neo-nazism

“[If the] root cause of the current crisis was post-Soviet Western triumphalism that resulted in the rapid and inexorable growth of NATO and the EU, then current NATO deployments all over eastern Europe will confirm for even previously sceptical Russians that the 20-year old complaint about NATO expansion was a prescient one.

See also: Steven Seagal plays at concert for pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine, 10 August in the Guardian. This article is republished from Global Research article of 11 August. The New York Times article linked to below is here. - Ed

The New York Times reported almost in passing on Sunday that the Ukrainian government's offensive against ethnic Russian rebels in the east has unleashed far-right paramilitary militias that have even raised a neo-Nazi banner over the conquered town of Marinka, just west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

That might seem like a big story – a U.S.-backed military operation, which has inflicted thousands of mostly civilian casualties, is being spearheaded by neo-Nazis. But the consistent pattern of the mainstream U.S. news media has been – since the start of the Ukraine crisis – to white-out the role of Ukraine's brown-shirts.

Only occasionally is the word "neo-Nazi" mentioned and usually in the context of dismissing this inconvenient truth as "Russian propaganda." Yet the reality has been that neo-Nazis played a key role in the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February as well as in the subsequent coup regime holding power in Kiev and now in the eastern offensive.

On Sunday, a Times article by Andrew E. Kramer mentioned the emerging neo-Nazi paramilitary role in the final three paragraphs:

"The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat.

"Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.

"In pressing their advance, the fighters took their orders from a local army commander, rather than from Kiev. In the video of the attack, no restraint was evident. Gesturing toward a suspected pro-Russian position, one soldier screamed, 'The bastards are right there!' Then he opened fire."

In other words, the neo-Nazi militias that surged to the front of anti-Yanukovych protests last February have now been organized as shock troops dispatched to kill ethnic Russians in the east – and they are operating so openly that they hoist a Swastika-like neo-Nazi flag over one conquered village with a population of about 10,000.

Burying this information at the end of a long article is also typical of how the Times and other U.S. mainstream news outlets have dealt with the neo-Nazi problem in the past. When the reality gets mentioned, it usually requires a reader knowing much about Ukraine's history and reading between the lines of a U.S. news account.

For instance, last April 6, the New York Times published a human-interest profile of a Ukrainian nationalist named Yuri Marchuk who was wounded in the uprising against Yanukovych in February. If you read deep into the story, you learn that Marchuk was a leader of the right-wing Svoboda from Lviv, which – if you did your own research – you would discover is a neo-Nazi stronghold where Ukrainian nationalists hold torch-light parades in honor of World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

Without providing that context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government arsenal and dispatched 600 militants a day to Kiev's Maidan square to do battle with the police. Marchuk also described how these well-organized militants, consisting of paramilitary brigades of 100 fighters each, launched the fateful attack against the police on Feb. 20, the battle where Marchuk was wounded and where the death toll suddenly spiked into scores of protesters and about a dozen police.

Marchuk later said he visited his comrades at the occupied City Hall. What the Times doesn't mention is that City Hall was festooned with Nazi banners and even a Confederate battle flag as a tribute to white supremacy.

The Times touched on the inconvenient neo-Nazi truth again on April 12 in an article about the mysterious death of neo-Nazi leader Oleksandr Muzychko, who was killed during a shootout with police on March 24. The article quoted a local Right Sektor leader, Roman Koval, explaining the crucial role of his organization in carrying out the anti-Yanukovych coup.

"Ukraine's February revolution, said Mr. Koval, would never have happened without Right Sector and other militant groups," the Times wrote.

Burning Insects

The brutality of these neo-Nazis surfaced again on May 2 when right-wing toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a trade union building which was then set on fire with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.

"Burn, Colorado, burn" went the chant.

As the fire worsened, those dying inside were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building also was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading "Galician SS," a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist army that fought alongside the German Nazi SS in World War II, killing Russians on the eastern front.

The death by fire of dozens of people in Odessa recalled a World War II incident in 1944 when elements of a Galician SS police regiment took part in the massacre of the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka, which had been a refuge for Jews and was protected by Russian and Polish partisans. Attacked by a mixed force of Ukrainian police and German soldiers on Feb. 28, 1944, hundreds of townspeople were massacred, including many locked in barns that were set ablaze.

The legacy of World War II – especially the bitter fight between Ukrainian nationalists from the west and ethnic Russians from the east seven decades ago – is never far from the surface in Ukrainian politics. One of the heroes celebrated during the Maidan protests in Kiev was Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose name was honored in many banners including one on a podium where Sen. John McCain voiced support for the uprising to oust Yanukovych, whose political base was among ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.

During World War II, Bandera headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B, a radical paramilitary movement that sought to transform Ukraine into a racially pure state. OUN-B took part in the expulsion and extermination of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Though most of the Maidan protesters in 2013-14 appeared motivated by anger over political corruption and by a desire to join the European Union, neo-Nazis made up a significant number and surged to the front during the seizure of government buildings and the climatic clashes with police.

In the days after the Feb. 22 coup, as the neo-Nazi militias effectively controlled the government, European and U.S. diplomats scrambled to help the shaken parliament put together the semblance of a respectable regime, although at least four ministries (YouTube video embedded below - Ed), including national security, were awarded to the right-wing extremists in recognition of their crucial role in ousting Yanukovych.

As extraordinary as it was for a modern European state to hand ministries over to neo-Nazis, virtually the entire U.S. news media cooperated in playing down the neo-Nazi role. Stories in the U.S. media delicately step around this neo-Nazi reality by keeping out relevant context, such as the background of coup regime's national security chief Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, blending radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy was commandant of the Maidan's "self-defense forces."

Last April, as the Kiev regime launched its "anti-terrorist operation" against the ethnic Russians in the east, Parubiy announced that his right-wing paramilitary forces, incorporated as National Guard units, would lead the way. On April 15, Parubiy went on Twitter to declare, "Reserve unit of National Guard formed #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning." (Parubiy resigned from his post this past week for unexplained reasons.)

Now, however, as the Ukrainian military tightens its noose around the remaining rebel strongholds, battering them with artillery fire and aerial bombardments, thousands of neo-Nazi militia members are again pressing to the front as fiercely motivated fighters determined to kill as many ethnic Russians as they can. It is a remarkable story but one that the mainstream U.S. news media would prefer not to notice.

BBC Newsnight video "Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine"

The video below is undated, but was propbably made in late February 2014 shortly after the coup of 22 February.

Despite clear evidence available to any internet user as eye-witness film of pro-Kiev radical junta supporters (called the 'Kiev Government' by western press) setting Odessa’s Trade Union headquarters ablaze after they had blocked the exit, and beating up people who managed to get out, and shooting at the people from the anti-government tent camp who barricaded themselves inside the building, most Western mainstream media is pretending they do not know what actually happened in this Western-backed atrocity. Are they counting on our misplaced respect for mainstream media authority to make us close our eyes? [Candobetter editor's note: Thank you to an alert reader who pointed out the artist's careless mistake in mistaking the Swedish flag for the Ukraine flag, in the illustration. This has been rectified.]

Look at the film below, which is footage of the event. It is really easy to see that people are hurling molotov cocktails and hanging about doing nothing to save the people whom they have barricaded inside the building to which they have set fire. The building has been peacefully occupied by anti-junta people for days, so there is no doubt as to who was targeting whom. The burning remains of a tent they torched outside are also visible. There have also been remarks that police failed to attend when called.

Today's Australian Associate Press (AAP) articles as interpreted by the Fairfax Press and Murdoch organs which own AAP seem to be actively covering up this war-crime. Is it the editors at AAP and the Fairfax Press who are doing the covering up or is this the way that the journalist authors, Michel Moutot and Max Delany, actually reported things in their syndicated article, "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"?[1]

Here is an extract:

'Thousands of pro-Russian protesters have attacked Odessa's police headquarters just days after deadly clashes and a fire there killed dozens of their comrades in what Kiev claimed was a Russian plot to "destroy Ukraine".

Candobetter.net criticism: The vague reference to 'deadly clashes': 'Clash' implies a meeting of equal forces and begs the question of a wholesale atrocity committed by organised forces. Yes, the attack on the union building happened after fights between football-match attenders, but it was much more than street fighting). "Fire there killed dozens of their comrades" allows the confused reader to think that the people fighting for democracy against the junta actually set fire to their own. Use of 'comrades' is probably a gratuitously inflammatory term given the extreme corporate nature of AAP, although the term is current in Ukraine. The uncritical reporting that "Kiev claimed [it] was a Russian plot to destroy Ukraine" fails to reveal that NATO forces are effectively trying to isolate Russia, which is thus at risk of having supplies of food and fuels cut off if they succeed. This is like chaining a bear with its back to the wall and setting some mad dogs on it. What do we expect the bear to do?

AAP's reporting bias here is particularly flagrant in the light that other western media have at least reported what Blind Freddy would say was too obvious to deny:

The Washington Post in "Ukraine suffers deadliest day in months; 34 killed in Odessa" [2] has reported that

"Asked who had thrown the molotov cocktails, pro-Ukrainian activist Diana Berg said, “Our people — but now they are helping them to escape the building.”

The Washington Post also gives more balanced detail of events, reporting that,

"Friday evening, a pro-Ukrainian mob attacked a camp where the pro-Russian supporters had pitched tents, forcing them to flee to a nearby government building, a witness said. The mob then threw gasoline bombs into the building. Police said 31 people were killed when they choked on smoke or jumped out of windows.

In contrast, the AAP sourced article seems soaked in bias:

'The unrest in the southern port city on Sunday threatened a new front in the Ukrainian government's battle against pro-Moscow militants, with an expanded military operation under way in the east against gunmen holding more than a dozen towns.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia was executing a plan "to destroy Ukraine and its statehood".'

The article elevates the leader of the Kiev junta into a respectful authority by referring to him only as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, never mentioning how he gained his position from a violent coup that caused the elected PM to flee and ask Russia for help and which keeps disorder through the use of Nazis.

Frightening Nazi marchers in Kiev

(In a separate article I will be putting up this full length documentary on the Nazi militia in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8-RyOaFwcEw)

'Unrest' is a weasle-word for what is happening in Ukraine. Using the term 'Ukranian government' without qualifications as to its illegitimate origins, and then applying the term 'militants' and gunmen to the ordinary citizens who are asserting their democratic rights against real live Nazis is inexplicable except if AAP intends somehow to benefit from this coup. The 'pro-Russian' adjective is also probably inaccurate for these people, who may not necessarily be pro-Russian, but are against fascism. The Washington Post's use of the term 'mob' for the junta activists is better chosen. Why can't the AAP use the anti-junta civilians term for the brave citizens they have chosen to defend their towns as 'self-defence forces' ?

Why occupy the Union building?

What were pro-democracy, anti-junta people doing holed up in the Union building in Odessa? In many towns in Ukraine ordinary people have taken over government buildings in order to fight what is an obvious foreign-backed, Neo-Nazi facilitated coup.

Ukraine, especially in the East, is highly industrialised and unionised. This is a reason for their being well-informed and for their solidarity. They are workers and the union headquarters are the most obvious place for working people to demonstrate their position vis a vis a junta. The union buildings are also a good symbolic choice to demonstrate as citizens defending their rights rather than as a military force.

NOTES

[1] Source of quotes from Michel Moutot and Max Delany's article were: The Sydney Morning Herald: "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"and The Age: "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"

[2] Simon Denyer and Anna Nemtsova, Ukraine suffers deadliest day in months; 34 killed in Odessa, Washington Post May 2. The Washington Post is owned by Nash Holdings which is owned by Jeff Bezos see: Jeff Bezos

Polish media outlet Nie has published a bombshell account about direct Polish involvement in Ukraine's destabilization. Its source alleges that the Polish Foreign Ministry had invited Ukrainian militants into the country and trained them outside of Warsaw in September 2013.

Considering the destructive actions and fatalities they would later be responsible for during the EuroMaidan riots, such a connection would directly link Warsaw to the pandemonium. It would also implicate Poland in being the "Slavic Turkey" of NATO in Eastern Europe. The impact of Nie's reporting can also affect domestic Polish politics, as it would prove that the political elite misled members of Parliament, which could later have direct political repercussions for Tusk's "Civil Platform". This scandal serves to highlight that Poland is starting to emulate the methods of its invited neo-colonial headmaster, the US, thereby deepening the puppet-master relationship between Warsaw and Washington.

According to the report, 86 Euromaidan militants, some of whom appeared to be over 40 years old, came to Poland under the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The pretext for plausible deniability was that they were in the country to promote cooperation between the Warsaw University of Technology and the National Technical University in Kiev. In reality, however, these individuals were whisked away to Legionowo, a town on the outskirts of Warsaw. There, at the police training center, they spent four weeks engaged in a regiment of destabilization training.

Polish police academy "students" beating Berkut officer on Euromaidan in Kiev, January 2014.

The source goes on to state that pictures of the participants show them clothed in Nazi regalia and tattoos, with their Polish military instructors lacking any outward identification as such. At the facility, militants learned the following techniques: crowd management; target identification; tactics; leadership; behavioural management under stressful conditions; protection against police gasses; building barricades; and importantly, they engaged in shooting classes, which incidentally included sniper rifles. Quite clearly, the "students" who came to Warsaw were there for war, not academic work, and their training there resulted in the christening of Bandera's spiritual descendants.

These revelations underline how the EuroMaidan militants had prior Western-backed training, and that Poland was chosen as the location for their instruction. Through its direct involvement and support in training the radicals, Poland is quickly living up to its reputation as NATO's most important frontline state. When the Polish Sejm voted in early December, 2013 to show its "full solidarity with the citizens of Ukraine, who with great determination show the world their desire to ensure their country's full membership in the EU", little did they know that the violent vanguard which had just days before thrown Molotov cocktails and attacked police officers likely acquired their tactics less than an hour's drive from where they casted their vote. Most members of parliament likely did not have a clue that their government was training those violent elements and would be shocked to know that this was the case.

The ultimate irony is that Poland is training fighters who honor a man that glorified in ethnically cleansing Poles from Ukraine in the most horrendous ways imaginable during World War II. For all of its blaring patriotism and nationalist sentiment, the Polish government is actually working against its long-term interests by backing such radical anti-Polish elements right next door.

This "Bandera Brinksmanship" reminds one of the US' foreign policy mentality of allying with and building dangerous radical forces that may later come back to harm them (i.e. Al Qaeda in the Soviet's Afghan conflict and the Libyan and Syrian-based international jihadis of today). Through its greedy and nationalistically minded cooperation with the US in seeking to de-facto resurrect the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland has abandoned its European principles and blindly set itself on becoming America's bulldog in Eastern Europe.

Andrew Korybko is the American Master's Degree student at the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO).