Foreign neo-Nazi fighters in Ukraine (BBC report)

[JackRiddler]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329

16 July 2014

Ukraine conflict: 'White power' warrior from Sweden

By Dina Newman
BBC News

(SNIP)

In a telephone conversation from an undisclosed location, Mr Skillt told me more about his duties: "I have at least three purposes in the Azov Battalion: I am a commander of a small reconnaissance unit, I am also a sniper, and sometimes I work as a special coordinator for clearing houses and going into civilian areas."

As to his political views, Mr Skillt prefers to call himself a nationalist, but in fact his views are typical of a neo-Nazi. "It's all about how you see it," he says. "I would be an idiot if I said I did not want to see survival of white people. After World War Two, the victors wrote their history. They decided that it's always a bad thing to say I am white and I am proud." Mr Skillt believes races should not mix. He says the Jews are not white and should not mix with white people. His next project is to go fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he believes Mr Assad is standing up to "international Zionism".

Not all of Mr Skillt's views are widely shared in the Azov Battalion, which is about 300-strong in total.... Mr Skillt says there is only a handful of foreign fighters in the Azov Battalion and they do not get paid. "They see it as a good thing, to come and fight," he explains. However, Mr Skillt is expecting more foreigners to join soon: he says there is now a recruiter who is looking for "serious fighters" from outside Ukraine.

The key figures in the Azov Battalion are its commander, Andriy Biletsky, and his deputy, Ihor Mosiychuk. Andriy Biletsky is also the leader of a Ukrainian organisation called the Social National Assembly. Its aims are stated in one of their online publications: "to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital... to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man." This, according to experts, is a typical neo-Nazi narrative.

The Azov Battalion was formed and armed by Ukraine's interior ministry. A ministerial adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, got angry when I asked him if the battalion had any neo-Nazi links through the Social National Assembly. (...)

(SNIP)

Read more
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329

[CreekDog]

1. so you're arguing that Ukrainian sovereignty is just a front for Nazism

and Russian backed rebels are saving that nation and it's neighbors from Nazism.

I know, I know, you aren't saying anything, you're "just sayin'".

Just like all the stuff you said about the plane.

[JackRiddler]

2. So you're advocating eating Irish babies? My god!

Strange, I'd think most people would read the above and think it's an excerpt from a news report by the BBC, on the presence of foreign neo-Nazi fighters signed up with the Azov Battalion organized by the interior ministry in Kiev, and generally on extreme right-wing radical elements within the paramilitary security forces deputized by that government. But I guess not everyone has as powerful an imagination as you are showing here.

Following the link to BBC, one finds a condemnation of extreme right-wing politics in both Ukraine and Russia, in a report that happens to focus on the former. I do believe there are other ways to read all this than the incredible whopper you have dished up as an interpretation of my hidden motives.

As for "all the stuff" I said about Russia, Ukraine, and "the plane," readers can see what it is "just like" right here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025267434

Thank you!

[reorg]

6. Ukrainian "souvereignty"?

So that's why politicians from the US and Europe are constantly meddling there?

From what I hear they will soon outlaw the Communist Party and the Party of Regions. These punks apparently want a bigger share:

On Tuesday, a fight broke out during the morning session of the Verkhovna Rada. As “New Region” correspondent reports, after the Parliament voted on the third wave of mobilization, member of Party of Regions Mykola Levchenko started accusing the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and soldiers “of spilling innocent blood of Donbas civilians.”

Speaker Olexandr Turchynov reacted brusquely by turning Levchenko’s microphone off.

“I will not allow supporters of the Fifth column and Putin’s regime to engage in provocations here,” Turchynov raised his voice.

...

At the same time “Svoboda” Parliament Members ran for the part of the hall occupied by communists and the Party of Region. A scuffle broke out. The MP’s grabbed and tugged at each other’s jackets and shirts. The first to “attack” was “Svoboda” member Igor Myroshnychenko, who tried to punch Levchenko in the face.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/07/22/members-of-the-parliament-fought-in-the-verkhovna-rada/

Then not the puncher but the critic was removed from parliament "for unacceptable declarations". Look:

Free Speech Ukraine Ends in Fists. 22 July 2014

#t=42

[Igel]

3. Small potatoes.

You have to be anti-fascist to really be in bed with fascists.

Strelkov announced yesteday a couple hundred Serb chetniks.

Chetniki are sort of like Cossacks, but really nationalist and, well, Serbs. They wanted independence under the Ottomans. And then, between the wars, felt slighted because Greater Serbia was hobbled with others.

During WWII they wound up siding with Hitler and fought the Red Army, the Allies, and the Communist partisans. They massacred many, including a massacre of 1000 Muslims at Srebrenica in '42. They wanted a Greater Serbia for Serbs, siding with Hitler was a kludge but killing the Muslims and other minorities in Serbia was out of duty.

They were banned after the war. But in the '90s they resurfaced, and now they've been rehabilitated in Serbia. Big supporters of Milosevic and Karadzic. They have only fond words for the chetniks from the '40s that hung out with the Germans. And harsh words for non-Serbs. Heck, there was a memorial service in Srebrenica to commemorate the massacre of Muslims in the Bosnian war in the '90s; the next day, the chetniks had a celebratory parade commemorating the anniversary of the massacre of 1000 Muslims in Srebrenica in '42. In full regalia. They even use the same black/white skull-and-crossbones logo that they used in WWII when fighting with the Nazis and killing non-Serbs and Communists in Serbia. Fun folk.

Strelkov was very proud that these ardent fighters had come to help fight against the fascists. Slavic, Orthodox brethren. Brave, good, true souls.

Now, Strelkov calls the Ukrainians fascists because some of them, those specifically under Bandera during WWII, wound up siding with Hitler and fighting the Red Army (never the Allies). Banderites engaged in some ethnic cleansing against Poles and Jews. They wanted a Ukraine for the Ukrainians. And considered the Soviet Union the enemy, if only because of the Holodomor.

Notice the incredible parallel between the Serbian chetniki and the Ukrainian Banderites. One's good and the other is fascist. Mostly because the Banderites were anti-Soviet, and that means for Russians "anti-Russian" (even if many in the Red Army that the Banderites fought were Ukrainians or Belorusians--non-Slavs tended not to be sent to the front lines).

Then again, many of the rebels are all for a Russia for the Russians. Some of the rebels openly advocated apartheid. But they're not fascists. Because it's hard to be an anti-Russian Russian, and "fascist" often just means "anti-Russian." If you an anti-Russian Russian, you're a "traitor." (And the rebels execute traitors. They killed a couple of priests in Slovyansk for daring to take food and water to Ukrainian troops. After the obligatory torture, that is.) It's why you can have men in black uniforms with swastikas considered okay--they're fascists by our standards, but strongly pro-Russian.

There are fascists on both sides. Some are leaders. Some are there on their own. Poroshenko, most Ukrainian leaders ... not fascists. But still more strongly nationalistic than Americans or most Europeans. Borodai, Strelkov, Bolotov, Gubarev--the rebel leaders?

Let's put it this way. When Ukrainian troops stage bombardments or use artillery that kill dozens of Russians to save Ukrainian lives, the rebel leaders and Putin call it a war crime. But in '99, when the Russians flattened Groznyi and other places in Chechnya, killing 10s of thousands of civilians, Strelkov and Borodai published an article saying such aerial bombardment and artillery shelling of civilian areas was appropriate "if it saved the life of one Russian soldier." One of the rebel leaders is proud to be working on a textbook for the future educational system of the LPR and DPR demonstrating that Ukrainians aren't really "true Slavs," based on skull shapes. It's the Donbas Russians that have always been there, who are the true Slavs and ran Kievan Rus'. Really, you can't make this crap up. And against that there's a Swede? The horrors!

Hey, at least they don't use the word "Aryan." Can't be fascist if they don't use the word "Aryan."

[joshcryer]

4. How's that for "talking intelligently about Ukraine"?

I think it's fantastic and quite accurate. But whatever.

[delrem]

5. I can't imagine what would make a person in the USA (or "the west")

to "take sides" in this horror fest.

I shudder when I open the DU home page lately. The neocon warmongering is so hyped to get this one going, so eager. The neocon warmongering divides DUers into "putinistas" and patriots. Sick stuff.
It's the same thing as the neocon warmongering that brought the ME to such a fine situation. The same actors, too. Trained attack dogs.

[EX500rider]

7. I shudder when I open the DU home page lately...

I swear we have some actual KGB/FSB agents making posts....!
lol

[delrem]

8. Now: I'm not just a "putinista", I'm a "KGB/FSB agent". Cool.

So, what I said.

[EX500rider]

11. Didn't mention you at all. Had other posters in mind actually..

[delrem]

13. Well, then it's cool that you responded specifically to me.

Smooth.

[JackRiddler]

15. If so they can join with the NSA/Etc. types making posts...

not to mention a wealth of party-line hacks.

I mean, you'd think but who knows, right?

[Union Scribe]

9. +1

[KoKo]

10. Interesting from the BBC. Thanks for the post...we've been told

the neo Nazi's in Ukraine were a myth...

[reorg]

12. Yes, they only represent a tiny, tiny percentage

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.

Svoboda began life in the mid-90s as the Social-National Party (a name deliberately redolent of the National Socialist Party, better known as Nazis), with its logo the fascist Wolfsangel. In 2004, the party gave itself an unobjectionable new name (Svoboda means "Freedom&quot and canned the Nazi imagery, and in the subsequent decade has seen its star swiftly rise.

Today, Svoboda holds a larger chunk of its nation's ministries (nearly a quarter, including the prized defense portfolio) than any other far-right party on the continent. Ukraine's deputy prime minister represents Svoboda (the smaller, even more extreme "Right Sector" coalition fills the deputy National Security Council chair), as does the prosecutor general and the deputy chair of parliament -- where the party is the fourth-largest. And Svoboda's fresh faces are scarcely different from the old: one of its freshmen members of parliament is the founder of the "Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" and has hailed the Holocaust as a "bright period" in human history.

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

[jakeXT]

14. I'm reminded of Syria where the Saudis complain that the locals don't want to fight