Yes, There Are Bad Guys in the Ukrainian Government (foreignpolicy.com)

[newthinking]

Yes, There Are Bad Guys in the Ukrainian Government
It's time for a frank conversation about some of the unsavory characters in Kiev.


Democracy Lab
Yes, There Are Bad Guys in the Ukrainian Government
It's time for a frank conversation about some of the unsavory characters in Kiev.

BY Andrew Foxall , Oren Kessler

Vladimir Putin insists Russia invaded Crimea to protect the ethnic Russians who live in that southern Ukrainian territory. Ukraine, the Russian president contends, has come under the control of "neo-Nazis and Nazis and anti-Semites," and the country's Russian population is under threat. It is easy to dismiss Putin's rhetoric -- he is, after all, a serial fibber and fabricator who conflates gays and pedophiles and heads a state where Cossacks gas and whip punk rockers in broad daylight. But while Western governments and pundits are correct to dismiss Putin's pretenses for invading Ukraine, they are wrong to presume his Ukrainian opponents are necessarily in the right.

The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion
of Kiev's current government -- and the protesters who
brought it to power -- are, indeed, fascists.

The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion of Kiev's current government -- and the protesters who brought it to power -- are, indeed, fascists. If Western governments hope to steer Ukraine clear from the most unsavory characters in Moscow and Kiev, they will need to wage a two-pronged diplomatic offensive: against Putin's propaganda and, at the same time, against Ukraine's resurgent far-right.

Ukraine is home to Svoboda, arguably Europe's most influential far-right movement today. (In the photo above, Svoboda activists seize a Ministry of Agriculture building during Kiev's Euromaidan protests in January.) Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok is on record complaining that his country is controlled by a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia," while his deputy derided the Ukrainian-born film star Mila Kunis as a "dirty Jewess." In Svoboda's eyes, gays are perverts and black people unfit to represent the nation at Eurovision, lest viewers come away thinking Ukraine is somewhere besides Uganda.

More:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/18/yes_there_are_bad_guys_in_the_ukrainian_government

[Fred Sanders]

1. There are far too many that buy into American propaganda, we all know that too well.

[Adrahil]

3. And far too many who buy into Moscow's. NT

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Interesting read.