Fact check: the Ukrainian Forces are Neo-Nazis
What do the news organisations themselves say today? What did they say yesterday?
CLAIM: PUTIN IS LYING WHEN HE SAYS THAT SOME UKRAINIANS ARE NEO-NAZIS
Business insider on February 25, 2022, quoted Putin’s war declaration speech on Thursday February 24th when he compared Ukraine to Nazi Germany and said that this comparison was baseless.
Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely described Ukraine's government as a "band of junkies and neo-Nazis" in a television appearance on Friday.
Putin urged members of Ukraine's armed forces to prevent "neo-Nazis" from using "your children, your wives and parents as a living shield."
The baseless comparison to Nazi Germany is not a first for Putin.
The BBC says that Russia is waging an information war and that they are unjustly portraying Ukraine as Neo-Nazi.
Concerns have been raised about links between Ukrainian far-right groups and neo-Nazis - specifically the nationalist Azov battalion that came to prominence at the height of the Ukrainian conflict, and is now a unit within the country's military.
However, the far-right remains a small minority in the country - during the 2019 elections, candidates and far-right groups such as Svoboda fell far short of the 5% minimum needed to gain entry into parliament.
Since last November there have been big spikes in stories linking Ukraine to Nazism, according to Logically, a technology company which has been tracking hundreds of pro-Kremlin social media accounts.
The Guardian says, in what sounds like a wonderful leap of strange logic, that antisemitism is behind Putin’s push to denazify Ukraine.
Do they have a point? One of the main claims made is that because President Zelenskiy is Jewish, he couldn’t possibly be ruling over a country that has a Nazi problem.
Ukraine does have a far-right movement, and its armed defenders include the Azov battalion, a far-right nationalist militia group. But no democratic country is free of far-right nationalist groups, including the United States. In the 2019 election, the Ukrainian far right was humiliated, receiving only 2% of the vote. This is far less support than far-right parties receive across western Europe, including inarguably democratic countries such as France and Germany.
Ukraine is a democratic country, whose popular president was elected, in a free and fair election, with over 70% of the vote. That president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish, and comes from a family partially wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.
STRANGE FACT: THE MAIN FUNDER OF THE AZOV BATTALION IS A JEWISH BUSINESS TYCOON & BILLIONAIRE, IGOR KOLOMOISKY
It turns out that truth may indeed be stranger than fiction, as this argument that the fact that Zelenskiy is Jewish means he would not have anything to do with Neo-Nazis is somewhat undermined by the fact that the main funder and one of the most public supporters of the infamous right wing Azov Battalian is a Jewish business tycoon, billionaire Igor Kolomoisky, according to Newsweek in 2014, which also decried the war crimes committed by these battalions in the conflict in 2014.
The Aidar battalion is publicly backed by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who also allegedly funds the Azov, Donbas, Dnepr 1, Dnepr 2 volunteer battalions, operating under orders from Kiev. Last spring Kolomoyskyi offered a bounty of $10,000 of his own money for each captured Russian "saboteur".
FACT: KOLOMOISKY IS A STRONG SUPPORTER OF ZELENSKIY
Reuters tells us in 2019, during the Ukrainian Election, that Igor Kolomoiskiy is a strong supporter of Vladimir Zelenskiy.
Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy is leading the race to become Ukraine’s next president thanks to an insurgent campaign that rails against corrupt politicians influenced by rich oligarchs.
Yet it is his own relationship with one of the country’s wealthiest tycoons that could prove an Achilles’ heel.
One of Ukraine’s most popular TV channels 1+1, owned by oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has given Zelenskiy a powerful platform in recent months during his meteoric rise to the brink of the presidency.
While they both said their relationship was purely professional, Igor Kolomoisky’s TV channel ran a back to back marathon of Zelenskiy shows the day before the main election debate.
EVEN SO KOLOMOISKY HAS SUFFERED ANTI-SEMITIC ABUSE
Kolomoisky’s public support, and possible funding of, the neo-nazi battalion didn’t stop him from being the recipient of some pretty nasty anti-semitism himself in 2019, however.
FACT: WESTERN MEDIA IN THE PAST PORTRAYED THE AZOV BATTALION AS NEO NAZI
Below in the references (at the bottom of the article) I have collected a very large number of links from Western media in the past eight years, including Israeli media, telling us that the Azov Battalion, as well as other parts of the Ukrainian army, are indeed Neo-Nazi in their ideology. These are the same news organisations telling us they are not Nazis today.
I found many of these articles quite quickly thanks to this meme that was being passed around on Telegram:
What is more, linked to from one of these reports is an affidavit from an FBI agent, submitted to court as part of a case against some pretty odious American Neo-Nazis, that clearly says the Azov battalian is a “paramilitary unit of the Ukranian (sic) National Guard… known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and…. symbolism.”
17. On August 1, 2018, an Instagram user “tagged” Right Brand Clothing’s account in a post containing a photograph of RAM members during their trip to Germany, Ukraine, and Italy meeting with Olena Semenyaka, the leader of the International Department for the National Corps, which is a political party in the Ukraine that was founded in 2016 out of a regiment of the Ukranian military called the Azov Battalion. Based on my training and experience, I know that the Azov Battalion is a paramilitary unit of the Ukranian National Guard which is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and use of Nazi symbolism, and which is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations. The text associated with the post stated, “@rightbrandwear it was an honor to meet the singer and patriot from #8l8th #nationalist #blackmetal #ukraine #antiantifa.”
DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
Stanford’s Centre for International Security and Cooperation has a good article about the Azov Battalion laying out many of the facts of their Nazi ideology. It may be a dangerous game that the Ukrainian government is playing, by making a deal with this devil.
A few short quotes from the Stanford article:
Azov’s founder, Andriy Biletsky, stated it was Ukraine’s mission to “Lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against semite-led subhumans.”[1] Biletsky’s group, Patriot Ukraine, precursor to the Azov Battalion, was characterized as a neo-nazi and ultra-nationalist organization, and Patriot Ukraine was assimilated into Azov in 2014.[2] Members and leaders of the Azov Battalion later denied its neo-Nazi ties despite members having swastika tattoos and patches with extreme-right insignia.[3]
Olena Semenyaka, spokeswoman and head of Azov’s international outreach office, has articulated a vision in which Azov takes over Ukraine. In remarks to the Nordic Resistance Movement, Semenyaka said “We are on the march to power and we will either have to get there by parliament or by other means”.[4] In interviews with The Guardian in 2014, members of the Azov Battalion openly commented on aspirational beliefs of marching on Kyiv when the fighting with Russian forces and separatists was over.
In the photograph above, accidentally shared in a tweet by NATO, the Black Sun, a Nazi symbol, is seen on the uniform of this Ukrainian female soldier. Below is the Wewelsburg castle mosaic, as redesigned by Heinrich Himmler, from which the symbol is derived (from Wikipedia; public domain)
DOES THIS JUSTIFY PUTIN’S AGGRESSION?
In the east of Ukraine is the city of Mariupol, which was recaptured in 2014 by the Azov battalion from the Russian separatists: this is one place where Putin has been concentrating his forces.
Does this justify Putin’s war?
Tell me what you think in the comments below.
THOUGHTS ABOUT UKRAINE’S NAZI PAST
The extent of Nazi collaboration in Ukraine in World War II is worth looking into, and the collaborators’ role in opposing the Soviet Union, to understand what’s going in Ukraine today. My question is, to what extent is this neo-Nazi tendency something new, and to what extent is it an outgrowth of historical events and peoples’ family histories etc. ? The Ukrainians never had a period of repentance like the Germans did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Ukraine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)
This section aims to answer that question.
Stepan Bandera led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a fascist army which fought alongside Nazi Germany in World War II against Stalin. Stepan Bandera is remembered as a hero in the Ukraine today.
Another Nazi collaborator in WWII who is glorified as a saviour among Ukrainians is Roman Shukhevych; he wore a German Uniform between 1939 and 1943. He was a terrorist and war criminal and the leader of a Battalion that marched into Ukraine in Operation Barbarossa.
There’s a statue to Roman Shukhevych outside the Roman Shukhevych Ukrainian Youth Centre in Edmonton, Canada (of all places!) that has been defaced a few times with slogans such as “Nazi” and “actual Nazi” and the Canadian government gave $36,000 to the Youth Centre to fix the statue, and decried the hate crime. Writing “Nazi” on the statue of a Nazi is a hate crime, putting up a statue to a Nazi is not.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is a Ukrainian veteran’s association that is in the news every day promoting the war against Russia in Canada – these veterans are actually veterans of the 14th Waffen SS, and Stepan Bandera’s fascist army. To what degree are other Ukrainian veteran’s associations and organisations that promote fascism supporting Ukraine in the Western media?
In 2018 Stepan Bandera’s birthday became a state holiday in Ukraine.
Some excellent research on the Bandera movement in Canada and Ukraine.
https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_50-51.htm
The Bandera movement is particularly strong in Canada among ex-pat Ukrainians, and a lot of Canadian government money goes to Ukraine to support this fascist movement.
Journalists and normal civilians suffer persecution in Ukraine, which we are told is a Democratic nation.
Eva Bartlett, an award winning Canadian journalist living in Moscow says anti-war journalists in Russia are still operating and are not being persecuted or cracked down upon by the government, for instance the Moscow Times, which is very critical of the war, and an anti-war blogger, Riley Waggaman. Eva has been living in Moscow and spends some time in central Moscow - the Western descriptions of the anti-war movement appear to be inaccurate - she has seen no significant anti-war protests in Moscow.
Eva has attended a few protests as an observer - she went to protests in support of Novalny - there were claims in the Western media that the Russian police were cracking down brutally. Eva saw no police brutality. Eva had footage of the Russian police, who only used batons, responding to protestors who were attacking them violently; they responded far more gently, she says, than police in France who have used tear gas and batons and shields and violently attacked Yellow Jacket protesters, who have been injured and even lost eyes in the melee.
Eva also observed protests against the Moscow Mayor. At the sanctioned protest there was no police involvement at all, they stood and watched - just like in most Western nations you need permits to protest. At the unsanctioned protest the police were again being very gentle, herding people away from the protest who had been arrested, she says, like someone with their arm around their younger sister.
She has not seen in Russia the types of police brutality we are so familiar with in the West in the past few years.
JOURNALISTS KILLED AND IMPRISONED IN UKRAINE
By contrast Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky was imprisoned without trial by the Ukrainian government in 2017 for publishing articles by others critical of the Ukrainian government, and he spoke about seeing other Ukrainian journalists killed and imprisoned by the Ukrainian forces; he was only released in a prisoner deal with the Russian government, who released a Ukrainian terrorism suspect.
Eva Bartlett has several articles on mintpress news with a different point of view on the lives of Ukrainians in the Crimea, including interviews with Ukrainians who are happier living under the Russians and gladly voted to join Russia in the referendum. It is worth making the point again that Eva is actually living in Russia and has travelled to the Ukraine and conducted interviews there herself.
Eva says the Western media has been “manufacturing complete nonsense about the situation in Crimea.”
DONATSK SHELLED AND BOMBED BY THE UKRAINIANS FOR EIGHT YEARS
Eva says, “The citizens in Donatsk have been living under heavy shelling by the Ukrainian forces, 14,000 people have been killed, it’s been a systematic targeting of civilian areas… schools, children… for the last 8 years.” When people are changing their social media pics to Ukrainian flags in their social media out of sympathy for the poor Ukrainians, she says, where were they when the people in Donatsk were targeted for the past 8 years?
AZOV BATTALION WAR CRIMES
According to Eva, the hospital which was bombed by the Russians in Donatsk was actually emptied of patients and staff a few days before, gutted, and the Nazi Azov battalion commandeered the hospital and used the hospital as a military base, where she believes they must have been using rooms in the hospital as torture chambers for prisoners. The Nazi Azov battalions go into civilian areas with their heavy weaponry in order to hide using civilians as human shields. They do not allow civilians to leave along the humanitarian corridors, whereas the Russians do allow the civilians to leave. The Neo nazi brigades torture and brutalise the people they capture.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who says Russia is opening civilian corridors, whereas the Ukrainians are stopping civilians from leaving, and claims the Ukrainian forces are committing war crimes.
Lawyer Christopher Black has an article on the legality of the Russian war in Ukraine that might be worth reading to get another perspective.
The slogan “Slava Ukraniy” has a disturbing fascist history, says the Israel National News.
CONCLUSION
There is very strong, irrefutable evidence that the neo-Nazi movement, in showing reverence towards such Ukrainian Nazi collaborators as Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera, is official, Government approved and very popular in the Ukraine. The fact that the Western media is lying through its back teeth on this issue should make us skeptical of many of their other claims; particularly since they have suddenly changed their tune completely.
There is also evidence that the Russians are conducting a careful, moral campaign, whereas the Ukrainian Azov battalion is (as Putin said) using civilians as human shields, setting up headquarters in hospitals, and torturing captured prisoners (I have seen videos of this but do not wish to put them up on my site as they are too disturbing.) Such actions from a group that glorifies Nazis should not surprise us.
We need to be very skeptical of the Western Media on this issue, for in the facts we can verify for ourselves, they are shown to be liars; in the facts we cannot verify, because we are not in eastern Ukraine, we should certainly not trust proven liars to tell the truth but should at least be open to contrary opinions where they are available from people who are actually living in the area.
WE MIGHT NOT KNOW THE TRUTH TILL THE DUST SETTLES
I know this an unsatisfactory conclusion for a fact check, but at least it’s honest. We might not know the full truth until the dust settles; even then, we might not know it.
REFERENCES
IN THE PAST
https://www.dw.com/en/the-azov-battalion-extremists-defending-mariupol/a-61151151
https://eurasianet.org/ukraine-far-right-fighters-from-europe-fight-for-ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/02/neo-nazi-groups-recruit-britons-to-fight-in-ukraine
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-idUSKBN1GV2TY
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nazi-symbols-salutes-on-display-at-ukrainian-nationalist-march/
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/06/in-bosnian-river-town-far-right-symbols-and-a-link-to-ukraine/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraines-chief-rabbi-sounds-alarm-over-jewish-tycoons-effigy/
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51174898
https://leadership.ng/neo-nazis-and-the-far-right-are-on-the-march-in-ukraine/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-march-in-ukraine-in-annual-tribute-to-nazi-collaborator/
https://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-far-right-menace-radical-militants-ultranationalists/
Ukraine conflict: 'White power' warrior from Sweden
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2020/new-eurasian-far-right-rising
Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict By David Stern BBC News, Kiev Published 13 December 2014
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955
Ukraine conflict: Child soldiers join the fight
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30134421
Who Was Stepan Bandera?
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/122778
https://www.dw.com/en/new-glory-to-ukraine-army-chant-invokes-nationalist-past/a-45215538
FBI AFFIDAVIT
AZOV BATTALION IS FUNDED BY JEWISH UKRAINIAN POWER OLIGARCH IGOR KOLOMOISKY, WHO IS A FRIEND OF UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKIY
https://www.newsweek.com/evidence-war-crimes-committed-ukrainian-nationalist-volunteers-grows-269604
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-zelenskiy-oligarch-idUSKCN1RD30L
UNCORRECTED FACT CHECK HALL OF INFAMY
NEWS TODAY - UKRAINE DISINFORMATION
https://people.com/politics/how-putin-uses-nazi-propaganda-to-defend-ukraine-invasion-russia/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/europe/ukraine-putin-nazis.html
https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2022-03-08/putins-far-right-lies-about-de-nazifying-ukraine
https://time.com/6154853/putins-nazi-talk-reveals-plans-for-ukraine/
https://www.adl.org/blog/why-is-putin-calling-the-ukrainian-government-a-bunch-of-nazis
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
Ukraine crisis: Is Russia waging an information war? 23 Feb 2022 Sub-headline: portraying Ukraine as pro-Nazi https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60292915
https://www.channel4.com/news/propaganda-bubble-will-burst-in-russia-says-putin-opponent
REAL NEWS REFERENCES
THE UKRAINIAN STEPAN BANDERA MOVEMENT AND FASCISM IN UKRAINE
https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_50-51.htm
EVA BARTLETT
A wonderful article that tells what it has been like living in east Ukraine for Russians and Ukrainians. Eva Bartlett goes to the places she reports upon.
GOOD REPORTING
Stanford’s CISAC has a great article on the Azov Battalion:
Mapping Militant Organizations. “Azov Battalion.” Stanford University. Last modified March 2022. https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/azov-battalion
As usual Indian reporting is doing better than the west, even if it is rather basic: the Economic Times does quite well. March 5 2022 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/ukraine-russia-crisis-neo-nazism-and-fake-news-dominate-discourse/articleshow/90011393.cms
The World Socialist
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/01/22/ukra-j22.html
REVISION HISTORY
This article was published on the 22nd March 2022.
I added a fairly large section “Thoughts on Ukraine’s Fascist past” and the subsequent sections up to the “Conclusion” were added on the 23rd March 2022, including the sections on journalism, Bandera, and the situation in Donatsk in the last eight years.
A few links were added to the References on the 23rd March as well.
On 12 April, added the addendum, “We might not know till the dust settles…”