Canada’s House of Commons gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a member of the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS (1st Galician Division), formed under the aegis of none other than Heinrich Himmler. This SS division was directly responsible for Nazi atrocities, including the massacre of Huta Pieniacka on February 28, 1944, a village in Poland that served as a shelter for Jews. At least 1,000 people were murdered.
The fact that Canada’s House of Commons gave Yaroslav Hunka a rousing round of applause is in and of itself shocking but it is also emblematic of an even deeper reality. Canada’s political landscape is so steeped in Russophobia, that all it took for the authorities to roll out the red carpet was to learn that Hunka had fought Russia. So this is much more than the result of a simple blunder, however monumental. It is not just a mistake on the part of the President of the Chamber. Hunka met privately with Trudeau and Zelensky. The orchestrated scenario therefore involved the entire political staff, including Trudeau. This reveals the extent of the Russophobia that has gripped the Liberal administration. The celebration of this Nazi in the middle of the Canadian Parliament made headlines around the world and drew attention to the question of Nazism in Ukraine.
Against the USSR during the Cold War, and against Russia since the end of the Cold War, the West has shown complacency towards Ukrainian Nazis and neo-Nazis, and has extended a helping hand to them. Canada welcomed many Ukrainians after the war, including the maternal grandfather of current Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. The Ottawa Citizen of March 8, 2017 reported that her grandfather, Michael Chomiak, was a Nazi collaborator. The fact has been known for a long time, even if Chrystia Freeland still claims it is ‘‘Russian disinformation.’’ This collaborator wrote for Krakivski Visti, a newspaper that became pro-Nazi during the German occupation of Poland. The Jewish owners whom Chomiak had expropriated ended up in camps to die. What was written in this newspaper? According to the Ottawa Citizen, “Krakivski Visti hailed the German-approved formation of the 14th Waffen SS Halychyna division, made up of Ukrainian volunteers.” [1]
It was precisely to this group that Yaroslav Hunka belonged, the one who was welcomed with great pomp and applause in the House of Commons! The Minister could not have been unaware of these facts. Yet she too applauded alongside Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
Nor should the memorials erected to German Nazi collaborators in Edmonton and Oakville be forgotten. Iaroslav Stetsko, Stepan Bandera’s deputy and a declared collaborator of the Nazi occupiers during the Second World War, was made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg in 1966.
The issue is not just the welcome given to neo-Nazis in North America; it is also and above all, the West’s commitment to neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Even if the Ukrainian population as a whole does not adhere to Nazism, neo-Nazis are present everywhere in Ukraine’s recent history. Although their numbers are small, they have played a major role since at least 2013.
It’s important to stress that Ukraine’s Nazi past is that of a minority. The majority of Ukrainians fought alongside their country, the USSR, in the Second World War. Only a minority in the West sided with the Germans. This is an essential point, and it also applies to the present day. The very first victims of what is happening are the Ukrainian people. They did not seek the tragic fate that had been visited upon them.
The meaning of words must be made clear from the outset. To belong to the neo-Nazi movement, it is not necessary to follow the example of the Azov regiment and openly display its insignia. During the Second World War, some Ukrainians were involved in Nazi activities, not just in the sense of adhering to Nazi ideology or collaborating with it under duress, but in the sense of voluntary and active participation, which was criminally responsible for thousands of deaths. In the context of such a history, an extreme right-wing group that seizes power by force seeks to implement a discriminatory, even racist, policy towards a minority and engages in violent action against it, culminating in civil war, is neo-Nazi if it claims to have been inspired by certain Nazi “heroes” who committed genocidal acts. This definition of the term “neo-Nazi” applies to all “Banderites,” i.e. all those who are inspired by the Nazi criminal Stepan Bandera. In addition to the Azov battalion, the Aïdar battalion, the Kraken regiment, the Right Sector and C-14 groups, as well as political parties such as Svoboda (Freedom) and National Corps belong to this current.
Neo-Nazis and the Maidan coup d’état
Neo-Nazis were directly involved in the Maidan coup in 2014. The Right Sector group was at the forefront, and the coup would never have happened without its active and violent participation in the riots. The militants were a tiny minority compared to the thousands of demonstrators. Nevertheless, the radical extremists played a decisive role in the turn of events.[2]
This group was supported by the neo-Nazi political party Svoboda, led by the anti-Semitic leader Oleh Tyagnibok. In order to inflame tensions and provoke a revolt among the population, all indications are that snipers were targeting the insurgents and then passing off these criminal assaults as acts committed by the police. In a BBC report, journalist Gabriel Gatehouse notes that shots were fired from what turned out to be the Ukraina Hotel. [3] The shooter was on the floor where the Svoboda party headquarters were located.
Ivan Bubenchik, a pro-Maidan activist, admitted to killing police officers on February 20. [4] According to Jacobin magazine, boxes of empty Kalashnikov bullets were found in the Ukraina hotel room occupied by this demonstrator. [5]
The lobby of the Ukraina Hotel was used for wounded demonstrators and the police. The medical authorities confirmed that the bullets found in the bodies of police officers and demonstrators originated from the same source. According to the Christian Science Monitor, this was indeed the conclusion reached by the medical authorities.[6]
Ivan Katchanovski, a political scientist of Ukrainian origin at the University of Ottawa in Canada, estimates that, of the 72 protesters killed during the entire period of confrontation, 48 (two-thirds) were victims of shooters coming from the ranks of the insurgents. [7] Katchanovski has compiled a dossier that leaves little doubt as to the origin of the shootings and the motivation of the perpetrators. In particular, his website contains a dozen videos recounting the events of February 20, 2014. Testimonies from a hundred people can be heard. [8] A particularly disturbing video is also available on YouTube. [9]
A conversation between Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs in 2014, and Urman Paet, Estonian Foreign Minister in 2014, was recorded, confirming the theory of snipers firing on insurgents.[10] Witnesses also confirm this interpretation.[11]
Not to mention the violent direct confrontations with the police that began as early as November 30, 2013, the ploy according to which murders are passed off as crimes committed by the police began long before February 20, 2014. On January 22, Sergei Nigoyan, an Armenian protester, was one of the first to appear at the Maidan site to read a patriotic poem. He was killed early on the morning of January 22, and presented by radical extremists as a victim of the police. The following year, on November 18, 2015, the head of the special investigation unit run by the Prosecutor’s Department, Sergei Gorbatyuk, admitted that Serhiy Nigoyan had been killed by bullets fired from a distance of less than three meters, while the police were at a distance of thirty meters. [12]
Why was it necessary to shoot at demonstrators? In a film produced by Oliver Stone, [13] it is stated that American representatives (including Victoria Nuland) told the demonstrators that, for the revolt to turn into a coup d’état, there had to be a hundred deaths among the demonstrators. Bloodshed generates indignation, followed by accusations against the authorities. Whatever the case, it is clear that neo-Nazis played a decisive role in the Maidan coup.
Andriy Parubiy was at the head of the Maidan revolt movement.[14] He was nicknamed “the commander of Maidan”.[15] In 1991, he had founded a far-right movement, the Social-National Party of Ukraine, with Oleh Tyahnybok among others. During the investigation into the Maidan massacre, some members of the Maidan self-defense company reported that Parubiy had ordered “a bloodbath” during the march to parliament on February 18, 2014.
A decorated heroine of the anti-Russian resistance, Nadiya Savchenko, would later claim to have seen an opposition MP, whom she initially identified as Andriy Parubiy, directing snipers. A few hours later, she changed her story, saying that she had been mistaken about Parubiy and that it was Serhiy Pashinskiy instead. [16]
Parubiy was later elected President of the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament). In a broadcast on the Ukrainian ICTV channel, he was quoted as saying that he had “scientifically studied” democracy and warned his audience “not to forget the contributions of the Führer [Hitler] to the development of democracy”.[17] These remarks reverberated all the way to the Rada. TRC Rudana’s report describes the situation as follows: “The outrageous statement by the President of the Verkhovna Rada has been discussed on social networks for several days. On one of the national TV channels, Andriy Parubiy urged the audience not to forget the Führer’s contribution to the development of democracy. Some see such an intervention as a kind of trolling of the Nazi theorist’s ideas.” [18]
Neo-Nazis in power
The influence of neo-Nazis was also felt as soon as the new authorities took office. A new prime minister, Arseni Yatsenyuk, chosen by the United States (Nuland, who was on site at Maidan, selected him) and, after a transitional presidency, a new president, Petro Poroshenko, soon took office.
To get the full picture of the political forces at play, we need to go back in time. In 1991, Oleh Tyahnybok founded the Freedom (Svoboda) party. This individual ranked 5th in the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation’s list of the top 10 anti-Semites in 2012. [19] As a member of parliament, he put forward motions opposing the introduction of the Russian language as the second official state language and calling for a ban on Communist ideology.
In 2004, he was expelled from the parliamentary group Our Ukraine for having stated on television that Ukraine was under the control of a “Judeo-Moscovite mafia.” Accused of anti-Semitism, he declared during the campaign: “Personally, I have nothing against ordinary Jews. I even have Jewish friends. It’s a group of Jewish oligarchs who control Ukraine, and the Jewish-Bolsheviks, that I have a grudge against.” [20]
A few months before the coup, in 2013, Arseniy Yatsenyuk was leader of the Fatherland party and boxer Vitali Klitschko led the UDAR party. They formed an opposition troika with Oleh Tyahnybok, who was still the leader of the Freedom (Svoboda) party. The day after his appointment on February 22, 2014, the Yatsenyuk government initiated a legislative intervention that put an end to the collective rights of the country’s Russian-speaking minority. The Ukrainian parliament voted to abolish the law of July 3, 2012, which recognized the Russian language in regions where the Russian ethnic minority was dominant.[21] Following secessionist reactions from the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts, President Poroshenko repealed the new law, but Law 3 of 2012 was declared unconstitutional on February 28, 2018. A new, highly restrictive law on the use of the Russian language was adopted on April 25, 2019, signed by President Poroshenko on May 15 of the same year, and declared constitutional on July 14, 2021.
If While Yatsenyuk became Prime Minister, Vitali Klitschko assumed the office of Mayor of Kiev and the Svoboda party obtained several government posts: Deputy Prime Minister (Oleksandr Sych), Prosecutor General (Oleh Makhnitsky), Minister of Education (Serhiy Kvit), Minister of Agriculture (Ihor Shvaiko), Minister of Ecology (Andriy Makhnyk). [22] As a recent member of the Fatherland party, Andriy Parubiy, the Maidan commander, also joined the government. He was the founder in 1991 of a far-right movement, the Social-National Party of Ukraine, with Oleh Tyahnybok, among others. It has already been mentioned that on February 27, 2014, he was appointed Secretary of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine. British political scientist Richard Sakwa of Kent University called Parubiy’s appointment “astonishing.” [23] His deputy is the head of the Right Sector organization, Dmytro Yarosh. The latter founded the Trident organization in 1994, inspired by the ideology of Stepan Bandera. In April 2013, Yarosh became an assistant to a member of the opposition UDAR party. Later in 2013, he became the leader of Right Sector, and was elected as a member of parliament between 2014 and 2019. Later he will lead an army of ultra-nationalist warriors in the Donbass. Yarosh, Parubiy and the other Svoboda deputies form an extreme right-wing movement. They are hard-line Banderists. For Victoria Nuland, “Yats is the right man” for the post of prime minister, but Tyahnybok must be left aside, no doubt so that the racist nature of the regime does not appear too openly.
The BBC report also mentions the C-14 group, which is said to have around 200 members, but is closely linked to the Svoboda political party. Two members of this party were photographed displaying far-right numerology: 8 8, referring to two words beginning with the 8th letter of the alphabet: Heil Hitler. [24]
The new Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, is another Banderist. He trained and armed the Azov battalion which displays neo-Nazi symbols. Another 2014 BBC report on this battalion points out that Andriy Biletsky, Rada deputy and leader of the far-right group National Corps, is also the leader of the Azov battalion. Biletsky is a Banderist who is said to have expressed racist and anti-Semitic views in the past. He is quoted as saying that “the destiny of the Ukrainian nation is to be in the vanguard in the holy war of the white race against the sub-human world run by Semites”.[25] His assistant is Ihor Mosiychuk, also a Rada deputy. The aims of the National Corps organization are set out in its online publication:
— to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and fight for the liberation of the entire white race from the domination of internationalist speculative capital.
— to severely punish sexual perversions and any interracial contact that lead to the extinction of the white man.
In the autumn 2014 elections, the Svoboda party failed to win 5% of the vote. All four ministers resigned for this reason. [26] The Right Sector won just 2% of the vote in the 2014 elections, but in 2015 it was gaining in popularity. [27] Nonetheless, it’s clear that those running Ukraine at this time were not in tune with the population.
As of December 2014, 160,000 people living in the east of the country lost access to their pension income. In 2016, another 400,000 people were deprived of this income. In 2018, the situation was no better. The national militia, made up of far-right members of Azov, had permission to patrol the city of Kiev. Vadim Troyan, who was a high-ranking member of the Azov battalion, was granted the responsibility of chief of police of the Kiev region by Minister Arsen Avakov. [28]
In an article Time magazine reported, that “Azov’s main recruitment center, known as Cossack House, is located in the center of Kyiv, a four-story brick building on loan from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. (…) On the first floor is a store called Militant Zone, which sells clothes and keyrings with stylized swastikas and other neo-Nazi merchandise.” [29]
What about the presidency? In 2004, elections were held between Viktor Yanukovich and candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Under the impetus of the “Orange Revolution,” clearly supported by the West, the electoral result favored Yushchenko. His reforms were unsuccessful but, before leaving power, he named Stepan Bandera a hero of Ukraine.[30]
Then, in a TV broadcast in December 2014, it was reported that President Poro Poroshenko had offered a Ukrainian passport to a neo-Nazi from Belarus, named Korotkykh. This national, who was granted citizenship by President Poroshenko, became a member of the Azov group.[31]
Neo-Nazis in the civil war
Some of the members of Right Sector claim to be inspired by “certain elements” of German National Socialism, including the idea of a nation purified (“clean nation”) which would leave it up to Russian speakers to leave Ukraine, so that only Ukrainians would be citizens. [32] The Right Sector group seems to have had a real influence on the course of events. The documentary directed by Igor Lopatonok and produced by Oliver Stone (Ukraine on Fire) is highly instructive and damning. [33]
An anti-Maidan revolt broke out in Odessa. On May 2, 2014, the House of the Customs Union was the scene of a tragedy. On the occasion of the football qualifications, a crowd of supporters of the Maidan “revolution” who were members of radical groups arrived in the city of Odessa. They made their way to the tents set up next to the Customs Union’s House, where Russophone speakers opposed to the coup had gathered. The arrival of armed radicals forced the people in the tents to take refuge in the House. A fire was set. Around fifty men, women and children protesting the Maidan events were burned alive. A few days before the tragedy, Andriy Parubiy had been seen in Odessa with someone who was at the scene of the tragedy on May 2nd. The Right Sector web page described the event as a source of pride for Ukraine. [34]
Far-right militias joined forces with the regular Ukrainian army to subdue the Russian population in the East, which was reacting very badly to the government’s Russophobic policies. By the summer of 2014, civil war had begun and the Azov group was rapidly integrated into the regular army. [35]
In November 2014, according to Michael Colborne, the Azov battalion was composed of only 800 members.[36] The Al Jazeera news network reported that there were 900 active members. [37] Al Jazeera also reported on the training of civilians by the Azov battalion. The latter group is financed by the oligarch Igor Kolomoysky. The paper concluded by reporting an article from The Nation [38] in which it is was pointed out that Ukraine was the only place in the world where the army included neo-Nazi militants.[39] In addition to the Newsweek and The Nation articles, USA Today also mentioned the fact. [40]
In fact, the Azov battalion is just one part of the Azov group. It also includes non-combatant militants, a presence in the political arena, a publishing house, summer camps for children, a youth wing and a national militia that patrols the streets in addition to the police. The Azov group had an arsenal of weapons, drones, armed vehicles and artillery. [41] According to The Hill, the Azov battalion had 3,000 members in 2017. [42] And the Azov group was just one among thirty others. [43] For example, Right Sector claimed to be made up of two or three thousand men. [44]
Several studies have documented in detail the role of Western countries, including Canada and the United States, in the formation of far-right groups. [45] Such formation was still in force in 2021. The Ottawa Citizen argued that Canada was training Nazi-oriented Ukrainian military personnel. Reporter David Pugliese wrote that “Canadian officials who met with a Ukrainian unit linked to neo-Nazis feared media exposure.” [46] Fully informed in 2017 of its Nazi ideology, Canadian officials only cared that these meetings remain secret. These facts were exposed only when Azov bragged about them on social media. [47]
A study by Professor Oleksiy Kuzmenko also deserves mention. Since 2018, Ukraine’s National Army Academy has welcomed the Centuria group into its ranks. Members of the group boasted that in 2021 they received training from France, the UK, Canada, Germany, Poland and the USA. [48] The group has close ties with the Azov group.
The United States was even forced to pass a resolution in 2018 to ensure that military aid to Ukraine did not fall into the hands of the neo-Nazi group Azov. [49] In the House of Representatives, however, they still refused to designate the Azov battalion as a terrorist organization. Max Rose in October 2019, and then Elissa Slotkin in April 2021, failed in their attempt to have this designation ratified. [50] Slotkin made the case to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to no avail. She wrote: “The Azov Battalion, a well-known militia in Ukraine, uses the Internet to recruit new members, then radicalizes them to resort to violence in order to pursue its white identity political agenda.” [51]
In a document examining the Azov Battalion‘s recruitment methods, we read that 40 members of Congress also signed a letter asking—unsuccessfully—the U.S. State Department to designate Azov as a foreign terrorist organization. “Azov has been recruiting, radicalizing and training American citizens for years,” the letter states. FBI Director Christopher Wray later confirmed in testimony before the U.S. Senate that American white supremacists “do travel abroad for training”.[52]
Before 2022, the Western media, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, the Telegraph and Reuters, emphasized the neo-Nazi character of the Azov Battalion. [53] Radio Free Europe (RFE) also reported that 20,000 people marched in honor of the army of Ukrainian insurgents who had carried out ethnic cleansing during the Second World War, killing tens of thousands of Poles. The rehabilitation of neo-Nazi movements has been denounced by numerous Jewish organizations such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, Yad Vashem and the World Jewish Congress. [54]
Since the war began, the neo-Nazis seemed to have all disappeared. They were no longer mentioned. They were a minority, of course, because the vast majority of the Ukrainian people wanted peace and voted for Zelensky in the hope that he would be faithful to his program of achieving it.
Zelensky Enters the Scene
In 2019, it became clear just how much the regime was still in the grip of the Banderist minority. [55] Zelensky did not implement the Minsk agreements, which would have restored the legality of the Russian language in the public sphere and restored old-age pensions for people from the Donbass. He was elected to bring about peace, but soon became associated with the neo-Nazi group Azov. Igor Kolomoysky, who financed and supported his campaign, also financed the Azov group. In fact, Zelensky appeared before the Greek National Assembly with a member of the Azov group. Deputies from the Syrisa political party stood up and left the room in protest. [56] Zelensky also declared Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo a hero of Ukraine.
Stepan Bandera is a hero in his homeland, and marches are held in his honor every January 1, his birthday. According to Zelensky, “that’s normal, that’s cool.” [57] This was still the case in 2022. [58] Thus, on the occasion of the demonstration in Bandera’s favor on January 1, 2022, Andriy Tarasenko, leader of the nationalist Right Sector party, declared: “Today, when there is a war with the occupier on the front and the fight against the ‘fifth column’ continues in the rear, we remember and honor the memory of Stepan Bandera”.[59] The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany refused to denounce Bandera on German television, which shows the official attitude towards him. [60]
Zelensky has been led to ban political parties he deems “pro-Russian” and to ban TV channels that oppose him. He has even considered the possibility of not holding the presidential election scheduled for 2024. For its part, the United States wants this election, partly to substantiate the idea that Ukraine is a “democracy”, partly to have the possibility of removing Zelensky by way of the electoral process, the man having become the symbol of the bankruptcy of their entire Ukrainian policy.
Clearly a tiny minority of neo-Nazis, strongly supported by the West, has dragged an entire country into a conflict with Russia. This conflict is a product of a long-standing Russophobia, combined with an alignment with NATO, a military alliance hostile to Russia. Zelensky himself has been swept along with the tide, despite his initial apparently good intentions, officially announced in order to be elected in 2019. Ukrainian nationalism is legitimate, but the Banderists have hijacked it and made good neighborliness with Russia and recognition of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine impossible, hence the civil war engaged since 2014 and the refusal to implement the Minsk agreements. The United States took advantage of the existence of these neo-Nazis to fan the flames of conflict in order to weaken Russia. The problem escalated to the point where Russia launched a special military operation with the aim of preventing the installation of NATO on its southern border, imposing neutrality on Ukraine, putting an end to the oppression of Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens as well as demilitarizing and denazifying the country.[61]
Available data increasingly confirms the instrumentalization of Ukraine by the U.S. As early as 2015, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff alluded to the usefulness of fighting Russia in Ukraine instead of having to do so in the U.S. (“United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there as a way not to fight Russia over here). [62] Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted that the U.S. was seeking to weaken Russia (“weakening Russia… inflicting to Russia a bloody nose”). [63] American aid to Ukraine, according to Senator Lindsay Graham, is a fight that must be fought “to the last Ukrainian”. [64] Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, for his part, recognized it straight away: the United States is waging a “proxy war” in Ukraine. [65] There is even on Youtube a clip in which Hillary Clinton draws a comparison between the American strategy in Afghanistan which served to weaken the Russians and that which was currently underway in Ukraine. [66] According to her, the Americans used the Mujahideen to fight Russia in Afghanistan and now they are using the Ukrainians to fight the Russians. This Afghanistan-Ukraine analogy underpins U.S. strategy in the Ukraine conflict.
The instrumentalization of the Ukrainian people at the instigation of the neocons does not only boil down to the idea of a proxy war. It is coupled with absolute insensitivity towards the Ukrainian people. Oliver North described the situation as involving “their blood and our bullets”.[67] Retired General Keith Kellog, advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, said the U.S. war against Russia was an acme of professionalism. Using Ukraine to fight Russia “takes a strategic adversary off the table” without using American troops. This made it possible to then focus on the most important adversary, China. [68] Lindsay Graham considers that the hundred billion dollars granted to Ukraine to kill Russians is the best investment in military spending ever made by the United States. [69] Republican Senator Mitt Romney candidly repeated the same message. [70] This transparency is also that of Bill Kristol, a notorious neocon.[71]
The Americans are engaged in a proxy war that has brought Ukraine to the brink of the abyss. For the neocons, spending more than $110 billion is a profitable investment because it offers the hope of weakening Russia without loss of American soldiers. It does not matter if it causes more than 500,000 people to die. This monumental disaster is the pure product of a convergence of interests between a neo-Nazi minority and the U.S. establishment. Moreover, the United States and Ukraine voted against the UN resolution of December 16, 2021 aimed at condemning Nazism. With 130 votes in favor, 2 against (Ukraine, United States) and 49 abstentions, the Assembly 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.” [72] The two voted the same way again on March 16, 2022. [73] The U.S. has opposed resolutions condemning Nazism ever since they were submitted in 2005.
Conclusion
The influence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine far exceeds their importance in numbers. Although relatively few in number, they played a key role in the overthrow of the regime in 2014 (Right Sector), in the policies immediately following the “election” of “Yats” and in the civil war in Donbass. Under their influence, it was impossible to implement the Minsk agreements and, for Zelensky, to fulfill his promise to restore peace.
The unavoidable reality is that the Zelensky regime is the poster child of this neo-Nazi movement.[74] It is a tiny minority of Ukrainian society, but it has political and military control, and it sets the tone for the country’s politics. By triggering a civil war in 2014 and placing Ukraine at the disposal of NATO, it inflicted on the Ukrainian people a devastating conflict, fueled by the United States and by the NATO alliance. The Ukrainian people voted for peace and reconciliation, but the authorities in Kyiv and Washington decided otherwise.
Notes:
[1] David Pugliese, “Chrystia Freeland’s Granddad was indeed a Nazi Collaborator. So much for Russian Disinformation,” Ottawa Citizen, 8 mars, 2017. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation; See also https://web.archive.org/web/20230117135823/https:/www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-knew-her-grandfather-was-editor-of-nazi-newspaper/article34236881/ and https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/
[2] Serhiv Kudelia, “When Numbers Are Not Enough: The Strategic Use of Violence in Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 50, No. 4 (July 2018), pp. 501-521
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26532701
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg3R_BSz0Cc&ab_channel=BBCNewsnight
[4] https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/26/he-killed-for-the-maidan/
[5] https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
[6] https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2014/0308/Kiev-snipers-Who-was-behind-them
[7] https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-hidden-origin-of-the-escalating-ukraine-russia-conflict
[8] https://uottawa.academia.edu/IvanKatchanovski/Videos
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIN3X4VrZBk&ab_channel=InfoQuiderange
[10] See the YouTube account of Michael Bergman “Breaking: Estonian Foreign Minister Urman Paet and Catherine Ashton discuss Ukraine over the phone,” at 8 minutes 24 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEgJ0oo3OA8&ab_channel=MichaelBergman
[11] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1qnu74
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidan_casualties
[13] Revealing Ukraine, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhu3lfgHhCI&t=616s&ab_channel=GlobalTreePictures
[14] https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Who_was_the_Maidan_sniper_mastermind%3F
[15] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/27/ukraine-opposition-parubiy/5844437/
[16] https://apnews.com/article/fb5fc2541be942a68f8031033e7ca3ff
[17] Ben Chacko, “Ukrainian speaker Andriy Parubiy slammed for praising Hitler as history’s ‘greatest democrat’,” Morning Star, 5 septembre 2018.
[18] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhZSQuE-K2E&ab_channel=%D0%A2%D0%A0%D0%9A%D0%A0%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0
[19] Jerusalem Post, https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/wiesenthal-ranks-top-10-anti-semites-israel-haters
[20] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Tyahnybok
[21] https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/43862/
[22] https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/13/the-scary-side-of-the-ukraine-troika/
[23] https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/partnering-neo-nazis-ukraine-history/
[24] BBC—Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT (2014): https://youtu.be/5SBo0akeDMY
[25] BBC—Ukraine: On patrol with the far-right National Militia—BBC Newsnight (2018): https://youtu.be/hE6b4ao8gAQ ; Jason Melanovski, “UN report documents massive attacks on democratic rights in Ukraine,” World Socialist Web Site, 19 December 2021:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/20/ukra-d20.html
[26] https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/234059.html
[27] BBC—The far-right group threatening to overthrow Ukraine’s government—Newsnight (2015): https://youtu.be/sEKQsnRGv7s
[28] BBC—Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict (2014): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe…
[29] https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/
[30] Ukraine under Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcmNGvaDUs&ab_channel=GlobalTreePictures
[31] BBC—Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict, op. cit.
[32] BBC—Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT (2014): https://youtu.be/5SBo0akeDMY
[33] Ukraine under Fire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcmNGvaDUs&ab_channel=GlobalTreePictures
[34] Ukraine under Fire, ibidem
[35] https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/partnering-neo-nazis-ukraine-history/
[36] Michael Colborne, From the Fires of War: Ukraine’s Azov Movement and the Global Far Right, Analyzing Political Violence, Book 2, p. 33.
[37] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
[38] https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
[39] Al Jazeera, op. cit.
[40] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/10/ukraine-azov-brigade-nazis-abuses-separatists/24664937/
[41] https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/
[42] The Hill—The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda (2017): https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality-of-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-is-far-from-kremlin-propaganda/
[43] Damien Sharkov, “Patriot of Ukraine, Right Sector and White Hammer. Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing ‘ISIS-Style’ War Crimes”
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604
[44] BBC—The far-right group threatening to overthrow Ukraine’s government—Newsnight (2015): https://youtu.be/sEKQsnRGv7s
[45] Jim Naureckas, “Denying the Far-Right Role in the Ukrainian Revolution,” FAIR, MARCH 7, 2014 https://fair.org/home/denying-the-far-right-role-in-the-ukrainian-revolution/ . See also Will Cathcart & Joseph Epstein, Is America Training Neonazis in Ukraine? Officially no, but no one in the U.S. government seems to know for sure, Updated Dec. 08, 2019
https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-america-training-neonazis-in-ukraine
[46] David Pugliese, “A year before the meeting, Canada’s Joint Task Force Ukraine produced a briefing on the Azov Battalion, acknowledging its links to Nazi ideology,” Ottawa Citizen, Nov 08, 2021:
[47] James Clayton, “Canadian Armed Forces providing military training to Ukrainian neo-Nazis,”
World Socialist Web Site, 2 December 2021: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/03/uknz-d03.html
[48] Oleksiy Kuzmenko, “Far-Right Group Made Its Home in Ukraine’s Major Western Military Training Hub,” IERES Occasional Papers, no. 11, September 2021 Transnational History of the Far Right Series
https://www.illiberalism.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IERES-Papers-no-11-September-2021-FINAL.pdf
[49] The 2021 budget indicated in provision 9015 : “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.”
. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/133/text
[50] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
[51] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/20615179/rep-slotkin-letter-on-foreign-terrorist-orgs.pdf
[52] Simon Shuster and Billy Perrigo, “Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members,” TIME MAGAZINE, Jan. 7, 2021,
https://time.com/5926750/azov-far-right-movement-facebook/
[53] Lev Golinkin, “The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda,” The Hill, 2017: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality-of-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-is-far-from-kremlin-propaganda/
[55] Lev Golinkin, “Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine. Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant,” The Nation, February 22, 2019:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
[56] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0tAWaNEhU8
[57] https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/partnering-neo-nazis-ukraine-history/
[58] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db0VQSPE9t0&ab_channel=APArchive
[59] https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-of-ukrainian-nationalists-march-in-in-honor-of-nazi-collaborator/
[60] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaGmeKvxY9c&ab_channel=DjukiSan
[61] “Profile: Who are Ukraine’s far-right Azov regiment? The far-right neo-Nazi group has expanded to become part of Ukraine’s armed forces, a street militia and a political party,” Aljazeera, Published On 1 Mar 2022:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
[62] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d4rcoPulY4&ab_channel=UsefulIdiots
[63] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/25/russia-weakened-lloyd-austin-ukraine-visit/?fbclid=IwAR1-OUjDwlU6GYURvq75kCumRsvBUZmR2psrnS-CcDSNoPKX6erYyQ3WE90
[64] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJvXqtYdJqk&ab_channel=UsefulIdiots
[65] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWu7cPPVv0&ab_channel=BloombergPolitics
[66] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUu4vVYa9aE&ab_channel=numuves
[67] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tsg0MTZv2A&ab_channel=AMontanaCitizen
[68] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N51j1XN0y64&ab_channel=WorldPolitics
[69] https://morganton.com/news/lindsey-graham-russians-are-dying-best-money-weve-spent/video_be53de64-9d16-5656-ba0f-2e7f56f46426.html
[70] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXJJw9MV-ak&t=6s&ab_channel=SenatorMittRomney
[71] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Ne6QL3M3M&ab_channel=CaitlinJohnstone
[72] https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3954148?ln=fr#record-files-collapse-header . See also the reaction of the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray : “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,” Consortium News, December 23, 2021:
[73] https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2022/03/17/pourquoi-ukraine-et-etats-unis-n-ont-pas-vote-la-resolution-de-l-onu-condamnant-le-nazisme_6117956_4355770.html
[74] https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/