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COMMENT: In a long series of pro­grams and posts over the last four years, we have chron­i­cled the re-insti­tu­tion of the OUN/B World War II-era fas­cists as the foun­da­tion­al ele­ment of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment.

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance in that regard is the Naz­i­fi­ca­tion of the Ukrain­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice, the SBU.

Among the recent devel­op­ments in the oper­a­tions of the OUN/B‑related ele­ments in Ukraine is the post­ing of a call for the erad­i­ca­tion of Ukraine’s Jews. The call was made by Vasi­ly Vovk – a senior offi­cer in the SBU, for­mer head of the SBU’s inves­tiga­tive unit and head of the SBU’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the MH17 probe. (Vovk’s pro­nounce­ment casts fur­ther doubt over the MH17 inves­ti­ga­tion.)

The SBU appears to have been involved with the killing of an inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist who had report­ed on how mili­tia com­man­ders were evad­ing pun­ish­ment for their crimes short­ly before his car was blown up. 

Pravy Sek­tor asso­ciate Valen­tyn Naly­vaichenko had been the head of the SBU (Ukrain­ian intel­li­gence ser­vice) since the Maid­an Coup, up until his ouster in June of 2015. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, he had oper­at­ed the orga­ni­za­tion along the lines of the OUN/B.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, he had served in that same capac­i­ty under Vik­tor Yuschenko, see­ing the out­fit as a vehi­cle for rewrit­ing Ukraine’s his­to­ry in accor­dance with the his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism favored by the OUN/B.

Very close to Pravy Sek­tor head Dymitro Yarosh, Naly­vaichenko employed Yarosh while serv­ing in the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment.  Yarosh claims that the two col­lab­o­rat­ed on “anti-ter­ror­ist” oper­a­tions con­duct­ed against eth­nic Rus­sians.

“Ukrain­ian Gen­er­al Calls for Destruc­tion of Jews” by Sam Sokol; The Jew­ish Chron­i­cle; 5/11/2017.

“I’m telling you one more time – go to hell, kikes”, wrote senior offi­cer affil­i­at­ed to the intel­li­gence ser­vices

In the lat­est of a series of high­ly pub­lic anti­se­mit­ic state­ments by promi­nent fig­ures in Ukraine, a retired Ukrain­ian gen­er­al affil­i­at­ed with the country’s intel­li­gence ser­vices this week called for the destruc­tion of his country’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty.

In a post since delet­ed from Face­book, Vasi­ly Vovk – a gen­er­al who holds a senior reserve rank with the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Ukraine, the local suc­ces­sor to the KGB – wrote that Jews “aren’t Ukraini­ans and I will destroy you along with [Ukrain­ian oli­garch and Jew­ish law­mak­er Vadim] Rabi­novych. I’m telling you one more time – go to hell, zhi­di [kikes], the Ukrain­ian peo­ple have had it to here with you.”

“Ukraine must be gov­erned by Ukraini­ans,” he wrote.

Mean­while, Ukrain­ian war hero-turned-law­mak­er Nadiya Savchenko came under fire in March after say­ing dur­ing a tele­vi­sion inter­view that Jews held dis­pro­por­tion­ate con­trol over the levers of pow­er in Ukraine.

More recent­ly, oppo­si­tion politi­cian Yulia Tymoshenko was forced to apol­o­gise after being filmed laugh­ing at an anti­se­mit­ic com­e­dy act at a gath­er­ing of her Father­land par­ty, and Volodymyr Via­tro­vych, direc­tor of the state-run Insti­tu­tion for Nation­al Mem­o­ry accused Jew­ish activist Eduard Dolin­sky of fab­ri­cat­ing anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents for mon­ey.

Via­tro­vych is also run­ning a pub­lic aware­ness cam­paign white­wash­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Ukrain­ian Insur­gent Army (UPA), a Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist mili­tia, in the Holo­caust.

In 2015 the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment passed a law pro­hibit­ing the den­i­gra­tion of the UPA and oth­er groups which fought for the country’s inde­pen­dence.

Ear­li­er this month, Ukraine made waves inter­na­tion­al­ly when it announced it was open­ing a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of a mem­ber of UPA by a nine­ty four year old Jew­ish ex-KGB agent in the ear­ly 1950s. Ukraine has not pros­e­cut­ed any of its cit­i­zens for war crimes against Jews since the coun­try gained its inde­pen­dence fol­low­ing the breakup of the Sovi­et Union. . . .

“MH17 Inves­ti­ga­tors Reveal an Exhaust of a Russ­ian-built BUK Mis­sile Was Found at the Crash Site” by Charles Miran­da; news.au.com; 6/7/2016.

. . . . Ahead of its release Ukraine’s for­mer top SBU secu­ri­ty ser­vices offi­cial Vasyl Vovk, who until June last year was the country’s chief inves­ti­ga­tor on the multi­na­tion­al probe, said he knew who was respon­si­ble but con­ced­ed it was not con­clu­sive.

“I am con­fi­dent that this mis­sile sys­tem was deliv­ered from the ter­ri­to­ry of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion with a high-skilled crew — most like­ly a crew of well-trained offi­cers, of course from Russ­ian ter­ri­to­ry,” he said. . . .

Ukraine Spy Agency ‘May Have Seen Plant­i­ng of Bomb that Killed Jour­nal­ist’” by Alec Luhn; The Guardian; 5/10/2017.

New film sug­gests an intel­li­gence ser­vices agent was present when device was hid­den under Pavel Sheremet’s car last July

A new doc­u­men­tary film alleges that Ukraine’s spy agency may have wit­nessed the plant­i­ng of a car bomb that killed a promi­nent jour­nal­ist last July in Kiev.

Pavel Sheremet had just left his home in the Ukrain­ian cap­i­tal and was dri­ving to work when his car explod­ed. The mur­der was the most high-pro­file assas­si­na­tion of a reporter in the coun­try since the behead­ing in 2000 of the inves­tiga­tive reporter Georgiy Gongadze.

Ukraine’s pres­i­dent, Petro Poroshenko, had said it was a “mat­ter of hon­our” that Sheremet’s case be prompt­ly solved. He called for a trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion by police and the secu­ri­ty ser­vices. How­ev­er, 10 months lat­er no one has been arrest­ed.

The film, Killing Pavel, sug­gests that an agent work­ing for Ukraine’s intel­li­gence ser­vices was present when the explo­sive device was hid­den under the journalist’s car. The Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project (OCCRP) and Slidstvo.info released the doc­u­men­tary on Wednes­day, when it was screened on Ukrain­ian TV.

Inves­ti­ga­tors have said Sheremet was killed by a remote­ly det­o­nat­ed explo­sive device, most like­ly in ret­ri­bu­tion for his inves­tiga­tive work in Ukraine and oth­er places. The jour­nal­ist sup­port­ed the pro-west­ern upris­ing in 2014 that saw Vik­tor Yanukovych flee to Rus­sia, but had also been bit­ing­ly crit­i­cal of Ukraine’s new author­i­ties.

Sur­veil­lance cam­era footage pub­lished by the media and police revealed that an unknown man and a woman approached Sheremet’s Sub­aru car on the street the night before the blast. The woman is seen kneel­ing beside the parked car on the driver’s side.

The mak­ers of “Killing Pavel” tracked down new sur­veil­lance footage not found by police. It gives fresh details of the appar­ent killers, who returned to the scene the next morn­ing short­ly before Sheremet got into his doomed vehi­cle.

The footage reveals sev­er­al sus­pi­cious men who arrived in the street that night. They appeared to be car­ry­ing out sur­veil­lance. They were still there when the man and the woman went past and alleged­ly fixed the bomb. The Belling­cat cit­i­zen jour­nal­ist group man­aged to iden­ti­fy their car – a grey Sko­da – and its reg­is­tra­tion.

The inves­tiga­tive reporters sub­se­quent­ly tracked down one of the men and iden­ti­fied him as Igor Usti­menko. Usti­menko admit­ted being in the area that night and said he had been hired as a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor to keep watch on someone’s chil­dren. He denied see­ing the bombers and said police had not con­tact­ed him.

The reporters then spoke to a gov­ern­ment source. He con­firmed that Usti­menko had been work­ing since 2014 for Ukraine’s SBU secret intel­li­gence ser­vice. Usti­menko declined to com­ment fur­ther. The film also pre­sent­ed evi­dence sug­gest­ing that Sheremet was under sur­veil­lance in the weeks before his mur­der.

Ukraine’s inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Arsen Avakov, has denied the gov­ern­ment car­ried this out. A min­istry spokesman declined to com­ment on the film. The secu­ri­ty ser­vice did not imme­di­ate­ly respond.

“The gov­ern­ment of Ukraine repeat­ed­ly promised to find Pavel’s killer but it’s clear they didn’t do too much,” said Drew Sul­li­van, edi­tor of the Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project. “Now we have to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that some­one in gov­ern­ment played a role in the mur­der.”

A pio­neer­ing tele­vi­sion jour­nal­ist in his native Belarus, Sheremet was forced to move to Rus­sia after he was arrest­ed in 1997 while report­ing on bor­der smug­gling. His cam­era­man on that sto­ry, Dmit­ry Zavad­sky, was kid­napped and killed in Belarus in 2000. Sheremet lat­er moved to Ukraine, where he was a well-known jour­nal­ist with his own radio show.

In his last blog­post for the Ukrain­ian Prav­da news­pa­per, Sheremet said some mili­tia com­man­ders and vet­er­ans of the con­flict with pro-Moscow rebels in east­ern Ukraine had escaped pun­ish­ment for oth­er crimes. Sheremet’s part­ner, Ole­na Pry­tu­la, co-found­ed the paper with Gongadze, whose bru­tal mur­der ignit­ed nation­al out­rage. . . .

. . . . The killing caused a major scan­dal, and Amer­i­can FBI spe­cial­ists were brought in to help iden­ti­fy the explo­sives. The Unit­ed Nations deputy high com­mis­sion­er for human rights, Kate Gilmore, said Sheremet’s mur­der would be a “test of the abil­i­ty and will­ing­ness of Ukraine’s insti­tu­tions to inves­ti­gate assaults on media free­dom”. . . .