Parts of this have been posted before, but it's a mixture of articles from
The Grayzone Project, and I'm not sure which parts are new.
US-Funded Neo-Nazis in Ukraine Mentor US White Supremacists
November 17, 2018
Short-sighted U.S. foreign policy that backs jihadists in the Middle East
and neo-Nazis in Ukraine is once again blowing back on the United States, as
Max Blumenthal explains.
FBI: Azov Battalion Trained Rise Above Movement
By Max Blumenthal
Last month, an unsealed FBI indictment of four American white supremacists
from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the defendants had trained
with Ukraines Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia officially incorporated
into the countrys 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.
The indictment stated that the Azov Battalion is believed to have
participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white
supremacy organizations.
After 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.
Not 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 Azovs bases.
There is one likely explanation for the U.S. governments 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.
Though Congress passed legislation this year forbidding military aid to Azov
on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology, the Trump administrations
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
regiments 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.
Two soldiers from the Azov Battalion in front of a building with Nazi symbol
at the battalions base in Urzuf. (Carl Ridderstråle-Wikimedia Commons)
Today, Azov boasts combat experience, unlimited access to light weapons, and
supporters honeycombed throughout the upper echelons of Ukraines military
and government. No longer just a militia, the organization has developed
into a political juggernaut that can overpower Ukraines 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.
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
Ukraines far-right, commented to me. He continued, explaining:
Currently 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.
The 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 1950s, when the CIA
rehabilitated several Ukrainian Nazi collaborators as anti-communist assets
in the Cold War.
The 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.
White Nationalist Fight Club
This 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.
RAM first appeared in the national limelight during a celebration of Donald
Trumps 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 arrested several anti-racist demonstrators, but the RAM gang
walked free.
RAM 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.
RAM members from their now deleted Instagram account. (via ProPublica.)
RAMs 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, RAMs 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.
Im a big supporter of the Fourteen, Ill say that, RAMs 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.
Two 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
Schindlers List. Besides evoking memories of the early days of Nazi
Germany, the spectacle cast the groups purported devotion to free speech in
an extremely ironic light.
Following RAMs 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 RAMs core
membership and wondered why they had not been investigated by law
enforcement for their violent actions in Huntington Beach and elsewhere.
But the media coverage of RAM glossed over the groups 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.
RAMs Ukrainian Hate-cation
Buried in the FBI indictment of RAM members are details of their meetings
with one of the key figures in Ukraines neo-Nazi Azov Battalion militia.
In 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:
The 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:
RAMs Gab account provides additional details of the groups 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 a mixed martial arts competition.
One of our guys has had the 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.
The visit, which followed on the heels of meetings with white supremacists
in Germany and with Italys 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.
Semanyaka did not respond to an interview request delivered through Facebook
messenger; however, she told Radio Free Europes Christopher Miller that RAM
came to learn our ways and showed interest in learning how to create youth
forces in the way Azov has.
Today, Azov leaders openly acknowledge that were it not for the U.S.-backed
coup that unfolded in Kievs Maidan Square in 2014, their organization would
never have developed into the powerhouse it is. As Semanyaka said this year,
according to a summary:
The 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.
Right-wing Maidan Revolution
Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector) extremists in Maidan, February 22, 2014.
(Wikipedia)
The 2013-14 Maidan revolt was the cataclysmic event that Ukraines already
potent ultra-nationalist camp had been waiting for. The protests erupted in
Kievs 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 governments Berkut riot
police.
Along 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.
Another key figure in Ukraines 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.
In May 2014, Right Sector and an assortment of far-right forces banded
together to massacre their 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.
Behind 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 Hromadske overnight.
Given 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 Putins 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.
With 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.
Azov logo.
On 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 countrys interior, instructing
ten year olds on marksmanship and the evils of foreigners. Azan was
subsequently absorbed into Ukraines 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).
By 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.
Arayan Nations logo.
Its 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.
Foreign Fighters for Fascism
The Azov Battalion has received not only U.S. weapons, but also volunteer
American military veterans like Brian Boyenger. Its not illegal, Boyenger
told a Ukraine Today interviewer of his presence in an Azov camp. From a
U.S. perspective, as long as youre not fighting with a terrorist group or
committing war crimes or things like that. It is legal mostly Ive been
serving as kind of like an advisor.
Azov 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 Brazil have 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.
To 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.
This 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, stormed city council meetings, and
even sued the Hromadske station that was established with U.S. funding for
describing their members as neo-Nazis.
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 Ukraines Deputy
Minister of Interior).
Serhiy Bondar, a member of Ukraines neo-Nazi C14 militia, is hosted by the
U.S.-funded America House in Kiev. (YouTube)
The 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.Given 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.
Grand Reconquista Strategy
As the international secretary of Azovs 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.
In 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.
Semanyaka 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:
For 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.
She continued:
Our main task today is to show to Western nationalists, to inform them that
Putins 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 Putins Russia.
Semanyaka 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, Russias 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.
Semanya, upper left corner of Nazi flag, dispalys the Nazi salute. On the
right, Semanyaka is shown during an appearance on Ukrainian state TV.
The first Intermarium conference was held in Kiev in January 2016 under the
banner of Azovs 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 whos 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.
Organized by Latvias far-right National Alliance party, a member of the
countrys 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, Latvias 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.
While 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.
There 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 Ukraines 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.
This 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 Americas white nationalist
movement, Greg Johnson.
I think that whats 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 youre doing here and see as much as possible, Johnson told his
rapt audience. And Im enormously impressed and Im taking notes. Johnson
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.
Im already planning to come back, Johnson exclaimed during a break-out
session. Im very impressed with what Ive seen here. I want to come back
and learn more.
__________________
Svoboda 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.
Azov Battalion: 3,000-member neo-Nazi formation in Ukraines 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 battalions 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.
Ukrainian National Corps: Azovs 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, whos been photographed with a swastika flag.
National Druzhina: Azovs 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.
Right 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.
C14: 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.
This article was originally published on Mint Press News.
Max 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.
