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Sen. John McCain, Svoboda Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok on right
Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of Neo-Nazi Svoboda
Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of Neo-Nazi Svoboda
McCain stands with Neo-Nazis in Kiev, experts say US fueled rise
Shortly before at least two synagogue attacks, the cancellation of a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony in Kiev, and other attacks on Jews, US Senator John McCain stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the leader of one of the rising Neo-Nazi parties in Ukraine. The party organizations are being accused by both Russia and external observers of exploiting the turmoil and deep divisions in Ukrainian society. The groups have pushed aside peaceful protesters, and employ violence to reach their goals.
Experts on the region have criticized US funding of "democracy initiatives" which helped foster the protests.
In 2004 the leader of the fastest-growing far-right party, Oleh Tyahnybok, of Svoboda, gave a speech in which he attacked: "the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine" In another speech he denounced: "the Moskali, Germans, Kikes and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state."
The Svoboda deputy party chief, Ihor Miroshnychenko, once wrote an attack on Ukrainian-American actress Mila Kunis on Facebook, saying: "Kunis is not Ukrainian, she is a Yid. She is proud of it, so Star of David be with her."
And warning of a Neo-Nazi takeover, a former top Reagan official has called Secretary of State John Kerry's regional appointee, Victoria Nuland, "stupid," as well as Kerry himself. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a Soviet scholar and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, recently wrote:
"there was no one in the Obama regime who had enough sense to see the obvious result of their smug, self-satisfied interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine."
Roberts blasts the US media for simplistic reporting which puts forth the Obama administration's version of the events, that of peaceful, spontaneous protests met by a Russian crackdown and invasion. Seumas Milne for The Guardian writes: "The story we're told about the protests gripping Kiev bears only the sketchiest relationship with reality."
As McCain took to the stage to encourage the Ukrainian protesters with promises of American support, he was greeted and flanked by Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, which recently gained 38 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament. Svoboda is one of a number of Ukrainian far-right parties, and has ties to other "nationalist" movements across Europe, which preach virulent brands of anti-Semitism, ethnic purity, intolerance of homosexuality.
Another far-right group, Right Sector, openly took credit for engaging in violence during the protests and issued a statement which said:
“Two months of unsuccessful tiptoeing about under the leadership of the opposition parties showed many demonstrators they need to follow not those who speak sweetly from the stage, but rather those who offer a real scenario for revolutionary changes in the country. For this reason, the protest masses followed the nationalists," Svoboda takes credit for the iconic image, broadcast widely in the Western media, of protesters toppling the statue of Vladimir Lenin in the city center.
Alec Luhn for The Nation reports that: "Svoboda is the most visible party on the square, it has essentially taken over Kiev City Hall as its base of operations, and it has a large influence in the protestors’ security forces."
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Svoboda members
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Svoboda youth
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Svoboda in western Ukrainian city of Lviv wearing uniforms of the former Ukrainian Insurgent Army
In an interview with Democracy Now, Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, said of the peaceful protesters:
"I think a lot of them have gone home." Until recently, one of the official elements of Svoboda's ideology was that government should consist of a single entity, the president, with no other legislative institutions allowed, thus reminiscent of the Nazis' "Fuhrer Principle." Writing for Alternet Max Blumenthal observed that:
"After the 2010 conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok rushed to Germany to declare him a hero who was “fighting for truth.” In the Ukrainian parliament, where Svoboda holds an unprecedented 37 seats, Tyahnybok’s deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn is fond of quoting Joseph Goebbels – he has even founded a think tank originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center.”
Another element of Svoboda's ideology is that Ukraine should become a nuclear power. One factor to which the rise of such "nationalist" movements has been attributed has been rising youth unemployment. Georgy Kasyanov, a researcher at the Institute for the Development of Education. told The Nation that: “In the 2010 and 2012 elections, it became visible that a big part of the youth are moving toward nationalism.”
Kasyanov worried that youth unemployment is rising in Ukraine as in the rest of Europe.
On December 13, 2013 at the National Press Club in Washington DC, US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland, openly admitted to US attempts to influence Ukrainian politics, saying that:
"Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, the United States supported the Ukrainians in the development of democratic institutions and skills in promoting civil society and a good form of government...We have invested more than 5 billion dollars to help Ukraine to achieve these and other goals.”
MARTIN BUREAU, AFP
US diplomat Victoria Nuland looks at her notes during a press conference in Kiev, on February 7, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin this week broke his silence over what he says is American involvement in fostering the protests, saying that the U.S. government had interfered in Ukraine “from across the pond in America as if they were sitting in a laboratory and running experiments on rats, without any understanding of the consequences.”
Last December, Assistant Secretary Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt toured the protests in Kiev, reportedly handing out cookies to protesters.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says the situation has spun "out of control." Roberts writes: "Yanukovich [the former Ukrainian president] is history, as are Washington’s “moderates.” The moderates are not only corrupt; they are stupid. The fools even disbanded the Riot Police, leaving themselves at the mercy of the armed right-wing nazi thugs. Ukraine is out of control. This is what happens when an arrogant, but stupid, Assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) plots with an equally arrogant and stupid US ambassador (Pyatt) to put their candidates in power once their coup against the elected president succeeds. "
Making reference to Kerry's threats to Russia, Dr. Roberts said::
"The puppet politicians who Washington intended to put in charge of Ukraine have lost control to organized and armed neo-Nazis, who are attacking Jews and Russians and intimidating Ukrainian politicians...The stupid Kerry, wallowing in his arrogance, hubris, and evil, issued direct threats to Russia. The Russian foreign minister dismissed Kerry's threats as "unacceptable." The stage is set for war."
Roberts is a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a former editor of the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek.
Russia Today (RT), owned by Russian state television, has released video of young, athletic men engaged in pitched street battles with police, brandishing and wearing the wolfsangel symbol of various units of the Nazi Waffen SS. RT has also released video of Right Sector leader Aleksandr Shevchenko issuing demands to a Ukrainian city council, while branding an AK-47.
Dr. Roberts declared: " Thug Aleksandr Shevchenko informed the CEC that armed activists will remain in CEC offices in order to make certain that the election is not rigged against the neo-nazis. What he means, of course, is the armed thugs will make sure the neo-nazis win. If the neo-nazis don’t win, the chances are high that they will take power regardless. "
RT Reports, "I dare you to take away my gun" [youtube]BFp9GtDYWNA[/youtube]
Right Sector leader in local council (translation requested)
[youtube]XtxbGjkpkF8[youtube]
Reports indicate that the Neo-Nazi groups attack both government authorities and left-leaning organizers of the protests equally. On December 4, labor organizer Denis Levin and his two brothers were beaten by a small Neo-Nazi crowd shouting “Glory to Ukraine” and “Death to Enemies."
In early February, weeks before the corrupt, elected president of the Ukraine fled from office, Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt were recorded in a telephone call, which was leaked to the media, in which the future leadership of Ukraine was discussed. The story went viral after Nuland was heard saying "and, you know, f*#k the EU." (transcript)
Nuland is heard saying "Yats is the guy," referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, one of the protest leaders. Professor Cohen of NYU and Princeton told Democracy Now:
"What are they doing? The highest-ranking State Department official, who presumably represents the Obama administration, and the American ambassador in Kiev are, to put it in blunt terms, plotting a coup d’état against the elected president of Ukraine."
Some foreign policy observers speculate that US support of a breakaway movement on Russia's doorstep may be an effort to punish Putin for his frustration of Western efforts to employ military force on Syria, as well as Iran....Read more: Digital Journal: A Global Digital Media Network
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