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DESCRIPTION:Ukraine, Privatization, Corruption And The Republicrats\nHow Ukraine Become 
 The Center Of The Political Crisis & Impeachment Struggle Between The 
 Democrats & Republicans\n\n\nSaturday January 4, 2019 2:00 PM\nSan 
 Francisco Main Library\nLatino-Hispanic Community Room\n100 Larkin St. At 
 Market St.\nSan Francisco \n\nThe political crisis wracking the declining 
 US empire has now centered on the impeachment hearings  and the upcoming 
 trial on corruption bribery charges in Ukraine. The Democrats charge Trump, 
 with using threats and the withholding of US weapons to get the Ukrainian 
 government to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden for taking over 
 $600,000 from a corrupt Ukrainian billionaire Mykola Zlochevsky who owned 
 the company Burisma that had been privatized.\n\nBoth the Democrats and 
 Republicans have spent  over $6 billion of US funds  to overturn the 
 Yanukovych Ukrainian government and put in a US supported government. They 
 promised it would not be corrupt yet the corruption in fact was part and 
 parcel of the privatization of Ukraine which they have demanded.\n\nBoth 
 parties have pushed privatization and deregulation not only in  Ukraine but 
 Chile, Turkey, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, the UK and around the 
 world.\n\nBoth parties have spent billions of US tax dollar to supposedly 
 defend the country from the Russians. This has also meant arming facists, 
 anti-semites and nazis in Ukraine who were also involved in a massacre of 
 trade unionists and leftists at the Odesa Trade Union headquarters.\n\nThis 
 forum will look at the role of the US in Ukraine and the political economic 
 role of the US and how workers and unions can resolve this crisis.  It will 
 also look at how Ukraine was privatized, who did it and the California 
 connection that implicates Governor Newsom in the PG&E criminal corruption 
 crisis and privatization.\n\nGeorge  Wright, Professor Retired Chico State 
 & Skyline Community College UPWA Board\nRicardo Ortiz, Labor Researcher 
 Puerto Rico\nSteve Zeltzer, Labor Video Project\n\nSponsored by\nUnited 
 Public  Workers For Action\nwww.upwa.info\nfor info:\ninfo@upwa.info\n\nUS 
 Obama Intervention To Overthrow Ukraine  Government\nUkraine crisis: 
 Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt 
 call\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957?fbclid=IwAR21mF44ZNB_zxgrJklEAUkHUEKXIRLHn5YfMAWARxuDPKzwTWSrM-jSfQc\n7 
 February 2014\n\nVictoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, Kiev, 10 \n\nVictoria 
 Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt together toured the opposition camp in Kiev in 
 December\nAn apparently bugged phone conversation in which a senior US 
 diplomat disparages the EU over the Ukraine crisis has been posted online. 
 The alleged conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria 
 Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared on 
 YouTube on Thursday. It is not clearly when the alleged conversation took 
 place.\nHere is a transcript, with analysis by BBC diplomatic correspondent 
 Jonathan Marcus:\nWarning: This transcript contains swearing.\nVoice 
 thought to be Nuland's: What do you think?\nJonathan Marcus: At the outset 
 it should be clear that this is a fragment of what may well be a larger 
 phone conversation. But the US has not denied its veracity and has been 
 quick to point a finger at the Russian authorities for being behind its 
 interception and leak.\nVoice thought to be Pyatt's: I think we're in play. 
 The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] 
 piece is obviously the complicated electron here. Especially the 
 announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you've seen some of my 
 notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we're trying to get a 
 read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to 
 him, which you'll need to make, I think that's the next phone call you want 
 to set up, is exactly the one you made to Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk, another 
 opposition leader]. And I'm glad you sort of put him on the spot on where 
 he fits in this scenario. And I'm very glad that he said what he said in 
 response.\nJonathan Marcus: The US says that it is working with all sides 
 in the crisis to reach a peaceful solution, noting that "ultimately it is 
 up to the Ukrainian people to decide their future". However this transcript 
 suggests that the US has very clear ideas about what the outcome should be 
 and is striving to achieve these goals. Russian spokesmen have insisted 
 that the US is meddling in Ukraine's affairs - no more than Moscow, the 
 cynic might say - but Washington clearly has its own game-plan. The clear 
 purpose in leaking this conversation is to embarrass Washington and for 
 audiences susceptible to Moscow's message to portray the US as interfering 
 in Ukraine's domestic affairs.\nNuland: Good. I don't think Klitsch should 
 go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a 
 good idea.\nImage caption\nAnti-government protesters have been camped out 
 in Kiev since November\nPyatt: Yeah. I guess... in terms of him not going 
 into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework 
 and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead 
 we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be 
 Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok, the other opposition leader] and his guys and 
 I'm sure that's part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating 
 on all this.\nUkraine unrest: Timeline\n\n21 November 2013:Protests start 
 after Ukraine announces it will not sign a deal aimed at strengthening ties 
 with the EU \n17 December: Russia agrees to buy $15bn of Ukrainian 
 government bonds and slash the price of gas it sells to the country\n16 
 January 2014: Parliament passes law restricting the right to protest \n22 
 January: Two protesters die from bullet wounds during clashes with police 
 in Kiev; protests spread across many cities\n25 January: President 
 Yanukovych offers senior jobs to the opposition, including that of prime 
 minister, but these are rejected\n28 January: Parliament votes to annul 
 protest law and President Yanukovych accepts resignation of PM and cabinet 
 \n29 January: Parliament passes amnesty law for detained protesters, under 
 the condition occupied buildings are vacated\nUkraine's protest 
 leaders\nQ&A: Stand-off in Ukraine\nNuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the 
 guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's 
 the... what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to 
 be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going 
 in... he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not 
 going to work.\nPyatt: Yeah, no, I think that's right. OK. Good. Do you 
 want us to set up a call with him as the next step?\nNuland: My 
 understanding from that call - but you tell me - was that the big three 
 were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that 
 context a... three-plus-one conversation or three-plus-two with you. Is 
 that not how you understood it?\nPyatt: No. I think... I mean that's what 
 he proposed but I think, just knowing the dynamic that's been with them 
 where Klitschko has been the top dog, he's going to take a while to show up 
 for whatever meeting they've got and he's probably talking to his guys at 
 this point, so I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the 
 personality management among the three and it gives you also a chance to 
 move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down 
 and he explains why he doesn't like it.\nNuland: OK, good. I'm happy. Why 
 don't you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or 
 after.\nPyatt: OK, will do. Thanks.\nNuland: OK... one more wrinkle for you 
 Geoff. [A click can be heard] I can't remember if I told you this, or if I 
 only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [United 
 Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] this morning, he had 
 a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry did I write you that this 
 morning?\nJonathan Marcus: An intriguing insight into the foreign policy 
 process with work going on at a number of levels: Various officials 
 attempting to marshal the Ukrainian opposition; efforts to get the UN to 
 play an active role in bolstering a deal; and (as you can see below) the 
 big guns waiting in the wings - US Vice-President Joe Biden clearly being 
 lined up to give private words of encouragement at the appropriate 
 moment.\nPyatt: Yeah I saw that.\nNuland: OK. He's now gotten both Serry 
 and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in 
 Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing 
 and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.\nJonathan 
 Marcus: Not for the first time in an international crisis, the US expresses 
 frustration at the EU's efforts. Washington and Brussels have not been 
 completely in step during the Ukraine crisis. The EU is divided and to some 
 extent hesitant about picking a fight with Moscow. It certainly cannot win 
 a short-term battle for Ukraine's affections with Moscow - it just does not 
 have the cash inducements available. The EU has sought to play a longer 
 game; banking on its attraction over time. But the US clearly is determined 
 to take a much more activist role.\nPyatt: No, exactly. And I think we've 
 got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty 
 sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be 
 working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that 
 this is out there right now, I'm still trying to figure out in my mind why 
 Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there's a Party of Regions 
 faction meeting going on right now and I'm sure there's a lively argument 
 going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side 
 up on this one if we move fast. So let me work on Klitschko and if you can 
 just keep... we want to try to get somebody with an international 
 personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other 
 issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on 
 that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.\nNuland: So on 
 that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president's national 
 security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], 
 saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow 
 for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's 
 willing.\nPyatt: OK. Great. Thanks.\nJonathan Marcus: Overall this is a 
 damaging episode between Washington and Moscow. Nobody really emerges with 
 any credit. The US is clearly much more involved in trying to broker a deal 
 in Ukraine than it publicly lets on. There is some embarrassment too for 
 the Americans given the ease with which their communications were hacked. 
 But is the interception and leaking of communications really the way Russia 
 wants to conduct its foreign policy ? Goodness - after Wikileaks, Edward 
 Snowden and the like could the Russian government be joining the radical 
 apostles of open government? I doubt it. Though given some of the comments 
 from Vladimir Putin's adviser on Ukraine Sergei Glazyev - for example his 
 interview with the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper the other day - you don't 
 need your own listening station to be clear about Russia's intentions. 
 Russia he said "must interfere in Ukraine" and the authorities there should 
 use force against the demonstrators. \n\nNeo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On 
 the March in Ukraine\nFive years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism 
 and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are 
 rampant.\nhttps://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/\nBy 
 Lev GolinkinFEBRUARY 22, 2019\nfbtwmailPrint\n\nA march of the Azov 
 Battalian, Svoboda, and other far-right radical groups in Kiev, October 14, 
 2017. (Reuters / Gleb Garanich)\nReady To Fight Back?\nSign up for Take 
 Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.	\n\n\n\nFive 
 years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, 
 to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the 
 United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of 
 democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing 
 those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and 
 useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.\n\nToday, increasing 
 reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic 
 freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are 
 neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT 
 groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi 
 collaborators.\n\nThese stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t 
 coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including 
 US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World 
 Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty 
 International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint 
 reportwarning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the 
 country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.\n\n\nThe DC 
 establishment’s standard defense of Kiev is to point out that Ukraine’s 
 far right has a smaller percentage of seats in the parliament than their 
 counterparts in places like France. That’s a spurious argument: What 
 Ukraine’s far right lacks in polls numbers, it makes up for with things 
 Marine Le Pen could only dream of—paramilitary units and free rein on the 
 streets.\n\nPost-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a 
 neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. The Azov Battalion was initially 
 formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the 
 gang’s leader who became Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s 
 mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final 
 crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Biletsky is now a deputy 
 in Ukraine’s parliament.\n\n\nIn the fall of 2014, Azov—which is 
 accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watch 
 and the United Nations—was incorporated into Ukraine’s National 
 Guard.\n\nWhile the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, 
 Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New 
 York Times called the battalion “openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The 
 Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ 
 proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual 
 fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.\n\nIn January 2018, Azov 
 rolled out its National Druzhinastreet patrol unit whose members swore 
 personal fealty to Biletsky and pledged to “restore Ukrainian order” to 
 the streets. The Druzhina quickly distinguished itself by carrying out 
 pogroms against the Roma and LGBT organizations and storming a municipal 
 council. Earlier this year, Kiev announced the neo-Naziunit will be 
 monitoring polls in next month’s presidential election.\n\nIn 2017, 
 Congressman Ro Khanna led the effort to ban Azov from receiving U.S. arms 
 and training. But the damage has already been done: The research group 
 Bellingcat proved that Azov had already received access to American grenade 
 launchers, while a Daily Beast investigation showed that US trainers are 
 unable to prevent aid from reaching white supremacists. And Azov itself had 
 proudly posted a video of the unit welcoming NATO representatives.\n\n(Azov 
 isn’t the only far-right formation to get Western affirmation. In 
 December 2014, Amnesty International accused the Dnipro-1 battalion of 
 potential war crimes, including “using starvation of civilians as a 
 method of warfare.” Six months later, Senator John McCain visited and 
 praised the battalion.)\n\nParticularly concerning is Azov’s campaign to 
 transform Ukraine into a hub for transnational white supremacy. The unit 
 has recruited neo-Nazis from Germany, the UK, Brazil, Sweden, and America; 
 last October, the FBI arrestedfour California white supremacists who had 
 allegedly received training from Azov. This is a classic example of 
 blowback: US support of radicals abroad ricocheting to hit 
 America.\n\n\nFAR RIGHT TIES TO GOVERNMENT\n“Ukrainian police declare 
 admiration for Nazi collaborators”—RFE, February 13, 2019\n\nSpeaker of 
 Parliament Andriy Parubiy cofounded and led two neo-Nazi organizations: the 
 Social-National Party of Ukraine (later renamed Svoboda), and Patriot of 
 Ukraine, whose members would eventually form the core of Azov.\n\nAlthough 
 Parubiy left the far right in the early 2000’s, he hasn’t rejected his 
 past. When asked about it in a 2016 interview, Parubiy replied that his 
 “values” haven’t changed. Parubiy, whose autobiography shows him 
 marching with the neo-Nazi wolfsangel symbol used by Aryan Nations, 
 regularly meets with Washington think tanks and politicians; his neo-Nazi 
 background is ignored or outright denied.\n\nEven more disturbing is the 
 far right’s penetration of law enforcement. Shortly after Maidan, the US 
 equipped and trained the newly founded National Police, in what was 
 intended to be a hallmark program buttressing Ukrainian democracy.\n\nThe 
 deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is 
 Vadim Troyan, a veteran of Azov and Patriot of Ukraine. In 2014, when 
 Troyan was being considered for police chief of Kiev, Ukrainian Jewish 
 leaders were appalled by his neo-Nazi background. Today, he’s deputy of 
 the department running US-trained law enforcement in the entire 
 nation.\n\nEarlier this month, RFE reported on National Police leadership 
 admiring Stepan Bandera—a Nazi collaborator and Fascist whose troops 
 participated in the Holocaust—on social media.\n\nThe fact that 
 Ukraine’s police is peppered with far-right supporters explains why 
 neo-Nazis operate with impunity on the streets.\n\nSUBSCRIBE TO THE NATION  
 FOR $2 A MONTH.\nGet unlimited digital access to the best independent news 
 and analysis.\n \nSTATE-SPONSORED GLORIFICATION OF NAZI 
 COLLABORATORS\n“Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS 
 divisions…in the middle of a major Ukrainian city”—Anti-Defamation 
 League Director of European Affairs, April 28, 2018\n\nIt’s not just the 
 military and street gangs: Ukraine’s far right has successfully hijacked 
 the post-Maidan government to impose an intolerant and ultranationalist 
 culture over the land.\n\nIn 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed 
 legislation making two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian 
 Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of 
 Ukraine, and made it a criminal offense to deny their heroism. The OUN had 
 collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the Holocaust, while the 
 UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and 70,000-100,000 Poles on their own 
 volition.\n\nThe government-funded Ukrainian Institute of National Memory 
 is institutionalizing the whitewashing of Nazi collaborators. Last summer, 
 the Ukrainian parliament featured an exhibit commemorating the OUN’s 1941 
 proclamation of cooperation with the Third Reich (imagine the French 
 government installing an exhibit celebrating the Vichy 
 state!).\n\nTorchlight marches in honor of OUN/UPA leaders like Roman 
 Shukhevych (a commander in a Third Reich auxiliary battalion) are a regular 
 feature of the new Ukraine. The recuperation even extends to SS Galichina, 
 a Ukrainian division of the Waffen-SS; the director of the Institute of 
 National Memory proclaimed that the SS fighters were “war victims.” The 
 government’s embrace of Bandera is not only deplorable, but also 
 extremely divisive, considering the OUN/UPA are reviled in eastern 
 Ukraine.\n\nPredictably, the celebration of Nazi collaborators has 
 accompanied a rise in outright anti-Semitism.\n\n“Jews Out!” chanted 
 thousands during a January 2017 march honoring OUN leader Bandera. (The 
 next day the police denied hearing anything anti-Semitic.) That summer, a 
 three-day festival celebrating the Nazi collaborator Shukhevych capped off 
 with the firebombing of a synagogue. In November 2017, RFE reported Nazi 
 salutes as 20,000 marched in honor of the UPA. And last April, hundreds 
 marched in L’viv with coordinated Nazi salutes honoring SS Galichina; the 
 march was promoted by the L’viv regional government.\n\nThe Holocaust 
 revisionism is a multi-pronged effort, ranging from government-funded 
 seminars, brochures, and board games, to the proliferation of plaques, 
 statues, and streets renamed after butchers of Jews, to far-right children 
 camps, where youth are inculcated with ultranationalist ideology.\n\nWithin 
 several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship 
 Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes.\n\nBOOK BANS\n“No state should 
 be allowed to interfere in the writing of history.”—British historian 
 Antony Beevor, after his award-winning book was banned in Ukraine, The 
 Telegraph, January 23, 2018 \n\nUkraine’s State Committee for Television 
 and Radio Broadcasting is enforcing the glorification of Ukraine’s new 
 heroes by banning “anti-Ukrainian” literature that goes against the 
 government narrative. This ideological censorship includes acclaimed books 
 by Western authors.\n\nIn January 2018, Ukraine made international 
 headlines by banning Stalingradby award-winning British historian Antony 
 Beevor because of a single paragraph about a Ukrainian unit massacring 90 
 Jewish children during World War II. In December, Kiev banned The Book 
 Thieves by Swedish author Anders Rydell (which, ironically, is about the 
 Nazis’ suppression of literature) because he mentioned troops loyal to 
 Symon Petliura (an early 20th-century nationalist leader) had slaughtered 
 Jews.\n\nThis month, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington exported this 
 intolerance to America by brazenly demanding the United States ban a 
 Russian movie from American theaters. Apparently, the billions Washington 
 invested in promoting democracy in Ukraine have failed to teach Kiev basic 
 concepts of free speech.\n\nANTI-SEMITISM\n“I’m telling you one more 
 time—go to hell, kikes. The Ukrainian people have had it to here with 
 you.”—Security services reserve general Vasily Vovk, May 11, 
 2017\n\nUnsurprisingly, government-led glorification of Holocaust 
 perpetrators was a green light for other forms of anti-Semitism. The past 
 three years saw an explosion of swastikas and SS runes on city streets, 
 death threats, and vandalism of Holocaust memorials, Jewish centers, 
 cemeteries, tombs, and places of worship, all of which led Israel to take 
 the unusual step of publicly urging Kiev to address the epidemic.\n\nPublic 
 officials make anti-Semitic threats with no repercussions. These include: a 
 security services general promising to eliminate the zhidi (a slur 
 equivalent to ‘kikes’); a parliament deputy going off on an 
 anti-Semitic ranton television; a far-right politician lamenting Hitler 
 didn’t finish off the Jews; and an ultranationalist leader vowing to 
 cleanse Odessa of zhidi.\n\nFor the first few years after Maidan, Jewish 
 organizations largely refrained from criticizing Ukraine, perhaps in the 
 hope Kiev would address the issue on its own. But by 2018, the increasing 
 frequency of anti-Semitic incidents led Jewish groups to break their 
 silence.\n\nLast year, the Israeli government’s annual report on 
 anti-Semitism heavily featured Ukraine, which had more incidents than all 
 post-Soviet states combined. The World Jewish Congress, the US Holocaust 
 Memorial Museum, and 57 members of the US Congress all vociferously 
 condemned Kiev’s Nazi glorification and the concomitant 
 anti-Semitism.\n\nUkrainian Jewish leaders are also speaking out. In 2017, 
 the director of one of Ukraine’s largest Jewish organizations published a 
 New York Times op-ed urging the West to address Kiev’s whitewashing. Last 
 year, 41 Ukrainian Jewish leaders denounced the growth of anti-Semitism. 
 That’s especially telling, given that many Ukrainian Jewish leaders 
 supported the Maidan uprising.\n\nNone of these concerns have been 
 addressed in any meaningful way.\n\nROMA POGROMS\n“‘They wanted to kill 
 us’: masked neo-fascists strike fear into Ukraine’s Roma.” —The 
 Guardian, August 27, 2018\n\nUkraine’s far right has resisted carrying 
 out outright attacks on Jews; other vulnerable groups haven’t been so 
 lucky.\n\nLast spring, a lethal wave of anti-Roma pogroms swept through 
 Ukraine, with at least six attacks in two months. Footage from the pogroms 
 evokes the 1930s: Armed thugs attack women and children while razing their 
 camps. At least one man was killed, while others, including a child, were 
 stabbed.\n\nTwo gangs behind the attacks—C14 and the National 
 Druzhina—felt comfortable enough to proudly post pogrom videos on social 
 media. That’s not surprising, considering that the National Druzhina is 
 part of Azov, while the neo-Nazi C14 receives government funding for 
 “educational” programs. Last October, C14 leader Serhiy Bondar was 
 welcomed at America House Kyiv, a center run by the US 
 government.\n\nAppeals from international organizations and the US embassy 
 fell on deaf ears: Months after the United Nations demanded Kiev end 
 “systematic persecution” of the Roma, a human-rights group reported C14 
 were allegedly intimidating Roma in a joint patrol with the Kiev 
 police.\n\n“‘It’s even worse than before’: How the ‘Revolution of 
 Dignity’ Failed LGBT Ukrainians.”—RFE, November 21, 2018\n\nIn 2016, 
 after pressure from the US Congress, the Kiev government began providing 
 security for the annual Kiev Pride parade. However, this increasingly looks 
 like a Potemkin affair: two hours of protection, with widespread attacks on 
 LGBT individuals and gatherings during the rest of the year. Nationalist 
 groups have targeted LGBT meetings with impunity, going so far as to shut 
 down an event hosted by Amnesty International as well as assault a Western 
 journalist at a transgender rights rally. Women’s-rights marches have 
 also been targeted, including brazen attacks in March.\n\nATTACKS ON 
 PRESS\n“The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Ukrainian law 
 enforcement raid at the Kiev offices of Media Holding Vesti…more than a 
 dozen masked officers ripped open doors with crowbars, seized property, and 
 fired tear gas in the offices.”—The Committee to Protect Journalists, 
 February 9, 2018\n\nIn May 2016, Myrotvorets, an ultranationalist website 
 with links to the government, published the personal data of thousands of 
 journalists who had obtained accreditation from Russia-backed rebels in 
 eastern Ukraine. Myrotvorets labeled the journalists “terrorist 
 collaborators.”\n\nA government-tied website declaring open season on 
 journalists would be dangerous anywhere, but it is especially so in 
 Ukraine, which has a disturbing track record of journalist assassinations. 
 This includes Oles Buzina, gunned down in 2015, and Pavel Sheremet, 
 assassinated by car bomb a year later.\n\nThe Myrotvorets doxing was 
 denounced by Western reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and 
 ambassadors from the G7 nations. In response, Kiev officials, including 
 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, praised the site: “This is your choice to 
 cooperate with occupying forces,” Avakov toldjournalists, while posting 
 “I Support Myrotvorets” on Facebook. Myrotvorets remains operational 
 today.\n\nLast fall brought another attack on the media, this time using 
 the courts. The Prosecutor General’s office was granted a warrant to 
 seize records of RFE anti-corruption reporter Natalie Sedletska. An RFE 
 spokeswoman warnedthat Kiev’s actions created “a chilling atmosphere 
 for journalists,” while parliament deputy Mustafa Nayyem called it “an 
 example of creeping dictatorship.”\n\nLANGUAGE LAWS\n“[Prime Minister 
 Arseniy Yatsenyuk] also made a personal appeal to Russian-speaking 
 Ukrainians, pledging to support…a special status to the Russian 
 language.”—US Secretary of State John Kerry, April 24, 2014\n\nUkraine 
 is extraordinarily multilingual: In addition to the millions of 
 Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians, there are areas where Hungarian, 
 Romanian, and other tongues are prevalent. These languages were protected 
 by a 2012 regional-language law.\n\nThe post-Maidan government alarmed 
 Russian-speaking Ukrainians by attempting to annul that law. The US State 
 Department and Secretary of State John Kerry sought to assuage fears in 
 2014 by pledging that Kiev would protect the status of Russian. Those 
 promises came to naught.\n\nA 2017 law mandated that secondary education be 
 conducted strictly in Ukrainian, which infuriated Hungary, Romania, 
 Bulgaria, and Greece. Several regions passed legislation banning the use of 
 Russian in public life. Quotas enforce Ukrainian usage on TV and radio. 
 (This would be akin to Washington forcing Spanish-language media to 
 broadcast mostly in English.)\n\nAnd in February 2018, Ukraine’s supreme 
 court struck down the 2012 regional language law—the one Kerry promised 
 eastern Ukrainians would stay in effect.\n\nCurrently, Kiev is preparing to 
 pass a draconian law that would mandate the use of Ukrainian in most 
 aspects of public life. It’s another example of Kiev alienating millions 
 of its own citizens, while claiming to embrace Western values.\n\nTHE PRICE 
 OF WILLFUL BLINDNESS\nThese examples are only a tiny fraction of 
 Ukraine’s slide toward intolerance, but they should be enough to point 
 out the obvious: Washington’s decision to ignore the proliferation of 
 armed neo-Nazi groups in a highly unstable nation only led to them gaining 
 more power.\n\nThis easily predictable outcome is in marked contrast to 
 Washington’s enthusiasm over the “Revolution of Dignity.” 
 “Nationalism is exactly what Ukraine needs,” proclaimed a New Republic 
 article by historian Anne Applebaum, whose celebration of nationalism came 
 out right around the time that Ukraine green-lighted the formation of 
 white-supremacist paramilitaries. A mere four months after Applebaum’s 
 essay, Newsweek ran an article titled “Ukrainian nationalist volunteers 
 committing ‘ISIS-style’ war crimes.”\n\nIn essay after essay, DC 
 foreign-policy heads have denied or celebrated the influence of Ukraine’s 
 far right. (Curiously, the same analysts vociferously denounce rising 
 nationalism in Hungary, Poland, and Italy as highly dangerous.) Perhaps 
 think-tankers deluded themselves into thinking Kiev’s far-right phase 
 would tucker itself out. More likely, they simply embraced DC’s go-to 
 strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Either way, the 
 ramifications stretch far beyond Ukraine.\n\nAmerica’s backing of the 
 Maidan uprising, along with the billions DC sinks into post-Maidan Kiev, 
 make it clear: Starting February 2014, Ukraine became Washington’s latest 
 democracy-spreading project. What we permit in Ukraine sends a green light 
 to others.\n\nBy tolerating neo-Nazi gangs and battalions, state-led 
 Holocaust distortion, and attacks on LGBT and the Roma, the United States 
 is telling the rest of Europe: “We’re fine with this.” The 
 implications—especially at a time of a global far-right revival—are 
 profoundly disturbing.\n\nWHY ARE WE IN UKRAINE?\nLev GolinkinLev Golinkin 
 is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, Amazon’s 
 Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program 
 selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. Golinkin, a 
 graduate of Boston College, came to the US as a child refugee from the 
 eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing 
 on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and immigrant and refugee 
 identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los 
 Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time (online), 
 among other venues; he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ 
 Live and HuffPost Live.\n\n\n\n\nBlowback: An Inside Look at How US-Funded 
 Fascists in Ukraine Mentor US White Supremacists 
 \n\nhttps://www.mintpressnews.com/us-backed-fascist-azov-battalion-in-ukraine-is-training-and-radicalizing-american-white-supremacists/251951/\n\nNot 
 only are white supremacists from across the West flocking to Ukraine to 
 learn from the combat experience of their fascist brothers-in-arms, they 
 are doing so openly, under the nose of a shrugging law enforcement — 
 chronicling their experiences on social media before they bring their 
 lessons back home.   by Max Blumenthal\n\nNovember 19th, 2018\nBy  Max 
 Blumenthal  \n\n\nLast month, an unsealed FBI indictment of four American 
 white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the 
 defendants had trained with Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia 
 officially incorporated into the country’s national guard. The training 
 took place after the white supremacist gang participated in violent riots 
 in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia 
 in 2017. \n\nThe indictment stated that the Azov Battalion “is believed 
 to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white 
 supremacy organizations.” \n\nAfter a wave of racist violence across 
 America that culminated in the massacre of twelve Jewish worshippers at a 
 Pittsburgh synagogue, the revelation that violent white supremacists have 
 been traveling abroad for training and ideological indoctrination with a 
 well-armed neo-Nazi militia should cause extreme alarm. \n\n\n\nNot only 
 are white supremacists from across the West flocking to Ukraine to learn 
 from the combat experience of their fascist brothers-in-arms, they are 
 doing so openly — chronicling their experiences on social media before 
 they bring their lessons back home. But U.S. law enforcement has done 
 nothing so far to restrict the flow of right-wing American extremists to 
 Azov’s bases.\n\nThere is one likely explanation for the U.S. 
 government’s hands-off approach to Azov recruitment: the extremist 
 militia is fighting pro-Russian separatists as a front-line proxy of 
 Washington. In fact, the United States has directly armed the Azov 
 Battalion, forking over anti-tank rocket launchers and even sending a team 
 of Army officers to meet in the field with Azov commanders in 2017. 
 \n\nThough Congress passed legislation this year forbidding military aid to 
 Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology, the Trump 
 administration’s authorization of $200 million in offensive weaponry and 
 aid to the Ukrainian military makes it likely new stores of weapons will 
 wind up the extremist regiment’s hands. When queried by reporters about 
 evidence of American military training of Azov personnel, multiple U.S. 
 army spokespersons admitted there was no mechanism in place to prevent that 
 from happening.\n\nToday, Azov boasts combat experience, unlimited access 
 to light weapons, and supporters honeycombed throughout the upper echelons 
 of Ukraine’s military and government. No longer just a militia, the 
 organization has developed into a political juggernaut that can overpower 
 Ukraine’s government. Two years ago, the group flexed its muscle on the 
 streets of Kiev, bringing out 10,000 supporters to demand that the 
 government bend to their will or face a coup.\n\n“With its military 
 experience and weapons, Azov has the ability to blackmail the government 
 and defend themselves politically against any opposition. They openly say 
 that if the government will not advance an ideology similar to theirs, they 
 will overthrow it,” Ivan Katchanovski, a professor of political science 
 at the University of Ottawa and leading expert on Ukraine’s far-right, 
 commented to me. He continued, explaining:\n\nCurrently the organizations 
 that are fascist are stronger in Ukraine than in any other country in the 
 world. But this fact is not reported by Western media because they see 
 these organizations as supportive of the geopolitical agenda against 
 Russia. So condemnations are limited to violence or human rights abuses.” 
 \n\nThe revelations of collaboration between violent American white 
 supremacists and a neo-Nazi militia armed by the Pentagon add another 
 scandalous chapter to a long history of blowback that dates back to the 
 1950’s, when the CIA rehabilitated several Ukrainian Nazi collaborators 
 as anti-communist assets in the Cold War. \n\nThe almost unbelievable story 
 exposes an axis of fascism that stretches across the Atlantic, from the 
 Ukrainian capital of Kiev to the sun-washed suburbs of Southern California, 
 where some of the most rabid modern white supremacist gangs were born.\n\n 
 \nThe white nationalist Fight Club\nThis October, four members of the RAM 
 gang — Robert Rundo, Benjamin Drake Daley, Michael Paul Mirelis, and 
 Aaron Eason — were arrested by FBI agents. They were accused of “using 
 the internet to encourage, promote, participate in, and carry out riots” 
 from Huntington Beach to Berkeley, California. Four other members had been 
 arrested in connection with their participation in the white supremacist 
 riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counter-protester, Heather 
 Heyer, was killed in a vehicular homicide by a white supremacist. \n\nRAM 
 first appeared in the national limelight during a celebration of Donald 
 Trump’s election victory in Huntington Beach in March 2017. As about one 
 hundred far-right activists marched along the beach donned in red “Make 
 America Great Again” caps and waving Trump flags, they were confronted by 
 a small group of masked anti-racist counter-demonstrators. When a melee 
 ensued, RAM members assaulted their outnumbered opponents, pummeling them 
 into submission and even attacking a local reporter. Afterwards, Orange 
 County police arrestedseveral anti-racist demonstrators, but the RAM gang 
 walked free.\n\nRAM markets itself as a self-defense organization that 
 protects the free speech of white Americans against an onslaught of 
 “Cultural Marxism,”  a classic anti-Semitic trope. Its founders 
 emphasize a vaguely anti-consumerist Fight Club mentality along with a 
 rigorous dedication to mixed martial arts. Its co-founder, Rundo, operates 
 an online clothing and apparel company, Right Brand Clothing, that hawks 
 slickly designed t-shirts promoting “European Brotherhood,” stickers 
 emphasizing a straight-edge “nationalist lifestyle,” and ethically 
 sourced designer “Demagogue pants” (yes, white supremacists apparently 
 care about sweatshops). RAM members can be seen at the site modeling their 
 gear with a clean-cut “fashy” look that contrasts sharply with the 
 stereotypical image of skinheads in jackboots. \n\nRAM’s careful 
 attention to its public image has not stopped its members from putting 
 their crude neo-Nazi ideology on display at rallies, however. During the 
 Huntington Beach riot, for example, RAM’s Robert Boman was seen waving a 
 sign reading “Da Goyim Know.” This alt-right slogan refers to the white 
 nationalist understanding of the supposed Jewish plot to dominate the 
 world. \n\n\nScreenshot | YouTube\n“I’m a big supporter of the 
 Fourteen, I’ll say that,” RAM’s Rundo proclaimed into a camera in 
 Huntington Beach. The gang leader was referring to the notorious 14-word 
 slogan coined by convicted white supremacist terrorist David Lane, which 
 has become a rallying cry for fascists across the globe: “We must secure 
 the existence of our people and a future for white children.”\n\nTwo 
 months after the violence in Huntington Beach, two RAM members were 
 photographed in the same spot dousing literature they dubbed as “Cultural 
 Marxist” with lighter fluid and setting it ablaze. Among the volumes they 
 torched were “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “The 9/11 Commission 
 Report,” and “Schindler’s List.” Besides evoking memories of the 
 early days of Nazi Germany, the spectacle cast the group’s purported 
 devotion to free speech in an extremely ironic light. \n\n\nPhoto | 
 Northern California Anti-Racist Action\nFollowing RAM’s highly publicized 
 street battles, the group became the subject of intense media scrutiny. In 
 October 2017, the investigative outlet ProPublica produced a video that 
 exposed the identities of RAM’s core membership and wondered why they had 
 not been investigated by law enforcement for their violent actions in 
 Huntington Beach and elsewhere. \n\nBut the media coverage of RAM glossed 
 over the group’s attraction to a burgeoning trans-Atlantic conglomeration 
 of white supremacists that centered on U.S.-allied Ukraine as the base for 
 a fascist reconquest of Europe. By the Spring of 2018, RAM leadership was 
 barnstorming through Germany and Italy and heading east to meet fascist 
 cohorts from across the West at a conference in Kiev.\n\n \nRAM’s 
 Ukrainian hate-cation\nBuried in the FBI indictment of RAM members are 
 details of their meetings with one of the key figures in Ukraine’s 
 neo-Nazi Azov Battalion militia. \n\nIn August, according to the 
 indictment, RAM members published photos on Instagram showing themselves 
 meeting with Olena Semanyaka, the leader of the international department of 
 the Ukrainian National Corps, which functions as a civilian arm of the Azov 
 Battalion:\n\n\n\nThe indictment also referenced a video of RAM co-founder 
 Benjamin Drake Daley performing a crossed-forearm salute to the Southern 
 California-based white supremacist Hammerskin gang while in 
 Ukraine:\n\n\n\nRAM’s Gab account provides additional details of the 
 group’s foray through Ukraine this May. The trip centered around the 
 Paneuropa conference, an event that brings together fascists from across 
 the West to encourage international collaboration. It is hosted at the 
 Reconquista Club in Kiev, and included an MMA competition. \n\n“One of 
 our guys has hadthe honor to be the first American to compete in the pan 
 european organization Reconquista in Ukraine!” RAM declared on its Gab 
 account. “This was a great experience meeting nationalist[s] that came 
 [sic] as far as Portugal and Switzerland to take part.”\n\n\nRobert 
 Rundo, left, of the Rise Above Movement competes at Azov’s Reconquista 
 Club in Kiev, Ukraine. Photo | Gab\nThe visit, which followed on the heels 
 of meetings with white supremacists in Germany and with Italy’s fascist 
 CasaPound party, highlighted the centrality of Ukraine to international 
 fascist organizing. Further, the Paneuropa conference, where fascists build 
 connections across national borders, revealed the Azov Battalion as much 
 more than a militia fighting for control of a sliver of contested territory 
 in eastern Ukraine.\n\nSemanyaka did not respond to an interview request 
 delivered through Facebook messenger; however, she told Radio Free 
 Europe’s Christopher Miller that RAM “came to learn our ways” and 
 showed interest in learning how to create youth forces in the way Azov has. 
 \n\nToday, Azov leaders openly acknowledge that were it not for the 
 U.S.-backed coup that unfolded in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014, their 
 organization would never have developed into the powerhouse it is. As 
 Semanyaka said this year, according to a summary: \n\nThe Ukrainian 
 nationalist movement would have never reached such a level of development 
 unless the war with Russia had begun. For the first time since the Second 
 World War, nationalist formations have managed to create their own military 
 wings, the brightest example being the Azov regime of the National Guard of 
 Ukraine.”\n\n \nThe right-wing revolution on the Maidan\nThe 2013-14 
 Maidan revolt was the cataclysmic event that Ukraine’s already potent 
 ultra-nationalist camp had been waiting for. The protests erupted in 
 Kiev’s Maidan Square after the democratically elected President Viktor 
 Yanukovych refused to sign an economic association agreement with the EU. 
 Celebrated in the West as a pro-Western movement guided by tech-savvy 
 middle-class youth, EuroMaidan depended heavily for its success on 
 phalanxes of black-masked hardmen from Right Sector (see appendix at 
 bottom), an ultra-nationalist party that did battle with the government’s 
 Berkut riot police.\n\nAlong with Right Sector, the leadership of the 
 far-right Svoboda Party assumed a prominent role at the Maidan, dubbing the 
 protests a “Revolution of Dignity.” Svoboda co-founder Oleh Tyahnybok 
 — who had once demanded an investigation of the “Jewish-Muscovite 
 mafia” that he saw controlling Ukraine — appeared on stage at the 
 square beside U.S. Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy when they arrived 
 to encourage the protesters. \n\nAnother key figure in Ukraine’s neo-Nazi 
 scene was Andriy Biletsky. A university Ph.D. who stressed physical 
 violence as a means to revolutionary change, Biletsky led the Patriot of 
 Ukraine militia, an early forerunner of Azov that attacked migrant camps 
 and menaced foreigners. In a manifesto published during the height of the 
 Maidan clashes, Biletsky outlined his post-revolutionary agenda: “The 
 historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White 
 Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival,” he wrote. “A 
 crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” \n\n\nMembers of the Right 
 Sector practice street fighting in central Kiev, Ukraine, Feb. 3, 2014. 
 Darko Bandic | AP\nIn May 2014, Right Sector and an assortment of far-right 
 forces banded together to massacretheir opponents in Odessa, attacking a 
 pro-separatist protest camp with iron pipes then burning the fleeing 
 protesters alive after they took shelter in a local trade union building. 
 Over 40 pro-separatist Ukrainian citizens were consumed in the flames. The 
 U.S. and EU studiously looked the other way, legitimizing the violence and 
 setting the stage for more.\n\nBehind the scenes, U.S. Assistant Secretary 
 of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt were carefully stage 
 managing the opposition, positioning the pliable Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the 
 future leader of a U.S. client-state. Meanwhile, billionaire-backed U.S. 
 soft-power entities like the Omidyar Network and Open Society Foundation 
 plowed money into the opposition, providing it with high-tech organizing 
 capacity and establishing new media outlet Hromadskeovernight. \n\nGiven 
 the amount of U.S. investment in regime change in Ukraine, it was necessary 
 for American pundits who cheered on the operation to downplay or simply 
 deny the central role neo-Nazi forces played in making it all possible. In 
 perhaps the most absurd attempt at whitewashing the fascist presence, the 
 neoconservative pundit James Kirchick described Right Sector in an article 
 for Foreign Affairs as “Putin’s imaginary Nazis.” Meanwhile, groups 
 like the Anti-Defamation League — which supposedly exist to battle 
 anti-Semitism — refused to support a congressional effort to ban arms to 
 groups affiliated with Right Sector, because “the focus should be on 
 Russia.” \n\nWith all the cover he needed from Washington, Biletsky 
 organized the “imaginary Nazis” of Patriot of Ukraine, Right Sector, 
 and assorted football ultras into a real militia called the Azov Battalion. 
 Together, they fought under the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, which also 
 happens to be incorporated into the logo of the U.S.-based Aryan Nations. 
 \n\nOn the frontlines of eastern Ukrainian flashpoints, Azov did battle 
 with Russian-speaking separatists and set up government-sponsored 
 indoctrination camps for children and teens closer to the country’s 
 interior, instructing ten year olds on marksmanship and the evils of 
 foreigners. Azan was subsequently absorbed into Ukraine’s military as a 
 national guard unit, and began appearing in the field with PSRL-1 rocket 
 launchers supplied under the watch of the U.S. Department of Defense. In 
 November 2017, Azov leadership received a team of U.S. Army officers for 
 training and logistical discussions (see photo below and to the right). 
 \n\n\nMembers of the Azov Battalion display the Nazi salute, left. U.S. 
 Army officers visit the Azov Battalion in the field, right.\nBy the time 
 Congress approved a ban on arms to Azov this year, the Trump administration 
 had already authorized a new shipment of offensive weapons to the Ukrainian 
 military, including advanced Javelin anti-tank missiles. As in Syria — 
 where the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army functioned as a de facto “weapons 
 farm” for jihadist groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS — any new 
 U.S. arms are likely to wind up in the possession of Azov, the 
 congressional ban notwithstanding. \n\n“It’s very corrupt in Ukraine 
 and money can be stolen — the same as in Syria where extremist fighters 
 got guns from U.S.-backed units,” said Katchanovski. “Azov can just 
 establish new political fronts so they can circumvent the U.S. 
 prohibitions.”\n\n \nForeign fighters for fascism\nThe Azov Battalion has 
 received not only U.S. weapons, but also volunteer American military 
 veterans like Brian Boyenger. “It’s not illegal,” Boyenger told a 
 Ukraine Today interviewer of his presence in an Azov camp. “From a U.S. 
 perspective, as long as you’re not fighting with a terrorist group or 
 committing war crimes or things like that. It is legal — mostly I’ve 
 been serving as kind of like an advisor.”\n\nAzov has also welcomed 
 Islamist fighters from Chechnya to continue their long war against Russia 
 in a new theater. A sniper from Sweden with “typical neo-Nazi views,” 
 Mikael Skillt, has been assigned to oversee an entire Azov regiment. And 
 neo-Nazis from as far away as Brazilhave flocked to Ukraine to join the 
 fascist crusade. One foreign fighter from France, a young anti-Semite named 
 Gregoire Moutaux, returned from a Ukrainian militia camp in 2016 “armed 
 to the teeth and ready to strike” synagogues, mosques and the 2016 soccer 
 championships when he was arrested on the Ukrainian border by national 
 police. \n\nTo consolidate its political influence over the country, the 
 Azov Battalion established a National Druzhina, or street patrol unit. A 
 slickly produced recruitment video released in 2017 featured drone footage 
 of National Druzhina members marching in formation into Kiev as Biletsky, 
 their ideological guide, impelled them to “restore Ukrainian order” to 
 a corrupted society. The street patrol was openly backed by Interior 
 Minister Arsen Avakov, a powerful patron of Azov who belongs to the ruling 
 party of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. \n\nThis year, the National 
 Druzhina and state-funded neo-Nazi militias like C14 (the “14” 
 represents the notorious “fourteen words” mantra) staged a series of 
 lethal pogroms against the local Roma population, vandalized the offices of 
 insufficiently pliant politicians, stormedcity council meetings, and even 
 sued the Hromadske station that was established with U.S. funding for 
 describing their members as neo-Nazis. \n\n“Their connection to power is 
 why they can commit any crime and they will never be punished,” 
 Katchanovski said of Azov and its various street-muscle brigades. 
 “Because they have the police and senior police members like [Vadym] 
 Troyan, they can intimidate people and intimidate politicians with 
 impunity.” (Once a member of Azov, Troyan now serves as Ukraine’s 
 Deputy Minister of Interior). \n\nThe U.S. has not only kept silent about 
 the wave of ultra-nationalist violence sweeping across Ukraine, it has been 
 complicit in legitimizing the perpetrators. This November, America House 
 Kyiv — a U.S. government-funded cultural center — hosted a speech by a 
 uniformed leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang, Serhiy Bondar. Months earlier, 
 Republican House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and the NATO-funded Atlantic 
 Council hosted Andriy Parubiy, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and 
 co-founder of the fascist Social-National party, for a friendly exchange on 
 Capitol Hill.\n\n\nSerhiy Bondar, a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi C14 
 militia, is hosted by the U.S.-funded America House in Kiev. Screenshot | 
 YouTube\nGiven the free rein and open acceptance right-wing extremists 
 enjoy in post-Maidan Ukraine, it is no wonder the country has become a 
 haven for fascists from across the West. \n\n \nThe grand Reconquista 
 strategy\nAs the international secretary of Azov’s National Corps, Olena 
 Semanyaka has emerged as one of the most prolific publicists of Eastern 
 European fascism. With jet black hair and a faintly gothic look, she brands 
 herself as a “traditionalist,” emulating her hero, Julius Evola, the 
 late Italian occultist philosopher who espoused a “racism of the 
 spirit.” Though she has been photographed bearing a Nazi flag and 
 throwing up a sieg heil salute, Semanyaka has also been a welcome guest on 
 Ukrainian nationalist TV to promote her campaign for the release of 
 Ukrainian nationalist activists held by Russia.  \n\n\nSemanya, upper left 
 corner of Nazi flag, dispalys the Nazi salute. On the right, Semanyaka is 
 shown during an appearance on Ukrainian state TV.\nIn her role with Azov, 
 Semanyaka organizes conferences aimed at popularizing the concept of “the 
 great European Reconquista” — a pan-European fascist-nationalist 
 takeover that begins in the former Soviet satellite states and ultimately 
 sweeps through Western Europe on the strength of anti-foreigner resentment. 
 \n\nSemanyaka laid out the fascist grand strategy in Kiev at a December 
 2016 gathering of Black Metal fans from across Europe called the “Pact of 
 Steel:” \n\nFor the first time [in] a long period, the success of the 
 Right in Western Europe — the rise of the Right because of refugee influx 
 and terror — gives the chance for the realization of our ‘pact of 
 steel’ between East and West, between Western and Eastern European 
 nationalists.”\n\nShe continued:\n\nOur main task today is to show to 
 Western nationalists, to inform them that Putin’s Russia is no 
 alternative to the EU of the West and that the only ally for them is an 
 alternative axis of European integration which is being formed now in Kiev, 
 Central and Eastern Europe, as a springboard for the all-European 
 reconquest, for the new Europe between the EU and neo-Soviet neo-Bolshevik 
 Putin’s Russia.”\n\nSemanyaka and other Ukrainian fascist ideologues 
 refer to the regional springboard for the European reconquest as the 
 “Intermarium.” This is a concept originally envisioned after World War 
 One by Polish military leader Jozef Pilsudski, who imagined a confederation 
 of countries from the Baltic to the Black Sea as a counter-weight to German 
 and Russian aggression. Though his idea never materialized, Russia’s 
 annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the failure of the EU and NATO to prevent 
 it revived interest in the Intermarium. One of the biggest boosters of the 
 alliance, the right-wing Polish President Andrzej Duda, saw it primarily 
 through the prism of regional security. The extreme right in Ukraine, 
 however, understood the Intermarium as an ethnically pure base for 
 exporting their revolution to the rest of Europe. \n\nThe first Intermarium 
 conference was held in Kiev in January 2016 under the banner of Azov’s 
 National Corps. Semanyaka headlined the event alongside Biletsky, the Azov 
 founder, welcoming far-right activists from Poland and the Baltic States. 
 Within a year, the concept was promoted at an officially sanctioned event 
 at the Latvian embassy in Kiev. There, the Latvian ambassador welcomed a 
 who’s who of the Ukrainian fascist scene, from Svoboda to National Corps 
 representatives like Semanyaka, for a ceremony honoring Peter Radzins, a 
 Latvian general who advocated for the Intermarium. \n\nOrganized by 
 Latvia’s far-right National Alliance party, a member of the country’s 
 governing coalition, the spectacle provided Azov leaders with the sheen of 
 international legitimacy. As Matthew Kott, an academic expert on the 
 European far-right, argued, Latvia’s “membership in the EU and NATO 
 allows it to act as a Trojan horse for increasing the clout of the 
 far-right in the Euro-Atlantic community.”\n\nWhile historical tensions 
 between the Intermarium nations are still simmering, Semanyaka has pleaded 
 with her international allies to heed the call of the late pro-Hitler 
 British Blackshirt leader Oswald Mosley for a “great act of oblivion…of 
 all our former struggles, conflicts, historical enmity. What we need,” 
 she argued, “is the revival of a sense of the new European aristocracy, a 
 new European unity as a real basis for the union I am talking 
 about.”\n\nThere are no historical grievances between American white 
 supremacists and their cohorts in Ukraine. After all, the U.S. government 
 has made itself the main guarantor of Ukraine’s security, going as far as 
 directly arming Azov in its bid to bleed Russia. And decades before the 
 U.S. backed extremists in contemporary Ukraine, the CIA ran a program to 
 rehabilitate former Nazi collaborators from the country as anti-communist 
 intelligence assets. Backing Ukrainian fascists is a grand American 
 tradition, indeed.\n\nThis November, during the latest Paneuropa conference 
 organized by Semanyaka as a safe space for fascists from across the West, 
 she played host to one of the most prominent self-styled intellectuals of 
 America’s white nationalist movement, Greg Johnson. \n\n\nGregory Johnson 
 promotes his “White Nationalist Manifesto” at Azov’s Reconquista Club 
 in Kiev, Nov. 2018.  Screenshot | YouTube\n“I think that what’s 
 happening in Ukraine is a model and an inspiration for nationalists of all 
 white nations and I wanted to learn as much as possible about what you’re 
 doing here and see as much as possible,” Johnson told his rapt audience. 
 “And I’m enormously impressed and I’m taking notes.”  \n\nJohnson 
 is a highbrow racist who publishes a journal, Counter-Currents, that 
 advances what he calls “white identity politics.” Like the Rise Above 
 Movement leaders before him, he was clearly inspired by his visit to Kiev. 
 “I’m already planning to come back,” Johnson exclaimed during a 
 break-out session. “I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen here. I 
 want to come back and learn more.” \n\n \nAPPENDIX\n\nSvoboda Party: 
 Originally called the Social-National Party of Ukraine, a Ukrainian 
 political party with long history of anti-Semitism. Led by Oleh Tyahnybok, 
 Svoboda played a prominent role in the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising, where 
 Tyahnybok shared the stage with U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chris 
 Murphy (D-CT). Andriy Parubiy, who had co-founded the Social-National Party 
 of Ukraine, is now Speaker of Parliament.  \n\nAzov Battalion: 3,000-member 
 neo-Nazi formation in Ukraine’s National Guard. Azov began as a 
 paramilitary, originally formed out of the Patriot of Ukraine neo-Nazi gang 
 led by Andriy Biletsky, and is now a Ukrainian National Guard unit. The 
 battalion’s logo incorporates the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel and black sun 
 symbols. Biletsky is now a member of Ukrainian Parliament. Vadim Troyan, 
 another  Azov veteran, is now Deputy Interior Minister.  \n\nUkrainian 
 National Corps: Azov’s civilian arm, responsible, among other things, for 
 coordinating with and recruiting neo-Nazis and white supremacists from 
 around the world. The international outreach is led by Olena Semanyka, 
 who’s been photographed with a swastika flag.  \n\nNational Druzhina: 
 Azov’s street patrol organization, established in January 2018 with the 
 aim of “restoring Ukrainian order” to the streets. The National 
 Druzhina — whose members pledge personal loyalty to Biletsky — has been 
 involved in pogroms against the Roma, LGBT, and other activists.  \n\nRight 
 Sector: Loose formation of neo-Nazis and football ultras, which supplied 
 street muscle to the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising. Later involved in lethal 
 suppression of anti-Maidan movements in places like Odessa.  \n\nC14: 
 Ukrainian neo-Nazi gang that receives government funding and has been 
 responsible for some of the lethal Roma pogroms as well as anti-LGBT 
 violence. The 14 is a reference to the Fourteen Word slogan of white 
 supremacy. Led by Serhiy Bondar, who spoke at America House, a cultural 
 center funded by the U.S. government.\n\nTop Photo | Volunteers of the Azov 
 Battalion carry portraits of members killed in the war conflict with 
 separatists in the country’s east, at a rally marking Fatherland Defender 
 Day in Kiev, Ukraine, Oct. 14, 2016. Efrem Lukatsky | AP\n\nMax Blumenthal 
 is the founder and editor of GrayzoneProject.com, the co-host of the 
 podcast Moderate Rebels, the author of several books, and producer of 
 full-length documentaries including the recently released Killing Gaza. 
 Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/12/22/18829081.php
SUMMARY:Ukraine, Privatization, Corruption And The Republicrats
LOCATION:San Francisco Main Library\nLatino-Hispanic Community Room\n100 Larkin St. 
 At Market St.\nSan Francisco 
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/12/22/18829081.php
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