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FTR#1347 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

FTR#1348 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: Tak­ing a respite from the pro­ject­ed long series of pro­grams on U.S. Asian pol­i­cy, these pro­grams begin with Mon­te’s dis­cus­sion of a link between Guy Ban­is­ter’s “detec­tive agency” and the coa­les­cence of the Process Church of the Final Judg­ment, a focal point of a four-part Mis­cel­la­neous Archive Series on “The Ulti­mate Evil.

A close for­mer asso­ciate of Ban­is­ter incor­po­rat­ed the Process Church, which appears to have served as an intel­li­gence front, to an extent.

The asso­ciate–Tom­my Baum­ler--was a Nazi.

In this analy­sis, Monte uti­lized a book titled The Mad Bish­ops.

The bulk of the pro­grams con­sist of analy­sis of the lat­est “attempt” on Trump’s life, as well as the appar­ent Nazi gen­e­sis of the “Haitians eat­ing dogs and cats” meme.

It is our con­sen­sus that the “attempts” on Trump’s life are intend­ed to pro­voke vio­lence against Trump’s polit­i­cal oppo­nents.

Ryan Wes­ley Routh also net­worked with the Azov Bat­tal­ion.

1a. “Before Trump, neo-Nazis pushed false claims about Haitians as part of hate cam­paign” by Brandy Zadrozny; NBC News; 09/13/2024.

An extrem­ist group that marched in Spring­field, Ohio, and demo­nized Hait­ian immi­grants saw Trump’s men­tion of base­less rumors at the debate as a vic­to­ry: “This is what real pow­er looks like.”

The day after the pres­i­den­tial debate at which for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump spread a false sto­ry about Hait­ian immi­grants eat­ing pets in Spring­field, Ohio, Christo­pher Pohlhaus, leader of the nation­al neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, took to his Telegram chan­nel to take cred­it.

Pohlhaus, a Marine-turned-tat­too artist known as “Ham­mer” to his hun­dreds of fol­low­ers, wrote Blood Tribe had “pushed Spring­field into the pub­lic con­scious­ness.”

Mem­bers of his hate group agreed. “The pres­i­dent is talk­ing about it now,” a mem­ber wrote on Gab, a Twit­ter-like ser­vice pop­u­lar with extrem­ists. “This is what real pow­er looks like.”

Trump’s line at the debate was the cul­mi­na­tion of a week­s­long rumor mill that appears to have at least been ampli­fied by Blood Tribe, which has sought to demo­nize the local Hait­ian com­mu­ni­ty online and in per­son. The debate drew more than 67 mil­lion view­ers, accord­ing to the media ana­lyt­ics com­pa­ny Nielsen.

As with most rumors, the begin­ning of the base­less claims about Haitians eat­ing pets in Spring­field is hard to pin­point, but Blood Tribe undoubt­ed­ly helped spread it.

Start­ing in late June, peo­ple in local Face­book groups had been post­ing about Hait­ian chil­dren chas­ing ducks and geese. Around the same time, con­ser­v­a­tive media was char­ac­ter­iz­ing Spring­field as being “flood­ed” with Hait­ian immi­grants. Over the next few weeks, the Face­book com­plaints, still with­out evi­dence, got dark­er, with anony­mous posters claim­ing they were hear­ing that ducks and geese were going miss­ing, per­haps even being eat­en by their immi­grant neigh­bors.

The Spring­field Police Divi­sion told NBC News that “there have been no cred­i­ble reports or spe­cif­ic claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by indi­vid­u­als with­in the immi­grant com­mu­ni­ty.”

The rumor began to grow legs in the pri­vate local groups as the blue-col­lar city’s immi­gra­tion-dri­ven pop­u­la­tion growth became nation­al news in an elec­tion year.

Blood Tribe latched on last month when it start­ed post­ing to Telegram and Gab about Spring­field, stok­ing racist rumors about Haitians and Black peo­ple in gen­er­al eat­ing domes­tic ani­mals. In a hate-filled Gab post from ear­ly Sep­tem­ber that includ­ed mul­ti­ple racial epi­thets, the group claimed Haitians “eat the ducks out of the city parks.” The reach of Blood Tribe’s isn’t clear, as its Gab and Telegram accounts have few­er than 1,000 fol­low­ers.

In response to a request for com­ment sent to Pohlhaus, Blood Tribe said in an email that it stood by its claims and that it would con­tin­ue its activism, “mak­ing sure” Hait­ian immi­grants “are all repa­tri­at­ed.”

The claims also began cir­cu­lat­ing in more main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive spaces, most notably on social media.

A few days after Blood Tribe’s Gab post, an X account not affil­i­at­ed with Blood Tribe that is pop­u­lar in con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles, @EndWokeness, post­ed a screen­shot of a mes­sage board post and a pic­ture of a man appear­ing to hold a goose. The screen­shot pur­ports that Haitians had stolen and eat­en a neighbor’s cat, and the mes­sage from the X account adds that “ducks and pets are dis­ap­pear­ing.” That post has been viewed 4.9 mil­lion times, accord­ing to X’s pub­lic met­rics.

The man who orig­i­nal­ly post­ed the pho­to said that it was tak­en in Colum­bus, Ohio, and that he didn’t know the person’s eth­nic­i­ty and he said he didn’t believe the pho­to should have been used to spread false rumors.

Even so, the post sparked a major jump for the rumor. What had been steady con­ver­sa­tion that spread in August was begin­ning to die out ear­ly this month, accord­ing to data from Peak Met­rics, a com­pa­ny that tracks online threats. But the goose post led to a sec­ond wave of viral­i­ty.

From there, the rumors snow­balled. Claims of res­i­dents’ pets being stolen, ani­mal sac­ri­fice and voodoo wor­ship­ing, as well as dis­cus­sions about the “great replace­ment” con­spir­a­cy, began to cir­cu­late, accord­ing to an analy­sis by Memet­i­ca, a dig­i­tal inves­ti­ga­tions com­pa­ny.

The memes fol­lowed. Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-gen­er­at­ed images first cir­cu­lat­ed on 4chan and then in MAGA com­mu­ni­ties on X of pets and water­fowl being embraced and pro­tect­ed by Trump, which pushed the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries even fur­ther into the main­stream. At the height of the spread this week, Trump’s run­ning mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, pro­mot­ed the base­less rumors on his own X account.

“It’s pos­si­ble, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” Vance post­ed. But he told his fol­low­ers, with­out proof that the rumors weren’t true, they shouldn’t “let the cry­ba­bies in the media dis­suade you, fel­low patri­ots. Keep the cat memes flow­ing.”

As the rumors gained steam in con­ser­v­a­tive online spaces, Blood Tribe was plan­ning real-world actions.

On Aug. 10, about a dozen masked Blood Tribe mem­bers car­ry­ing ban­ners adorned with swastikas marched in down­town Spring­field, label­ing the event an “anti-Hait­ian Immi­gra­tion march.” On Face­book, May­or Rob Rue said: “There was an attempt to dis­rupt our com­mu­ni­ty by an out­side hate group. Noth­ing hap­pened, except they expressed their First Amend­ment rights.”

Blood Tribe’s Gab account shot back and invit­ed its fol­low­ers to harass the may­or. “Hel­lo, Spring­field Ohio! We hear you have a real prob­lem with Hait­ian ‘refugees.’”

On Aug. 27, Drake Berentz, the only Blood Tribe mem­ber apart from Pohlhaus who march­es with his face shown, stood before the Spring­field City Com­mis­sion. Iden­ti­fy­ing him­self by his online moniker, Berentz offered “a word of warn­ing” before his mic was cut off for threat­en­ing the com­mis­sion. He was escort­ed out by police.

Spring­field isn’t Blood Tribe’s first tar­get, and it’s not like­ly to be its last, said Jeff Tis­chauser, a senior researcher for the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter who mon­i­tors hate groups. Blood Tribe and oth­er hate groups have used the real-world actions for recruit­ment, atten­tion and intim­i­da­tion.

Last year, armed Blood Tribe mem­bers ral­lied at drag events in Colum­bus and Wadsworth, Ohio, chant­i­ng Nazi slo­gans and wav­ing Nazi salutes. They marched at a Pride event in Water­town, Wis­con­sin and at the capi­tol in Madi­son, and they shout­ed “Heil Hitler” out­side Dis­ney World. This year, aban­don­ing LGBTQ issues for immi­gra­tion, they have protest­ed in Har­ris­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia; Nashville, Ten­nessee; Pierre, South Dako­ta; and Spring­field.

“They aim to stoke fear among local com­mu­ni­ties that they view as poten­tial­ly friend­ly to their ideas,” Tis­chauser said. “Goal No. 1 is psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma, to keep folks out of pub­lic life that they dis­agree with. Num­ber 2 is to cre­ate these viral moments for their group to get atten­tion on Gab and on Telegram.”

Blood Tribe, like oth­er white nation­al­ist groups, also seeks to nor­mal­ize extrem­ist ideas and sym­bols, Tis­chauser said. With Trump’s and the wider con­ser­v­a­tive embrace of the Haitians-eat­ing-pets rumor, Spring­field has been a suc­cess for the hate groups.

“The GOP seems to be falling into their trap,” Tis­chauser said. “Groups like Blood Tribe tru­ly see them­selves as push­ing the GOP fur­ther to their posi­tion on pol­i­cy, but also on rhetoric.”

The threat from such a main­stream­ing of extrem­ist ideas was on dis­play in Spring­field on Thurs­day. Blood Tribe has used its Gab account to dox Spring­field res­i­dents and gov­ern­ment employ­ees who have spo­ken out against the recent rumors. City Hall had to close down Thurs­day after mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ment agen­cies there got bomb threats.

1b. “Amer­i­can Neo-Nazi Train­ing For­c­ces in Maine to Fight in Ukraine” by Kyle Anza­lone | Lib­er­tar­i­an Insti­tute; Aug 10, 2023 

Christo­pher Pohlhaus, a for­mer Marine and promi­nent Neo-Nazi – has pur­chased land in Maine to train sol­diers to fight for Ukraine. He sees the war against Rus­sia as a unique chance to fight along­side the Azov Bat­tal­ion and defend a near­ly “all-white nation.”

Last year, Pohlhaus bought at least ten acres of land in Spring­field, Maine. Although he claims he owns over 100 acres. Pohlhaus has dis­cussed his ambi­tious plans for his Maine train­ing grounds on social media. In a Telegram chan­nel, he post­ed, “There will like­ly not be anoth­er chance in my life­time to fight along­side oth­er [Nation­al Social­ist] men against a mul­ti-eth­nic invad­ing empire to defend an almost all white nation.”

In a post on X, for­mer­ly Twit­ter, Pohlhaus con­firmed he hoped his Blood Tribe would join the Azov Bat­tal­ion and C14 – promi­nent Ukrain­ian Neo-Nazi mili­tias – in the fight against Rus­sia. Scott Hor­ton, Direc­tor of the Lib­er­tar­i­an Insi­ti­tute, Tweet­ed an arti­cle about the land in Maine and asked, “They going to fight with the Azov Bat­tal­ion and C14 on the east­ern front?” Pohlhaus – nick­named “The Ham­mer” – respond­ed direct­ly to Hor­ton, say­ing, “Yes, actu­al­ly.”

It is unclear how far the Blood Tribe fight­ers have pro­gressed in their train­ing. One reporter vis­it­ed the site and said no group mem­bers were present. Local offi­cials report Pohlhaus has not begun apply­ing for per­mits to build struc­tures on his prop­er­ty. Pohlhaus said he has pur­chased a sawmill and plans to build cab­ins for his sol­diers.

Since civ­il war broke out in Ukraine after a coup in 2014, Neo-Nazis have flocked to the coun­try to fight for Kiev. Ukrain­ian Neo-Nazis have held impor­tant posi­tions in gov­ern­ment, and nation­al social­ist mili­tias have been a cru­cial part of Kiev’s war machine.

Ear­ly in the war, thou­sands of Neo-Nazis arrived in Ukraine to fight for a “shared vision for an ultra­na­tion­al­ist eth­no-state.” While Wash­ing­ton has attempt­ed to dis­miss the role of Neo-Nazis in Ukraine as Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da, the New York Times admit­ted that West­ern jour­nal­ists were ask­ing Ukrain­ian troops to remove Neo-Nazi sym­bols before tak­ing pho­tos of them.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Russ­ian Vol­un­teer Corps – a mili­tia aligned with Kiev – used Amer­i­can weapons to car­ry out attacks inside Rus­sia. The fight­ers in the group open­ly wear Nazi sym­bols, such as the Black Sun.

Pohlhaus also proud­ly dis­plays sym­bols of his nation­al social­ist ide­ol­o­gy. Ear­li­er this year, he led a protest in Ohio with sev­er­al mem­bers dis­play­ing swastikas. While most of his Blood Tribe mem­bers wore full masks, Pohlhaus exposed his face and marched with a swasti­ka flag.

1c. “Ohio’s Gov­er­nor Sends State Troop­ers to Help Pro­tect Stu­dents in Spring­fied” by Kevin Williams and Miri­am Jor­dan; The New York Times; 09/18/2024.

Chil­dren across Spring­field, Ohio, arrived at school Tues­day morn­ing to the sight of state troop­ers, deployed by the gov­er­nor after a wave of bomb scares rat­tled the com­mu­ni­ty. . . .

. . . . He said inves­ti­ga­tors had deter­mined that many of the bomb threats orig­i­nat­ed out­side the Unit­ed States. “Many of these threats are com­ing in from over­seas, made by those who want to fuel the cur­rent dis­cord sur­round­ing Spring­field,” Mr. DeWine said in a state­ment “We can­not let the bad guys win.” . . . .

. . . . High­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions in Spring­field also have endured threats and dis­rup­tions. . . .

. . . . The city said on Mon­day that it would can­cel an annu­al fes­ti­val, called Cul­tureFest, planned for Sept. 27 and 28 over safe­ty con­cerns. . . .

. . . . Lat­er, Mr. Vance said, “If I have to cre­ate sto­ries so that the Amer­i­can media actu­al­ly pays atten­tion to the suf­fer­ing of the Amer­i­can peo­ple, than that’s what I am going to do.”

2. “A would-be Trump assas­sin recruit­ed for Ukraine’s Inter­na­tion­al Legion” by Max Blu­men­thal; The Gray­zone; 9/15/2024.

Before he was caught with an AK-47 on a golf course near Trump, Ryan Routh went to Kiev to fight for Ukraine’s mil­i­tary and recruit for its Inter­na­tion­al Legion. In a book-length man­i­festo, Routh wished for assas­si­na­tions of Putin and Trump, and urged nuclear war with Rus­sia.

Ryan Routh was arrest­ed today with an AK-47-style rifle fit­ted with a sniper scope sev­er­al hun­dred yards from Don­ald Trump while the for­mer pres­i­dent was golf­ing. Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post, the “Trump golf course inci­dent inves­ti­gat­ed as poten­tial assas­si­na­tion attempt.”

Back in 2022, Routh report­ed­ly trav­eled to Ukraine to recruit for the Inter­na­tion­al Legion. Accord­ing to Newsweek Roma­nia, which inter­viewed Routh in 2022, the Amer­i­can res­i­dent of Hawaii hoped to fight as a vol­un­teer along­side the Ukrain­ian army, but was too old at age 56.

“So plan B,” Routh said, “was to come to Kiev and pro­mote the idea of many oth­ers com­ing to join the Inter­na­tion­al Legion. We need thou­sands of peo­ple here to fight along­side Ukraini­ans.

There are about 190 coun­tries on our plan­et, and if the gov­ern­ments are not offi­cial­ly send­ing sol­diers here, then we civil­ians should pick up this torch and make it hap­pen.”

Routh’s Twit­ter time­line is filled with scores of tweets vol­un­teer­ing his direct assis­tance to the war in Ukraine, cheer­lead­ing the war against Rus­sia, and attack­ing oppo­nents of mil­i­tary aid to Kiev such as Tul­si Gab­bard.

Semafor described Routh as the head of the Inter­na­tion­al Vol­un­teer Cen­ter in Ukraine. He com­plained to the out­let that Ukraine’s gov­ern­ment was less than enthu­si­as­tic about the droves of vol­un­teers flock­ing to Kiev. “I have had part­ners meet­ing with [Ukraine’s Min­istry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one sin­gle visa.”

Routh also appeared in a March 25, 2023 New York Times fea­ture about “The U.S. vol­un­teers in Ukraine who lie, waste and bick­er.” Among those fea­tured along­side the North Car­oli­na vol­un­teer was Mal­colm Nance, a star MSNBC com­men­ta­tor, who false­ly told audi­ences he had enlist­ed for front­line com­bat against Russ­ian sol­diers when, in fact, he spent his time tweet­ing from a Lviv hotel room.

Accord­ing to the Times, Routh planned to move vol­un­teers “in some cas­es ille­gal­ly, from Pak­istan and Iran to Ukraine. He said dozens had expressed inter­est.

We can prob­a­bly pur­chase some pass­ports through Pak­istan, since it’s such a cor­rupt coun­try,” the vagabond told the paper in an inter­view from Wash­ing­ton DC.

In his 291-page book-length man­i­festo, “Unwinnable War,” which he pub­lished at Ama­zon and sold for $2.99  – and which is cur­rent­ly list­ed as #1 in the cat­e­go­ry of “Schools and Teach­ing – Routh clam­ors for the assas­si­na­tion of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, fan­ta­sizes about Trump’s assas­si­na­tion as well, and urges the US mil­i­tary to “insti­gate” a nuclear war with Rus­sia.

Among those Routh described meet­ing in his book was Span­ish celebri­ty chef and busi­ness mogul Jose Andres, a close ally of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and “culi­nary ambas­sador” for the State Depart­ment.

Fol­low­ing news of Routh’s arrest, NAFO mem­bers worked to dis­as­so­ci­ate them­selves from the accused would-be assas­sin.

Routh’s appar­ent assas­si­na­tion attempt took place at a zenith of proxy war hys­te­ria, with Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky demand­ing the Biden admin­is­tra­tion grant him long range weapons and green lights strikes deep in Russ­ian ter­ri­to­ry. A col­umn pub­lished from Kiev this Sep­tem­ber 14 by Fareed Zakaria, a close ally of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion, high­light­ed the pan­ic that has gripped proxy war­riors over a poten­tial Trump vic­to­ry.

Accord­ing to Zakaria, “The delay in Amer­i­can aid dur­ing the past year, caused by infight­ing among stub­born Repub­li­cans in Con­gress, has con­tributed to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the sit­u­a­tion on the ground, and many now fear what will hap­pen if Trump wins in Novem­ber.”

Routh has yet to dis­cuss his motives for bring­ing an assault rifle to a golf course just hun­dreds of yards from Trump’s loca­tion. Per­haps his tar­get was not only the for­mer pres­i­dent, but a poten­tial set­tle­ment to the Ukraine proxy war.

3. “On the Sec­ond Trump Assas­si­na­tion Attempt: What We Know So Far” by Lam­bert Strether; Naked Cap­i­tal­ism; 9/16/2024.

. . . . Routh’s Biog­ra­phy

We know more about Routh’s crim­i­nal record (below) and exploits in Ukraine (fur­ther below) than we know about the (at the point very dis­put­ed) rest of his life. From AP:

Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Car­oli­na for most of his life before mov­ing in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son oper­at­ed a com­pa­ny build­ing sheds, accord­ing to an archived ver­sion of the web­page for the busi­ness.

(From mem­o­ry, Routh’s busi­ness was on land owned by his girl­friend; from Hawaii he also ran at least one under-5K GoFundMe for Ukraine.) In Routh’s younger days:

That was a sharp depar­ture from a younger Routh, pro­filed in the same news­pa­per in 1991 for his assis­tance in help­ing defend a woman against an alleged rapist. Routh, then 25, was wear­ing a coat and tie in a large pho­to accom­pa­ny­ing the sto­ry. He was dubbed a “super cit­i­zen” and award­ed a Law Enforce­ment Oscar by the Greens­boro chap­ter of the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Police Asso­ci­a­tions. The head­line on the sto­ry: “Crime­fight­ing pays.”

Sub­se­quent­ly, Routh accu­mu­lat­ed quite a crim­i­nal record. From NBC:

Court records show more than 100 crim­i­nal counts have been filed against Ryan Routh in North Car­oli­na, most in Guil­ford Coun­ty, which under­lies Greens­boro. The exact out­come of each case was not imme­di­ate­ly clear.

Records also show con­vic­tions for car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon, pos­ses­sion of stolen prop­er­ty and hit-and-run. In those cas­es, which includ­ed mis­de­meanor con­vic­tions for vio­la­tions such as resist­ing an offi­cer and dri­ving on a sus­pend­ed license, the defen­dant received a sus­pend­ed sen­tence and parole or pro­ba­tion. In 2002, court records show, he was con­vict­ed of pos­sess­ing a weapon of mass destruc­tion — a machine gun.

When I hear “WMD,” I think atom­ic or bio-weapons, not mere machine guns (more on that arrest here). So that comes as a bit of a relief. . . .

. . . . Ryan Routh’s polit­i­cal sup­port evolved from Trump in 2016 to Gab­bard in 2020, then Ramaswamy and Haley in 2024.

The salient fea­ture of Routh’s polit­i­cal life, recent­ly, seems to have been sup­port for Ukraine. Aggre­ga­tor Ukrain­s­ka Prav­da sum­ma­rizes CNN:

[Routh] had expressed sup­port for Ukraine on social media fol­low­ing Russia’s inva­sion. Quote from CNN: “Ryan Wes­ley Routh, who author­i­ties sus­pect was plan­ning to attack for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump as he played a round of golf, expressed strong sup­port for Ukraine in dozens of posts on X in 2022, say­ing he was will­ing to die in the fight and that ‘we need to burn the Krem­lin to the ground’.” Details: Routh had encour­aged for­eign­ers, through Face­book, to join the war [on Ukraine’s side – ed.]. CNN added that Routh referred to him­self as an “off-the-books liai­son” of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment and encour­aged sol­diers from Afghanistan to fight for Ukraine.

. . . . Ques­tions and Loose Ends

(1) How did Routh get the gun?

I am noth­ing like an expert in America’s admit­ted­ly porous gun laws. It does seem to me, how­ev­er, that a per­son like Routh, with mul­ti­ple crim­i­nal counts and sev­er­al con­vic­tions, one for pos­sess­ing a machine gun (!) was a less than ide­al can­di­date for mem­ber­ship in a well-reg­u­lat­ed mili­tia (though to be fair, that seems to be what he want­ed to do in Ukraine, whether he did so or not). So how did Routh get the gun? Ama­zon? A gun-show? Did he find it under a toad­stool? UPDATE The same ques­tion goes for the car. Who’s was it? His? Fam­i­ly or friend’s?

(2) How did Routh know Trump would be on the course?

From AP:

Trump’s plans to golf Sun­day were not part of any pub­lic sched­ule, on days he is not cam­paign­ing, he can often be found golf­ing at one of his cours­es. Trump Inter­na­tion­al Golf Club, West Palm Beach, about a 10-minute dri­ve from his Mar-a-Lago res­i­dence, is a favorite.

So how did Routh know to find Trump at that place and time? It makes no sense that he set him­self up with the weapon­ry, the ceram­ics, and a GoPro, on the off-chance that Trump might appear in his sights.

(3) How did Routh plan the assas­si­na­tion from out of state?

Routh grew up in North Car­oli­na, lived in Hawaii, and then (to guess at his itin­er­ary, which we don’t know either) flew to Mia­mi to assas­si­nate Trump. Not cheap, and not some­thing to do on a whim). From the Dai­ly Mail:

[Politico’s Neil] Caputo says that what’s bedev­iled both observers and author­i­ties is how Routh – who moved from North Car­oli­na to Hawaii in the 2010s – was able to plot this from out of state.

‘The ques­tion no one’s able to answer yet and hope­ful­ly will be answered: the alleged assas­sin appeared to have been from out of state. How did he dri­ve down there? How did he case the joint? How did he know when the for­mer pres­i­dent would be there and come with­in his poten­tial line of sight?’ . . . .

. . . . FWIW, at least one Inter­na­tion­al Legi­ion spokesper­son, King Jack Strong (love the moniker), dis­owned Routh as of June 21 of this year:

Warn­ing about Ryan Routh: he is not, and nev­er has been, asso­ci­at­ed with the Inter­na­tion­al Legion or the Ukrain­ian Armed Forces at all. He is not, & nev­er has been, a legion recruiter. He is mis­rep­re­sent­ing him­self and lying to many peo­ple.

(Of course, Strong would dis­avow Routh, but in June?) Then again, here is Routh being inter­viewed by the Times in 2023:

In the inter­view, Mr. Routh said he was in Wash­ing­ton to meet with the U.S. Com­mis­sion on Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe, known as the Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion “for two hours” to help push for more sup­port for Ukraine. The com­mis­sion is led by mem­bers of Con­gress and staffed by con­gres­sion­al aides. It is influ­en­tial on mat­ters of democ­ra­cy and secu­ri­ty and has been vocal in sup­port­ing Ukraine.

The Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion had Paul Mas­saro as its staff direc­tor. Here is Mas­saro with an Azov flag:

(4) How spook adja­cent was Routh?

Ed Snow­den com­ments:

Routh should already have been on somebody’s list for the machine gun con­vic­tion. It’s very hard for me to believe that Routh could have run around Ukraine rais­ing mon­ey, talk­ing to the Times, Semafor, and Newsweek Roma­nia, attempt­ing to recruit for­eign fight­ers, and ingra­ti­at­ing him­self with var­i­ous “vol­un­teer” orga­ni­za­tions, with­out get­ting on some sort of spook’s list (since Ukraine is, after all, crawl­ing with spooks). So Snowden’s care­ful plac­ing of the bur­den of proof — “zero con­tact” — is appro­pri­ate, and I don’t think our organs of state secu­ri­ty will be able to meet it.

(I have seen two sight­ing shots for Routh’s han­dler, if any: One is for Soo Kim, late of the CIA, now of RAND, but the screen­shot pur­port­ing to link them does not show Routh’s account); the sec­ond is for Mal­colm Nance, which would make me hap­py, but the nexus seems to be that they were both quot­ed in the same New York Times sto­ry.) . . . .

4. “West Expe­ri­ences Blow­back From Fos­ter­ing Fas­cists In Ukraine;” Moon of Alaba­ma; 09/16/2024. 

At the start of the Spe­cial Mil­i­tary Oper­a­tion in Feb­ru­ary 2022 I warned of the blow­back that, I assert­ed, would like­ly come if the West con­tin­ued to pam­per Nazi groups in Ukraine:

The U.S. aim is to cre­ate an insur­gency in the Ukraine.

The Com­ing Ukrain­ian Insur­gency — For­eign Affairs
Russia’s Inva­sion Could Unleash Forces the Krem­lin Can’t Con­trol

Since 2015 the CIA has trained Ukrain­ian groups for exact­ly that pur­pose.

CIA-trained Ukrain­ian para­mil­i­taries may take cen­tral role if Rus­sia invades — Yahoo

CIA sup­port for Ukrain­ian Nazis has a long his­to­ry.

Op-Ed: The CIA has backed Ukrain­ian insur­gents before. Let’s learn from those mis­takes — LA Times

A new Nazi insur­gency in east­ern Europe is an excep­tion­al­ly bad idea. Fas­cist groups from every­where would join in. A few years from now it may well lead to Nazi ter­ror in many Euro­pean coun­tries. Have we learned real­ly noth­ing from the war on Syr­ia and the ISIS cam­paign?

Me and Ivan Katchanovs­ki were prob­a­bly the only ones who had warned of this:

Katchanovs­ki adds that, “This is also going to have a dan­ger­ous effect on Ukraine and poten­tial­ly oth­er coun­tries because now, basi­cal­ly, Nazis in Ukraine are made into nation­al heroes.” He also not­ed that Azov (as well as West­ern gov­ern­ments) has con­sis­tent­ly pres­sured Zelen­sky — includ­ing with threats, and even before Rus­sia invad­ed — not to seek a peace deal with Rus­sia or with­draw forces from the Don­bas region. In Feb­ru­ary, Azov brand­ed Zelen­sky a “ser­vant of the Russ­ian peo­ple” after he sug­gest­ed that he might nego­ti­ate with Moscow.

Katchanovs­ki said that the val­oriza­tion of the Azov Reg­i­ment is com­pa­ra­ble to how the West ini­tial­ly sup­port­ed the pre­de­ces­sors of the Tal­iban in their fight against the Sovi­et Union’s inter­ven­tion in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and also risks inspir­ing yet more far-right activists from oth­er coun­tries to join the con­flict in Ukraine in order to gain mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, poten­tial­ly caus­ing a blow­back effect if they make it home.

Yes­ter­day one avid U.S. sup­port­er of the fas­cists in Ukraine tried to assas­si­nate the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Don­ald Trump:

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec — 1:39 UTC · Sep 16, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: Attempt­ed Trump assas­sin Ryan Routh appeared in a pro­pa­gan­da video for the AZOV BATTALLION in May 2022
Embed­ded video . . . .

. . . . Mem­bers of Azov and oth­er ‘nation­al­ist’ group­ings in Ukraine are now expe­ri­enced fight­ers. The have the means to fight as there are lots of Ukrain­ian weapons in unac­count­able hands (machine trans­la­tion):

Since the begin­ning of the full-scale inva­sion of Rus­sia in Ukraine, more than 270,945 weapons have dis­ap­peared or been stolen.
...
In less than 2024, more weapons were stolen or lost than in the whole of last year — 78,217 units. At the same time, it is 4 times more than before the start of a full-scale war.

These weapons can be eas­i­ly smug­gled into Europe to tar­get any politi­cian who dares to pres­sure Ukraine into accept­ing an end of the war.

The attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion of Trump is only one of the first of such inci­dents. (The motives for the assas­si­na­tion attempt against the Slo­vak Prime Min­is­ter Robert Fico are still unknown.)

Many such inci­dents, pre­dom­i­nant­ly in Europe, are like­ly to fol­low.

5. Most of the four pro­grams high­light­ing the evo­lu­tion and appli­ca­tion of the Inter­mar­i­um con­cept con­sist of read­ing and 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. . . .”

“Imag­ined Geo­gra­phies of Cen­tral and East­ern Europe: The Con­cept of Inter­mar­i­um” by Mar­lene Laru­elle and Ellen Rivera; Covert Action Mag­a­zine; 3/23/2019.

We present key excerpts of the paper to under­score dom­i­nant fea­tures of this evo­lu­tion­ary con­ti­nu­ity:

1. 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. . . .”
2. 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). . . .”
3. 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. . . .”
4. 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. . . .”
5. 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] . . . .”
6. 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.’ . . . .”
7. 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. . . .”
8. 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. . . .”
9. 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 . . . .”
10. 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. . . .”
11. 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. . . .”
12. 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. . . .”
13. The “Inter­mar­i­um Con­ti­nu­ity” is inex­tri­ca­ble with the his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism about the roles of the OUN and UPA in World War II. That revi­sion­ism is insti­tu­tion­al­ized 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 . . . .”
14. 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. . . .”
15. 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. . . .”
16. 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. . . .”
17. 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). . . .”
18. 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.’ . . . .”