Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

COMMENT: Ger­man For­eign Policy–which feeds along the right hand side of the front page of this website–updates reportage on the Ukrain­ian cri­sis. 

(We have cov­ered the ascen­sion of the OUN/B heirs in the Ukraine in a num­ber of pro­grams: FTR ‘s 777, 778, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784.)

In addi­tion to high­light­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Pravy Sek­tor recruits in the nation­al secu­ri­ty mili­tia of the OUN/B heirs rul­ing the inter­im gov­ern­ment in Ukraine, the arti­cle:

• Notes the pres­ence of Pravy Sek­tor OUN/B heirs in the fire­bomb mas­sacre in Odessa, as well as that in Mar­i­opol.
• Fur­ther devel­ops the con­ti­nu­ity between the inter­im gov­ern­ment in Ukraine and the OUN/B regime of Yaroslav and Sla­va Stet­sko. As dis­cussed in FTR #779, Stet­sko meet with Ronald Rea­gan dur­ing the lat­ter’s admin­is­tra­tion. Rea­gan stressed the com­mon goals of his admin­is­tra­tion and Stet­sko.
• Under­scores the solid­i­fy­ing of the rela­tion­ship between the Pravy Sek­tor storm troop­ers and the Ukrain­ian nation­al secu­ri­ty cadres.
• Fur­ther devel­ops the rela­tion­ship between Pravy Sek­tor and oth­er Euro­pean Nazi groups.
• Main­tains that ele­ments of CIA and FBI are assist­ing the Pravy Sek­tor-infused cadres in East­ern Ukraine. (The CIA direc­tor had already paid a vis­it to the Ukraine.)
• Main­tains that some 400 mem­bers of “Acad­e­mi” (for­mer­ly Black­wa­ter) are assist­ing the Ukrain­ian forces in East­ern Ukraine.

“Fas­cist Free­dom Fight­ers”; German-Foreign-Policy.com; 5/12/2014.

EXCERPT: The rein­force­ment of fas­cist forces in Ukraine, under the aegis of the putsch regime in Kiev, is hav­ing reper­cus­sions on its Ger­man sup­port­ers. The com­mem­o­ra­tion of a Ukrain­ian sup­port­er of the Holo­caust has ignit­ed a debate in Munich. The “ques­tion” is being raised in the press, whether the com­mem­o­ra­tion of “a fas­cist free­dom fighter”[sic!] should be pub­licly hon­ored. Kiev’s Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion, a grad­u­ate of Munich’s “Ukrain­ian Free Uni­ver­si­ty,” takes up the defense of the sup­port­er of the Holo­caust in the Ger­man media. The fas­cist “Pravy Sek­tor” (“Right Sek­tor”) mili­tia is inten­si­fy­ing its rela­tions with rightwing extrem­ists in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries, includ­ing Ger­many. The orga­ni­za­tion that had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Odessa Mas­sacre has ties to vio­lence-prone neo-Nazis in Swe­den as well as to Ger­many’s NPD. Where­as the leader of this orga­ni­za­tion insists he is work­ing close­ly with Ukraine’s offi­cial repres­sive author­i­ties, the media is report­ing that these author­i­ties are also sup­port­ed in their bru­tal repres­sive mea­sures (“anti-ter­ror oper­a­tions”) against the insur­gents in East­ern and South­ern Ukraine by the CIA and FBI. Evi­dence of a BND involve­ment remains uncon­firmed.

Should a Fas­cist be Com­mem­o­rat­ed?

In Munich, a hub of Ukrain­ian exile activ­i­ties in the post-World War II period,[1] a pub­lic debate has erupt­ed around the memo­r­i­al plaque for Yaroslav Stet­sko, one of the lead­ers of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN). The plaque has been installed at the for­mer address of the OUN head­quar­ters, in Munich’s Zep­pelin­str. 67, by for­mer Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent, Vik­tor Yushchenko dur­ing his incum­ben­cy (2005 — 2010). This was part of his efforts to rein­force the cult around the fas­cist OUN, the Ukrain­ian Par­ti­san Army (UPA) and their leaders.[2] Stet­sko, who, after the war, was work­ing out of the OUN head­quar­ters in Munich, is, today, one of the peo­ple held in high esteem in West Ukraine. The Svo­bo­da Par­ty still prop­a­gates his “two rev­o­lu­tions” the­o­ry, devel­oped in the 1930s — a “nation­al” and a “social” rev­o­lu­tion, which must be com­bined. In 1941, Stet­sko declared that “the Jews must be exter­mi­nat­ed and, it would be expe­di­ent to intro­duce the Ger­man exter­mi­na­tion meth­ods in Ukraine.” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[3]) In Munich, the local dis­trict coun­cil has now com­mis­sioned an expert assess­ment of the pub­lic com­mem­o­ra­tion of a sup­port­er of the Holo­caust in its dis­trict. “The ques­tion is,” accord­ing to the “Süd­deutsche Zeitung” “whether a fas­cist free­dom fighter[sic!] should be pub­licly com­mem­o­rat­ed?”[4]

“No Anti-Semi­tism”

The “Süd­deutsche Zeitung’s” arti­cle indi­cates that the OUN and its lead­ers, such as Stet­sko, are not only wide­ly acclaimed in Ukrain­ian orga­ni­za­tions in Ger­many, but also with­in the putsch regime in Kiev, even among min­is­ters, who are not in the noto­ri­ous Svo­bo­da Par­ty. As evi­dence, the arti­cle quotes Ser­hiy Kvit, “Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion” in the putsch regime. Kvit calls Stet­sko’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, con­tain­ing his plea for adap­ta­tion of the “Ger­man meth­ods of Jew­ish exter­mi­na­tion,” a “coun­ter­feit doc­u­ment,” alleg­ing that the OUN, whose activists had par­tic­i­pat­ed in a con­sid­er­able num­ber of mas­sacres of Jews, “had noth­ing to do” with anti-Semi­tism.[5] Kvit had been active in the 90s in extrem­ist rightwing orga­ni­za­tions, for exam­ple, in the “Con­gress of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists” (CUN), a fas­cist con­glom­er­ate, orga­nized in part by Stet­sko’s wid­ow, Yarosla­va. Yarosla­va, who had been a UPA mem­ber, had worked along­side her hus­band in their Munich exile, and has also been hon­ored in Munich with a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[6]) Kvit lat­er embarked on a schol­ar­ly career. In 2001, he received his PhD at Munich’s “Ukrain­ian Free Uni­ver­si­ty,” where OUN vet­er­ans had been active for a long time, and in 2007, was named Pres­i­dent of the Kiev Mohy­la Acad­e­my Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, until he was recent­ly named “Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion” in the putsch regime.

“Ene­my of Ukraine”

Two years ago, Kvit, for exam­ple, helped cre­ate a con­fronta­tion with Grzhe­gorz Rossolin­s­ki-Liebe, a his­to­ri­an from Berlin. Rossolin­s­ki-Liebe, the author of a dis­ser­ta­tion on OUN leader, Stepan Ban­dera, sched­uled to be pub­lished this fall, had been invit­ed to Ukraine for a speak­ing tour, in ear­ly 2012. Six talks were on the sched­ule — two in Lviv, two in Dnipropetro­vsk and two in Kiev. There were protests against Rossolin­s­ki-Liebe because of his being a known Ban­dera crit­ic. In Lviv, the orga­niz­ers were unable to acquire a venue, report­ed the his­to­ri­an lat­er. Of the four oth­er speak­ing engage­ments, three had been can­celled on short notice. Some of the can­ce­la­tions had been direct­ly trace­able to inter­ven­tions made by the Svo­bo­da Par­ty, because of his crit­i­cism of Ban­dera. Who­ev­er express­es such crit­i­cism is con­sid­ered — at least in the West, and even in some regions of Cen­tral Ukraine — “an ene­my of Ukraine or a trai­tor.” One uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor con­firmed to him that “in Ukraine, his­to­ri­ans can­not open­ly speak about his­to­ry.” In response to his sug­ges­tion that a memo­r­i­al be erect­ed to the vic­tims of the Lviv Pogroms of 1918 and 1941, “schol­ars from Lviv ... said he was crazy.” Even the pres­i­dent of the Kiev Mohy­la Acad­e­my Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, at the time, Ser­hiy Kvit, angri­ly attacked him and refused him the pos­si­bil­i­ty to deliv­er his talk.[7] Kvit is con­sid­ered a fol­low­er of the pub­li­cist Dmytro Dontsov, who is cred­it­ed with the cre­ation of an “indige­nous Ukrain­ian fascism.”[8] Dontsov had trans­lat­ed Hitler, Mus­soli­ni and oth­ers into Ukrain­ian.

Under Police Pro­tec­tion

From Rossolin­s­ki-Liebe’s report, one learns also that the Ger­man Embassy in Kiev was com­plete­ly cog­nizant of the sit­u­a­tion — and there­fore knew also about the dra­mat­ic growth in influ­ence of Ukraine’s Ban­dera fol­low­ers. When he received a tele­phone call from a man, iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as a mili­tia­man, say­ing he would drop by, Rossolin­s­ki-Liebe says that “the Ger­man Embassy ... made arrange­ments for me to move into an apart­ment of an embassy employ­ee, where I would be safe.” Of the six sched­uled lec­tures, he was only able to hold the lec­ture in the Ger­man Embassy, “under mili­tia pro­tec­tion” — “about 100 Svo­bo­da fol­low­ers were demon­strat­ing outside.”[9] Near­ly two years lat­er, to the day, Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter Frank-Wal­ter Stein­meier (SPD) invit­ed Oleh Tiah­ny­bok, the leader of Svo­bo­da, to the Ger­man Embassy in Kiev for talks. One result — Svo­bo­da is now rep­re­sent­ed in the putsch regime.[10]

Nation­al Heroes

Many of the Pravy Sek­tor activists, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the May 2, Odessa Mas­sacre and the May 9, mas­sacre in Mar­i­upol had come from the ultra-nation­al­is­ti­cal­ly charged milieus, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in West Ukraine. The armed orga­ni­za­tion, play­ing a major role in over­throw­ing the Yanukovich gov­ern­ment, orig­i­nat­ed as an alliance of rightwing extrem­ist groups.[11] In the mean­time, it has devel­oped good con­tacts to numer­ous extrem­ist rightwing asso­ci­a­tions through­out Europe. Pravy Sek­tor’s press attaché, Ole­na Semenya­ka, report­ed that she could not attend the March 22 Young Nation­al Democ­ra­tes’s (JN) “Europe Con­gress” of the Ger­man NPD’s youth asso­ci­a­tion, in Thuringia, only because of a con­flict with oth­er sched­uled engage­ments. The Swedish Nordisk Ung­dom neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tion, which, accord­ing to Semenya­ka, finan­cial­ly sup­ports the Pravy Sek­tor, had attend­ed the NPD con­gress, along with the Sven­ska­mas Par­ty, some of whose activists had also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the vio­lent Maid­an riots. In March, one of those Maid­an par­tic­i­pants stabbed a left­ist in Mal­mo, soon after return­ing from Kiev. Charged with attempt­ed mur­der, he has been on the run since.[12] Recent­ly, Semenya­ka gave an inter­view to the NPD par­ty’s “Deutsche Stimme” jour­nal. In the course of her inter­view, she boast­ed that at the Maid­an, “ultra-nation­al­ists” became trans­formed into “nation­al heroes.” The Pravy Sek­tor is a “great par­ti­san move­ment,” she boast­ed.

CIA, Black­wa­ter, BND?

Mean­while, Ger­man forces fur­ther to the right than the NPD are show­ing a grow­ing inter­est in the Pravy Sek­tor. In April, the ultra-right online plat­form “Blaue Narzisse” (Blue Daf­fodil) pub­lished an inter­view with Ole­na Semenya­ka. She empha­sized that “even mod­ern Nazi sym­pa­thiz­ers will find their place in our broad ranks” and explained that the Pravy Sek­tor’s most impor­tant cur­rent task is to “lib­er­ate” Ukraine “from col­lab­o­ra­tors, sep­a­ratists and mar­i­onettes of Rus­sia and the West.”[13] As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, the Pravy Sek­tor coor­di­nates its oper­a­tions with the respec­tive Ukrain­ian author­i­ties, accord­ing to its leader Dmitro Yarosh. “Our bat­tal­ions are inte­grat­ed into the new ter­ri­to­r­i­al defense,” explains Yarosh. “We have very close con­tacts to the secret ser­vice and the mil­i­tary staff. We real­ly have good rela­tions with every­one, except the police.”[14] Yarosh had already been close­ly coop­er­at­ing with the head of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Andriy Paru­biy to over­throw the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment. Paru­biy, a leader of the extreme right in the 1990s, was con­sid­ered, last win­ter, the “com­man­der of the Maid­an.” Today, he is orga­niz­ing the regime’s “anti-ter­ror mis­sions” in East­ern and South­ern Ukraine. US spe­cial­ists from the CIA and FBI are serv­ing as “advi­sors” and — accord­ing to reports — 400 elite sol­diers from the US mer­ce­nary com­pa­ny “Acad­e­mi” (for­mer­ly “Black­wa­ter”) are pro­vid­ing oper­a­tional sup­port.[15] It is not yet clear, whether the BND is also involved in the Ukrain­ian “anti-ter­ror mis­sion.” How­ev­er, what is known, is that the Ger­man mil­i­tary observers, who had been held in Slavyan­sk in late April, were in con­tact with the BND.[16] The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is refus­ing any fur­ther infor­ma­tion.