Exclusive: Few Americans understand the ugly history behind the Nazi-affiliated movements that have gained substantial power in today’s U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime. Western propaganda has made these right-wing extremists the “good guys” versus the Russian “bad guys,” as Jonathan Marshall explains.
By Jonathan Marshall
The latest issue of Foreign Policy magazine, one of the leading journals in its field, offers a two-page photo essay on “what to see, do, and buy” in Lviv, a picturesque city in the Western Ukraine. “Amid the turmoil that has rocked Ukraine over the past two years,” the article gushes, “Lviv has stood firmly as a stronghold of national culture, language, and identity.”
That’s one way of putting it. Another, less charitable way would be to note that Lviv has for nearly a century been a breeding ground of extreme Ukrainian nationalism, spawning terrorist movements, rabid anti-Semitism, and outright pro-Nazi political organizations that continue to pollute the country’s politics.
Sen. John McCain appearing with Ukrainian rightists of the Svoboda party at a pre-coup rally in Kiev.
On the lovely cobblestone streets admired today by tourists flowed the blood of some 4,000 Jews who were massacred by locals in 1941, during the German occupation. They were egged on by the radical Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose founder and wartime leader is today a national hero to many of his countrymen.
On April 28, 2011, the 68th anniversary of the formation of a Ukrainian Waffen-SS division, hundreds of people marched through Lviv, with support from city council members, chanting slogans like “One race, one nation, one Fatherland!”
Two months later, residents celebrated the 70th anniversary of the German invasion “as a popular festival, where parents with small children waived flags to re-enactors in SS uniforms,” according to the noted Swedish-American historian Per Anders Rudling.
Later that year, extreme right-wing deputies at a nearby town in the Lviv district “renamed a street from the Soviet-era name Peace Street to instead carry the name of the Nachtigall [Nightingale] Battalion, a Ukrainian nationalist formation involved in the mass murder of Jews in 1941, arguing that ‘Peace’ is a holdover from Soviet stereotypes.’”
Such inconvenient truths rarely get aired in Western media, but they are important for at least two reasons. They help explain the recent violent, anti-democratic upheavals that have made Ukraine the battleground of a dangerous new cold war between NATO and Russia. And they should inspire Americans to reflect on our own country’s contribution to recent political extremism in the Ukraine, going back to the early post-World War II era, when the CIA funded former Nazi collaborators to help destabilize the Soviet Union.
The revolutionary, ultra-nationalist OUN was founded in 1929 to throw off Polish rule and establish Ukraine as an independent state. It burned the property of Polish landowners, raided government properties for funds, and assassinated dozens of intellectuals and officials, including the Polish interior minister in 1934.
A particularly radical faction, known as OUN-B, split off in 1940 under the leadership of the young firebrand Stepan Bandera, who studied in Lviv. It enjoyed support during World War II from a Gestapo-supported secret police official, Mykola Lebed. Lebed had earlier been convicted with Bandera by Polish authorities for the 1934 murder of their interior minister, and would become notorious for his involvement in the wartime torture and murder of Jews.
Bandera’s OUN-B collaborated closely with the German foreign intelligence service, the Abwehr, to form a German-led Ukrainian Legion. On June 30, 1941, just days after Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, OUN-B declared an independent Ukrainian state with Lviv as its capital. Lebed served as police minister of the collaborationist government.
In the days that followed, OUN-B’s Nachtigall Battalion and its civilian sympathizers apparently slaughtered several thousand Jews and Polish intellectuals before moving on to join German forces on the Eastern Front. Another 3,000 Jews in Lviv were soon murdered by an SS death squad outside the city. OUN publications called these “exhilarating days.”
Although the OUN, in a letter to Adolf Hitler, officially welcomed the “consolidation of the new ethnic order in Eastern Europe” and the “destruction of the seditious Jewish-Bolshevik influence,” the Nazi leader rejected their nationalist ambitions and eventually banned the OUN.
The Germans imprisoned Bandera. His organization went underground, forming the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). There were no neat sides in the violent conflict that ensued. UPA units clashed with the Nazis on occasion, fought the Red Army much more often, and engaged in “ethnic cleansing” of thousands of Poles and Jews. (More rarely, OUN members saved local Jews as well.)
They also killed tens of thousands of fellow Ukrainians in a bid to dictate the region’s political future. Many OUN members also directly joined police and militia groups sponsored by the Waffen-SS. Bandera himself was released by the Germans in 1944 and provided with arms to resist the advancing Red Army.
After the war, the OUN continued its losing battle for independence. Soviet forces killed, arrested, or deported several hundred thousand members, relatives or supporters of the UPA and OUN. Bandera was assassinated by the KGB in Munich in 1959. But right-wing nationalism enjoyed a resurgence after Ukraine won its independence in 1990-91, stoked by emigrés in the West who were loyal to OUN-B and to Bandera’s memory.
The city of Lviv in particular led the revival of Bandera worship. In 2006 it transferred his tomb to a special area of the town’s cemetery dedicated to victims of Ukraine’s national liberation struggles. It erected a statue dedicated to him and established an award in his honor.
Finally, in 2010, Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko (who came to power in the U.S.-backed Orange Revolution), named Bandera a Hero of Ukraine for “defending national ideas and battling for an independent Ukrainian state.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center and other anti-fascist groups condemned the honor, which was annulled a year later by a Ukrainian court.
One of Bandera’s legacies was the creation of the ultra-nationalist Social National Party in Lviv in 1991.
“As party symbol, it chose a mirror image of the so-called Wolfsangel, or Wolf’s hook, which was used by several SS divisions and, after the war, by neo-Nazi organizations,” notes Rudling. “It organized a paramilitary guard and recruited skinheads and football hooligans into its ranks.”
In 2004 it rebranded itself as Svoboda and dispensed with its SS imagery. Nonetheless, Svoboda’s new leader lauded the OUN and UPA for having resisted “Jews and other scum, who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.” He was decorated by veterans of a Ukrainian Waffen-SS division and championed the cause of Ukrainian death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk. His ideological adviser organized a think tank called the “Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center” in 2005.
Svoboda became the largest party in Lviv in 2010 and today enjoys strong influence at the national level. It has also extended its influence by allying itself with other far-right and fascist parties in Europe.
Most important for understanding today’s East-West crisis, Svoboda supplied many of the shock troops who turned the protests in Kiev’s Maidan Square into a violent confrontation with government forces and eventually precipitated the putsch against President Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014. Svoboda leaders took important posts in the post-Yanukovych government, including the head of national security.
Svoboda militants from Lviv played an important role in the violent putsch. In a story for Consortiumnews.com, journalist Robert Parry cited a “human interest profile” in the New York Times of a Ukrainian protestor named Yuri Marchuk, a Svoboda leader from Lviv who was wounded at Maidan Square. Parry continued,
“Without providing . . . context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government weapons depot and dispatched 600 militants a day to do battle in Kiev. 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.”
Svoboda’s cause was championed during the Maidan protests by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who egged on the crowds while standing under banners celebrating Stepan Bandera. McCain’s appearance was no accident. Since World War II, the Republican Party has been closely allied with pro-Nazi exile leaders from Eastern Europe. Many of them were recruited and paid by the CIA, and given secret legal exemptions to emigrate to the United States despite their history of war crimes.
For example, the OUN-B Gestapo collaborator and mass murderer Mykola Lebed made his way incognito to the United States after World War II. The CIA, which valued his help in organizing resistance movements against the USSR, exercised its veto power over anti-Nazi immigration laws to legalize his residence.
The CIA provided similar assistance to General Pavlo Shandruk, described by historian Christopher Simpson as “the chief of the Ukrainian quisling ‘government-in-exile’ created by the Nazi Rosenberg ministry in 1944.” Despite his pro-Nazi past, he received large CIA stipends to help organize intelligence networks against the Soviet Union after the war.
The CIA and Pentagon also earmarked millions of dollars’ worth of arms and other military aid to anti-Soviet Ukrainian guerrillas in the late 1940s, despite their record of atrocities against Jews and other civilians.
As Simpson concludes in his 1988 book Blowback, “In hindsight, it is clear that the Ukrainian guerrilla option became the prototype for hundreds of CIA operations worldwide that have attempted to exploit indigenous discontent in order to make political gains for the United States.
“Instead of rallying to the new ‘democratic’ movement, there is every indication that many of the ordinary people of the Ukraine gave increased credence to the Soviet government’s message that the United States, too, was really Nazi at heart and capable of using any sort of deceit and violence to achieve its ends.”
Simpson also observes that CIA assistance to pro-Nazi Ukrainian and other East European ethnic leaders created powerful political lobbies in the United States that backed hard-line “liberationist” policies toward the Soviet Union and its “captive nations.” One such political group was the Ukrainian-dominated, neo-Nazi Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, which enjoyed support from Sen. Joseph McCarthy, among many other U.S. politicians.
“Before the decade of the 1950s was out,” Simpson writes, “the activities of extremist European emigre organizations combined with indigenous American anticommunism to produce seriously negative effects on U.S. foreign policy and domestic affairs under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“U.S. clandestine operations employing Nazis never did produce the results that were desired when they were initiated, but they did contribute to the influence of some of the most reactionary trends in American political life. Working together with corporate-ï¬nanced lobbies such as the pro-armament American Security Council, Captive Nations leaders have acted as influential spoilers capable of obstructing important East-West peace initiatives undertaken by both Republican and Democratic administrations. They continue, in fact, to play that role today.”
Simpson offered that powerful observation before the latest crisis in the Ukraine, precipitated in large measure by extreme rightists inspired by the OUN, plunged NATO and Russia into a series of military and economic confrontations that resemble the Cold War of old. But even today, the American political impulse to support anti-Russian agitation in the Ukraine reflects Cold War-era policies that forged an ugly alliance between the United States and Nazi mass murderers.
You won’t see that point made in the New York Times, or in a fluffy promotion for Lviv in Foreign Policy magazine. But it’s clearly written in history that Americans would do well to study.
Jonathan Marshall is an independent researcher living in San Anselmo, California. Some of his previous articles for Consortiumnews were “Risky Blowback from Russian Sanctions”; “Neocons Want Regime Change in Iran”; “Saudi Cash Wins France’s Favor”; “The Saudis’ Hurt Feelings”; “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Bluster”; “The US Hand in the Syrian Mess”; and “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War.” ]
In the face of the historical facts about the Nazi roots of Ukraine’s conflict, the pro-fascist Hasbara strategy of commenters like Alex and is always to change the subject and shout about Russia.
No one here is demonizing the entire Ukrainian nation.
It is fascist propagandists who support the regime that used terrorist violence to illegally seized power in Kiev who strive to demonize Russia.
The people of Russia and Ukraine seek peace and freedom, and remain brothers and sisters in their hearts despite past and present difficulties.
The neocon-backed fascist scum who exploited the Maidan and used terrorist violence to seize power in February 2014, and then launched war on the people of eastern Ukraine, deserve condemnation.
Abe, there is no point to explain anything to this guy.
There were Canadian-Ukrainians soldiers storming Normandy beaches and some of them died there. This is history, this is fact. And there were Ukrainians among defending Atlantic Wall Nazis shooting at advancing allies. This is history, this is fact.
Sadly, despite that, the West is keeping eyes closed on reemergence of neo nazi tendencies in Ukraine itself 70 years later, which comments such guys like Alex testify here.
Abe, you are an excellent liar and propagandist; Josef Goebbels would have loved you. What makes you so good is your ability to mix in a grain of truth in an entire body of LIES. You make this statement to show just how perfidious Ukrainians are:
“Ukraine has, to the best of our knowledge, never conducted a single investigation of a local Nazi war criminal, let alone prosecuted a Holocaust perpetrator.â€
Tell us, has Russia, TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, ever conducted a single investigation of a local Communist war criminal, let alone prosecuted a Gulag perpetrator?†See, I bring that up because I was waiting for you to show your despicable trollish snout again after your outrageous lies earlier in this thread where you state that Ukrainians were influenced by Nazi propaganda calling Russians subhuman untermenschen and that’s why they hated and killed Russians during WWII. Now maybe you could fool Americans and people in the West who have no clue where Ukraine even is; maybe you could convince people like that with your blatant, incredible LIES. But you will have to hope and pray that I don’t stumble upon your BULLCRAP because if I do, I will gladly expose you for the LIAR and CHARLATAN that you are.
See, unlike many people in the West I actually know my history of Eastern Europe, and Ukrainians hatred of Russians goes back far before Nazis even existed. The Russian policy of RUSSIFICATION, of wiping out Ukrainian culture and language, of sending Ukrainians to Siberia or to build the city of St. Petersburg, built by Tsar Peter on the bones of over 100,000 Ukrainian and Cossack slaves, caused Ukrainians to hate Russians long before there ever was a single Nazi on this earth. See, Americans and other Westerners aren’t taught the TRUE HISTORY of Russia in their schools. They are taught that Russia is this great “melting pot” of a nation with all these different peoples in it, all of whom have combined into one happy Russian state. Nothing could be further from the truth. The TRUTH of Russia is one of brutal conquest of many native peoples and the ruthless and brutal repression of those people and their languages, customs and religions. From the Siberian tribes wiped out by the Russians:
A genocide of the Chukchis and Koraks was ordered by Empress Elizabeth in 1742 to totally expel them from their native lands and erase their culture through war. The command was that the natives be “totally extirpated” with Pavlutskiy leading again in this war from 1744-47 in which he led to the Cossacks “with the help of Almighty God and to the good fortune of Her Imperial Highness”, to slaughter the Chukchi men and enslave their women and children as booty. The Russians were also launching wars and slaughters against the Koraks in 1744 and 1753-4. After the Russians tried to force the natives to convert to Christianity, the different native peoples like the Koraks, Chukchis, Itelmens, and Yukagirs…
And the Russians repeated this genocide in Central Asia against the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tajiks, Chechens and many others who Russians considered ““half-savage vagrant people†(Andreev, 1999) of Central Asia, whose “wild and violent morals and manners make their neighbors uncomfortableâ€.
“the Russian conquest of Central Asia was ‘extremely brutal’ and Russians acted ‘as other colonizers; they were ruthless, merciless killers who wiped out thousands of people, destroying their economies’. According to this author, the Russian authorities “looted thousands of Central Asian objects, of all sizes and kinds, as trophies or plunder which they then shipped to Saint Petersburg or Moscow. When General von Kaufman was governor-general of Turkestan, he plundered the movable symbols of sovereignty as well as the records of intellectual life and history of Central Asia.”
And the Russian campaign of RUSSIFICATION did not spare the Ukrainian people either, and if anyone wants to know WHY so many Ukrainians dislike Russians, THERE is part of your answer. But only PART, of course. The other part is the Holodomor, Russia’s murder of millions of Ukrainian peasants, not to mention the “dekulakization” policies begun under Lenin which murdered or shipped to Siberia every Ukrainian who actually owned something, condemning them all as “kulaks”, exploiters of the worker class, when in reality they were mostly just farmers, and…peasants.
But even THAT is only a PART of the story of why Ukrainians have so much hatred of Russians. Since you love to talk about Nazis, why do you not mention Stalin’s partnership with Hitler at the outset of WWII? You know, the part where Stalin agreed not to interfere with Hitler’s assault on Poland in exchange for Hitler allowing Stalin to GRAB Western Ukraine and impose on it the same terror he imposed on the rest of Ukraine.
But all those facts of course don’t fit your propaganda narrative, do they? No, if your purpose is to demonize the entire Ukrainian nation, what better way than to lie to Westerners and say they hate Russians because Hitler convinced them to. Your contempt for Ukrainians is surpassed only by your contempt for Western people who you believe are so stupid and gullible that they can be spoon fed your propaganda and they will just swallow it.
You are totally obsessed and delusional… In fact if somebody wants to show Ukrainians in the worst possible way, one should write something what you wrote.
…city of St. Petersburg, built by Tsar Peter on the bones of over 100,000 Ukrainian and Cossack slaves… Lenin which murdered or shipped to Siberia every Ukrainian… etc, etc..
Mention of the Turkistan Governor-generalship of Tsarist Russia comes from the article “The Russian-Soviet legacies in reshaping the national territories in Central Asia: A catastrophic case of Tajikistan” by Zubaidullo Ubaidulloev, Journal of Eurasian Studies, Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 79–87
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879366514000104
Every nation in the world, including the United States, certainly has its legacy of horror.
No one here is demonizing the entire Ukrainian nation by mentioning the Nazi roots of the current conflict.
However, at the behest of their neocon backers, the fascists who seized power in Kiev in 2014 are striving to demonize Russia.
NAZI DEATH SQUADS IN UKRAINE DURING WORLD WAR II
Total civilian losses during the war and Nazi occupation in Ukraine are estimated at four million, including up to a million Jews who were murdered by the SS Einsatzgruppen (German for “task forcesâ€) death squads.
Einsatzgruppe C was assigned to north and central Ukraine, and Einsatzgruppe D to Moldavia, south Ukraine, the Crimea. The main assignment of the Einsatzgruppen was to kill civilians. Jews were regarded as partisans to be shot. Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population.
UKRAINIAN SUPPORT FOR GENOCIDE
Local Ukrainian officials and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police helped the Einsatzgruppen quickly identify, round up and massacre Jewish civilians. Most Ukrainian Jews were killed by fellow Ukrainians commanded by German officers rather than by Germans. The Germans could not have killed so many Jews so quickly without local help.
As word of the massacres in western Ukraine got out, many Jews fled. 70 to 90 percent of the Jews fled to eastern Ukraine and Russia. The further east the Einsatzgruppen travelled, the less likely the residents were to be prompted into killing their Jewish neighbours.
German historian Dieter Pohl says that around 100,000 Ukrainians joined police units that provided key assistance to the Nazis. Many others staffed the local bureaucracies or lent a helping hand during mass shootings of Jews. According to some historians, the majority of Auxiliary Police came from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B. Ukrainians were also among the guards who manned the Nazi death camps.
THE MASSACRE AT BABI YAR
On 29 and 30 September 1941, the largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen took place at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev. The city had fallen to the Germans on 19 September. The perpetrators included a company of Waffen-SS troops from the 2nd SS division Das Reich (famous for its Wolfsangel symbol), and some Ukrainian auxiliary police.
The Jews of Kiev were told to report to a certain street corner on 29 September; anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Since word of massacres in other areas had not yet reached Kiev and the assembly point was near the train station, they assumed they were being deported. People showed up at the rendezvous point in large numbers, laden with possessions and food for the journey.
After being marched two miles north-west of the city centre, the victims encountered a barbed wire barrier and numerous Ukrainian police and German troops. Thirty or forty people at a time were told to leave their possessions and were escorted through a narrow passageway lined with soldiers brandishing clubs. Anyone who tried to escape was beaten. Soon the victims reached an open area, where they were forced to strip, and then were herded down into the ravine. People were forced to lie down in rows on top of the bodies of other victims, and they were shot in the back of the head or the neck by members of the execution squads. The murders continued for two days, claiming a total of 33,771 victims.
UKRAINIAN AUXILIARIES IN THE GHETTOS AND DEATH CAMPS
In Dnepropetrovsk in February 1942, Einsatzgruppe D reduced the city’s Jewish population from 30,000 to 702 over the course of four days. The German Order Police and local collaborators provided the extra manpower needed to perform all the shootings. The ratio of Order Police to auxiliaries was 1 to 10 in both Ukraine and Belarus. In rural areas the proportion was 1 to 20.
As the Nazis recognized that the total elimination of Jewry would have a negative impact on the economy and the food supply, they began to round their victims up into concentration camps and ghettos and rural districts were for the most part rendered Judenfrei (free of Jews). Jewish councils were set up in major cities and forced labour gangs were established to make use of the Jews as slave labour until they were totally eliminated, a goal that was postponed until 1942.
The Trawniki concentration camp about 25 miles southeast of Lublin in occupied Poland served as an SS training facility for Ukrainian (as well as Latvian and Lithuanian) auxiliary police. In 1942, it became the forced-labor camp for thousands of Jews within the KL Lublin system of subcamps as well.
THE DIRTY WORK OF GENOCIDE
Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) were deployed from Trawniki to all major killing sites of the “Final Solution†– it was their primary purpose of training. As guards, they took an active role in the extermination of Jews at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka II death camps. They conducted large-scale massacres in Warsaw (three times), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lvov, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki itself. During training, many have executed Jews imprisoned right across the double-row barbed-wire fence. All of them were involved in shooting and beating Jews.
Dispatched to the worst of the “on-the-spot dirty work†at the Jewish ghettos in occupied eastern Poland, Trawnikis used to arrive in squads numbering around 50 at the killing site, and start by sitting down to a sandwich and bottles of vodka from their knapsacks behaving like guests, while the Germans dealt with unruly crowds of thousands of ghetto inhabitants: as in MiÄ™dzyrzec, Åuków, RadzyÅ„, Parczew, KoÅ„skowola, Komarówka and all other locations. Trawnikis were seen as indispensable. In Åomazy, the Germans were “overjoyed†to see them coming after the messy Józefów massacre. The killing in MiÄ™dzyrzec was conducted by a Trawniki unit of about 350 to 400 men, the same as in Parczew.
In 2011, the The Simon Wiesenthal Center reported that “Ukraine has, to the best of our knowledge, never conducted a single investigation of a local Nazi war criminal, let alone prosecuted a Holocaust perpetrator.â€
Hilarious how a Russian has the balls to talk about the “refugee crisis”! I wonder why all those refugees aren’t trying to go to RUSSIA. In fact, given a choice between living in a country in the West or living in Russia, people overwhelmingly choose the West. I wonder why that is? Maybe because they’re not…stupid? I mean, after all, the Russian troll says that “the US is the greatest threat to world peace.” He even says that I “can look that one up if I like”. Maybe while looking that up I will find out why people all over the world are dying to get in to the United States, even though it’s the “greatest threat to world peace.” And why NOBODY is trying to get in to Russia.
I guess all those people are just plain stupid. LMAO
Joe L, I don’t waste my time talking to Paid Russian Internet Trolls. It’s enough for me to identify them for others, to reveal the STINK of rotting flesh that permeates every word of the GARBAGE they post so that if, by some unlikely chance, some Westerner who really has no idea what’s going on in Ukraine stumbles on to your putrid propaganda, they are not fooled, not even for a minute.
And I am no far right neocon, not even a Republican; people who know me would call me a liberal, so I am not blind to the wrong moves made by the United States. The US is a country run by men and women, therefore by definition it is far from perfect. But there is one huge difference and that is that Russia is a country that still has not come to terms with it’s horrific past. Unlike Germany, which put it’s Nazis on trial and has made every effort to cut that cancer out of their national consciousness, Russia has done NOTHING about the killers who still live and still are in charge of the Russian government. Russia has never apologized to the Lithuanians, Estonians, Poles, Ukrainians, Georgians, etc., etc., for their murderous policies of RUSSIFICATION, of attempting to wipe out the languages, customs, religion, and national identities of hundreds of millions of people. Not only have they not apologized, but they have CONTINUED to oppress, brutalize and attempt to dominate and destroy many of these nations. You Russians cry about NATO expansionism, but there’s a reason all those countries want to join NATO: they are scared to death of Russians, a brutal people who to this day prefer to be ruled by a Tsar or dictator, rather than to live democratically. Save your Putin election statistics for other Russians who are brainwashed; people here in the West have had a good look at the face of Russian “democracy” and want no part of it. Russia is like a cancer patient whose cancer went in to remission temporarily, but has done nothing to completely remove the tumor. Until the Russian people themselves have their own Maidan, their own real revolution, and honestly confront the monstrous things they have done the way Germany did with the Nuremburg Trials, the cancer within Russia will continue to grow and the Russian people will continue to suffer.
How can you tell you are speaking to a paid Russian Internet Troll and not a Westerner, like they always pretend to be? Very Simple! Look for these words and phrases in their posts:
Neocons
Coup
Victoria Nuland
Nuland brought cookies
Ukrnazis
Zionists
Shelling their own citizens
Yats
Porky
CIA backed
legal referendum
Novorossiya
ultra-nationalist
right wing
Wolfsangel (this one is supposed to REALLY SCARE US IN THE WEST!)
“The” Ukraine
There are more, of course, but those are the main words and phrases which can be found in just about EVERY post, article, or op-ed written by the Paid Russian trolls and on occasion, the few Western morons who carry their message here. The problem those Western morons have is that it’s very hard to convince other Westerners that Ukrainians are the bad guys in this war with Russia (and that’s what it is, a war with Russia, NOT a civil war, which is another troll phrase) when everyone here can see that Russia is a horrible country. Russia’s leadership murders it’s political opponents, shuts down TV stations, bans internet access to international websites, and in general their society is oppressive. Ukraine has it’s problems, no question about that; what else would you expect from a country that has been dominated by Russia for hundreds of years? BUT HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA: UKRAINE IS AT LEAST TRYING TO BECOME A CIVILIZED DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY, WHILE RUSSIA IS A DICTATORSHIP THAT IS GOING BACKWARDS TOWARDS THEIR BAD OLD DAYS OF STALINISM AND THE SOVIET UNION. And that, my friends, is the bottom line, right there. Ukraine knows it has a lot of work to do and they are trying to do it. Russia is a miserable dictatorship that stomps on human rights and they LIKE IT LIKE THAT.
How exactly is Russia a “dictatorship” when Putin was “voted” into power and has 83% support all across Russia according to Gallup (you know our “western” polling service)? So let me get this straight, Putin is evil but Obama is… according to the news Putin “may be” linked to the assassination of a spy that defected to Britain and was talking to MI6 meanwhile Obama executed 2 US Citizens without trial in the “War on Terror” where the US is bombing in 7 countries and responsible for the creation of the Mujahideen in the first place, which would become Al Qaeda and the Taliban, in 1979 with $500 Million six months before the Afghan/Soviet War. Also let us not forget about the “illegal” invasion of Iraq, who had no WMD’s, where 1/2 Million to 1 Million Iraq’s were murdered (not including those dying from exposure to depleted uranium) and NATO overthrowing Libya which opened the door for Al Qaeda to expand and it was from within Iraq that we got ISIS, an off-shoot of Al Qaeda which is causing havoc all across the Middle East meanwhile driving a huge refugee crisis. But hey, I am supposed to believe “Putin, and Russia, BAD” and “Obama, and the US, GOOD”. Even if you believe that Putin has “invaded” Ukraine, even though I haven’t seen any tanks or aircraft going to Kiev, then Russia is in one country and was invited by the “legal” government of Syria where the US, and even my country Canada, are violating international law by bombing in Syria. I will fully support that Stalin was evil to people all across the Soviet Union, and paranoid, and that Russia definitely has corruption problems, which ironically came to pass with President Boris Yeltsin who are western governments cheered for as he did it. Also, again though, America talking about Russia’s corruption meanwhile it was the US that nearly took down the entire world’s economy where no bankers have gone to jail and have only gotten richer is really the pot calling the kettle black” – sorry. Even Russia’s anti-gay law that was put in place is similar to laws in 10 or 11 US States, as Perez Hilton pointed out (you know, another “American”). Russia doesn’t scare me one bit but certainly American warmongering does especially when we can see the result in the Middle East and hence why many people around the world feel that it is the US that is the greatest threat to world peace. – you can look that one up if you like.
Posted by:
Joe L.
January 29, 2016 at 10:00 pm
What – “nobody likes a Jewâ€? I deeply disagree with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians but I certainly don’t hate Jews. Actually seeing the Nazi symbolism in Ukraine, knowing full well that Hitler targeted the Jews, makes me hate the Azov Battalion, Right Sector, Svoboda, Stepan Bandera (who helped murder something like 78,000 Jews and Poles) etc. I just found what I saw in the Verkhovna Rada after the coup occurred quite sickening such as people hanging “white power†flags, confederate flags, and then the Nazi symbolism such as the Wolfangel, SS, people in the Rada showing 88 which is symbolic of Heil Hitler etc. (as can be seen in the BBC Newsnight Special: “BBC NEWS! Neo Nazi threat in new Ukraine (NEWSNIGHT)â€.
LMAO! Joe L, are you trying to PRETEND that you’re not a paid Russian INTERNET TROLL? Hilarious! You “just found out” what happened after “the coup”? Too funny! You didn’t “just find out” any damn thing! Let me tell you something, I have excellent Russian Troll Radar, ok? You are definitely one, and you are not a Westerner. Westerners don’t talk about “the coup”; only Russian trolls do that. Westerners don’t have a clue about the “Verkhovna Rada” and couldn’t even spell it! Finally, it’s just overwhelmingly funny that here you come posting how “sickened” you are about the Jews AFTER I pointed out that the most anti Semitic country is Russia, not Ukraine. You have been officially BUSTED.
Listen, Joe L, please go back and climb under the rock that you crawled out from. You’re no Westerner, Igor, or Yevheny, or whatever your real name is. You are one of the paid internet troll army that Putin has unleashed on Western websites. Everybody knows all about you and the building in St Petersburg where many of you work. I just have one piece of advice for you: tell them you want to be paid in DOLLARS, because the only thing that rubles are good for is to WIPE YOUR BUTT WITH. LOL!!!!
Alex, I busted this troll yesterday, not as skillfully as you did though, and he keeps coming back again. What a schmuck, he said he’s from Canada :)))) Probably some Russian “bydlo” immigrant. By the way, the moderator here deletes “wrong” comments. I posted some facts about Russia here, with a link to Bellingcat, and it was promptly taken down. I posted links with proof to overwhelming evidence of Russian widespread xenophobia and fascist views of the western world, and it was also taken down.
Of course you busted me “Random Dude”, what you had to change your name today? Meanwhile all that you can come up with is a “childish” retort – please. As for Bellingcat, a “blogger” who is funded by USAID, you know the US Government NGO, being credible that is laughable especially after the US Government lying about the Iraq War. Hey, and if you come to Vancouver Island, as I have offered “alex”, I am more then happy to meet up with you to discuss Ukraine, Canadian history, and we can even delve into my lineage being Irish, Scottish, and French – I will even bring my birth certificate from Nova Scotia. Plus we can also discuss, I believe, your Ukrainian heritage and your lineage – if you like?
What a laying joke you are. Can’t sleep or you live by the Miscow time? Of course Bellincat is a US sponsored propaganda for you:))) So you seek the truth from a Russian sponsored media only? Discussian is finished with you. Troll!
Really Alex, I’m a troll. Let’s see it is you that came to Mr. Parry’s website and then you call all of the people that post, or many of them trolls, because they do not think like you do? Mr. Parry who runs this site is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and George Polk Award winning “American” journalist and many of his author’s are also largely award winning journalists, former CIA intelligence officers etc. This in unlike people such as Elliot Higgins who are funded by USAID and also NOT a journalist but a “blogger” – USAID being the same organization caught in Cuba in, I believe, 2010 trying to destabilize that country as the Associated Press reported, oh and let us come full circle with Ukraine’s new Finance Minister being an “American” who used to work for USAID in Ukraine, how ironic. Also, what did I say that was incorrect or should I bring up pictures or you yourself can watch the BBC Newsnight documentary “Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY). As for Russian trolls, there certainly are on the internet but you are not so naive to believe that the US, with the largest spy agency in the world (the NSA), is not combing social media – as the Guardian (another “Western” news agency reported in “Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media” (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks). Also if you want “alex”, if you come to Canada, Vancouver Island specifically then I will meet you anywhere on the island and we can discuss Ukraine and we can even delve into our lineage – mine being Scottish, Irish, and French being born in Nova Scotia (how about yours?). If you even want, we can talk about Canadian history or Canadian politics – how about the Metis with Louis Riel or internment camps against the Japanese or any of a number of subjects – even the seal hunt in Newfoundland etc.
The difference, I think, between you and I alex is that I have looked at the history of US backed coups going back to WW2 – Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in Venezuela in 2002 and on and on it goes… Don’t believe me, check out the “School of the America’s” and how the US trained 11 Latin American Dictators at Fort Benning, Georgia, along with their death squads and these dictators were largely installed to replace “democracies” all across Latin America. I mean, how many times does someone have to put their hands on a hot stove before they believe it is hot? Oh, and let me not forget to say that the last School of the Americas graduate to overthrow a democracy was in Honduras in 2009. Here is the article, again on the Guardian: The school of Latin America’s dictators (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/18/us-military-usa). Oh and look, I have provided all “western” sources for my evidence. So I am sorry but if Nazi’s don’t sicken you then I don’t know what else should. My grandfather had his hip blown out in WW2 fighting the Nazis as part of the Black Watch – so there is no way in hell that I can look on what happened in Ukraine with Svoboda, Right Sector, the Azov Battalion, Stepan Bandera etc. and feel any pride – maybe you can. If you watch or read anything that I have posted, watch the BBC Newsnight special.
What gullible fool you are, Joe L. Mr. Parry did a great job about Iraq war, I jope he’s not voting for the republicans this time ;) But he is just another Walter Duranty who justified Stalin’s policies to NY Times readers in the 1930s. “In rubles I was payed” – should be his next book.
To Mr. Parry, please tell your moderator to stop deleting my comments with the links supporting my statements!
Ukrainians are not stupid. They would have to be to give Russia and the terrorists everything they want and THEN sometime later, Russia gives back the border. Russia is broke and is begging for sanctions relief. Ukraine has the upper hand here. Russia needs to get their troops out of Ukraine first before anything else or it can just go on like it is. In fact, Ukraine should consider just letting Russia keep Donetsk and Luhansk. There’s no real Ukrainians there anymore; they all fled to the West. There’s nobody there but terrorists and a lot of old people who consider themselves Soviet Russians not Ukrainians. Let Putler pay their pensions and let Putler spend the many billions it will cost to rebuild the area. Of course this is Putler’s worst nightmare, having another Welfare State to support. He is already supporting all the old Soviet people in Crimea and it’s costing him a lot.
to alex:
// Russia is broke and is begging for sanctions relief//
Let come back to smart Ukrainians (your “Ukrainians are not stupid”)
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/gdp
Ukraine GDP from 183 bln in 2013 to 131 bln in 2014
and down to 90 bln in 2015
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=38&pr.y=14&sy=2015&ey=2015&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=926&s=NGDPD%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC%2CLUR%2CLP%2CGGR%2CGGX%2CGGXWDG%2CGGXWDG_NGDP%2CBCA&grp=0&a
Way to go, smart Ukrainians!
And what does Alex speak about?
//Russia is broke and is begging for sanctions relief. Ukraine has the upper hand here.//
I think it is time to think about Victory parade on Red Square
And are there any events in 2013 – 2015, which one could link to GDP fall?
Hmmm, o, yes – Maidan, “revolution”…
I know, I know, this is wrong approach – lets blame Russia! :) :) :)
This blog is a perfect example of informational terrorism. There is zero information but pure false accusation based on some sick nazi obsession. Does anyone know if there is a way to block this crap from google search?
Johnny Websters, you sound like a neo Nazi yourself. You must be from Russia, no? You posted “the truth is that nobody likes a Jew, they’re the sneakiest people.” I like Jewish people; I have known many of them in my life and found them to be no more or less sneaky than anyone else. I also have known many Russians, and I liked most of them too. Of course the good Russians in Russia keep their mouths shut these days because speaking out against Putin is dangerous to one’s health. The neo Nazi Russians don’t have to worry, though; most of them support Putin all the way.
“This article about Ukraine, not Russia.”
Well, if the article wasn’t full of Russian lies and propaganda, you might actually have a valid point. Nobody is trying to make excuses for neo Nazis in Ukraine. There are neo Nazis everywhere, including in the United States, and definitely they are in Russia! Where the article becomes a Russian lie filled propaganda piece is where it implies that the neo Nazis that are in Ukraine a HUGE PROBLEM there, which is complete and total Bullcrap. Why don’t we talk about the real HUGE PROBLEM Ukraine has: Russian troops on Ukraine soil, and the fact that Russia controls the border and is sending weapons and supplies to both their own troops in Ukraine and to the traitorious terrorist dirt bags in Donetsk and Luhansk. Now that is a real HUGE PROBLEM, not the few neo Nazis who got less than 5% in the elections
You do it again! And now “There are neo Nazis everywhere”…
And then … about Russia… :) :) :)
“HUGE PROBLEM Ukraine has…” – read Minsk-2 and follow up what is going to happen after what. Border control is the last – after political settlement. And political settlement between Kiev and Donbass, not between Kiev and Moscow.
And again the article is about Ukraine, not Russia. :)
This article is not about Ukraine, it’s about Russian view of Ukraine. Take it away sunshine, some more of the Russian nazis for you, enjoy: http://americablog.com/2014/03/meet-vladimir-putin-favorite-neo-nazis-russia-crimea.html
From Wiki: “a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion”
Here it is, “sunshine” :)
Nazis? You want to see Nazis? Go to the Russian news website RT.com and read the comments posted there by REGULAR RUSSIAN PEOPLE! You will be amazed at all the disgusting anti Semitic comments posted all over that website. Russians absolutely hate Jews and blame them for all the evils of the world. Hitler would love today’s Russian people!
This article about Ukraine, not Russia.
“Russians absolutely hate Jews and blame them for all the evils of the world” – does not make an excuse for single neo-Nazi in Ukraine.
No wonder you don’t speak about article – the only argument “Look at Russia” does not refute Jonathan Marshall’s facts.
Actually, I don’t think that many of the commenters on RT are really Russian… the truth is that nobody likes a Jew, they’re the sneakiest people. If Ukraine was that anti-Jewish, how could Poroshenko clearly be displaying his Jewish credentials when he talks to the knesset? And what about Kolomoisky? They were two of the most corrupt oligarchs in Ukraine, and the two most powerful post-maidan til Poroshenko out-Jewed Kolomoisky
Really? I know many Jews and I like them. So do my friends and most of the people I know. Of course I don’t associate with anti-Semitic scumbags and neo-Nazis, and I don’t live in Russia. I’ll tell you the kind of people I don’t like “Johnny Websters”: I don’t like people who make comments like yours, whether they are anti Semitic, or racist, or anti-Catholic or whatever. See, I try to judge people individually, and I don’t make generalizations. Even about Russians; there are many GOOD Russians, but most of them are outside of Russia. Unfortunately the good Russians inside of Russia are pretty much silent these days because they are afraid to speak out against Putin. Bad things happen to those who do speak out
What – “nobody likes a Jew”? I deeply disagree with what Israel is doing to the Palestinians but I certainly don’t hate Jews. Actually seeing the Nazi symbolism in Ukraine, knowing full well that Hitler targeted the Jews, makes me hate the Azov Battalion, Right Sector, Svoboda, Stepan Bandera (who helped murder something like 78,000 Jews and Poles) etc. I just found what I saw in the Verkhovna Rada after the coup occurred quite sickening such as people hanging “white power” flags, confederate flags, and then the Nazi symbolism such as the Wolfangel, SS, people in the Rada showing 88 which is symbolic of Heil Hitler etc. (as can be seen in the BBC Newsnight Special: “BBC NEWS! Neo Nazi threat in new Ukraine (NEWSNIGHT)”. I am sorry but I deeply disagree with your statement about Jews and it should not have been posted here.
This article is good example what Kremlin propaganda is. Not the US but USSR was big friend of Nazi Germany, soviets participated in training German military, Together with Nazis they invaded Poland, occupied Baltic States and parts of Hungary, Czechoslovakia , Romania and Finland.
to Sergey:
Continue, continue…
… and stood up at Stalingrad, and crushed Nazis and took Berlin…
Soviets means Ukraine too as part of it. And in good, and in bad.
Bellingcat as a source for “journalism” – that is laughable.
USAID has estimated its budget for “media strengthening programs in over 30 countries†at $40 million annually, including aiding “independent media organizations and bloggers in over a dozen countries.†USAID, working with billionaire George Soros’s Open Society, also funds the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which engages in “investigative journalism†that usually goes after governments that have fallen into disfavor with the United States and then are singled out for accusations of corruption. The USAID-funded OCCRP also collaborates with Bellingcat, an online investigative website founded by blogger Eliot Higgins.
So much pure Russian propaganda and lies in both the original article and in the comments that I don’t even know where to start debunking the Russian Bullcrap. What every Westerner should know first and foremost is that every single person, nation, or group that Russians don’t like they immediately label them as fascists and Nazis. They have been doing this since WWII after they found out that many people here in the West are particularly gullible and easily scared by anything called Nazi, whether they really ARE Nazis or not. After WWII ended Ukrainians fought on against Russian communists until 1953, and to give themselves some sort of cover, Russians just labeled them all Nazis. The truth about Russians is rarely told here in the West, but I think this will now change as everyone here has seen who and WHAT they really are after all their lies have been exposed. From the hilarious Bullcrap that “Russian troops are not in Crimea” to the clear bold faced lies about “free referendums” in Crimea to the horrific “we didn’t shoot down MH-17” to the “there are no Russian troops in east Ukraine”, the people of the West have come to see exactly what Russians are all about. And it’s not just Putin; Russians have been oppressing their neighbors for hundreds of years. It’s time the West learned what RUSSIFICATION is, and how Russian leaders have enforced this policy on Ukraine, the Baltic states, Chechneya and many others. Basically Russians have conquered these nations brutally and embarked on their policy of Russification in these lands, outlawing the people’s native languages, religions and customs. This is not new; it goes back to the time of the Tsars and Ukraine was one of their biggest victims. Many Ukazes (decrees) were passed by Russian leaders forbidding the teaching of Ukrainian in schools and banning the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Russians have done these things for centuries and for centuries Ukrainians have yearned to be free of Russian oppression. All these Russian lies that you here these days and not new at all. Some liar above said that Western Ukraine was not even Ukraine, it was a part of Poland. Yes, it’s true that many foreign nations invaded Ukraine over the years but Western Ukraine, or Halychyna (Galicia) was always a part of Ukraine, going back to Kievan Rus. In fact, if one wants to be technical about it, Ukraine is the real Russia; it was where Rus began. Hilarious how Muscovites now try to claim that Ukrainians are anything but what they really are: a very old nation with a tragic history. Russians tell so many lies…now Russians claim that they are not responsible for the horrors of the Soviet Union! It would be funny except that really stupid brainwashed people believe this garbage. After all these years celebrating the achievements of Russian Soviet power, they now try to say that the bad parts of the Soviet era were the fault of Georgians, Ukrainians ( after all Kruschev was Ukrainian! LOL!) and most of all they blame JEWS! Yes the very same people who accuse Ukrainians of being Nazis are the most ANTI SEMITIC people on earth today. They are so completely anti Semitic that they accuse the Ukrainian president and foreign minister of being UNDERCOVER JEWS! And they’re so completely brainwashed that they actually say things like “Ukraine is run by Nazi Jews!” In the West if someone said something that stupid he’d be laughed out of here, but Russians say things like that all the time! As for WWII and who fought for the Nazis go and Google the Vlasov Army. It was an entire army of Russian soldiers that gladly fought for Hitler and wore GERMAN UNIFORMS! That’s how much hatred there was for Stalin and communism in Russia as well as in Ukraine. But the Russians conveniently forget to mention the Vlasov Army when they try to tar all Ukrainians with the Nazi brush. In conclusion my fellow Westerners, don’t fall for Russian lies and propaganda. We here in the West can make up our own minds; the entire internet is ours to examine. In Russia you can’t do that; Putler has blocked many websites and murdered opposition journalists, shutting down newspapers and Television stations who tell the truth.
Pssst, you might want to tell the Azov battalion, Right Sector and Svoboda that Putin has tricked them into wearing Nazi symbols.
“Meet John Doe” – the 1940’s Gary Cooper film explains it all.
koch bros.. .
The photo in Jonathan Marshall’s article shows Senator John McCain standing beside the Svobada leader Oleh Tyahnybok. Here are some more photos of Tyahnybok, this time during an attack on a national guard in front of the Ukrainian parliament:
http://korrespondent.net/ukraine/3558267-mvd-obnarodovalo-povestky-na-dopros-vosmy-svobodovtsam
http://ukrainianwall.com/ukraine/tyagnibok-obvinil-avakova-v-provokaciyax-pod-radoj/
That was part of the violent protest on 31 August 2015 against the law for increased autonomy for east Ukraine. During that protest, three other national guards were killed by a grenade. The main suspect for those killings was a known member of Svobada who was photograghed throwing something at that time.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/third-servicemen-dies-from-rada-grenade-attack-396940.html
I always say that when Americans start waving the swastika, they’ve run out of ideas! Putin must be in very deep trouble indeed if his supporters are back to smearing Ukraine and Ukrainians. That’s good news for Ukrainians.
The history of foreign regiments in the Waffen SS is a complex one. Originally Himmler did not want foreigners in any SS unit. However, the military reverses for Germany in the Soviet Union created pressures. Eventually Himmler relented with the result that males from every German-occupied country were allowed and did volunteer for Waffen SS units. There were SS recruiting offices in all of their major cities. I understand that very few if any Poles volunteered.
A poorly known Nazi program offered German, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, and Flemish families stolen land in Ukraine to become farmers. I know because one of my classmates in occupied Netherlands became a so-called “East-Farmer”. He left for his farm in Ukraine and never returned.
Hitler’s plans for Ukraine have become well known. For him Ukrainians were “Untermenschen”, sub-humans, a classification which no Soviet leader has ever used. When one considers these plans it is incomprehensible that any Ukrainian today can have any sympathy for Nazi Germany or Nazi-like organization.
The Ukrainian SS soldiers fought for a regime whose plan for their nation was far worse than Stalin’s
When the Wehrmacht marched into Lviv in 1941 a remarkable incident happened. The commander of that Wehrmacht unit failed to secure Lviv’s radio station immediately which gave OUN the opportunity to broadcast a declaration of sovereignty of Ukraine plus a proposed alliance with Germany. When Hitler was informed he flew into a rage. The independent Slovakia had already become a nuisance. No more independent states even as so-called allies. The radio station was closed and Ukrainian independence reversed.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine (at the time interwar Poland). The OUN sought to infiltrate legal political parties, universities and other political structures and institutions. Its strategy to achieve Ukrainian independence included violence and terrorism against perceived foreign and domestic enemies, particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia, which controlled territory inhabited by ethnic Ukrainians.
In 1940, the OUN split into two parts. The older, more moderate members, supported Andriy Melnyk (OUN-M) while the younger and more radical members supported Stepan Bandera (OUN-B).
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, both factions of the OUN collaborated with the Germans and used the opportunity of the invasion to send their activists into Soviet-controlled territory.
Roman Shukhevych became a member the Revolutionary Command of the OUN headed by Bandera, taking charge of the section dealing with territories claimed by the Ukrainians, which after the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had been seized by Germany.
A powerful web was formed for the preparation of underground activities in Ukraine. Paramilitary training courses were set up. Military cadres were prepared that were to command a future Ukrainian army.
Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany’s intelligence, regarding the formation of Ukrainian staffed forces. In February 1941, the head of Abwehr Wilhelm Franz Canaris sanctioned the creation of the “Ukrainian Legion†under German command. Shukhevych became a commander of the Legion. OUN expected that the unit would become the core of the future Ukrainian army.
In May 1941, the German command split a 700-strong Ukrainian Legion into three units. One of the units became known as Nachtigall Battalion, a second became the Roland Battalion, and a third was immediately dispatched into the Soviet Union to sabotage the Red Army’s rear.
The Nachtigall (Nightingaleâ€) Battalion was a Security Police unit composed almost exclusively from members of the OUN-B. After intensive training, outfitted in the standard Wehrmacht uniforms, the Battalion was moved to the border four days before the attack on the Soviet Union.
On the night of 23–24 June 1941, the Nachtigall Battalion crossed the border near Przemyśl while traveling in the direction of Lviv. Before entering Lviv on 29 June, they placed blue and yellow ribbons on their shoulders.
Under the command of Shukhevych, the Nachtigall Battalion took up guard of strategic objects, the most important of which was the radio station on the Vysoky Zamok Hill in the centre of Lviv. From this radio station, on 30 June, the OUN-B proclaimed the establishment of Ukrainian State in Lviv, with Yaroslav Stetsko as premier. The German administration did not support this act, but did not act harshly against the organizers until mid-September 1941.
It is estimated that in June-July 1941, over 4,000 Jews were murdered in pogroms in Lviv and other cities in Western Ukraine. There is controversy regarding the participation of the Nachtigall Battalion.
The first company of the Nachtigall Battalion left Lviv on 7 July in the direction of Zolochiv. The remainder of the unit joined later during their eastward march towards Zolochiv, Ternopil and Vinnytsia. During the march, Jews were said to have been shot en masse. The unit participated in action against the Stalin Line, where some of its members were awarded decorations by the Germans.
The Germans refused to accept the 30 June OUN-B proclamation of Ukrainian independence in L’viv. In August, the Nachtigall Battalion was recalled to Cracow, then transported to Germany and disarmed at gunpoint. In September, OUN-B leaders and associates were arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. Many members were killed outright, or perished in jails and concentration camps. Bandera and Stetsko were sent to Sachsenhausen. By the end of November 1941, the Germans started a second wave of repression in Reichskommissariat Ukraine specifically targeting OUN-B members.
At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers of the disbanded Nachtigall and Roland Battalions were given the option of signing a one year contract for military service. Reformed into the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion. 650 Ukrainian personnel, including Shukhevych, were given German Police uniforms and sent to Belarus where they waged a brutal anti-partisan campaign. There are claims that the unit participated in the killing of Jews. In 1943, with the tide of war turning with the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad, all the Ukrainian soldiers refused to renew their services. Shukhevych escaped from arrest by the Gestapo.
During 1942, the principal activities of OUN-B were propaganda and the development of its own underground network. Although German policies were criticized, the Soviet partisans were identified as the primary enemy of OUN-B. By October 1942, the OUN adopted a policy for the accelerated growth of a Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
The OUN-B viewed the Germans as a secondary threat compared to their main enemies: the communist forces of the Soviet Union and Poland. They were content to let the Red Army and Soviet partisans battle the Germans. Due to its focus on the Soviets as the principal adversary, OUN-B anti-German actions were limited to situations where the Germans attacked the Ukrainian population or UPA units.
In August 1943, Shukhevych was elected head of the Direction of the OUN and Supreme Commander of the UPN. During 1943 and 1944, UPA military units carried out large-scale ethnic cleansing against Polish and Jewish populations. Historians estimate that 60,000-100,000 Polish civilians were massacred in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.
The OUN long regarded Galicia and Volhynia as ethnic Ukrainian territory that should be included in a future restored Ukrainian republic. It sought to use terror and violence in opposition to the Polish government. The UPA massacres of Poles in 1943-44 were a preemptive strike, in expectation of another Polish-Ukrainian conflict over the disputed territories which were internationally recognized as part of Poland in 1923.
Conversely, killings of Ukrainians by Poles in Volhynia resulted in between 10,000 and 20,000 deaths in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, while several thousand more were killed by Poles in Polish territory to the west.
Just to set the record straight on SOME in Ukraine who supported the Nazi’s (and worked with them) in WWII. The saying “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is appropriate. It was hoped that by joining forces with the Nazis, Ukraine would become free of Soviet (Russian) rule. That didn’t happen of course. I was in Ukraine for over a year before the Feb 2014 overthrow of Yanukovich. People were angry because of the enormous level of corruption. Svoboda participated in that, but very few people then or now support Svoboda.
CONSORTIUM “57 VARIETIES”
The article by Jonathan Marshall was excellent.
Perhaps there are crumbs of wisdom in the 57 plus
so-called “comments” which follow, If I have
an extra month of doing nothing perhaps something
could be gleaned. Or is this more a hope, a dream?
It seems pointless to add yet another meaningless
so-called “comment”. Once more, thanks
to Mr. Marshall.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
This is nonsense. The Maiden riots were caused by popular discontent with a corrupt and tyrannical pro-Russian president. He was so unpopular that his own party voted against him. He fled before he could be expelled. There was nothing neo-Nazi about the people’s power revolt. Nor did the USA or EU have anything to do with it.
There are a few neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Less than 1% of the population. But there are many more in Russia, including in the Kremlin.
There are far more Communists and neo-Communists in Ukraine. Are you not afraid of them? They are a much greater threat than the miniscule neo-Nazis.
I am afraid that your diatribe has no basis in fact, and is just part of Putin’s propaganda campaign. The irony is that Putin is himself a national-socialist dictator.
Could not have said it better. GOOD ON YOU for actually telling the truth!!!!!!
As long as you don’t see “The neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine” in
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/28/cheering-a-democratic-coup-in-ukraine-2/
as just one example, your whole diatribe is a hollow self-delusional misrepresentation of events and current state in Ukraine.
P.S. //There are far more Communists and neo-Communists in Ukraine.//
Communists were banned in Ukraine if you did not get the news yet – so much for “democracy” in Ukrainian drive to Europe…
Maybe you need to watch the BBC Newsnight special entitled “Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT” since you claim that the “power revolt” in Ukraine had “nothing neo-Nazi about it”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
Or how about the report by the EU itself on December 13, 2012 about the growing threat Svoboda:
“Is concerned about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada; recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party;”
As for Putin being a “dictator”, he was “voted” into power and has an 83% approval rating in Russia according to Gallup – so that is an erroneous statement indeed.
Just answer me this; why was Victoria Nuland handing out cookies?
Its.unfortunate that some people who have never been to Ukraine, don’t know anything about Ukraine’s history are making comments about neo-nazis in ukraine without presenting the circumstances regarding the so-called Neo-nazis. There are neo-nazis in Russia and some pro-Russian separatists are neo-nazis in eastern Ukraine.No one mentions them! Oh Noooooo! that would not be right. I have a word for those who make rash statements about Ukraine. Jewish people have a term for anyone who disparages them without foundation ; They are called anti-Semitic. Well those who make disparaging remarks about Ukraine should be called: Anti-slavic ! Justifiably so.Some of you need to get your facts straight, not from Russian sources but from reliable sources.Jewish people,in Ukraine are doing better then jews in other countries. God Bless the Jewish people and God Bless Ukraine!
bless Ukraine!
You are so right. How do people even have the balls to judge a country without actually being there and just judging it on some pure shit a Russian working for Putin made. Thanku for not believing this article as we no its not true!!!
There is sticks and stones hurt me but names never hurt me. In US occupied Ukraine people are being killed in thousands for think differently than the western Ukrainians. That is difference. There is not thousands of people being killed in Russia because they think differently. It is nightmare what has happened in US occupied Ukraine. Odessa – killing of 100 people who think differently. Mariopol – shooting people who think differently. Donbass – thousands of civilians killed for thinking differently.
There is sticks and stones hurt me but names never hurt me. In US occupied Ukraine people are being killed in thousands for think differently than the western Ukrainians. That is difference. There is not thousands of people being killed in Russia because they think differently. It is nightmare what has happened in US occupied Ukraine. Odessa – killing of 100 people who think differently. Mariopol – shooting people who think differently. Donbass – thousands of civilians killed for thinking differently.
Oh Look! Sarah Palin entered the discution. Keep talking, you’re funny girl.
Dear Robert Parry,
I am grateful, really grateful. I so value this blog. You are wondeful.
LTR
Dear Robert Parry,
The person who is posting advocating hanging and using profanity has destroyed this post and needs to be blocked forever. Advocating violence and profanity are meant to intimidate or really to terrorize. The person in question is terrorizing readers.
LTR
Spelling correctly, the edit did not work:
Dear Robert Parry,
The person who is posting advocating hanging and using profanity has destroyed this post and needs to be blocked forever. Advocating violence and profanity are meant to intimidate or really to terrorize. The person in question is terrorizing readers.
Please remove the posts by the person who is advocating violence and terrorizing readers.
LTR
Don’t let it bother you! The person that is “trolling” this thread is extremely childish, as can be seen from the monikers used, and simply hides behind the internet instead of giving any intelligent criticism or critique. Typical…
I admit I’m a Russian troll living in Canada. I love Neo-Russia, and support all it’s actions against post-Soviet republics.
LOL, just messing with you. You’ve been a trooper ;) Sorry I took your name, couldn’t resist :)
How can you prove you’re not a troll? You seem to have typical troll thought process. No facts, only personal biased thoughts.
Yeah, don’t worry, I’m just playing with you zombies. I won’t even come back to this blog tomorrow. “Hiding behind the Internet instead of giving any intelligent meaning”? What does this sentence even mean? Busted! Russian troll!!!!
Joe, dude, you are spending way too much time arguing with a child.
My summary of this “Hang a” boy’s argument and mentality (and those of all Ukraine coup cheerleaders) is as follows (with thick Slavic accent):
Maidan / Ukrainian ultra-nationalists – good
Putin / Russia / Russian speaking Ukrainians – bad
beg others for help and taxpayer money – good
commies – bad
No! this not contradiction!
export sisters for sex slave – good
credit cards frauds – good
build real economies – bad
get drunk – very good
read book – very bad
violent confrontation – good
dialog, persuasion and accord – bad
Real award-winning addition to the American tapestry, this guy is. I’m just stoked that when the fools who run my country get what they are aiming for (NATO membership for Ukraine), we will all be on the hook to defend those corrupt, vodka-addled derelicts in whatever fight they can stumble into. What fun that the first (and last) will likely be with nuke-armed Russia.
Oh Look! Sarah Palin entered the discution. Keep talking, you’re funny girl.
Dear Robert Parry,
Allowing a post by a person who wants to hang people is destructive of conversation and this blog. The person who wants to hang other people should be stopped from commenting and past comments erased.
LTR
On May 15 last year, Ukrainian president Poroshenko signed into law a bill that not only glorifies WW2 Nazi collaborators such as OUN and UPA but also criminalises public criticism of those organisations. That bill had been passed by parliament the previous month.
“On the Legal Status and Honoring the Memory of Fighters for Ukraine’s Independence in the Twentieth Century
…
Article 1. The Legal Status of Fighters for Ukraine’s Independence in the Twentieth Century
1. The name of fighters for independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century shall be assigned to the persons who participated in all forms of political, armed and other collective and individual struggle for independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century as a part of governments, organizations, institutions and groups:
…
10) the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN);
…
12) the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA);
…
Article 6. Responsibility for Violation of Legislation of the Legal Status of Fighters for Ukraine’s Independence in the Twentieth Century
1. Citizens of Ukraine, foreigners and persons without citizenship who publicly show contempt for persons referred to in Article 1 of this Law and prevent the exercise of rights by the fighters for independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century are responsible under the law.
Public denial of the legitimacy of the struggle for independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century is recognized as insult to the memory of fighters for independence of Ukraine in the XX century, disparagement of the Ukrainian people and is unlawful.”
http://www.memory.gov.ua/laws/law-ukraine-legal-status-and-honoring-memory-fighters-ukraines-independence-twentieth-century
They were fighting the commies – that’s why they were heroes. Totally support that. What, you have a problem with that? Good! If I had to choose between the two evils I’d chose nazis too.
That is a problem. Mass media brainwash is working, now people like you would accept Nazis as their heroes just because they hate Russians. Don’t try to rewrite history.. Soviet Red army liberated Europe from Nazis and not the other way around.
LOL, which history book did you read this crap from? Soviet army didn’t liberate anyone. Soviet army occupied pretty much anyone up until half of the Germany.
Only a few days after signing that glorification/censorship law, Poroshenko promised to amend it, while he was on a visit to Poland.
http://www.unian.info/politics/1080155-poroshenko-vows-to-amend-law-on-upa.html
Since then, however, there haven’t been any reports of efforts to change the law. So presumably Poroshenko made that promise to dampen any criticism while he was meeting his Polish counterpart, President Bronislaw Komorowski, who was in the middle of an election campaign.
Even though Ukrainian politicians continue to glorify those who murdered many thousands of Poles, that doesn’t seem to bother the Polish political establishment. Anti-Russian sentiment is so strong that they are happy to forget what happened in WW2. The main focus of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the past year appears to be their common support for continuing the sanctions against Russia.
For an interesting view of the group think mentality dominating the discussion of the recent Ukrainian revolution, watch the documentary Winter on Fire (available on Netflix), now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. It is as simplistic and puerile an examination of the events as one might find in a third grade current affairs discussion.
The film presents the Maidan protestors as (not surprisingly) all white hats, with the Yanukovich government, police, Putin and Russia as the black hats. Missing is any discussion of the history of the deep political, ethnic, linguistic divisions in Ukraine; the dubious groups and individuals who provided the muscle to overthrow the government, and the evil meaning of their chosen symbology; or the role of US government officials and clandestine services in orchestrating, promoting and materially supporting the coup of February 2014.
Winter on Fire comes across as the product of the same Madison Avenue shills who successfully sold Obama as the great catalyst of Hope and Change, and who with equal facility, employ cartoon characters to sell corn syrup to kids as nourishment. In fact, the film’s Executive Producer Angus Wall is a highly renowned editor of TV commercials and his production company Rock Paper Scissors specializes in serving the advertising industry.
With such dishonest mediators framing the debate, it is little wonder that the American public’s understanding of the situation is, and will likely remain, at the level of a fairy tale.
right wing “rhetorics” (should be “rhetoric”)? Let me guess, you are Ukrainian because obviously English is not your first language! I’m Canadian and I do believe that the US pulled off a coup in Ukraine against the democratically elected “Yanukovych”, like him or not. I truly wish that Ukraine would have simply “voted” Yanukovych out of power, as a “democracy” should, instead of forcefully removing him from power – then we would not have had all of the aftermath. For me, also, one tell-tale sign that what happened in Ukraine was a coup was seeing a former USAID worker becoming Ukraine’s new Finance Minister (you know the same USAID that was trying to inspire “regime change” in Cuba as well and got caught according to a story by the Associated Press).
Of course you are Ukrainian, I could have guessed that by all of your “rhetoric”! Yanukovych “was” democratically elected and it “was” recognized by the international community – even if you did not like him. As for US support, the coup was driven by the US, I believe. We can historically look at the US coup in Iran in 1953 pulled off by the CIA where they funded opposition politicians, funded protesters, and hired thugs to overthrow the government. On and on and on US regime change occurs meanwhile ignorant people oblivious to history claim otherwise (such as the US training 11 Latin American dictators in the US at Fort Benning, Georgia meanwhile the last graduate to pull off a coup was in Honduras in 2009).
I would just say don’t be so ignorant to believe that anyone that speaks against the Ukrainian government is a “commie” or “Russian” – that is sheer ignorance. I don’t believe that Ukraine is some “puritanical” society especially if it claims how much it loves “democracy” meanwhile stealing power instead of using “democratic” means and letting the people of Ukraine, all of Ukraine, decide who should be leading the country or looking at people like Stepan Bandera (once proclaimed the “hero of Ukraine”) who took part in the killing of Jews/Poles meanwhile he has statues erected to him all over Ukraine – that’s disgusting.
For me, had the Ukrainian people voted Yanukovych out of power, as early elections in December probably would have done, then I could support the will of the Ukrainian people 100%. Then if the new government, that was “democratically elected” decided, along with the will of the people, to move closer to Europe instead of Russia – I also could have supported that 100%. But stealing power by using some of the most disgusting people on the planet, neo-nazis, I cannot support that – no way in hell. The Azov Battalion etc. is disgusting along with other factions. What happened in Ukraine was sickening and nowhere near representing “democracy”. Who cares in Yanukovych fled to Russia, he was running for his life. I mean should he stand trial in a Ukraine that is run by people that stole the power to begin with – that would be really stupid? Overall, I just find what is happening in Ukraine is anything but democratic and I cannot support that at all (same with the coup that occurred in Egypt etc.).
What is wrong with you? I post under “Joe L.” and the person that posted the Babi Yar article is “KK” meanwhile the article comes from the Jerusalem Post which I don’t think has any link to Russia. It is somebody else, I have no idea about Babi Yar…
I do believe that the US pulled off a coup with $5 Billion since the 1990’s, involvement of US NGO’s (such as US NGO involvement in trying to create regime change in Cuba through USAID, Venezuela 2002, Egypt etc. – same US NGO’s involved in Ukraine) such as an “American” who used to work for USAID becoming Ukraine’s new Finance Minister. Overall it was a coup:
Coup d’état (noun): A sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government
It meets all of the criteria of a coup. A “democratically elected” leader who had power stolen, even when Ukraine tried to impeach Yanukovych according to Ukraine’s constitution they failed to get the 3/4 vote required to “legally” remove Yanukovych from power and he was not voted out. It was absolutely a coup – even the head of Stratfor, an American intelligence company from Austin, Texas said that overthrow of Yanukovych was “The Most Blatant Coup in History”. I think even the “I am Ukrainian” video was produced by Larry Diamond who is linked to the US State Department and now the girl from that video is something like a deputy Governor under Mikheil Saakashvili (the ex-Georgian President who was “appointed” Governor of Odessa and wanted in Georgia for crimes). What I also do find fascinating though is to look back the claims made in our media, “western media”, about people in Crimea voting at gunpoint etc. meanwhile now we have polls from Gallup, GFK, and Pew Research which all clearly show that the people of Crimea overwhelmingly support Russia, are happy to be Russian again, and want to Ukrainian Government to recognize the referendum. You can also add in photos provided by the Ukrainian government over and over again from the Georgian war in 2008 to prove of Russian invasions into Ukraine today – that’s fishy.
Lastly, saying to me “Hey, you just lost Ukraine” in a comment above suggests that you believe that I am Russian. I believe that I read that correctly.
What you have no constructive criticism so you can only call me a “schmuck”? Well I shouldn’t be surprised by someone that is so infantile as to use “Hang a commie” as their moniker.
Again, did I say that Ukraine is “run by Nazis”? No, I did not but the Ukrainian government is definitely making use of Neo-Nazis (the Azov Battalion) and there are some nationalist/neo-nazis within Ukraine’s parliament – absolutely. I also find that praising someone like Stepan Bandera, or erecting statues to him, is disgusting considering what he did to Jews and Poles (a former Ukrainian President labelling him the “hero of Ukraine”). So definitely there are nazi links in Ukraine, even look at how many people carried pictures of Stepan Bandera on the Maidan. He should be remembered for his part in history but most certainly not praised.
As for my proof of a coup in Ukraine, it meets ALL of the definition of a coup and the same factions that were found to try to institute “regime change” in other countries are the same people involved in Ukraine – so it isn’t that hard to put that together. As for Russian propaganda, there are many people like Mr. Parry who is an award winning “American” journalist amongst others like Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, award winning journalist John Pilger along with a whole host of others. But I bet too you thought that Sadaam had WMD’s but of course the US media NEVER did any propaganda about that war… So I am sorry that I am leery of what I hear from the US media when it comes to foreign affairs. Maybe you need to take a little history lesson on US backed coups, starting with Iran in 1953, and how they were pulled off and the organizations involved even up to this day. I am with the head of Stratfor in saying that “Ukraine was the most blatant coup in history”.
By arguing with this guy you arelegitimizing his presents here.
Just ignore him.
I agree with your opponent on one thing – lack of English doesn’t mean lack of logic.
I am Ukrainian myself and I feel so deeply ashamed of what happened with my people. But who orchestrated and supports what is going on in Ukraine?
CIA that was jump started by Nazi scum supported terrorists who they call heroes in Western Ukraine from day one(see article ).
Who supported heroizetion of Stepan Bandera?
it were US, Canada and now EU.
By the way, Canada harbored so many Ukrainian Nazi scum and refused to extradite them for fair trial that it sickens me.
Canada supports new regime in Ukraine as much as US does.
So get off your Canadian high horse and join a Ukrainian Nazi loving club,he-he.
Jake… get off my Canadian high horse? I know it wasn’t the Canadian government that pulled off this coup in Ukraine, though regretfully my government is supporting the new Ukrainian government. I know that even Stepan Bandera’s grandson, I believe, lives in Toronto or something like that. I also have no idea where the comment of joining a “Ukrainian Nazi Loving Club” came from? Also, I don’t believe that I said that “Hang a Commie’s” lack of English lacked logic, I was just curious to find out where the person calling everyone else “comrade”, and claiming to be from the “western world”, came from. Though to be fair, I think that “Hang a Commie” proved his lack of logic not only through his comments but also through his “monikers” used.
Western media have engaged in a grotesque public relations campaign to promote the neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
For example, a March 2015 article in the UK Guardian highlighted “women fighting on the frontline in Ukraine”.
The Guardian article included a photo of the charming Anaconda http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/ukraine-women-fighting-frontline#img-4 a female volunteer standing in front of an Aidar Battalion van that displays the neo-Nazi symbol 1488, a numerological reference to the phrases “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children†and “Heil Hitlerâ€
In addition, displayed on the door of the van is the crossed WWII German “potato masher†hand grenade symbol of the notorious Dirlewanger Brigade, the most criminal and heinous SS unit in Hitler’s war machine.
Led by Oskar Dirlewanger, the unit engaged in the rape, pillaging and mass murder of civilians. Its actions in Russia and Belarus were so atrocious that numerous German Army and even SS commanders attempted to remove Dirlewanger from the SS and disband the unit, although he had patrons within the Nazi apparatus who intervened on his behalf.
The Dirlewanger Brigade was most notably credited with the destruction of Warsaw, and the massacre of ~100,000 of the city’s population during the Warsaw Uprising; and participating in the brutal suppression of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944.
But all the UK Guardian had to say was, “The baby-faced 19-year-old says that her mother is very worried about her and phones several times a dayâ€.
In fact, the “romantic” legacy of Ukrainian “European volunteers” hides a reality of Nazi collaboration and terrorist violence.
Europäische Freiwillige is a German term meaning “European Volunteersâ€, derived from the German “Freiwillige†(volunteer). The term used to describe volunteers from an occupied country who joined the army of the German occupier.
The Nazi collaborationist Freiwillige legacy, complete with Nazi regalia, was embraced by ultra-nationalist Ukrainian Svoboda party (formerly known as the Social-National Party of Ukraine in a deliberate inversion of National-Socialism).
The Nazi symbolism used by territorial defense battalions (БатальйоÌни територіаÌльної обороÌни), volunteer military units armed by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defense and now fully incorporated into the Ukrainian Army, deliberately invokes the worst atrocities of the Second World War in the East.
Svoboda and Pravyy Sektor armed neo-Nazi militants exploited the largely peaceful Maidan anti-government protests, and violently seized power in Kiev. Neo-Nazis leaders were given key positions in the post-coup government.
The notorious Azov and Aidar battalions, as well as regular Ukrainian Army and National Guard forces, flagrantly display Nazi symbols.
The two most prevalent symbols, the Wolfsangel symbol and the SS runes, recall the most violent and bloody battles against Soviet military forces variously demonized in Nazi propaganda as “Jewish Bolshevik subhumansâ€, the “Mongol hordesâ€, the “Asiatic flood†and the “red beastâ€.
During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Ukrainians were influenced by German propaganda that portrayed the Russians in the most dehumanized terms, depicting the Red Army as a force of Slavic Untermensch (sub-humans) and “Asiatic†savages engaging in “barbaric Asiatic fighting methods†commanded by evil Jewish commissars to whom German troops were to grant no mercy.
Typical of the German Army propaganda was the following passage from a pamphlet issued in June 1941: “Anyone who has ever looked into the face of a Red commissar knows what the Bolsheviks are. There is no need here for theoretical reflections. It would be an insult to animals if one were to call the features of these, largely Jewish, tormentors of people and beasts. They are the embodiment of the infernal, of the personified insane hatred of everything that is noble in humanity. In the shape of these commissars we witness the revolt of the subhuman against noble blood. The masses whom they are driving to their deaths with every means of icy terror and lunatic incitement would have brought about an end of all meaningful life, had the incursion not been prevented at the last momentâ€. The last statement is a reference to the “preventive war†that Barbarossa was alleged to be.
German Army propaganda designated the mission for German troops in the East: “It is necessary to eliminate the red sub-humans, along with their Kremlin dictators. German people will have a great task to perform the most in its history, and the world will hear more about that this task will be completed till the end.â€
As a result of this sort of propaganda, the majority of the German officers and soldiers, as well as their non-German allies, tended to regard the war in Nazi terms, seeing their Soviet opponents as so much sub-human trash deserving to be trampled upon.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) steeped in this sort of propaganda for decades, combining ultra-nationalism with the most vile racism.
Many members of the Ukrainian diaspora are children of soldiers who fought with the Germans, but were sent to the Britain, Canada and the United States after the war because their virulent anti-Russian mentality was deemed worthy of preservation.
There are a number of contemporary far-right Ukrainian political organizations who claim to be inheritors of the OUN’s political traditions, including Svoboda, the Ukrainian National Assembly and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. The role of the OUN remains contested in historiography, as these later political inheritors developed a literature denying the organization’s fascist political heritage and collaboration with Nazi Germany, while also celebrating the Waffen-SS Galizien.
Historian Per Anders Rudling at Lund University (Sweden) has noted that the “Waffen-SS Galizien worked alongside one of the most brutal counter-insurgency units of Nazi Germany, the dreaded SS-Sonderbattalion Dirlewanger, a unit which included rapists, murderers, and the criminally insane, which carried out brutal anti-partisan activities in Belarus and Poland, and the no less brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Waffen- SS Galizien and Dirlewanger transferred officers between their units” See ‘They Defended Ukraine’: The 14.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr. 1) Revisited in Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 25, pages 329–368 (2012)
What crap. Could you be more wrong?. For years Ukrainians have had to deal with people like you. How can you even say what are saying when so many Ukrainians were killed by the Nazis?. Ukrainians have had to cope with both the Germans and the Russians. Just have peace!!!!
//Ukrainians have had to cope with both the Germans and the Russians.//
Which Ukrainians? Ukrainians in Red Army? Ukrainians in UPA?
1.6 mil Ukrainian Red Army soldiers were killed by Germans and some by “freedom fighters” from UPA.
What Ukrainians are you talking about?!
I am curious why Jonathan Marshall, the author of this article, erroneously refers to Ukraine as “the Ukraine”.
Because he’s working for the Russian news media, and most likely not the Jonathan Marshall ;)
Because in Slavic languages like Ukrainian and Russian, Ukraine means something like frontier. If you know that, it’s more natural to say “the frontier”.
I believe the author forgot to mention that there are Good Nazis who receive full US support.
https://shadowproof.com/2016/01/26/congress-quietly-kills-ban-on-funding-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/
The situation is similar to that in Syria where the Bad Head-Chopping Terrorists must of course be exterminated, while the Good Head-Chopping Terrorists (who are on our side) deserve all the assistance from taxpayer dollars we can render to them.
It’s a really good thing the US has a nobel peace laureate as President to properly sort out these matters.
Years ago, the Russian poet Yevgany Yevtushenko published a poem called Babi Yar–about a terrible massacre of the Jews perpetrated by the Nazis in WW II, when the Nazis heard the Russian army was coming to liberate the Jews from an area near Babi Yar—Only just recently did I learn Babi Yar was in the Ukraine, and that the Nazis rounded the Jews up out of spite and massacred them because the Russian army was coming to liberate them and that part of the Ukraine– This article explains a little more about the background of that poem, and I have to say, I think the US is on the wrong side of history on this one– There is no excuse for supporting a government which commits atrocities to the extent that Nazi Ukraine has, and further, the Ukraine abuts Russia, and if we nearly went to war over Russia trying to put misses in Cuba and our sphere of influence, I think we need to respect other country’s sphere of influence also– particularly when the government we support is Nazi and guilty of crimes against humanity–
looks like those “moderate freedom fighters”/”democracy activist” don’t like Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial …
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Babi-Yar-Holocaust-site-vandalized-for-sixth-time-this-year-416306
Do you live in the western world or is it simply that English is “not” your first language (“turist”, “no body”)?
Well “Hang a commie”, your English is so bad that it makes me doubt that you truly do live in the western world meanwhile you espouse that other people on this thread are Russian – as you did with me. Sorry to tell you bud but there are many people that see what happened in Ukraine as a coup, many people in the “Western World” and many of them are award winning journalists, politicians, and former intelligence agency personnel etc. Frankly, I wish that the coup did not happen, and that Ukraine truly did use “democracy” to get rid of Yanukovych – if that was the will of the people. That way none of what is still happening now would be occurring. Now Ukraine will have to suffer under IMF austerity (such as the Greeks) which will drive down wages, privatize industry, drive down pensions etc. Shame…
So where are you from or are you simply here to troll this thread?
Well we don’t as it does not acknowledge one non Jewish Ukrainian who died. When so many did. More non Jewish Ukrainians died at Babi Yar than Jews. I can understand why you are concerned about the vandalisation but you must understand that not only Jews did there so it hurts Ukrainians to have to have something completely disregarding the death of thousands of Ukrainians.
Have a good day!!!!!!!
Thank you, for finally seeing the truth, and helping bring it out into the world. Thank you, and please do continue.
(To Leonard)
Well stated. Thank you for your comment.
Years ago, the Russian poet Yevgany Yevtushenko published a poem called Babi Yar–about a terrible massacre of the Jews perpetrated by the Nazis in WW II, when the Nazis heard the Russian army was coming to liberate the Jews from an area near Babi Yar—Only just recently did I learn Babi Yar was in the Ukraine, and that the Nazis rounded the Jews up out of spite and massacred them because the Russian army was coming to liberate them and that part of the Ukraine– This article explains a little more about the background of that poem, and I have to say, I think the US is on the wrong side of history on this one– There is no excuse for supporting a government which commits atrocities to the extent that Nazi Ukraine has, and further, the Ukraine abuts Russia, and if we nearly went to war over Russia trying to put misses in Cuba and our sphere of influence, I think we need to respect other country’s sphere of influence also– particularly when the government we support is Nazi and guilty of crimes against humanity–
Russia under Stalin killed more Jews than did the Germans-and more inhumanely. Stalin wanted Ukraine for industrialization, encircled the farming communities with military and did not allow food to the Ukrainian people; the Russians starved millions of Ukrainians to death. Stalin also staffed his NKVD (precursor to KGB), who treated Ukrainians cruelly on orders, with Jewish as well as polish officers so that Ukrainians would hate Jews and Poles. Russia also torpedoed at least one ship packed with thousands of Jews trying to escape.
Militarily overmatched Ukrainians welcomed Germany into their fight against Stalin’s Russia because the thought Germany fought on the side of Ukraine. Unfortunately for Ukrainians, Germany then turned against Ukrainians because they wanted Ukraine for farmland to feed Germans. Ukrainians, battered on both sides preceding and during WWII, deserve whatever help we can give them in their continuing fight against expansionist Russia.
What “expansionist” Russia? You could say that about the Soviet Union and its’ expanding Empire but I find it ludicrous to make such a statement about today’s Russia. The only thing that I really see expanding today is the US Empire – one military base at a time.
Me, stop fooling myself Mr. “Hang a commie”… please. Oh, and I didn’t “lose” anything, I am Canadian.
I agree expansioning NATO and America.Which is pushing up to Russia’s borders.
Maiden started of as a movement bye the people to bring about change and a better standed of living ,thru increased wages and closer ties to the EU.The removal of corrupt politicians.
This movement was taken over bye the CIA backed extremists ,and snipers who fuelled the fire of hate on both sides during maiden.These extremists were paid to be there,the result being the over throw of a democratically elected government ,who had agreed to have elections in the preceding months.
Ukraine is a slavic country ,with a long history of close ties to Russia.
The following civil war has ,killed thousands and made over a million people refuges .The living standeds have deteriated with increases in electricity and food .
.
Thank you “in short” for your entirely accurate comment about the neo-Cons in D.C. and their entirely deleterious effects on US foreign policy, especially the drive to construct a new cold war with Russia as its target. It is crucial to reflect that the US has not the remotest interest in the fate of Ukraine or its people. Its only desire is to allow US corporations to strip it of its resources, to sell US weapons to all of Russia’s nervous neighbors–made nervous deliberately by liars like General Breedlove–and to, if possible, build ABM sites in Western Ukraine aimed at Moscow. Thanks also to Joe L. The US Empire is the one the world needs to worry about.
I challenge you to name your sources for this gibberish.
Here is one: Bloodlands by Prof. Timothy Snyder. Enjoy.
THAT is one of the most subversive books I’ve ever seen. It serves the goals of neocons who very often rely on services of the vilest scum, such as the neo-nazis in Ukraine and torturers and murderers in Latin America and all around the world. Stormtroopers are glorified while true patriots are maligned. Snyder definitely has an agenda…
Pardon me, gibberish? Do not mess with a history of a pained country that you do not even begin to understand.
What you read is not always the truth. But what is stated above is as close to the truth as anyone can get. Have you ever heard of the Holodomor? I highly doubt you have, and it is in no way your fault. It is the famine in which Stalin starved Ukrainians. There were significantly more fatalities than the amount of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Please, go ahead, research it. Starving mothers had to place their children out on the streets, praying that someone with hidden food would pick them up, and help them survive. Every bone in a small child’s bone was visible. Bodies covered the streets. Animals were all killed for food. And yet, today, the history books have no mention of the genocide. The Holocaust, an event that I despise as much as the Holodomor, however, is an event that is mentioned anywhere you go.
So yes, it is true. After all the pain, all this nation wanted was to be saved. And as a result, fell into the hands of the Nazis, who only needed to take advantage of the country, and make it its breadbasket. Yes, they fell into the hands of the enemy. However, I beg of you, consider, where would we be right now, where will we be in the future if we keep seeing each nation as a stained history. Yes, it is history, and it shouldn’t be forgotten. But to live in the past is to run in circles over and over again.
So, I ask of you only one thing, do not call a history of pain gibberish. And try to understand, this world is filled with controversial opinions and ideas, and no one- not I, not you, have the right to judge a history, and leave a country bleeding because of it.
How are we any better than the people in history that we despise so much if we do?
Oh my god i honestly cried when i read your post. You show their is hope. I could not agree with you more. Everyday a new Holocaust movies comes out and not one Holodomor movie. I can’t believe Ukrainians have had to put up with so much. The Russians haven’t even admitted to doing it. Please continue to do what you are doing and protect the reputation of Ukraine.
Holodomor was in no way directed towards Ukraine. This nonsense propoganda that is being posted by Ukranian “historians is complete rubish. The femine effected the whole region, millions died from starvation outside of Ukraine. I am from Krasnodar Russia, one of the most agricultural rich regions of Russia, do you km now how many people suffered because of Stalins decisions including my family members? I bet you do not since you like to belive the bs explanation of events portrayed by Kiev.
To Aram Ishkhayan’s reply,
I do not want to anger anyone, I simply need people to open their eyes, to see the truth, whatever it may be. And whether you believe me or not does not matter. I cannot force people to believe, I can only try.
And I mean no disrespect, in fact, I have distant relatives living in Russia, but Russia has been bombarded with lies delivered by the government for centuries. Of course, many believed the lies, and soon they became powerful, so powerful they could change history. As it is said, if you were told all your life that something was black and were then all of a sudden informed it was white, you would disregard the new finding in a heartbeat. I am aware of all casualties, and I am aware of all historical findings, of all historians that have discussed the subject.
Granted, you may not believe me and, while that is heartbreaking to me, while I cannot understand how one of the oldest county’s history can be overlooked and challenged, it is alright, because if I am not able to open one person’s eyes does not mean I cannot open another’s, and then another one’s after that.
Do keep in mind that some modern day Russian territories were part of Ukraine before the conflicts began, and that Ukraine was the specific target of the famine, while those territories suffered as well. I beg of you, look at the facts. The truth is, the history of this important country is never mentioned in American history books, only bits and pieces are scattered throughout. And many details are simply thickly-veiled stories. History is written by the winners, and Ukraine has lost so many battles. And to find the pure truth, you will have to dig deeper than you have ever imagined you would look. I am asking you to question, not abandon a life of beliefs, as nobody is capable to do so in one second.
And now if you still do not question anything, not one small detail you have always believed in, forget completely all you have heard throughout your life, and even forget what I just said above, and take a few minutes think about the one thing I think you will most definitely agree with: this tragedy, the Holodomor, is never mentioned. In fact, less than 1% of Americans have ever heard the word.
So, why? Why is an event that your family was a victim of, an event that took more lives than the frightening Holocaust itself, an event that was as terrifying, if not worse than any other in history, not even worth a measly page in a college history book? Why is there no recognition, why is there no consideration? Why does Russia deny the whole tragedy? Why do people have to work so hard to simply prove it was a tragedy? How could so many starved lives, and the lives of your ancestors not be worth a simple American, a simple person on the streets knowing what it was?
To Harry’s reply,
Thank you, and please, help me. I cannot try to prove the truth -something that should be so simple to prove and understand, by myself. Learn, spread the word, and please, help the world see clearly. Whatever the truth is, help people see it.
Thank you.
Pardon me, gibberish? Do not mess with a history of a pained country that you do not even begin to understand.
What you read is not always the truth. But what is stated in Richard Patten’s comment above is as close to the truth as anyone can get. Have you ever heard of the Holodomor? I highly doubt you have, and it is in no way your fault. It is the famine in which Stalin starved Ukrainians. There were significantly more fatalities than the amount of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Please, go ahead, research it. Starving mothers had to place their children out on the streets, praying that someone with hidden food would pick them up, and help them survive. Every bone in a small child’s bone was visible. Bodies covered the streets. Animals were all killed for food. And yet, today, the history books have no mention of the genocide. The Holocaust, an event that I despise as much as the Holodomor, however, is an event that is mentioned anywhere you go.
So yes, it is true. After all the pain, all this nation wanted was to be saved. And as a result, fell into the hands of the Nazis, who only needed to take advantage of the country, and make it its breadbasket. Yes, they fell into the hands of the enemy. However, I beg of you, consider, where would we be right now, where will we be in the future if we keep seeing each nation as a stained history. Yes, it is history, and it shouldn’t be forgotten. But to live in the past is to run in circles over and over again.
So, I ask of you only one thing, do not call a history of pain gibberish. And try to understand, this world is filled with controversial opinions and ideas, and no one- not I, not you, have the right to judge a history, and leave a country bleeding because of it.
How are we any better than the people in history that we despise so much if we do?
Under Stalin, it wasn’t Russia but Soviet Union, and not only Ukrainians suffered from Stalin’s repressions. There was famine in other parts, e.g. in Povolzh’e (Volga river basin). By the way, Stalin himself wasn’t Russian but Georgian, as was his chief and most notorious lieutenant, Beria.
True. I come from Povolzh’ye (Volga region) and fully confirm your statement. No one outside of Russia speaks of famines this region suffered in the 1920s–1930s :/
There is no facts in your comment only russophobic slur.
And do you know the facts, sir? Were you there? Did you witness the starving bodies stretched out over the streets of Ukraine?
I beg you, do not mess with you history too complicated to understand.
The well-researched book by Prof. Snyder relays reports by such witnesses. Another point for those Russian-Ukrainians who claim Eastern Ukraine as part of Russia: Stalin sent their parents there as another tactic, repopulation, in the attempt to take over Ukraine. They have a less valid claim on that area than do native Ukrainians
And were you there in 1932? Did you witness the starving bodies stretched out over the streets of Ukraine in 1932?
These kind of statements come from the part of Ukraine, which even was not part of Ukraine at the time. Precisely part of Ukraine, affected by the famine in 1932 is fighting against current “democratic” Kiev.
1932 famine was caused by forced collectivization. Was it genocide? Why then it stopped in 1934? And western Ukraine was part of Poland then…
So we fought on the wrong side in World War II?
Gen. Patton would agree with you on that ;)
Patton would agree because an alliance with the Nazis would have been a better way to save the Jews from genocide, as Mr. Patten apparently believes, or because Patton believed the USSR was a greater evil than Nazi Germany, regardless of its Jewish policy? (Reminder: my original question/comment was in reply to Richard Patten’s statement that “Russia under Stalin killed more Jews than did the Germans-and more inhumanely.”)
There’s always a Nazi apologist ready to forgive the crimes of the Banderites and its CIA/MI6 collaborators. Never fails.
Both presidents Yuschenko and Poroshenko laid wreaths in honor of the OUN/B at Babi Yar.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/ukraine-world-war-ii-fias_b_7689804.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Excerpt: . . . . ForÂmer PresÂiÂdent VikÂtor Yushchenko, in fact, honÂored UkrainÂian nationÂalÂists at a memoÂrÂial in Babi Yar, where the most horÂrific masÂsacre of Jews took place throughÂout the HoloÂcaust. Not stopÂping there, Yushchenko then bestowed the highÂest govÂernÂment honor on none other than Stepan BanÂdera, a leader of the OUN. . . . .
. . . . In fact, the PresÂiÂdent has gone out of his way to folÂlow in the footÂsteps of his reacÂtionary preÂdeÂcesÂsor Yushchenko by once again layÂing a wreath in honor of the OUN at Babi Yar. . . .
The OUN/B was front and center in the massacres at Babi Yar.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Nazis-Even-Hitler-was-by-George-Eliason-Exile_Genocide_Hitler-Brownshirts_Hitler-Youth-140316-321.html
Excerpt: . . . . DurÂing WW2, Babi Yar was the sinÂgle most horÂrific act of holoÂcaust at the time. Even today, the BanÂderite response to Babi Yar is “I am proud of the fact that among 1,500 Polizei exeÂcuÂtionÂers in Babiy Yar there were 1,200 OUN men but only 300 GerÂmans.†This quote is from a Rivne city offiÂcial named ShkuÂratiuk, and appears in the book OrgaÂnized Anti-Semitism in ConÂtemÂpoÂrary Ukraine: StrucÂture, InfluÂence and IdeÂolÂogy by Pers Anders Rudling.
The atrocÂiÂties at Babi Yar, and the accomÂpaÂnyÂing bruÂtalÂity, were left to SS NachtiÂgall and the polizei. Both were BanÂderite. . . .
The link for the Rudling text quoted above: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40871070?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
No, the German massacre at Babi Yar took place as soon as the Germans took over the region around Kiev–when they thought they were winning the war.
The shadow rulers of the United States have always been allied with the Nazi program. They helped bring Hitler to power, were in league with IG Farben and other makers of chemical warfare — and in some cases funded the death camps that resulted. See A Rich Man’s Trick, a documentary that is available on YouTube.
Robert Martin has just produced the second part of a documentary called A Very Heavy Agenda which traces the resurrection of the NeoCons (Robert Kagan, husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland, and William Kristol) who along with other PNACer’s (Project for the New American Century) brought us 9/11 and helped make the Iraq War possible. The imprint of their program for US Foreign Policy, the baiting of Russia and Putin, is all over the current debacle in Ukraine.
The shadow rulers of the United States have always been allied with the Nazi program. They helped bring Hitler to power, were in league with IG Farben and other makers of chemical warfare — and in some cases funded the death camps that resulted. See A Rich Man’s Trick, a documentary that is available on YouTube.
Robert Martin has just produced the second part of a documentary called A Very Heavy Agenda which traces the resurrection of the NeoCons (Robert Kagan, husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland, and William Kristol) who along with other PNACer’s (Project for the New American Century) brought us 9/11 and helped make the Iraq War possible. The imprint of their program for US Foreign Policy, the baiting of Russia and Putin, is all over the current debacle in Ukraine
Just as they are in League with Al Nusra Front formerly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq in Syria, Facts are these the CIA is a rogue organisation and has been since its inception, a state sponsor of terrorism even sponsoring terrorists that the US is itself at conflict!