig Murray.
This is verbatim from the official report of the U.N. General Assembly plenary of Dec. 16:
“The Assembly next took up the report on ‘Elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,’ containing two draft resolutions.
“By a recorded vote of 130 in favor to 2 against (Ukraine, United States), with 49 abstentions, the Assembly then adopted draft resolution I, ‘Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’.” It goes on:
“By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials, holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, and declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition, collaborated with the Nazi movement and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity ‘participants in national liberation movements’.
Further, the Assembly urged States to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination by all appropriate means, including through legislation, urging them to address new and emerging threats posed by the rise in terrorist attacks incited by racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, or in the name of religion or belief. It would call on States to ensure that education systems develop the necessary content to provide accurate accounts of history, as well as promote tolerance and other international human rights principles. It likewise would condemn without reservation any denial of or attempt to deny the Holocaust, as well as any manifestation of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities on the basis of ethnic origin or religious belief.”
In Ukraine, support for the Ukrainian nationalist divisions who fought alongside the Nazis has become, over the last eight years, the founding ideology of the modern post-2013 Ukrainian state (which is very different from the diverse Ukrainian state which briefly existed 1991–2013). The full resolution on Nazism and racism passed by the General Assembly is lengthy, but these provisions in particular were voted against by the United States and by the Ukraine:
“Emphasizes the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur that ‘any commemorative celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and related organizations, whether official or unofficial, should be prohibited by States’, also emphasizes that such manifestations do injustice to the memory of the countless victims of the Second World War and negatively influence children and young people, and stresses in this regard that it is important that States take measures, in accordance with international human rights law, to counteract any celebration of the Nazi SS organization and all its integral parts, including the Waffen SS;
Expresses concern about recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during the Second World War, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons, and in this regard urges States to fully comply with their relevant obligations, inter alia, under article 34 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949;
Condemns without reservation any denial or attempt to deny the Holocaust;
Welcomes the call of the Special Rapporteur for the active preservation of those Holocaust sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration and forced labour camps and prisons, as well as his encouragement of States to take measures, including legislative, law enforcement and educational measures, to put an end to all forms of Holocaust denial.”
As reported in The Times of Israel, hundreds took part in a demonstration in Kiev in May and others throughout Ukraine, in honor of a specific division of the SS. That is but one march and one division — glorification of its Nazi past is a mainstream part of Ukrainian political culture.
In 2018 a bipartisan letter by 50 U.S. representatives condemned multiple events commemorating Nazi allies held in Ukraine with official Ukrainian government backing.
There are no two ways about it. The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that. . . .
. . . . There is no historical doubt whatsoever of Ukrainian nationalist forces’ active support of Nazism and participation in genocide, not just of Jews and Roma but of Poles and religious minorities. There is no doubt whatsoever of the modern glorification in Ukraine of these evil people.
It is of course not just Ukraine. In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania the record of collaboration with Nazis, of active participation in fighting for Nazis, and in active participation in genocide is extremely shaming. Throughout Eastern Europe there is a failure in these “victim nations” to look history squarely in the eye and to admit what happened — a failure the United States in actually promoting as “a campaign against Russian disinformation”.
I recommend to you the website Defending History, run by the admirable David Katz, which is a large and valuable resource on this website from a Lithuanian Jewish perspective that cannot remotely be dismissed as Russian or left-wing propaganda. The front page currently features the December 2021 naming of a square in the capital after Lithuanian “freedom fighter” Juokas Luksa “Daumantas,” a man who commenced the massacre of Jews in Vilnius ahead of the arrival of German forces.
These are precisely the kind of commemorations the resolution is against. There has been a rash of destruction of Soviet war memorials and even war graves, and erection of commemorations, in various form, of Nazis throughout the Baltic states. That is what paras 6 and 7 of the resolution refer to, and there is no doubt whatsoever of the truth of these events. It is not “Russian disinformation.”
However the European Union, in support of its Baltic states members and their desire to forget or deny historical truth and to build a new national myth expunging their active role in the genocide of their Jewish and Roma populations, would not support the U.N. Resolution on Nazism. The EU countries abstained, as did the U.K. The truth of course is that NATO intends to use the descendants of Eastern European racists against Russia much as Hitler did, at least in a cold war context.
You won’t find that in the Explanation of Vote.
1b. Representative of the important Nazi role in Ukrainian national security affairs is the appointment of former Pravy Sektor chief Dymytro Yarosh as an adviser to the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.
(Pravy Sektor, or Right Sector, is one of the OUN/B successor groups in Ukraine. Its Nazi/fascist character is generally whitewashed in the MSM.)
Yarosh wrote about his appointment on Facebook: “By order of Lieutenant General Valery Zaluzhny, I was appointed an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. . . .”
We have detailed this subject exhaustively, in the years since the Maidan coup.
The presence of Nazi/fascist members and/or alumni of groups like Azov Battalion, Pravy Sektor are the norm in Ukraine.
Telling the truth about this gets one labeled as a “Russian dupe” or “Putin propagandist.”
Yarosh is a follower of Stephan Bandera, making him a direct line of evolution from the Nazi-collaborationist OUN/B.
Pravy Sektor, itself, is the political front for the UNA-UNSO, the final incarnation of the UPA.
The Commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, ex-leader of the Right Sector movement Dmytro Yarosh, said that he had been appointed an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He wrote about this on Facebook.
“By order of Lieutenant General Valery Zaluzhny, I was appointed an adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Thank you for your trust! We will win together!” Yarosh wrote. . . .
2.“Dymytro Yarosh;” Wikipedia.org.
. . . . Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera [39] . . . .
3. “The Durability of Ukrainian Fascism” by Peter Lee; Strategic Culture; 6/9/2014.
. . . . Yuriy Shukhevych’s role in modern Ukrainian fascism is not simply that of an inspirational figurehead and reminder of his father’s anti-Soviet heroics for proud Ukrainian nationalists. He is a core figure in the emergence of the key Ukrainian fascist formation, Pravy Sektor and its paramilitary.
And Pravy Sektor’s paramilitary, the UNA-UNSO, is not an “unruly” collection of weekend-warrior-wannabes, as Mr. Higgins might believe.
UNA-UNSO was formed during the turmoil of the early 1990s, largely by ethnic Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Union’s bitter war in Afghanistan. From the first, the UNA-UNSO has shown a taste for foreign adventures, sending detachments to Moscow in 1990 to oppose the Communist coup against Yeltsin, and to Lithuania in 1991. With apparently very good reason, the Russians have also accused UNA-UNSO fighters of participating on the anti-Russian side in Georgia and Chechnya.
After formal Ukrainian independence, the militia elected Yuriy Shukhevych—the son of OUN‑B commander Roman Shukhevych– as its leader and set up a political arm, which later became Pravy Sektor. . . .”
5. Next, we present excerpting of analysis of a long academic paper by Marlene Laruelle and Ellen Rivera. Of paramount significance in this discussion is the pivotal role of Ukrainian fascist organizations in the Intermarium and closely connected Promethean networks, from the post World War I period, through the time between the World Wars, through the Cold War and up to and including the Maidan coup.
Military, economic and political networking has employed the Intermarium idea, with what the paper terms the “ideological underpinnings” stemming from the evolution of the Ukrainian fascist milieu in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some of the most important U.S. think tanks and associated military individuals and institutions embody this continuity: ” . . . . 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. . . .”
We present key excerpts of the paper to underscore dominant features of this evolutionary continuity:
- A key player in the events that brought the OUN successor organizations to power in Ukraine has been the Atlantic Council. It receives backing from NATO, the State Department, Lithuania and Ukrainian Oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. The think tank also receives major funding from the Ukrainian World Congress, which evolved from the OUN. ” . . . . 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. . . .”
- Ukrainian proto-fascist forces were at the core of Josef Pilsudski’s Polish-led Intermarium and overlapping Promethean organizations. Those forces coalesced into the OUN. ” . . . . According to the British scholar and journalist Stephen Dorril, the Promethean League served as an anti-communist umbrella organization for anti-Soviet exiles displaced after the Ukrainian government of Simon Petlura (1879–1926) gave up the fight against the Soviets in 1922.[12] . . . . as Dorril affirms, ‘the real leadership and latent power within the Promethean League emanated from the Petlura-dominated Ukrainian Democratic Republic in exile and its Polish sponsors. The Poles benefited directly from this arrangement, as Promethean military assets were absorbed into the Polish army, with Ukrainian, Georgian and Armenian contract officers not uncommon in the ranks.’[13] The alliance between Piłsudski and Petlura became very unpopular among many Western Ukrainians, as it resulted in Polish domination of their lands. This opposition joined the insurgent Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainska viiskova orhanizatsiia, UVO—founded 1920), which later transformed into the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, OUN). . . .”
- According to former Army intelligence officer William Gowen (a source used and trusted by John Loftus and Mark Aarons) the Intermarium and Promethean network assets were used by Third Reich intelligence during World War II. ” . . . . Based on Gowen’s reports, such authors as Christopher Simpson, Stephen Dorril, Mark Aarons, and John Loftus have suggested that the networks of the Promethean League and the Intermarium were utilized by German intelligence. . . .”
- Not surprisingly, the Intermarium/Promethean milieu appears to have been centrally involved in the Nazi escape networks, the Vatican-assisted “Ratlines,” in particular. ” . . . . American intelligence began to take notice of the Intermarium network in August 1946[42] in the framework of Operation Circle, a Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) project the original goal of which was to determine how networks inside the Vatican had spirited away so many Nazi war criminals and collaborators, mostly to South America.[43] Among the group of CIC officers involved in the operation was Levy’s source William Gowen. Then a young officer based in Rome, Gowen suspected the Intermarium network to be behind Nazi war criminals and collaborators’ extensive escape routes from Europe. . . .”
- It comes as no surprise, as well, that U.S. intelligence absorbed the Intermarium/Promethean networks after the war. ” . . . . According to Aarons and Loftus, although he had initially been thoroughly opposed to this course of action, by ‘early July 1947, Gowen was strongly advocating that American intelligence should take over Intermarium; before long, the CIC officer was no longer hunting for Nazis, but recruiting them.’[49] . . . .”
- One of the main components of the “Intermarium continuity” is the ABN—the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. The OUN and associated elements constitute the most important element of the ABN. ” . . . . a vast number of anti-communist organizations were formed in the immediate post-war period and supported by the US.[57] They constitute one of the main components of the Intermarium ‘genealogical tree,’ in the sense that they revived the memory of Piłsudski’s attempts to unify Central and Eastern Europe against Soviet Russia and gave them new life, but blended this memory with far-right tones inspired by collaboration with Nazi Germany.[58] The most important of the European anti-communist organizations was the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). . . . Because fascist movements were, in the 1930s, the first to organize themselves against the Soviet Union, the ABN recruited massively among their ranks and served as an umbrella for many former collaborationist paramilitary organizations in exile, amongst them the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists—Bandera (OUN‑B), the Croatian Ustaše, the Romanian Iron Guard, and the Slovakian Hlinka Guard.[59] It thus contributed to guaranteeing the survival of their legacies at least until the end of the Cold War. According to the liberal Institute for Policy Studies think tank, created by two former aides to Kennedy advisors, the ABN was the ‘largest and most important umbrella for former Nazi collaborators in the world.’ . . . .”
- In addition to the OUN/Ukrainian fascist milieu, the Croatian Ustashe fascists became a dominant element. This is fundamental to the Azov Battalion’s Intermarium project, discussed in FTR #‘s 1096 and 1097. ” . . . . The most active groups within the ABN became the Ukrainian and Croatian organizations, particularly the Ukrainian OUN.[61] The OUN, under the leadership of Andriy Melnyk (1890–1964), collaborated with the Nazi occupiers from the latter’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. The Gestapo trained Mykola Lebed and the adherents of Melnyk’s younger competitor, Stepan Bandera (1909–1959), in sabotage, guerrilla warfare, and assassinations. The OUN’s 1941 split into the so-called OUN‑B, following Stepan Bandera, and OUN‑M, following Andriy Melnyk,[62] did not keep both factions from continuing to collaborate with the Germans. . . .”
- Former SS and Abwehr officer Theodor Oberlaender–the political officer for the UPA and the Nachtigall Battalion during the Lviv Pogrom of June 1941–was vital to the continuity of the OUN and UPA and thus, the Intermarium” . . . .While in Soviet Ukraine the UPA kept on fighting against Moscow until the early 1950s, their capacities were exhausted. . . . As Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and the War-Damaged during the Adenauer government, Oberländer played a crucial role in the rise of the ABN and allowed Ukrainian collaborationists to take the lead in it. Yaroslav Stetsko (1912–1986), who presided over the Ukrainian collaborationist government in Lviv from as early as 30 June 1941, led the ABN from its creation in 1946 until his death in 1986. . . .”
- The Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) confirmed the primacy of the OUN/B within the ABN. Note the continuity of OUN and UPA guerilla warfare in Ukraine, begun under third Reich auspices and enjoying post World War II support from CIA, and OPC. This has been covered in AFA #1 and FTR #777.) : ” . . . . CIC confirmed that by 1948 both the ‘Intermarium’ and the UPA (Ukrainian partisan command) reported to the ABN president, Yaroslav Stetsko. The UPA in turn had consolidated all the anti-Soviet partisans under its umbrella. Yaroslav Stetsko was also Secretary of OUN/B and second in command to Bandera, who had the largest remaining partisan group behind Soviet lines under his direct command. Thus, OUN/B had achieved the leadership role among the anti-Communist exiles and was ascendant by 1950 . . . .”
- Contemporary Ukraine is the focal point of the reincarnated Intermarium concept. ” . . . . The most recent reincarnation of the Intermarium has taken form in Ukraine, especially among the Ukrainian far right, which has re-appropriated the concept by capitalizing on the solid ideological and personal continuity between actors of the Ukrainian far right in the interwar and Cold War periods and their heirs today. . . .”
- The continuity of the Intermarium concept as manifested in contemporary Ukraine is epitomized by the role of Yaroslava Stetsko (Yaroslav’s widow and successor as a decisive ABN and OUN leader). Note the networking between her Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and Svoboda. “. . . . This continuity is exemplified by the wife of long-time ABN leader Yaroslav Stetsko, Yaroslava Stetsko (1920–2003), a prominent figure in the Ukrainian post-Second World War émigré community who became directly involved in post-Soviet Ukrainian politics. Having joined the OUN at the age of 18, she became an indispensable supporter of the ABN after the war . . . . In July 1991, she returned to Ukraine, and in the following year formed the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), a new political party established on the basis of the OUN, presiding over both.[129] Although the CUN never achieved high election results, it cooperated with the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), which later changed its name to Svoboda, the far-right Ukrainian party that continues to exist. . . .”
- Yaroslava Stetsko’s CUN was co-founded by her husband’s former secretary in the 1980s, Roman Svarych. Minister of Justice in the Viktor Yuschenko government (as well as both Timoshenko governments), Svarych became the spokesman and a major recruiter for the Azov Battalion. ” . . . . The co-founder of the CUN and formerly Yaroslav Stetsko’s private secretary, the U.S.-born Roman Zvarych (1953), represents a younger generation of the Ukrainian émigré community active during the Cold War and a direct link from the ABN to the Azov Battalion. . . . Zvarych participated in the activities of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations in the 1980s. . . . In February 2005, after Viktor Yushchenko’s election, Zvarych was appointed Minister of Justice. . . . According to Andriy Biletsky, the first commander of the Azov battalion, a civil paramilitary unit created in the wake of the Euromaidan, Zvarych was head of the headquarters of the Azov Central Committee in 2015 and supported the Azov battalion with ‘volunteers’ and political advice through his Zvarych Foundation. . . .”
- The “Intermarium Continuity” is inextricable with the historical revisionism about the roles of the OUN and UPA in World War II. That revisionism is institionalized in the Institute of National Remembrance. ” . . . .The reintroduction of the Intermarium notion in Ukraine is closely connected to the broad rehabilitation of the OUN and UPA, as well as of their main hero, Stepan Bandera. . . . During his presidency (2005–2010), and particularly through the creation of the Institute for National Remembrance, Viktor Yushchenko built the image of Bandera as a simple Ukrainian nationalist fighting for his country’s independence . . . .”
- As discussed in numerous programs, another key element in the “Intermarium Continuity” is Kateryna Chumachenko, an OUN operative who served in the State Department and Ronald Reagan’s administration. She married Viktor Yuschenko. ” . . . . It is not unlikely Yushchenko’s readiness during his presidency (2005–2010) to open up to right-wing tendencies of the Ukrainian exile leads back to his wife, who had connections to the ABN. Kateryna Chumachenko [Yushchenko], born 1961 in Chicago, was socialised there in the Ukrainian exile youth organisation SUM (Spilka Ukrajinskoji Molodi, Ukrainian Youth Organisation) in the spirit of the OUN. Via the lobby association Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) she obtained a post as ‘special assistant’ in the U.S. State Department in 1986, and was from 1988 to 1989 employed by the Office of Public Liaison in the White House. . . .”
- Embodying the “Intermarium Continuity” are the lustration laws, which make it a criminal offence to tell the truth about the OUN and UPA’s roles in World War II. Note Volodymyr Viatrovych’s position as minister of education. ” . . . . This rehabilitation trend accelerated after the EuroMaidan. In 2015, just before the seventieth anniversary of Victory Day, Volodymyr Viatrovych, minister of education and long-time director of the Institute for the Study of the Liberation Movement, an organization founded to promote the heroic narrative of the OUN–UPA, called on the parliament to vote for a set of four laws that codified the new, post-Maidan historiography. Two of them are particularly influential in the ongoing memory war with Russia. One decrees that OUN and UPA members are to be considered ‘fighters for Ukrainian independence in the twentieth century,’ making public denial of this unlawful. . . .”
- As discussed discussed in FTR #‘s 1096 and 1097, the Azov Battalion is in the leadership of the revival of the Intermarium concept.” . . . . In this context of rehabilitation of interwar heroes, tensions with Russia, and disillusion with Europe over its perceived lack of support against Moscow, the geopolitical concept of Intermarium could only prosper. It has found its most active promoters on the far right of the political spectrum, among the leadership of the Azov Battalion. . . .”
- Azov’s Intermarium Support Group has held three networking conferences to date, bringing together key figures of what are euphemized as “nationalist” organizations. In addition to focusing on the development of what are euphemized as “nationalist” youth organizations, the conference is stressing military organization and preparedness: ” . . . . In 2016, Biletsky created the Intermarium Support Group (ISG),[152] introducing the concept to potential comrades-in-arms from the Baltic-Black Sea region.[153] The first day of the founding conference was reserved for lectures and discussions by senior representatives of various sympathetic organizations, the second day to ‘the leaders of youth branches of political parties and nationalist movements of the Baltic-Black Sea area.’ . . . . It also included ‘military attaches of diplomatic missions from the key countries in the region (Poland, Hungary, Romania and Lithuania). . . .”
- Azov’s third ISG conference continued to advance the military networking characteristics of the earlier gatherings, including the necessity of giving military training to what are euphemized as “nationalist” youth organizations. Note the continued manifestation in the “new” Croatia of Ustachi political culture. ” . . . . On October 13, 2018, the ISG organized its third congress. Besides the Ukrainian hosts, a large share of the foreign speakers from Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia had a (para-)military background, among them advisor to the Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Targalski and retired Brigadier General of the Croatian Armed Forces Bruno Zorica.[156] Among the talking points of Polish military educator Damien Duda were ‘methods of the preparation of a military reserve in youth organizations” and the “importance of paramilitary structures within the framework of the defence complex of a modern state.’ . . . .”
6. Next, excerpt and highlight 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. (This will be continued in our next program.)
Points of analysis and discussion 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.
7. From the description for FTR#1014:
In addition, the official salute of the OUN/B is set to become the official salute of the Ukrainian army. ” . . . . ‘Glory to Ukraine! – Glory to the Heroes!’ is a slogan of the UPA, the Ukraine Rebel Army who fought on the side of the Nazis. The slogans, their origin, and history are well known in Ukraine. . . . Present neo-Nazi Ukrainian military formations established by order of the Ukrainian authorities appropriated the slogan from the end of 2013 onward. Now, the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator’s greeting will become the official salute in that country’s army. . . .”
Not only has the UPA salute become the official salute of the Ukrainian army, but it has become the official salute of the police as well. ” . . . . Also, the law on the National Police was amended. According to it, when the police officers are in line for the greeting of the leader or senior officer, when they hear the salute ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ they reply ‘Glory to Heroes’. The same actions take place during the parting. . . .”
As discussed in FTR #‘s 1004 and 1014, the fascist Svoboda Party’s militia, C14, and the Nazi Azov Battalion’s National Druzhyna militia have been incorporated into the Ukrainian police establishment, with police duties in Kiev and 21 other cities. This is not surprising since Vadim Troyan, the former Deputy Commander of the Azov Battalion became: head of the Kyiv police, acting head of the National Police and then Deputy Interior Minister to OUN/B acolyte Arsen Avakov, the main patron of the Azov Battalion.
C14’s police cadre has conducted another ethnic cleansing raid against Roma, while receiving favorable coverage from major Ukrainian media: ” . . . . Members of the neo-Nazi C14 movement, together with the ‘Kyiv Municipal Watch’ civic organization which is led by C14 activist Serhiy Bondar, have carried out another raid, driving Roma citizens out of the area around the Southern Railway Station in Kyiv. The raid does not appear to have been accompanied by shocking images of violence like some five others this year, but that is the only positive difference. What is much more disturbing is that the action appears to have been with the cooperation of the police, and was essentially given glowing coverage on a national television news broadcast. . . . the presenter of the feature virtually parrots parts of the C14 video, with only two Roma people driven out shown in a negative light. There is one telling detail, namely that the television program is carefully not to ethnically label the people driven out, with the feature entitled: ‘Police and civic activists tried to clean the capital’s station of thieves’. It does, however, show the activists wearing camouflage gear and chevrons clearly showing the C14 symbol, and little effort would be required to find out how C14 presents its vigilante activities, and why this organization has gained notoriety over recent months. . . .”
Additional perspective on the physical, political and historical reality underlying the salute “Glory to Ukraine–Glory to the Heroes” is the slogan’s display on a monument to the massacre of the 600 residents of the Polish town of Janowa Dolina by the UPA. ” . . . . On the night of April 22–23 (Good Friday), 1943, the Ukrainians from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, together with local peasants, attacked Janowa Dolina. Some 600 people, including children and the elderly, were brutally murdered (see Massacres of Poles in Volhynia). Most homes were burned to the ground and the settlement deserted. The perpetrators, commanded by Ivan Lytwynchuk (aka Dubowy) exercised rare cruelty. Poles, unprepared and caught by surprise, were hacked to death with axes, burned alive, and impaled (including children). The murderers did not spare anyone, regardless of age and sex. German garrison, numbering around 100 soldiers, did not act and remained in its barracks. After the first wave of murders, the Ukrainian nationalists started searching the hospital. They carried its Ukrainian patients away from the building, while Polish patients were burned alive.[2] Dr Aleksander Bakinowski, together with his assistant Jan Borysowicz, were hacked to death on the square in front of the hospital. In several cases, Ukrainians were murdered for trying to hide their Polish neighbours. Petro Mirchuk, Ukrainian historian, counted several hundred massacred Poles, with only eight UPA members killed. . . .”
To put the “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to The Heroes!” salute of the brutal murderers of the residents of the town on a monument commemorating the massacre is surreal.
Looking Back from 1984
Lies and misinformation indeed. Hysterical media reports in the West of Russian use of thermobaric and cluster munitions — just like were used in the recent Azeri-Armenian war, and similar to the way the United States uses their cluster, airburst, and ‘bee-hive’ bombs.
These weapons are terrible — full stop. However, the only thing worse than seeing their use in warfare is a world order that states one side can use them ‘morally’ and one side is ‘evil’ when they are used.
I do wonder if the West will be able to have a proper discussion about what is occurring if we cannot even admit that Bandera was a Nazi...
Also — I do believe those Nazis in the photo above are wearing the ‘oak leaf’ camo pattern — specifically developed by the Third Reich for their war of extermination in the East.
Pretty much all of the news coming out of Ukraine is disturbing at this point. But we got some extra disturbing news today. The kind of disturbing news that doubles as a warning of exceptionally disturbing news to come:
The former commander of the Aidar Battalion was just appointed the new head of the Odessa region. Yep, the former commander of one of the battalions that became notorious for brutalities against civilians on the Eastern Front was just installed as government of Odessa.
Recall how Aidar was formally incorporated in the Ukrainian military in September of 2014, but we were still getting reports in 2015 about the struggles in gaining control of the group amid reports of the group committing civilian atrocities on the Eastern front. At the same time, members of Aidar were openly telling journalist how they desired the creation of a Christian “Taliban” and lead a new crusade to burn down Moscow.
Then there was the teenage neo-Nazi member, Vita Zaverukha, who was portrayed as Ukraine’s version of Joan of Arc in the French fashion magazine Elle. Zaverukha was prone to making statements like “I promote Nazism, terror, genocide...For all this, I’m not a bad person. The justification is the “War for Peace”. If you go bringing the work to the end, only in this case, justify my actions would not. Winners are not judged.” She was eventually arrested for her involvement in a failed attempt to rob a petrol station in Kiev.
Finally, recall how the founder of Aidar, Serhiy Melnychuk, was elected to Ukraine’s parliament in November of 2014. He was given the position of deputy head of the legislature’s National Security and Defense Committee, before being dismissed from the position in February of 2015 after Melnychuk was expelled from his party for taking part in a protest against the battalions loss of its official seal as part of the government’s attempts to reign in the out-of-control battalion.
So Aidar was like a poster child for the Ukrainian government’s dangerous embrace of far right ‘volunteer battalions’. Even after the government took steps to gain control over the group it continued to operate as a far right terror group. And now we’re learning that the guy who ended up commanding Aidar from 2015–2017, Maxim Marchenko, was just appointed the new head of the Odessa Regional State Administration:
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“According to sourse of Suspilne.Odesa, Maxim Marchenko — was the Commander of the 24th separate assault battalion “Aidar”. In 2017, he was appointed as Deputy Commander of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade. Starting from May 2018 — the Commander of the 28th Mechanized Brigade.”
We can’t say this was unexpected, but it’s still plenty chilling. And note that we can’t just assume that Marchenko took control of a problematic battalion and instilled a degree of professionalism. Marchenko himself was accused of personally overseeing the torture of captives. Those were the claims made to reporters by Evgeny Shatalov, a Russian volunteer who was part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia back in December 2019. The only English-language outlets that are carrying Shatalov’s claims are obscure sites like Pakistan Point and Stalker Zone, so it’s hard to get a sense of how much weight to put on those claims.
But that’s all part of what makes this situation so disturbing: we may not have solid reporting on whether or not Marchenko is the type of leader who personally oversees the torture of prisoners. But we’re going to have plenty of opportunities to find out. Along with plenty of additional opportunities to find out whether or not the world community is going to eventually care about the fact that figures like Maxim Marchenko continue to ascend in Ukraine.
With Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy boasting about having roughly 16,000 foreign volunteers already signed up to join Ukraine’s fight against Russia, the question in increasingly being raised: to what extent is the war in Ukraine going to become an internationally-fueled proxy conflict? Yes, with nuclear-armed Russia on one side, it’s technically a fight that no NATO members are going to officially enter. But with foreign volunteers flocking to fight under the Ukrainian flag, the prospect of this descending into a foreign conflict reminiscent of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is growing more real by the day. Instead of foreign jihadist, we’ll have foreign ‘freedom fighters’ dedicated on fighting for Ukrainian democracy.
At least, that will be the official sloganeering. But with the prospect of extremists from around the globe flooding in to the fight, the reality is that we could easily see the fight in Ukraine descend into a proxy battle between Russia and far right extremists who view the war as a grand opportunity for gaining both glory and combat experience. And maybe, just maybe, establishing Ukraine as a heartland for open fascism by the end of the conflict.
And now we’re getting reports that special forces veterans from NATO nations, including the US, are not only planning on traveling to Ukraine but are doing so with the open endorsement of their government. At least that’s the case for UK soldiers who just had the UK’s Foreign Secretary declare that she definitely endorses Brits traveling to Ukraine to fight because Ukraine’s struggle was one for freedom, “not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.”
So with both NATO governments endorsing their own citizens traveling to Ukraine — including veterans of special forces — at the same time far right extremists are set to flood into the conflict, the dangers international fascism turning Ukraine into a global hub of fascist networking is set to grow, not just in numbers but in terms of the skill sets of the people who will be joining this international fascist network;
“As was reported by the US portal BuzzFeed News, the Georgian Legion has integrated more than 300 western irregulars since 2014, giving them the possibility of participating in the civil war raging in eastern Ukraine. Over the past few weeks, it has been accelerating its efforts to recruit more foreign volunteers from the West. Already at the end of January, Mamulashvilli reported that his unit had received “more than 30 requests” – most from the United States and Great Britain, but also “one from Germany.”[5] “We are recruiting professionals,” explained Mamulashvilli, to BuzzFeed News, noting that the Georgian Legion makes military capabilities a condition for joining, and added, in late January, “We have the green light.“ Following publication of that article, the US online portal reported having received emails from “dozens of men in the USA, the United Kingdom and countries in the European Union,” saying they were interested in fighting in Ukraine against Russian units, if they should really invade the country. On Sunday, BuzzFeed News announced that ten elite soldiers experienced in close combat and counterterrorism are preparing to cross the Polish border to Ukraine, to go to war. The group is composed of six US citizens, three Brits, and a German.[6]”
“We are recruiting professionals,” according to the head of the Georgian Legion Mamuka Mamulashvilli. And indeed they do appear to be recruiting people with military training, including members from NATO militaries.
On one level, none of this is a surprise. Foreign fighters have been flocking to Ukraine since 2014. What is surprising is that Western governments appears to now be openly advocating that their citizens join these foreign legions. Foreign legions which are now formally incorporated under the Ukrainian military command structure. Britain’s Foreign Secretary is wholeheartedly endorsing the idea of British citizens traveling to Ukraine to join its military. Foreign fighters traveling to conflicts isn’t new, but they don’t typically have the endorsement of their governments:
Making that official endorsement all the remarkable is the fact that these Western governments are fully aware of the types of individuals who have been recruited into this conflict already. People like far right extremist Craig Lang, who fought as both a member of Right Sector and the Georgian Legion. Recall the story about how Lang was in contact with another US extremist and former soldier, Jerret William Smith, who was arrests after disseminating bomb-making instructions and expressing a desire to attack a major cable news headquarters and kill members of antifa. Before joining the US military, Smith reportedly expressed a desire to travel to Ukraine and join the Azov Battalion. But he later gt in contact with an American and had already traveled to Ukraine. This American advised Smith to first join the US military to gain combat skills before traveling to Ukraine. That American acting as Smith’s mentor turned out to be Craig Lang. So with the story of Craig Lang and Jarret Smith we have an example of how the conflict in Ukraine was acting as both a magnet for extremist networking but also kind of training ground for gaining military experience. How many more examples like this are we going to learn about in coming years?
Finally, we have to note that there really is compelling evidence pointing towards members of the Georgian Legion having played a role in the false flag sniper attacks that precipitating the collapse of the Yanukovych government in February 2014. Recall how the Italian documentary where the Georgians appear to incriminate themselves also pointed at former Speaker of the Parliament — and co-founder of Ukraine’s Nazi Party — Andriy Parubiy having coordinated with the Georgians. As Professor Ivan Katchanovski has noted, that documentary didn’t just implicate Parubiy but also former president Petro Poroshenko in paying off the snipers. The point being that plenty of evidence exist pointing in the direction of the Georgian Legion having the capacity to play a decisive ‘dirty-tricks’ role. It’s something to keep in mind as the number of foreign fighters explodes:
Ok, now here’s that BuzzFeed article about how special forces veterans from NATO countries are joining Ukraine’s new foreign legion, with the apparent endorsement of NATO governments. Note that there’s no evidence that any of these special forces members harbor extremist beliefs. It’s points towards one of the aspects of this story that could end up being most consequential: while the people joining this conflict may not be extremists now, they’re going to be sent off to war to join a foreign battalion that’s poised to be filled with extremists from around the world. That sounds like a potentially radicalizing experience for these people with elite military training to endure:
“The group, composed of six US citizens, three Brits, and a German, are NATO-trained and experienced in close combat and counterterrorism. They want to be among the first to officially join the new International Legion of the Territorial Defense of Ukraine that Zelensky announced Sunday, according to text messages reviewed by BuzzFeed News. Two former American infantry officers are also making plans to come to Ukraine to provide “leadership” for the group, the Army veteran recruiter said.”
It’s not a huge number of US citizens, but this conflict is just getting started and set to get a lot uglier. This is likely just the start of what could end up being a large number of veterans traveling to Ukraine to serve in its foreign legion. As Britain’s Foreign Secretary put it when she endorsed the idea of British citizens joining this war, the war in Ukraine is “not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe”:
So how much longer before NATO governments aren’t just endorsing the idea of citizens traveling to join Ukraine’s army but actively helping with the recruitment? It’s almost like a new political modality for democracies conducting warfare: it’s all volunteers so the governments don’t have to worry about the bad press from people returning home in body bags.
All in all, we had better hope the people drawn to the conflict really are motivated primarily by a sense of freedom and the need to ‘stand up for the little guy’ against a bully and they don’t lose that motivation. Because the international network of fascists with combat experience that’s going to be created during the course of this conflict is going to be a pretty huge deadly bully.
There’s a story coming out of Ukraine that’s rather emblematic of the world’s inability to meaningfully understand the underlying dynamics driving the conflict. Specifically, the underlying dynamic of the world seemingly playing dumb and turning a blind eye to the encroaching mainstreaming of extremism in Ukrainian society. In other words, when we’re trying to understand what Vladimir Putin’s goal is when it comes to the ‘de-Nazification’ of Ukraine, it’s not simply the official embrace and historical rewriting of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborating heroes that’s been taking place since 2014 that was likely driving Putin mad. It’s also the world’s blind eye and implicit endorsement of these trends. When Putin calls Ukraine a Nazified NATO outpost, that’s what he’s talking about. Both the Nazification of Ukraine and the blind eye the world has been turning towards it.
And that’s what makes the reports about the ugly racism being doled out to non-white foreign students trying to flee Ukraine one of those stories that’s important in terms of actually finding a resolution to this conflict. Because this story isn’t just an ugly peek at the far right extremism that’s being mainstreamed in Ukraine. It’s also a big opportunity for the world community to directly confront that extremism, and in doing so simultaneously helping to defuse the underlying dynamics driving this conflict. Or, the world community can continue to refuse to connect the dots and continue casting a blind eye on what has actually been unfolding in Ukraine, deepening that underlying conflict. The response of the West towards these horrid stories actually represent a powerful opportunity for the West to make the situation better and maybe even play a role in shaping the ‘de-Nazification’ narrative in productive ways. Or make the situation worse by continuing to deny the undeniable. Either/or:
“Those traveling towards other countries have been quick to add that they’ve been met with kindness and aid along the way, too. “One thing I must appreciate [is] that locals and NGOs were very helpful,” Ehtesham says. “They were distributing all the necessary foods and stuff on both sides.” Nze, the Twitter user who posted videos of students being threatened with guns and vehicles, also Tweeted an update on Monday saying citizens had been kind to him and other refugees during their travels. “Polish people provided healthy foods for us, blankets and many things,” he said. “They provided everything for free, including buses and trains. Ukrainians also offered us foods on the road [because] we were all trekking. Only their law enforcement officials were terrible.””
It’s not reports of widespread racism from random Ukrainians being directed at these fleeing non-white students. It’s specifically Ukrainian soldiers and authorities. On the one hand, yay, it would be worse if these reports included acts of malicious racism coming from random Ukrainians. But on the other hand, it underscores just how real the threat is of far right extremism in Ukrainian armed forces. A threat that’s only going to grow as this conflict continues. And note how these reports weren’t just emanating from a single border crossing. This wasn’t just one bad batch of border guards:
And as we can see in the following BuzzFeed piece that is filled with more anecdotes, these abuses weren’t just taking place on the borders. Lviv, a key destination on the way to the border for many of these foreign refugees, appears to have been the location of much of hte abuse. But even police in Kyiv were reportedly refuses to allow non-white women onto trains. And while most of the abuse was coming from authorities in these stories, there was still reports of locals hurling racist invective at the non-white students.
But what is most notable in the following report was the initial response of the Ukrainian government to these reports: dismissing them as Russian propaganda. It was only after the deluge of videos made it impossible to ignore that the government opened up a national hotline for fleeing foreign students to call for assistance. It remains unclear if that hotline has actually alleviated the situation, just as it remains unclear if the widespread abuses of these fleeing students has actually been addressed by Ukrainian authorities now that this has become an international incident.
And that’s all part of what makes the story of the flagrantly racist abuses of these fleeing students such an important story in this broader conflict: we’re getting a preview of how the Ukrainian government, and the world, is going to respond to the inevitable stories of blatantly far right extremist sympathies that really are widely tolerated and endorsed by Ukrainian officials. This far, it’s a scary preview:
“Never experienced such a thing...Ukraine never again.”
The non-whites fleeing Ukraine are being traumatized to the point where they’re refusing to ever return. Mission accomplished.
And this wasn’t just on the border. People trying to flee Kyiv were effectively forced to stay behind. That’s a potential death sentence. And for those lucky enough to escape to Lviv, the abuses continued. The ‘lucky’ ones got to be driven close enough to the border that they were able to walk for miles in the cold, only to be subject to more abuses on their way out:
And what was the Ukrainian government’s response? Dismissing it all as Russian disinformation. At least until all the videos made it undeniable:
It will be grimly interesting to see if we get any follow up reports at all about students calling the hotline and actually receiving assistance. Or better yet, border guards being disciplined and an end to these abuses. With thousands of non-whites still trying to flee Ukraine these abuses are undoubtedly still ongoing.
But even more grimly interesting will be how the world community responds to the stories like this that are bound to come out in the future. Or worse stories. The opportunities for war crimes are only going to grow as this plays out. How is the West going to respond as the extremist movements that have gripped Ukraine continue to show the world their true colors when these movements are the exact stated reason Putin gives for the invasion? And what about when the extremists were trained by the CIA? Will it be denials? Cover ups? Claims of ‘Russian disinformation’? We’ll see. But it’s going to be worth keeping in mind that admitting the undeniable nature of the extremism festering in Ukraine and beginning an international discussion of how to deal with it responsibly would probably be one of the most effective means of convincing Putin to end a war that doesn’t seem to have any other logical ending outside of WWIII.
Whenever a seemingly intractable crisis develops, it’s always worth keeping in mind that potential solutions to the crisis are often hidden under the bed of lies of half-truths that are helping to drive the crisis in the first place. And we sadly couldn’t come up with a better example than the current crisis between Russia and Ukraine. No obvious solutions exist to the current crisis, in large part because it’s a crisis that is not only fueled by pervasive lies but ultimately caused by those lies. After all, if we accept that Vladimir Putin really does view Ukraine, in its current trajectory, as a long-term existential threat to Russia, it only follows that part of what is fueling this perception of Ukraine as a long-term threat is the fact that Ukraine’s Western sponsors persistently refuse to even acknowledge the issues driving this Russian paranoia.
So now that the world finds itself in an apparently nuclear death trap, perhaps now is a good time to deliberately seek out the walls of BS that are obscuring pathways out of WWIII. And that brings us to a recent piece by anti-nuclear activist Steven Starr in Consortium News that points out one of the biggest factors driving this crisis and which has been systematically ignored by the Western media: the fact that Putin made his angry February 21 speech two days after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made a speech at the Munich Conference where he essentially threatened to rearm Ukraine with nuclear weapons unless the country was allowed into NATO. It was a ‘NATO or nukes’ speech.
As Starr points out, this wasn’t just bluster. Ukraine essentially has ALL of the ingredients it needs to build a nuclear weapon in short order, including extensive amounts of plutonium that can be made into weapons grade plutonium relatively easily for a country with Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure. And yet, as Starr also notes, this reality has largely been ignored by the Western press, despite the fact that Putin was quite explicit about the role the potential nuclear arming of Ukraine played in his assessment of Ukraine as a existential threat to Russia.
As Starr also notes, it’s not simply that Western media outlets have been silent on the Ukrainian nuclear ambitions. It’s the 8 years of complicit silence on the growing power and influence of Ukrainian Nazis in the government and national security infrastructure of the country that’s also driving this crisis. Again, Ukraine’s status as an existential threat to Russia isn’t simply derived from its nuclear ambitions and the threat of a far right takeover. It’s the fact that the West seems to be largely OK with these trends that makes it an existential threat.
It’s also important to recall that the potential existential risks of a nuclear-armed Ukraine aren’t just from the risk of far right extremists gaining control of the government and using the weapons, damn the consequences. Mainstream Ukrainian politicians have made similar threats. Recall the March 2014 leak of a recording between Yulia Tymoshenko and Nestor Shufrych from Ukraine’s National Security Council where Tymoshenko suggested that the 8 million Russians living in Ukraine should be killed with “nuclear weapons”. If the world is going to try to actually understand what is driving this crisis — and not just lament how Putin has gone mad — perhaps peeling back the layers of BS would help
And that’s all why the largely unacknowledged role of Ukraine’s nuclear ambitions — coupled with the long-standing whitewashing of Ukraine’s very real ‘Nazi problem’ — represent powerful opportunities to extricate the world out of this nuclear standoff. If the world actually discussed these issues instead of covering them up, who knows, maybe a solution would emerge:
“In other words, the Budapest Memorandum was expressly about Ukraine giving up its nukes and not becoming a nuclear weapon state in the future. Zelensky’s speech at Munich made it clear that Ukraine was moving to repudiate the Budapest Memorandum; Zelensky essentially stated that Ukraine must be made a member of NATO, otherwise it would acquire nuclear weapons.”
It was a ‘NATO or Nukes’ declaration by Zelensky during his February 19 speech at the Munich Conference. A declaration with potentially immediate implications. Of all the countries on the planet currently lacking nuclear weapons, Ukraine is arguably the most capable of immediately producing them. It has the expertise, fuel, and infrastructure. The only thing holding it back was that Budapest Memorandum. And that’s why the question of whether or not Ukraine had already secretly started a nuclear program — and how far along were they when Zelenskiy made that Feb 19 speech — looms over this entire invasion. Ukraine was clearly thinking about developing nuclear weapons. Effectively threatening to do so. Is the Kremlin going to attempt to show evidence of a secret nuclear weapons program? The near-immediate seizure of the Chernobyl plant makes it an intriguing question. Ukraine really did have all of the ingredients necessary for the rapid development of its own nukes:
And note the opportunity this all presents for deescalating the situation: part of what’s driving Russian paranoia about the prospects of a nuclear armed Ukraine is the fact that the US and NATO have refused to sign legally binding treaties banning the placement of Western nukes in Ukraine. So that seems like an obvious avenue for diplomacy. The kind of diplomacy that helped resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. Would a treaty banning the deployment of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, or development of nukes by Ukraine itself, effectively remove Ukraine’s status as a perceived long-term existential threat to Russia?
And now here’s a reminder about the 2017 declaration signed by Svoboda, Right Sector, and National Corps (Azov’s political wing) calling for Ukraine to rearm itself with nuclear weapons. It was just one part of a “National Manifesto” that included calls for reorienting Ukraine from the West and creating “a new European Union with the Baltic States.” In other other words, the creation of the Intermarium. And to make clear that this reorientation away from the West won’t involve turning towards Russia, the manifesto also called for banning Russian capital and business in Ukraine.
And yes, these three extremist parties had no representatives in parliament at the time as the article points out. But that’s kind of the point. These fascist groups continue to get coddled by the Ukrainian government, receiving extra special treatment and getting deputized into official security roles, despite the relative lack of success of the polls. That’s how deep the official mainstreaming of fascism has been in Ukraine since 2014. So when we’re trying to understand the current crisis, we have to recognize that a nuclear armed fascist Ukraine really was a looming threat. And not just to Russia:
““The creation of a so-called nationalist bloc is nothing more than political PR,” Skoropadsky said. “Participation in elections is not our goal. We aim to take overall control and create a nation state.”
Democratic participation was not their stated goal with that nationalist manifesto. An intent on ruling was the goal. A fascist rule that would include nukes and the banning of all things Russian:
Yes, it was just five years ago that Ukraine’s leading far right parties issued this manifesto. The kind of manifesto that wasn’t really about winning elections. Because these parties aren’t interested in winning elections. Or democracy. Oh, they are very interested in gaining power. Just not through democratic means. And they want nukes and no Russian business or capital. And have been systematically coddled by the Ukrainian government with the complicit silence of Western governments and the media. This was five years ago and the underlying dynamics — the official fascist coddling — hasn’t changed. If we want to look for avenues out of this crisis, here they are. The same avenues we’ve been refusing to walk down for eight years now as we gallop down the path towards WWIII, collectively mumbling something about “Glory to Ukraine!” The inevitable mushroom clouds will no doubt be glorious. From a distance.
There was a disturbing update to the Kremlin’s claims about Ukraine harboring nuclear ambitions following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Feb 19 ‘NATO or nukes’ speech: Russian media is now citing anonymous sources claiming Russia has evidence that Ukraine was close to building a plutonium-based “dirty bomb”.
These claims about dirty-bombs and nuclear ambitions are all happening at the same time nuclear plants have been high priority targets of the Russian invasion, with the Chernobyl plant standing out as one of the first targets of occupation. So what was Ukraine’s actual capacity to build either a dirty-bomb or a functioning nuclear weapon? As we’re going to see, while a nuclear weapon may have required a number of technical hurdles, it doesn’t appear Ukraine would have had much difficulty creating a plutonium dirty bomb if it wanted to. Not only are the existing operating nuclear plants running on plutonium, but it turns out the Chernobyl plant was built with a design that made it idea for generating weapons grade plutonium from Uranium. It also turns out the Chernobyl plant was operated until 2000, when it was finally slated for the decades-long process of decommissioning. So if Ukraine was indeed working on generating a plutonium-based dirty bomb, it’s going to be interesting to see what, if any, evidence we about secret projects taking place at Chernobyl. Secret dirty bombs, and maybe the not-as-dirty-but-more-explosive variety:
“The TASS, RIA and Interfax news agencies quoted “a representative of a competent body” in Russia on Sunday as saying Ukraine was developing nuclear weapons at the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was shut down in 2000.”
Well, without any hard evidence it’s hard to lend too much credence to these claims. Although Zelenskiy’s February 2019 ‘NATO or nukes’ speech certainly pointed in the direction of a secret nuclear program. And as we’re going to see, there’s no shortage of circumstantial evidence pointing in this direction. Evidence in the sense that a nuclear weapon really did appear to be accessible for Ukraine. Not only does it potentially have the capacity to generate weapons-grade plutonium from the existing plutonium in Ukraine’s operating nuclear plants, but it turns out the Chernobyl plant’s design was deemed to be optimal for the ‘dual-use’ generation of weapons-grade plutonium from Uranium. Ukraine had nuclear options. That’s part of what makes the early seizure of Chernobyl such an intriguing military decision. As the following 2016 piece describes, while Chernobyl melted down in 1986, it actually kept operating until 2000, with decommissioning operations on the site ever since. So there was definitely activity at Chernobyl in the lead up to its seizure by Russian forces. Are we going to be shown evidence of something other that decommissioning activity at the plant? We’ll see:
“The last unit, Unit 3, operated until 2000, when international negotiations finally shut down the plant for good.”
14 years of ongoing operations following the catastrophic meltdown of 1986. So we can say conclusively that Chernobyl was still capable of operating, at least as of 2000. And while the power generating operations were reportedly ended in 2000, the plant was still being manned as part of the ongoing decommissioning operations:
Now, if Chernobyl was indeed being actively used to generate a diry bomb as the Kremlin claims, the question is raised as to whether or not the alleged construction of the dirty bomb at that site would have required the operation of one of the nuclear reactors to generate new plutonium, or would it have just involved plutonium already stored on site. So it’s worth noting that, back in 1986, the world learned that Chernobyl’s design was reportedly ‘dual-use’ and had the potential to generate both the plutonium and tritium that could be used for the creation of nuclear weapons:
“In interviews, U.S. and West European officials said that some of the graphite reactors like the four at Chernobyl may be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but that their most likely military purpose is to make tritium, a rare isotope of hydrogen used in thermonuclear weapons.”
The Chernobyl plant could generate weapons-grade plutonium for Ukraine back when it was still operating. And it was operating until 2000. So the question of whether or not Ukraine was secretly using Chernobyl to build a dirty bomb raises the additional question of whether or not that plant was still capable of operating in 2022, 22 years after it was last in operation. It’s not like the plant has been completely mothballed. The decommissioning process has been ongoing and is a multi-decade plan. So was Chernobyl kept in a state where it could be secretly operated? That’s one of the big questions raised by the Kremlin’s allegations:
But also keep in mind that Ukraine has four other nuclear power plants. So we also have to ask: can any of these other plants be used to generate weapons-grade fissile materials? Fortunately, none of Ukraine’s other four nuclear power plants use the same graphite reactor design, so hopefully the Chernobyl plant represents the only site in Ukraine capable of rapidly generating weapons-grade plutonium:
“While Zelenskiy was quick to highlight the potential for a Chernobyl-scale incident, the technology at Zaporizhzhia is quite different. The Chernobyl reactor used graphite to keep the nuclear reaction under control and the disaster was caused by a graphite fire. The Zaporizhzhia plant – and those at Ukraine’s other main plants, Khmelnitski, Rovno and South Ukraine – has pressurised water reactors, a more modern type that do not involve graphite. So a fire such as the one at Chernobyl will not occur.”
Well that’s a relief of sorts. At least the remaining nuclear plants still in operation appear to be of a less meltdown-prone design. But that doesn’t mean Ukraine still can’t develop nuclear weapons with them. Using the existing plutonium sitting in those reactors. Yes, that’s part of this nuclear-ambitions-standoff: the plutonium sitting inside Ukraine’s operating nuclear plants could, in theory, be extracted and used to create nuclear weapons. Thousands of nuclear weapons. And the primary obstacle standing in the way is IAEA oversight to make sure Ukraine doesn’t secretly do it:
“Plutonium is one of two main fuels used in the cores of atom bombs. Mr. Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security said that the spent fuel at the Zaporizhzhia plant could in theory, if suitably processed, yield fuel for up to 3,000 warheads.”
That’s a lot of nukes. Could Russia be destroyed with 3,000 nuclear warheads? These are the kinds of questions that presumably went into any assessments as to whether or not a radicalized nuclear-armed Ukraine represents an long-term existential threat:
Also keep in mind that when it comes to creating dirty bombs, it’s not really going to matter if the Plutonium is weapons-grade or not. You only need weapons grade plutonium if you’re trying to trigger a chain reaction. So the question of whether or not Ukraine was secretly operating a Chernobyl reactor or secretly refining the fueling of the other plants to generate weapons grade plutonium is really only relevant when it comes to secret nuclear bomb program. A dirty bomb just requires access to scary radioactive materials. And is a lot less scary at the end of the day. So let’s hope we don’t end up learning about secret Ukrainian dirty bombs floating around. But if we do, it’s worth keeping in mind that loose dirty bombs are far from the worst case scenario in this situation.