De VS
subsidieert neo-nazi’s in Oekraïne, neonazi’s die ook neonazi’s uit de VS
trainen…… Waar bronnen in het Pentagon toegeven ‘het mogelijk te achten’ dat militaire adviseurs van de VS leden van het neonazi-bataljon Azov hebben getraind (en waarschijnlijk nog trainen) in Oekraïne…… Ofwel de VS traint indirect de neonazi’s in eigen land…….
De FBI
heeft 4 neonazi’s (eufemistisch ‘white supremacists’ genoemd) van de Rise Above Movement
(RAM) aangeklaagd die werden getraind door het Oekraïense Azov
bataljon, een neonazi militie die officieel deel uitmaakt van de
Oekraïense nationale garde (o.a. onder de verkorting ‘Azan’), een bataljon dat ook als legeronderdeel
vecht in Oost-Oekraïne, vechtend tegen de burgers die zich terecht verzetten
tegen de neonazi-junta van Porosjenko, de zogenaamde president van
Oekraïne…… Voorts zitten er vrijwilligers uit o.a. uit de VS, Brazilië, Polen en Frankrijk in het neonazi-bataljon in Oost-Oekraïne…. (eerder was er al sprake van Nederlandse motorkleuters van de ‘Hells Angels’, of soortgelijke suffe brommerjongens, die mee zouden vechten aan de kant van de neonazi’s in Oost-Oekraïne….)
Het is overigens niet voor het eerst dat de VS samenwerkt met (neo-) nazi’s, begin 50er jaren gebruikte de VS ex-nazi collaborateurs uit o.a. Oekraïne in de strijd tegen het communisme, tijdens de destijds al bestaande Koude Oorlog…….
Onbegrijpelijk dat de EU, de NAVO en de VS (al is dat uiteindelijk de baas van de NAVO) Oekraïne steunen, men moet overal in het westen weten, dat de uiterst corrupte juntaleider Porosjenko* in feite een neonazi is……. Dezelfde Porosjenko die door de VS (destijds onder minister van BuZa Hillary Clinton) in het zadel is geholpen, nadat men een opstand in dat land organiseerde….. De VS trok daar ‘maar liefst’ 4 miljard dollar voor uit…….
Terug naar de FBI aanklacht: deze luidt dat het Azov bataljon de VS fascisten heeft getraind
en geradicaliseerd…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Hoe kan je de neonazi’s
in de VS nog verder radicaliseren? Dat fascistische geteisem is
jaarlijks goed voor vele doden in de VS…….
Het
laatste is ook de enige kritiek die ik heb op het hieronder opgenomen
artikel van Max Blumenthal, eerder gepubliceerd op MintPress News,
Een uitgebreid artikel waarin Blumenthal volkomen terecht waarschuwt
voor de groeiende macht van de fascisten in de VS en Europa……. Uit zijn artikel blijkt eens te meer dat de VS de neonazi’s in Oekraïne steunt, dezelfde VS die Israël keer op keer uit de wind houdt en critici van Israël verwijdt antisemitisch te zijn, terwijl de door haar gesteunde neonazi’s in Oekraïne ronduit de schurft hebben aan Joden……… (overigens: ook Israël zou de neonazi-junta in Oekraïne steunen……)
In de EU
kan je stellen dat Hongarije, Roemenië, Polen, Italië en Oostenrijk
een fascistische regering hebben…… Waar tegelijkertijd in de andere Oost-Europese
landen en de rest van de EU het fascisme met elke verkiezing groeit,
de enige uitzondering is Groot-Brittannië, waar Ukip verloor bij
de laatste verkiezingen. (echter het is maar de vraag hoe de volgende
verkiezingen daar zullen verlopen voor de fascisten, zeker als je
ziet dat het plan May, het Chequers plan of deal, de Britten in het
pak heeft genaaid, met een Brexit die geen Brexit meer is, maar een
lidmaatschap van de EU waar de Britten in feite niets meer te zeggen
hebben, maar zich wel aan de regels moeten houden……)
Het is dan ook de hoogste tijd dat linkse, ‘anarchistische’ en alternatieve krachten zich gaan organiseren tegen het fascisme, als het aan de EU of haar lidstaten ligt, gebeurt er niets, terwijl het fascisme in het (ook recente) verleden bewezen dood en verderf heeft verspreid over de wereld…….
An
Inside Look at How US-Funded Fascists in Ukraine Mentor US White
Supremacists
November
15, 2018 at 7:12 pm
Written
by Max
Blumenthal
(MPN) —
Last month, an unsealed FBI
indictment of
four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM)
declared that the defendants had trained with Ukraine’s Azov
Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia officially incorporated into the
country’s national guard. The training took place after the white
supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach
and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
The
indictment stated that the Azov Battalion “is believed to have
participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white
supremacy organizations.”
After
a wave of racist violence across America that culminated in the
massacre of twelve Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the
revelation that violent white supremacists have been traveling abroad
for training and ideological indoctrination with a well-armed
neo-Nazi militia should cause extreme alarm.
Not
only are white supremacists from across the West flocking to Ukraine
to learn from the combat experience of their fascist
brothers-in-arms, they are doing so openly — chronicling their
experiences on social media before they bring their lessons back
home. But U.S. law enforcement has done nothing so far to restrict
the flow of right-wing American extremists to Azov’s bases.
There
is one likely explanation for the U.S. government’s hands-off
approach to Azov recruitment: the extremist militia is fighting
pro-Russian separatists as a front-line proxy of Washington. In fact,
the United States has directly armed the Azov Battalion, forking over
anti-tank rocket launchers and even sending a team of Army officers
to meet in the field with Azov commanders in 2017.
Though
Congress passed
legislation this
year forbidding military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white
supremacist ideology, the Trump administration’s authorization of
$200 million in offensive weaponry and aid to the Ukrainian military
makes it likely new stores of weapons will wind up the extremist
regiment’s hands. When queried by
reporters about evidence of American military training of Azov
personnel, multiple U.S. army spokespersons admitted there was no
mechanism in place to prevent that from happening.
Today,
Azov boasts combat experience, unlimited access to light weapons, and
supporters honeycombed throughout the upper echelons of Ukraine’s
military and government. No longer just a militia, the organization
has developed into a political juggernaut that can overpower
Ukraine’s government. Two years ago, the group flexed
its muscle on
the streets of Kiev, bringing out 10,000 supporters to demand that
the government bend to their will or face a coup.
“With
its military experience and weapons, Azov has the ability to
blackmail the government and defend themselves politically against
any opposition. They openly say that if the government will not
advance an ideology similar to theirs, they will overthrow it,”
Ivan Katchanovski, a professor of political science at the University
of Ottawa and leading expert on Ukraine’s far-right, commented to
me. He continued, explaining:Rusla
Currently
the organizations that are fascist are stronger in Ukraine than in
any other country in the world. But this fact is not reported by
Western media because they see these organizations as supportive of
the geopolitical agenda against Russia. So condemnations are limited
to violence or human rights abuses.”
The
revelations of collaboration between violent American white
supremacists and a neo-Nazi militia armed by the Pentagon add another
scandalous chapter to a long history of blowback that dates back to
the 1950’s, when the CIA rehabilitated several Ukrainian Nazi
collaborators as anti-communist assets in the Cold War.
The
almost unbelievable story exposes an axis of fascism that stretches
across the Atlantic, from the Ukrainian capital of Kiev to the
sun-washed suburbs of Southern California, where some of the most
rabid modern white supremacist gangs were born.
The
white nationalist Fight Club
This
October, four members of the RAM gang — Robert Rundo, Benjamin
Drake Daley, Michael Paul Mirelis, and Aaron Eason — were arrested
by FBI agents. They were accused of “using the internet to
encourage, promote, participate in, and carry out riots” from
Huntington Beach to Berkeley, California. Four other members had been
arrested in connection with their participation in the white
supremacist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a
counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed in a vehicular homicide
by a white supremacist.
RAM
first appeared in the national limelight during a celebration of
Donald Trump’s election victory in Huntington Beach in March 2017.
As about one hundred far-right activists marched along the beach
donned in red “Make America Great Again” caps and waving Trump
flags, they were confronted by a small group of masked anti-racist
counter-demonstrators. When a melee ensued, RAM
members assaulted their
outnumbered opponents, pummeling them into submission and even
attacking a local reporter. Afterwards, Orange County
police arrested several
anti-racist demonstrators, but the RAM gang walked free.
RAM
markets itself as a self-defense organization that protects the free
speech of white Americans against an onslaught of “Cultural
Marxism,” a classic anti-Semitic trope. Its founders
emphasize a vaguely anti-consumerist Fight Club mentality along with
a rigorous dedication to mixed martial arts. Its co-founder, Rundo,
operates an online clothing and apparel company, Right
Brand Clothing, that hawks slickly designed t-shirts promoting
“European
Brotherhood,”
stickers emphasizing a straight-edge “nationalist
lifestyle,”
and ethically
sourced designer
“Demagogue
pants”
(yes, white supremacists apparently care about sweatshops). RAM
members can be seen at the site modeling their gear with a clean-cut
“fashy” look that contrasts sharply with the stereotypical image
of skinheads in jackboots.
RAM’s
careful attention to its public image has not stopped its members
from putting their crude neo-Nazi ideology on display at rallies,
however. During the Huntington Beach riot, for example, RAM’s
Robert Boman was seen waving a sign reading “Da Goyim Know.” This
alt-right slogan refers to the white nationalist understanding of the
supposed Jewish plot to dominate the world.
Screenshot
| YouTube
“I’m
a big supporter of the Fourteen, I’ll say that,” RAM’s Rundo
proclaimed into a camera in Huntington Beach. The gang leader was
referring to the notorious 14-word slogan coined by convicted white
supremacist terrorist David Lane, which has become a rallying cry for
fascists across the globe: “We must secure the existence of our
people and a future for white children.”
Two
months after the violence in Huntington Beach, two RAM members
were photographed in
the same spot dousing literature they dubbed as “Cultural Marxist”
with lighter fluid and setting it ablaze. Among the volumes they
torched were “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “The 9/11 Commission
Report,” and “Schindler’s List.” Besides evoking memories of
the early days of Nazi Germany, the spectacle cast the group’s
purported devotion to free speech in an extremely ironic light.
Photo
| Northern California Anti-Racist Action
Following
RAM’s highly publicized street battles, the group became the
subject of intense media scrutiny. In October 2017, the investigative
outlet ProPublica produced a video that
exposed the identities of RAM’s core membership and wondered why
they had not been investigated by law enforcement for their violent
actions in Huntington Beach and elsewhere.
But
the media coverage of RAM glossed over the group’s attraction to a
burgeoning trans-Atlantic conglomeration of white supremacists that
centered on U.S.-allied Ukraine as the base for a fascist reconquest
of Europe. By the Spring of 2018, RAM leadership was barnstorming
through Germany and Italy and heading east to meet fascist cohorts
from across the West at a conference in Kiev.
RAM’s
Ukrainian hate-cation
Buried
in the FBI indictment of RAM members are details of their meetings
with one of the key figures in Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion
militia.
In
August, according to the indictment, RAM members published photos on
Instagram showing themselves meeting with Olena Semanyaka, the leader
of the international department of the Ukrainian National Corps,
which functions as a civilian arm of the Azov Battalion:
The
indictment also referenced a video of RAM co-founder Benjamin Drake
Daley performing a crossed-forearm salute to the Southern
California-based white supremacist Hammerskin gang while in Ukraine:
RAM’s
Gab account provides additional details of the group’s foray
through Ukraine this
May. The trip centered around the Paneuropa conference, an event that
brings together fascists from across the West to encourage
international collaboration. It is hosted at the Reconquista Club in
Kiev, and included an MMA competition.
“One
of our guys has hadthe honor to be the first American to compete in
the pan european organization Reconquista in Ukraine!”
RAM declared on
its Gab account. “This was a great experience meeting
nationalist[s] that came [sic] as far as Portugal and Switzerland to
take part.”
Robert
Rundo, left, of the Rise Above Movement competes at Azov’s
Reconquista Club in Kiev, Ukraine. Photo | Gab
The
visit, which followed on the heels of meetings with white
supremacists in Germany and with Italy’s fascist CasaPound party,
highlighted the centrality of Ukraine to international fascist
organizing. Further, the Paneuropa conference, where fascists build
connections across national borders, revealed the Azov Battalion as
much more than a militia fighting for control of a sliver of
contested territory in eastern Ukraine.
Semanyaka
did not respond to an interview request delivered through Facebook
messenger; however, she told
Radio Free Europe’s Christopher
Miller that RAM “came to learn our ways” and showed interest in
learning how to create youth forces in the way Azov has.
Today,
Azov leaders openly acknowledge that were it not for the U.S.-backed
coup that unfolded in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014, their
organization would never have developed into the powerhouse it is. As
Semanyaka said this year, according to a summary:
The
Ukrainian nationalist movement would have never reached such a level
of development unless the war with Russia had begun. For the first
time since the Second World War, nationalist formations have managed
to create their own military wings, the brightest example being the
Azov regime of the National Guard of Ukraine.”
The
right-wing revolution on the Maidan
The
2013-14 Maidan revolt was the cataclysmic event that Ukraine’s
already potent ultra-nationalist camp had been waiting for. The
protests erupted in Kiev’s Maidan Square after the democratically
elected President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an economic
association agreement with the EU. Celebrated in the West as a
pro-Western movement guided by tech-savvy middle-class youth,
EuroMaidan depended heavily for its success on phalanxes of
black-masked hardmen from Right Sector (see appendix at bottom), an
ultra-nationalist party that did battle with the government’s
Berkut riot police.
Along
with Right Sector, the leadership of the far-right Svoboda Party
assumed a prominent role at the Maidan, dubbing the protests a
“Revolution of Dignity.” Svoboda co-founder Oleh Tyahnybok —
who had once demanded an
investigation of the “Jewish-Muscovite mafia” that he saw
controlling Ukraine — appeared on stage at the square beside U.S.
Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy when they arrived to encourage
the protesters.
Another
key figure in Ukraine’s neo-Nazi scene was Andriy Biletsky. A
university Ph.D. who stressed physical violence as a means to
revolutionary change, Biletsky led the Patriot of Ukraine militia, an
early forerunner of Azov that attacked migrant camps and menaced
foreigners. In a manifesto published during the height of the Maidan
clashes, Biletsky outlined his post-revolutionary agenda: “The
historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the
White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival,”
he wrote.
“A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”
Members
of the Right Sector practice street fighting in central Kiev,
Ukraine, Feb. 3, 2014. Darko Bandic | AP
In
May 2014, Right Sector and an assortment of far-right forces banded
together to massacre their
opponents in Odessa, attacking a pro-separatist protest camp with
iron pipes then burning
the fleeing protesters alive after
they took shelter in a local trade union building. Over 40
pro-separatist Ukrainian citizens were consumed in the flames. The
U.S. and EU studiously looked the other way, legitimizing the
violence and setting the stage for more.
Behind
the scenes, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and
Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt were carefully stage
managing the
opposition, positioning the pliable Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the future
leader of a U.S. client-state. Meanwhile, billionaire-backed U.S.
soft-power entities like the Omidyar
Network and Open
Society Foundation plowed
money into the opposition, providing it with high-tech organizing
capacity and establishing new media outlet Hromadske overnight.
Given
the amount of U.S. investment in regime change in Ukraine, it was
necessary for American pundits who cheered on the operation to
downplay or simply deny the central role neo-Nazi forces played in
making it all possible. In perhaps the most absurd attempt at
whitewashing the fascist presence, the neoconservative pundit James
Kirchick described Right Sector in an article for Foreign
Affairs as
“Putin’s
imaginary Nazis.”
Meanwhile, groups like the Anti-Defamation League — which
supposedly exist to battle anti-Semitism — refused to
support a congressional effort to ban arms to groups affiliated with
Right Sector, because “the focus should be on Russia.”
With
all the cover he needed from Washington, Biletsky organized the
“imaginary Nazis” of Patriot of Ukraine, Right Sector, and
assorted football ultras into a real militia called the Azov
Battalion. Together, they fought under the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel
symbol, which also happens to be incorporated into the logo of
the U.S.-based Aryan Nations.
On
the frontlines of eastern Ukrainian flashpoints, Azov did battle with
Russian-speaking separatists and set up government-sponsored
indoctrination camps for
children and teens closer to the country’s interior, instructing
ten year olds on marksmanship and the evils of foreigners.
Azan
was subsequently absorbed into Ukraine’s military as a national
guard unit, and began appearing in the field with PSRL-1 rocket
launchers supplied under
the watch of the U.S. Department of Defense. In November 2017, Azov
leadership received a team of U.S. Army officers for training and
logistical discussions (see photo below and to the right).
Members
of the Azov Battalion display the Nazi salute, left. U.S. Army
officers visit the Azov Battalion in the field, right.
By
the time Congress approved a ban on arms to Azov this year, the Trump
administration had already authorized a
new shipment of offensive weapons to the Ukrainian military,
including advanced Javelin anti-tank missiles. As in Syria — where
the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army functioned as a de facto “weapons
farm” for jihadist groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS —
any new U.S. arms are likely to wind up in the possession of Azov,
the congressional ban notwithstanding.
“It’s
very corrupt in Ukraine and money can be stolen — the same as in
Syria where extremist fighters got guns from U.S.-backed units,”
said Katchanovski. “Azov can just establish new political fronts so
they can circumvent the U.S. prohibitions.”
Foreign
fighters for fascism
The
Azov Battalion has received not only U.S. weapons, but also volunteer
American military veterans like Brian Boyenger. “It’s not
illegal,” Boyenger told Ukraine
Today interviewer
of his presence in an Azov camp. “From a U.S. perspective, as long
as you’re not fighting with a terrorist group or committing war
crimes or things like that. It is legal — mostly I’ve been
serving as kind of like an advisor.”
Azov
has also welcomed
Islamist fighters from
Chechnya to continue their long war against Russia in a new theater.
A sniper from Sweden with “typical
neo-Nazi views,”
Mikael Skillt, has been assigned to oversee an entire Azov regiment.
And neo-Nazis from as
far away as Brazil have
flocked to Ukraine to join the fascist crusade. One foreign fighter
from France, a young anti-Semite named Gregoire Moutaux, returned
from a Ukrainian militia camp in 2016 “armed
to the teeth and ready to strike”
synagogues, mosques and the 2016 soccer championships when he was
arrested on the Ukrainian border by national police.
To
consolidate its political influence over the country, the Azov
Battalion established a National Druzhina, or street patrol unit. A
slickly produced recruitment
video released
in 2017 featured drone footage of National Druzhina members marching
in formation into Kiev as Biletsky, their ideological guide, impelled
them to “restore Ukrainian order” to a corrupted society. The
street patrol was openly backed by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a
powerful patron of Azov who belongs to the ruling party of Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko.
This
year, the National Druzhina and state-funded neo-Nazi militias like
C14 (the “14” represents the notorious “fourteen words”
mantra) staged a serie of lethal pogroms against
the local Roma population, vandalized the
offices of insufficiently pliant politicians, stormed city
council meetings, and even suedthe Hromadske station
that was established with U.S. funding for describing their members
as neo-Nazis.
“Their
connection to power is why they can commit any crime and they will
never be punished,” Katchanovski said of Azov and its various
street-muscle brigades. “Because they have the police and senior
police members like [Vadym] Troyan, they can intimidate people and
intimidate politicians with impunity.” (Once a member of Azov,
Troyan now serves as Ukraine’s Deputy
Minister of Interior).
The
U.S. has not only kept silent about the wave of ultra-nationalist
violence sweeping across Ukraine, it has been complicit in
legitimizing the perpetrators. This November, America House Kyiv —
a U.S. government-funded cultural center — hosted
a speech by
a uniformed leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang, Serhiy Bondar. Months
earlier, Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and the
NATO-funded Atlantic Council hosted Andriy
Parubiy, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and co-founder of
the fascist Social-National party, for a friendly exchange on Capitol
Hill.
Serhiy
Bondar, a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi C14 militia, is hosted by
the U.S.-funded America House in Kiev. Screenshot | YouTube
Given
the free rein and open acceptance right-wing extremists enjoy in
post-Maidan Ukraine, it is no wonder the country has become a haven
for fascists from across the West.
The
grand Reconquista strategy
As
the international secretary of Azov’s National Corps, Olena
Semanyaka has emerged as one of the most prolific publicists of
Eastern European fascism. With jet black hair and a faintly gothic
look, she brands herself as a “traditionalist,” emulating her
hero, Julius Evola, the late Italian occultist philosopher who
espoused a “racism of the spirit.” Though she has been
photographed bearing a Nazi flag and throwing up a sieg heil salute,
Semanyaka has also been a welcome
guest on
Ukrainian nationalist TV to promote her campaign for the release of
Ukrainian nationalist activists held by Russia.
Semanya,
upper left corner of Nazi flag, dispalys the Nazi salute. On the
right, Semanyaka is shown during an appearance on Ukrainian state TV.
In
her role with Azov, Semanyaka organizes conferences aimed at
popularizing the concept of “the great European Reconquista” —
a pan-European fascist-nationalist takeover that begins in the former
Soviet satellite states and ultimately sweeps through Western Europe
on the strength of anti-foreigner resentment.
Semanyaka laid
out the
fascist grand strategy in Kiev at a December 2016 gathering of Black
Metal fans from across Europe called the “Pact
of Steel”:
For
the first time [in] a long period, the success of the Right in
Western Europe — the rise of the Right because of refugee influx
and terror — gives the chance for the realization of our ‘pact of
steel’ between East and West, between Western and Eastern European
nationalists.”
She
continued:
Our
main task today is to show to Western nationalists, to inform them
that Putin’s Russia is no alternative to the EU of the West and
that the only ally for them is an alternative axis of European
integration which is being formed now in Kiev, Central and Eastern
Europe, as a springboard for the all-European reconquest, for the new
Europe between the EU and neo-Soviet neo-Bolshevik Putin’s Russia.”
Semanyaka
and other Ukrainian fascist ideologues refer to the regional
springboard for the European reconquest as the “Intermarium.”
This is a concept originally envisioned after World War One by Polish
military leader Jozef Pilsudski, who imagined a confederation of
countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea as a counter-weight to
German and Russian aggression. Though his idea never materialized,
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the failure of the EU and
NATO to prevent it revived interest in the Intermarium. One of the
biggest boosters of the alliance, the right-wing Polish President
Andrzej Duda, saw it primarily through the prism of regional
security. The extreme right in Ukraine, however, understood the
Intermarium as an ethnically pure base for exporting their revolution
to the rest of Europe.
The
first Intermarium conference was
held in Kiev in January 2016 under the banner of Azov’s National
Corps. Semanyaka headlined the event alongside Biletsky, the Azov
founder, welcoming far-right activists from Poland and the Baltic
States. Within a year, the concept was promoted at an officially
sanctioned event at
the Latvian embassy in Kiev. There, the Latvian ambassador welcomed a
who’s who of the Ukrainian fascist scene, from Svoboda to National
Corps representatives like Semanyaka, for a ceremony honoring Peter
Radzins, a Latvian general who advocated for the Intermarium.
Organized
by Latvia’s far-right National Alliance party, a member of the
country’s governing coalition, the spectacle provided Azov leaders
with the sheen of international legitimacy. As Matthew Kott, an
academic expert on the European far-right, argued,
Latvia’s “membership in the EU and NATO allows it to act as a
Trojan horse for increasing the clout of the far-right in the
Euro-Atlantic community.”
While
historical tensions between the Intermarium nations are still
simmering, Semanyaka has pleaded with her international allies to
heed the call of the late pro-Hitler British Blackshirt leader Oswald
Mosley for a “great act of oblivion…of all our former struggles,
conflicts, historical enmity. What we need,” she argued, “is the
revival of a sense of the new European aristocracy, a new European
unity as a real basis for the union I am talking about.”
There
are no historical grievances between American white supremacists and
their cohorts in Ukraine. After all, the U.S. government has made
itself the main guarantor of Ukraine’s security, going as far as
directly arming Azov in its bid to bleed Russia. And decades before
the U.S. backed extremists in contemporary Ukraine, the CIA ran a
program to rehabilitate former Nazi collaborators from the country as
anti-communist intelligence assets. Backing Ukrainian fascists is a
grand American tradition, indeed.
This
November, during the latest Paneuropa
conference organized
by Semanyaka as a safe space for fascists from across the West, she
played host to one of the most prominent self-styled intellectuals of
America’s white nationalist movement, Greg Johnson.
Gregory
Johnson promotes his “White Nationalist Manifesto” at Azov’s
Reconquista Club in Kiev, Nov. 2018. Screenshot | YouTube
“I
think that what’s happening in Ukraine is a model and an
inspiration for nationalists of all white nations and I wanted to
learn as much as possible about what you’re doing here and see as
much as possible,” Johnson told his
rapt audience. “And I’m enormously impressed and I’m taking
notes.”
Johnson
is a highbrow racist who publishes a journal, Counter-Currents,
that advances what he calls “white identity politics.” Like the
Rise Above Movement leaders before him, he was clearly inspired by
his visit to Kiev. “I’m already planning to come back,”
Johnson exclaimed during
a break-out session. “I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen
here. I want to come back and learn more.”
APPENDIX
Svoboda
Party: Originally called the Social-National Party of Ukraine, a
Ukrainian political party with long history of anti-Semitism. Led
by Oleh Tyahnybok, Svoboda played a prominent role in the
2013-2014 Maidan uprising, where Tyahnybok shared the stage with U.S.
Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chris Murphy (D-CT). Andriy
Parubiy, who had co-founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine,
is now Speaker of Parliament.
Azov
Battalion: 3,000-member neo-Nazi formation in Ukraine’s
National Guard. Azov began as a paramilitary, originally formed out
of the Patriot of Ukraine neo-Nazi gang led by Andriy
Biletsky, and is now a Ukrainian National Guard unit. The
battalion’s logo incorporates the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel and black sun
symbols. Biletsky is now a member of Ukrainian Parliament. Vadim
Troyan, another Azov veteran, is now Deputy Interior
Minister.
Ukrainian
National Corps: Azov’s civilian arm, responsible, among other
things, for coordinating with and recruiting neo-Nazis and white
supremacists from around the world. The international outreach is led
by Olena Semanyka, who’s been photographed with a
swastika flag.
National
Druzhina: Azov’s street patrol organization, established in
January 2018 with the aim of “restoring Ukrainian order” to the
streets. The National Druzhina — whose members pledge personal
loyalty to Biletsky — has been involved in pogroms against the
Roma, LGBT, and other activists.
Right
Sector: Loose formation of neo-Nazis and football ultras, which
supplied street muscle to the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising. Later
involved in lethal suppression of anti-Maidan movements in places
like Odessa.
C14:
Ukrainian neo-Nazi gang that receives government funding and has been
responsible for some of the lethal Roma pogroms as well as anti-LGBT
violence. The 14 is a reference to the Fourteen Word slogan of white
supremacy. Led by Serhiy Bondar, who spoke at America
House, a cultural center funded by the U.S. government.
By Max
Blumenthal /
Republished with permission / MintPress
News / Report
a typo
=====================================
* De Porosjenko kliek heeft al vele kapitalen aan EU gelden verdonkeremaand, terwijl het land zo goed als failliet is…… Porosjenko schijnt ook in Nederland bankrekeningen te hebben, waar veel van zijn middels diefstal verkregen geld is gestald……. (uiteraard tegen een zeer voordelig belastingtarief) Deze noot heb ik na plaatsing verbeterd, de zin zat enigszins krom in elkaar.
Voor meer berichten over Oekraïne en andere zaken in het bovenstaande, klik op de betreffende labels, direct onder dit bericht (jammer genoeg mag ik maar 200 tekens gebruiken voor die labels). Let wel: na een aantal berichten wordt het laatst getoonde herhaalt, dan even opnieuw op het betreffende label onder dat laatst gelezen bericht klikken.
