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  • Who Was Behind the Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17? The Quest for Truth and Justice. Review of the Evidence/By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

    Who Was Behind the Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17? The Quest for Truth and Justice. Review of the Evidence/By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

    Original Link Here: Who Was Behind the Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17? The Quest for Truth and Justice. Review of the Evidence – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

    Global Research, February 01, 2026

    Introduction

    War propaganda has always been at the center stage of virtually every conflict in human history, but it has never been as prominent as it is today.

    When the Obama administration initiated the Ukrainian conflict in late 2013/early 2014, it used America’s media dominance to present a one-sided image of the situation on the ground… and in the air.

    The Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, was one of the most blatant instances of war propaganda being used against Russia and the then nascent Donbass resistance to the Kiev regime in February 2014.

    Two Nazi parties, namely Right Sector and Svoboda. were endorsed and sustained by a U.S. sponsored Coup d’Etat which hijacked the nation of Ukraine that same year.

    This analysis is a detailed account of the sequence of events that led to the tragedy (used for propaganda purposes), or, more precisely, the intentional murder of nearly 300 people for geopolitical gain.

    Flight MH-17: Flash Back to July 2014

    On 17 July 2014, a few months after the Euromaidan Coup d’état, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down in Eastern Ukraine, resulting in more than 300 deaths.

    In chorus, both the media and Western governments accused Russia without a shred of evidence.

    While FSB Head Alexander Bortnikov was fully aware of the role of Ukraine’s SBU Intelligence (See below), the Kremlin decided to limit its response. It denied any role in the downing the MH-17 flight, while also refusing to turn over the four men to stand trial in the Netherlands.

    In August 2019, I  presented a carefully documented report entitled The Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17: The Quest for Truth and Justice to the Kuala Lumpur MH17 Conference  organized by JUST, the PGPF and the CRG in collaboration with the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

    In many regards, the Crocus City Hall Terrorist attack reveals the falsehoods and manipulation of the evidence pertaining to the Downing of the MH 17 flight in July 2014.

    In both cases, the West accuse Russia of waging a false flag.

    It also confirms the insidious role of  Ukraine’s intelligence agency (SBU) which was behind the MH-17 operation. (see below)

    According to President Obama (hours after the tragedy):

    “… the downing of MH17 should be “a wake-up call” to Europe to get serious about confronting Russia over Ukraine after EU leaders have proved reluctant to impose tought sanctions.” (Telegraph, July 18,2019)

    The Wall Street Journal reports (July 18, 2014) that “Obama is getting his wish and Brussels is now weighing new sanctions”:

    On July 22, 2014, The European Union decided to expand its sanctions blacklist against Moscow including Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

    EU foreign ministers decided to “draw up further broad measures including an arms embargo and financial restrictions on Russian businesses, … following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.” (Guardian, July 22, 2019)

    It is worth recalling that immediately after the MH17 plane crash on July 17 2014, prior to the conduct of a preliminary investigation, Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power pointed their finger at Moscow without a shred of evidence.

    In November 2022,  a Netherlands Court found the Kremlin responsible for the alleged attack: two Russians and a “separatist Ukrainian” were identified as “guilty of mass murder for their involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17”.

    The Court ruling was fraudulent, based on fabricated evidence.

    The 2019 Conference was dedicated to the memory of the victims.

    It was also a national tragedy for the people of Malaysia.

    The downing of MH17 with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, took place barely a few months following the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 after departing on March 8, 2014 from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board..



    According to the official narrative, Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed by a BUK anti-aircraft missile by “pro-Russian separatists” with the support of Moscow.

    The MH17 Inquiry was conducted in an insidious fashion, largely responding to political interests.

    Important pieces of evidence including eye witness reports, audio and video material  transmitted through Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) have either been manipulated or excluded from the Dutch inquiry, which largely endorses Washington’s accusations directed against Moscow.

    According to Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad  in a statement at the Prime Minister’s office in May 2019:

    “They never allowed us to be involved from the very beginning.  This is unfair and unusual. So we can see they are not really looking at the causes of the crash and who was responsible.

    But already they have decided it must be Russia. So we cannot accept that kind of attitude. We are interested in the rule of law, in justice for everyone irrespective of who is involved.

    “They [the West] are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?

     

    Screenshot Travel Weekly, July 18,2019

     

    The members of our team at the Conference venue were in contact with PM Mahathir Mohamad in July 2019.

    Below is the:

    Summary of the Ukraine Intelligence SBU Report. Accuses President Putin of a “False Flag”

    (excerpt from the full report)

    According to the official Ukraine SBU report entitled Terrorists and Militants planned cynical terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft  published on August 7, 2014,

    The SBU accused Russia of having ordered a false flag attack involving the shooting down of its own Aeroflot plane leading to the death of its own citizens, and then blaming it on the Kiev regime, with the Kremlin using the tragedy as a casus belli pretext to invade Ukraine.

    According to the report: The Donetsk militia were aiming at a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane and shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner by mistake.

    That’s the official Ukraine government story which was acknowledged by the Ukrainian as well as several Western media. See below.

    Kiev Post August 7, 2014

    According to Britain’s foremost news tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, quoting the head of Ukraine intelligence,

    The insidious design of the pro-Russian rebels (allegedly supported by Moscow) was to shoot down a Russian commercial airline plane with tourists en route to Cyprus, with a view to blaming the Ukrainian government.

    The objective of this alleged “false flag” covert operation was to create a justifiable and credible pretext for Vladimir Putin to declare war on Ukraine.

    “the [Donesk] rebels were meant to down [the] Aeroflot plane… to justify the invasion [of Ukraine by Russia]”,

    Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (right), head of Ukraine intelligence (24 February 2014 – 18 June 2015)  the pro-Russian rebels were “aiming at a Russian passenger plane “so Putin had reason to invade”.

    “the crime was planned as a ground for bringing of Russian troops into Ukraine, that is – CASUS BELLI for the Russian military invasion.” (Official statement of Ukraine Security Service, in annex below)

    In a bitter irony, according to the SBU report, the alleged “false flag” covert op got muddled. The Donesk rebels got it all wrong and hit the MH17 plane by mistake.

    That’s the “official line” which was made public by the Kiev government on August 7, 2014, 3 weeks after the MH17 tragedy.

    Below is a detailed and carefully documented report.

    the SUB Ukraine Intelligence Report (August 2014) is in Annex

     

    Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, March 29, 2024, February 1, 2026

     

     

    The Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17:

    The Quest for Truth and Justice.

    Review of the Evidence

    by Michel Chossudovsky

    August 15,  2019

     

    Introduction

    Moscow was accused without evidence of being behind the downing of MH17 from the very outset. Both Kiev and Washington concluded prior to the conduct of an investigation that:

    “MH17 had likely been brought down by a ground-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.”

    There are three distinct reports:

    The first official report on behalf of the Ukrainian government was released by Ukraine’s SBU secret service on August 7 2014, barely three weeks after the MH 17 tragedy (July 17, 2014).

    The SBU report (which is discussed later in more detail) accuses pro-Russian rebels of having downed the plane with Moscow’s support.

    The Dutch Safety Board Report released in September 2015 largely endorses the BUK missile narrative.

    And, a year later in September 2016,  The Dutch Joint investigation Team (JIT)  as part of a criminal investigation “confirmed” that the Malaysian airlines plane was “hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile that was brought into Ukraine from Russia before the shootdown and subsequently taken back across the border.”

    The assumption prior to the conduct of the DSB investigation was that a BUK missile had brought down MH17, and Russia was behind it.

    Concrete evidence supporting other interpretations (including  on site testimonies and the presence of a second aircraft) was casually dismissed by the DSB:

    Dutch Safety Board, September 2015 report  (p 9)

    The inquiry became increasingly politicized.

    President Barack Obama had called up Malaysia’s (former) Prime Minister Najib Razak. At a press conference (July 18, 2014),  “Najib told the press that he had spoken to the Dutch prime minister and the Ukrainian president; In subsequent developments, Prime Minister Najib Razak tacitly accepted the consensus imposed by Washington prior to the conduct of an investigation.

     ‘Obama and I agreed that the investigation will not be hidden and the international teams have to be given access to the crash scene.’

    In August 2016, Ukraine president Poroshenko visited Malaysia for discussions with Prime Minister Razak Najib:

    Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said Malaysia will work with Ukraine to bring the perpetrators to justice. “We will do whatever we can to find the truth for the sake of families who lost their loved ones in this tragic incident. “We are waiting for the criminal investigation report, which is expected to be tabled by the year-end, followed by a meeting to decide on the next course of action,” said Najib. (New Straits Times, August 4, 2016)

    Washington’s agenda in liaison with the Kiev regime was to blame Russia. This agenda was never questioned by the Najib government.

    Erasing the Initial Evidence

    Much of the initial evidence and testimony including eyewitness reports (from various independent sources), recorded in July-August 2014 (in the immediate wake of the event) contradicts the official version. This body of evidence has been dismissed and in some cases destroyed.

    In September 2015, in its final report, the Dutch Safety Board presented its findings regarding the Buk TELAR surface-to-air missile system which allegedly shot down MH-17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

    On 24 May 2018 the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) published an update of its findings pointing (without firm evidence) to the role of the 53 Anti-Missile Brigade of the Russian Army. In May 2018, they launched an appeal for people in Donesk to come forward to corroborate their “findings” re. the deployment of the BUK missile system:

     

     

    On the following day, the governments of Australia and the Netherlands officially declared that “they hold Russia responsible for the incident”. (see Polygraph Info, May 25, 2018)

    Moscow remains the “main suspect” in this politically twisted investigation, which has now led to a legal procedure in the Netherlands directed against the alleged perpetrators.

    On June 19, 2019, the International Joint Investigation Team (JIT) announced (video) that international arrest warrants have been issued against four “separatist commanders” of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). These warrants concern Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, and Russian citizens Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Igor Girkin.

    Moreover, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in mid-July 2019 that “the UK will provide financial support to the specialist criminal court in the Hague” which is slated to host the trial of the four suspects.

    In this report we will first focus on the Timeline as well as selected evidence which has been suppressed including the presence of a second aircraft.

    We will then review the official report of the Kiev government prepared by Ukraine’s intelligence service (SBU) as well as the role of the SBU in feeding “evidence” to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT)

    Analysis of the Evidence

    Timeline

    July 15, 2014. Two Days Before the Tragic Event

    A division of Buk missile systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was, according to Pravda, deployed to the Donetsk Oblast on July 15, two days before the downing of the Malaysian airlines MH17 flight. The Buk missile system has the capabilities of downing an aircraft flying at 35,000 feet.

    Russian Defense sources confirmed the presence of several Ukraine missile batteries in the Donesk oblast operated by the Ukraine armed forces:

    ‘The Ukrainian military has several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers, capable of bringing down high-flying jets, in the Donetsk region where the Malaysian passenger plane crashed, Russian Defense Ministry said”(RT, July 17, 2014)

    The Prosecutor General of Ukraine Vitaliy Yarema confirmed that the Donesk rebels did not have [Ukrainian] Buk or S 300 ground to air missiles which could have downed the plane, which suggests that the missiles of the Ukraine armed forces had been deployed but they were not in the possession of the rebels, a premise which remains central to the US-Kiev official version that the rebels, supported by Moscow, were responsible for attacking Malaysian Airlines MH17.

    According to the Kiev Post report: “Ukrainian prosecutor general says militants did not seize Ukrainian air defense launchers”:

    “Members of illegal armed units have not seized air defense launchers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donetsk, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema said.” (Kiev Post, July 19, 2014)

    According to Russia’s Itar-Tass report (July 2014)

    “After the passenger airliner was downed, the military reported to the president that terrorists do not have our air defense missile systems Buk and S-300,” the general prosecutor [of Ukraine] said. “These weapons were not seized,” he added.

    Ukrainian Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said on July 17 that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 airliner had been downed by an air defense missile system Buk.

    From both Russian and Ukrainian sources there was evidence of Ukrainian BUK missiles deployed in Eastern Ukraine and official statements that the Donesk rebel forces had no access to the Ukraine Buk air missiles. The Kiev Post report did not (in this July 19 report) mention the presence of Russia BUK missiles in Donetsk oblast.

    July 17, 2014. Day of the MH17 Tragedy 

    The Boeing-777 of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur “disappeared from the radars and crashed on Thursday evening July 17 near Grabovo in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast.

    The Flight Path of MH17 Was Changed?  July 17 Plane Route was over the Ukraine War-zone

    The maps below clearly indicate a change in flight path for Malaysian airlines MH17 on July 17. They also indicate on the map the two regions of Ukraine which are part of the warzone, namely Donetsk and Lugansk.

    The first dynamic map compares the two flight paths:

    It indicates the regular flight path on July 16th which takes the plane in a Southeasterly direction across the Sea of Azov.

    The second flight path which is that of July 17th takes the plane over the Donesk oblast warzone, bordering onto Lugansk oblast.

    The four static images  indicate screen shots of the Flight Paths of MH17 for July 14-17, 2014

    The information conveyed in these maps suggests that the flight path on July 17 was changed.

    MH17 was diverted from the normal South Easterly route over the sea of Azov to a path over the Donetsk oblast.

    Who was behind the change of  the flight path? And why was the flight path changed?

    CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

    Changing MH17 Route From July 14, 2014 to July 17, 2014

    IngoGraph

    Screenshots of Flight Paths of MH17 for July 14-17, 2014

    14th July Route15th July Route  16th July Route17th July Route

     The Presence of a Second Aircraft

    All the eyewitnesses  interviewed by the BBC confirmed the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft flying within proximity of Malaysian Airlines MH17 at the time that it was shot down:

    Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And when …

    Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it.

    Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It [second aircraft] was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.

    Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane [second plane] made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction with her hands].

    BBC Report below (removed by BBC) scroll down for alternative youtube version

    The original BBC Video Report published by BBC Russian Service on July 23, 2014 was removed by the BBC.

    In a bitter irony, The BBC is suppressing its own news productions.

     

    This is the BBC Report which is still available on Youtube  

     

    BELOW SCREENSHOT OF BBC TV REPORT ENTITLED “AND THERE WAS ANOTHER AIRCRAFT” SUPPRESSED BY THE BBC

    It had been blocked [March 8, 2016] once more by the BBC. The BBC censors its own reports.

    Several other reports and eyewitness testimonies confirm the presence of a second aircraft. Of significance is a December 2014 report by Komsomolskaya Pravda which conducted an interview with a Ukrainian serviceman.

    While the substance of the interview (translated from Russian) is contradictory it nonetheless suggests the presence of a second aircraft as confirmed by the suppressed BBC report.

    The BBC Refutes and Confirms its Own Lies

    It is worth noting that subsequent BBC reports tend to refute the substance of their first onsite investigation in Donesk Oblast with the exception of  a May 2016 BBC documentary which puts forth “several theories”.

    The documentary puts forth evidence which initially refutes the official story while also intimating and concluding that Russia might have been behind the MH17 tragedy.

    The official investigation report into MH17 flight argues that only a powerful ground-to-air missile could be responsible. Yet, there are eyewitness accounts of other aircrafts seen flying next to MH17 close to impact. To further fuel the conspiracies, Russia and Ukraine blame each other but both countries are unable to provide all the critical radar data from that day.  ( See BBC notice here),

    According to Australia News in a review of the May 2016 BBC documentary, the Kiev regime is identified as the culprit:

    A CONTROVERSIAL new documentary will investigate claims that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukraine fighter jet, instead of a Russian missile.In a new BBC documentary titled ‘The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?’, eyewitnesses will share their accounts of how they saw the aircraft being downed by a nearby fighter jet.

    “There are eyewitness accounts of other aircraft seen flying next to MH17 close to impact,” a statement from the BBC said.

    Link to the May 2016 BBC Documentary 

    Bullet Sized Holes

    The monitoring OSCE team has not found evidence of a missile fired from the ground as conveyed by official White House statements. As we recall, the US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power stated –pointing a finger at Russia– that the Malaysian MH17 plane was “likely downed by a surface-to-air missile operated from a separatist-held location”:

    The team of international investigators with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are uncertain if the missile used was fired from the ground as US military experts have previously suggested, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. (Malay Mail online, emphasis added)

    The initial OSCE findings dispelled the claim that a BUK missile system brought down the plane.

    Evidently, inasmuch as the perforations are attributable to shelling, a shelling operation conducted from the ground could not have brought down an aircraft traveling above 30,000 feet.

    No firm evidence that a BUK missile had actually been fired on July 17th 2014

    Expert analysis confirms that the firing of a BUK missile would have left a visible white vapor trail in the sky for about ten minutes after firing (see below).

    According to witnesses in Donesk oblast, no vapor trail was seen in the sky on that day. What they saw was a second plane.

    There were various images of smoke trails presented and analyzed. (see the BBC documentary). These pictures however do not correspond to a clearcut white vapor trail associated with the launching of a BUK missile.

    There were no satellite images or photographic evidence of a vapor trail.

    The following images (from BUK missile tests) indicate the nature of the vapor trail.

     Screenshots of RT documentary, October 22, 2019

    Report of the Russian Union of Engineers (RUE)

    A detailed and comprehensive report by the Russian Union of Engineers (English translation) largely corroborates the presence of a Second Aircraft (confirmed by eye witnesses, BBC interviews).

    “… Russian air traffic control recorded the ascent of a Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, presumably an Su-25, in the direction of the Malaysian Boeing 777. The distance between the SU-25 aircraft from the Boeing 777 was between 3 and 5 km.”

    The RUE report also corroborates the “bullet hole” analysis as well as the statements of the OSCE and Peter Haisenko (mentioned above):

    A detailed analysis of its fragments can provide a more complete picture of the causes of the crash. … you can see the different forms of damage to its shell or skin – tears and factures, holes with folds on the outer and the inner sides of the fuselage, tell- tale signs of a powerful external impact on the plane.

    Of particular note are the holes folded inward in the fuselage. They are round- bored, and usually grouped. Such holes can only be formed by metal objects with a circular cross-section, possibly rods or shells from an aircraft gun. The question arises: who could deliver such projectiles to the aircraft, by what means, and what might they look like?

    The report also focusses on the absence of photographic evidence of a visible vapor trail of a BUK missile.
    In this case there has been no evidence of a trail of white condensation which would be by-product of the consumption of rocket fuel which would appear and persist for some minutes after the launch and be visible to those standing in a radius of within 10 km from the missile launch-site. (RUE report, p. 7)
    It concludes after careful investigation that the MH17 Boeing 777 was “not brought down by the means of anti-aircraft missile fire from a BUK-M1 installation.”

    According to the Russian Union of Engineers: the MH17 Boeing 777  “flying a horizontal course at 10000 metres could quite feasibly find itself within range of the Rocket / Cannon armament of a fighter, either a MIG-29 or an SU-25.” 

    Thus, according to the analysts from the Russian Union of Engineers, we have the complete destruction of the Boeing 777 as [a result of] missile systems using “air-to-air” close-combat missiles as well as a 30-mm aircraft cannon or an SPPU-22 container with GSh-23L 23-mm dual-barrel guns. At the same time, when firing on a target, a laser range finder can be used, or a laser sight, that allows for significantly improved accuracy. This is indicated by the pattern of damage and the dispersal of the fragments: there are round holes, which are typically produced as a result of gun shots, and discontinuous holes characteristic of flechette rockets. (RUE report, page 12)

    Media Spin: Shrapnel, Bullet Holes, “High Energy Objects” 

    According to the official explanation (DSB), it was not the missile that brought down the plane, it was the shrapnel resulting from the missile explosion (prior to reaching the plane) which punctured the plane and then led to a loss of pressure.

    This is largely the position of the Dutch Safety Board which explains the holes as a result of the explosion of the missile. This is analysis is tenuous. A shelling operation from a jet fighter was simply not considered by the DSB.

    The holes according to the DSB report were the result of so-called “high energy objects coming from the warhead [Buk missile]” (i.e shrapnel from the missile). This assessment was used to dispel the evidence concerning the second aircraft.

    According to a BBC report (September 9, 2014) “Cockpit window contained numerous small puncture holes suggesting small objects entered from above level of cockpit floor. Damage to forward section indicates plane penetrated by large number of high energy objects from outside”. 

    The holes from outside were presented as the result of the explosion of the missile, according to the DSB (13 October 2015)

    At 13.20 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) a 9N314M warhead, launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system from a 320-square-kilometre area in the eastern part of Ukraine, detonated to the left and above the cockpit. The forward section of the aircraft was penetrated by hundreds of high-energy objects coming from the warhead.  

    The statement of the OSCE observer Michael Bociurkiw is not acknowledged by the Dutch Safety Board and JIT reports.

    According to Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko 

    “… international investigators believed data from the flight recorders show “the reason for the destruction and crash of the plane was massive explosive decompression arising from multiple shrapnel perforations from a rocket explosion”.

    Surface-to-air missiles such as the Buk system widely believed to have shot the passenger jet down can explode near their targets, blasting a cloud of shrapnel into them.”

    In a report, the BBC quoting the official Ukraine statement  says that:

    ” The downed Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine suffered an explosive loss of pressure after it was punctured by shrapnel from a missile…. They say the information came from the plane’s flight data recorders, which are being analysed by British experts.”

    “Machine Gun Like Holes” Caused by a Second Aircraft or a BUK Missile?

    The shrapnel marks should be distinguished from the small entry and exit holes “most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile” fired from a military aircraft.  According to the findings of Peter Haisenko:

    If we now consider the armament of a typical SU 25 we learn this: It is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, equipped with: a 250 round magazine of anti-tank incendiary shells and splinter-explosive shells (dum-dum), arranged in alternating order. The cockpit of the MH 017 has evidently been fired at from both sides: the entry and exit holes are found on the same fragment of it’s cockpit segment

    Our review of the evidence points to

    1. the presence of a second aircraft,
    2. “bullet like holes” pointing to the possibility of an attack by a second aircraft
    3. No firm evidence of a BUK missile attack directed against MH17.
    4. Absence of photographic evidence of a vapor trail from a BUK style missile on July 17, 2014

    The Official Kiev Government Report Prepared by Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) 

    Of significance, Ukraine’s Secret Service (SBU) was given the mandate by the Ukraine authorities of coordinating and gathering the evidence in Eastern Ukraine as well as transmitting it to the Dutch Safety Board and the JIT.

    According to the official SBU report entitled Terrorists and Militants planned cynical terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft  published on August 7, 2014, the SBU accused Russia of having ordered a false flag attack involving the shooting down of its own Aeroflot plane leading to the death of its own citizens, and then blaming it on Kiev, with Russia using the tragedy as a casus belli pretext to invade Ukraine. According to the report: The Donetsk militia were aiming at a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane and shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner by mistake.

    That’s the official Ukraine government story which was acknowledged by the Ukrainian as well as several Western media. See below.

    Kiev Post August 7, 2014

    According to Britain’s foremost news tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, quoting the head of Ukraine intelligence, the insidious design of the pro-Russian rebels (allegedly supported by Moscow) was to shoot down a Russian commercial airline plane with tourists en route to Cyprus, with a view to blaming the Ukrainian government. The objective of this alleged “false flag” covert op was to create a justifiable and credible pretext for Vladimir Putin to declare war on Ukraine.

    “the [Donesk] rebels were meant to down [the] Aeroflot plane… to justify the invasion [of Ukraine by Russia]”,

    Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (right), head of Ukraine intelligence (24 February 2014 – 18 June 2015)  that the pro-Russian rebels were “aiming at a Russian passenger plane “so Putin had reason to invade”.

    “the crime was planned as a ground for bringing of Russian troops into Ukraine, that is – CASUS BELLI for the Russian military invasion.” (Official statement of Ukraine Security Service, in annex below)

    In a bitter irony, according to the report, the alleged “false flag” covert op got muddled. The Donesk rebels got it all wrong and hit the MH17 plane by mistake.

    That’s the “official line” which was made public by the Kiev government on August 7, 2014, 3 weeks after the MH17 tragedy.

    The former head of Ukraine’s secret service has claimed rebels intended to down a Russian airliner to give Vladimir Putin a pretext for invasion – but blasted Flight MH17 out of the sky by mistake.

    Why on earth would pro-Russian rebels who are at war with the Kiev regime shoot down a Russian passenger plane AFL-2074 allegedly with a view to harnessing Russia’s support? It does not make sense.

    What’s more, according to SBU Chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko’s  statement, Moscow was helping the pro-Russian rebels in their alleged false flag op to shoot down Russia’s Aeroflot plane by providing them with a Buk missile system, which allegedly had been discretely smuggled across the border to the Donesk region of Eastern Ukraine. The Aeroflot plane was slated to be “shot down over territory controlled by Ukrainian government troops” with the support of Russia:

    Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Russian-backed fighters were supposed to take their BUK rocket launcher – which had been transported across the Russian border – to a village called Pervomaiskoe in Ukrainian-held territory west of Donetsk.

    But they “screwed up”. The Buk rocket launcher was apparently positioned in the wrong rural location and because of that it targeted the MH17 by mistake:

    Instead, they mistakenly positioned it in a rebel-controlled village of the same name to the east of the city.

    Got it wrong? Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claims pro-Russian rebels targeted the wrong civilian airliner

    If they had gone where they had been ordered, he said, they would have hit an Aeroflot flight carrying civilians travelling from Moscow to Larnaca in Cyprus.

    Crucially, the crash site would have been in Ukrainian-held territory. (Mail on Sunday, August 9, 2014)

    The August 2014 “intelligence” report released by SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko bordered on ridicule and incompetence to say to the least.

    (Since its release in August 2014, the link to the original SBU report is no longer available. The text of the SBU report (press release) is published in annex to this article.

    Who is Valentyn Nalyvaichenko. His role in the MH17 investigation

    Valentyn Nalyvaichenko commissioned the SBU report on behalf of the Kiev government in July 2014 in coordination with The National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) of which the Secretary General was Andriy Parubiy (February 27, 2014 — August 7, 2014), followed by the appointment of Oleksandr Turchynov (December 16, 2014 — 19 May 2019)

    The RNBOU oversees National Security and Intelligence (SBU), the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement.

    Parubiy who became president (chair) of the Ukrainian Parliament is the co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda). He has been routinely received with red carpet treatment in Canada, the US and the European Union.

    Both  Nalyvaichenko and Parubiy are followers of Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews, Russians and Poles during World War II. (For more details on Parubiy click here)

    Can we trust the SBU? 

    Following the MH17 tragedy, the head of Ukraine’s SBU was entrusted with the gathering and feeding of evidence to the Dutch inquiries. In fact most of the information and analysis (including recordings of telephone conversations, video, audio material) transmitted to the JIT emanated from the SBU.

    Is the information and evidence transmitted by the SBU reliable?

    An indepth forensic analysis conducted by  OG IT Forensic Service led by Akash Rosen points to the manipulation of telephone conversations, video and audio material by the SBU. The OG IT report confirms unequivocally that the “evidence” submitted by Ukraine’s SBU to the JIT has been manipulated.

    Akash Rosen was interviewed in the MH17 documentary entitled MH17 Call for Justice, directed by Yana Yerloshova, which sheds light on the deceptive role of Ukraine’s Secret Service.

    Fraud and Corruption within the SBU. The Neo-Nazi connection

    While the media has remained silent on the matter, the insidious and corrupt role of the SBU has nonetheless been acknowledged. A December 2015 report in the Irish Times suggests that:

    The Dutch government has been warned that the criminal case against those who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 could be undermined because the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, which has provided key evidence, is widely regarded as institutionally corrupt.

    Both justice minister Ard van der Steur and the Dutch public prosecutor’s office are coming under increasing pressure to make statements about the integrity of the evidence gathered by the SBU following a string of scandals, including the sacking of its boss, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko.

    The SBU has played a crucial role in two elements of the MH17 investigation. It has handed over phone conversations between pro-Russian rebels intercepted shortly before the jet, …  It was also responsible for securing the main elements of the Boeing 777’s shattered fuselage in the hours after it crashed in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, spreading debris over 50 sq km.

    “Institutionally corrupt” is an understatement. The former head of the SBU is an avowed Nazi. Ukraine’s intelligence service not to mention the National Guard and elements within the military in 2014-2015 were largely under the control of the two neo-Nazi parties: Svoboda and Right Sector.

    The SBU was also in permanent liaison with Western intelligence including the CIA and MI6.

    The head of Ukraine intelligence Valentyn Nalyvaichenko appointed by the Kiev regime worked in tandem with the Neo-Nazi Right Sector leader Dmitro Yarosh who in turn played a key role in setting up the Azov Battalion (see image right), a National Guard entity integrated by Neo-Nazis, operating in Eastern Ukraine in so-called “anti-terrorist” operations. Dmitro Yaroch, who became member of parliament was appointed advisor to the Chief of general staff of the Ukrainian army.

    Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, “made the accusation on Facebook against Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (see the news website evreiskiy.kiev.ua reportafter Nalyvaichenko said his organization [the SBU] needed to base its work on the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, which murdered thousands of Jews in the ’40s. The UPA under the leadership of Stepan Bandera collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II”( quoted in The Times of Israel 15 April 2015)

    In an [April 2015] interview with the local media … Nalyvaichenko said the Security Service “does not need to invent anything new, it is important to build on the traditions of the [Nazi] Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and UPA in the 1930-1950 years.”

    The popularity of UPA, which for a time collaborated with the Nazi occupation to further UPA’s ambitions of sovereignty from Russia, has soared in Ukraine since a 2013 revolution that led to armed conflict with pro-Russian militias in Ukraine’s east.

    Earlier this month [April 2015], the Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill that opened the door to state recognition of UPA, previously a taboo because of the widespread war crimes committed by its troops. The Times of Israel (15 April 2015)

    Those war crimes have not ceased. The Atlantic Council, (June 18, 2015) a Washington Think Tank with close links to both the Pentagon and the US State Department acknowledged that the Right Sector had permeated Ukraine’s military intelligence apparatus:

    Poroshenko Bloc MP Serhiy Leshchenko released a document confirming old rumors that Right Sector’s Dmitro Yarosh [Neo-Nazi leader] worked for Nalyvaichenko when he was a member of parliament from 2012 to 2014. While the connection between the two raises some questions about the events of Euromaidan and the origins of Right Sector, this attack alone wasn’t enough to discredit Nalyvychenko. Yarosh is now a member of parliament and an advisor to the chief of general staff of the Ukrainian army. In other words, Yarosh has been legitimized by the political establishment. . . .

    Details of the SBU Report

    While the SBU report focussing on an alleged false flag was casually acknowledged by the Western media, Washington remained silent on the matter. Nobody in the US intelligence community acknowledged or corroborated the statement of their Ukrainian counterparts.

    Moreover, while the SBU was feeding “evidence” to the Dutch inquiries, the SBU report (August 7, 2014) was not acknowledged or mentioned in the reports of the Dutch Safety Board and the JIT.

    As we recall, immediately after the MH17 plane crash on July 17 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power pointed their finger at Moscow without a shred of evidence. In the wake of this official and “authoritative” SBU August 7 2014 announcement by the Kiev regime, Obama, Kerry, Samantha Power et al, chose to remain mum.  The Ukraine Secret Service’s official statement concerning the crash of Malaysian airlines MH17 was so outlandish. It simply did not fit the usual mold of media disinformation.

    In a new and rather unusual twist, however,  according to the Kiev regime, the Donetsk militia did not intend to shoot down Malaysian airlines MH17.

    What the “pro-Russian rebels” (according to the SBU report) were aiming at was a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane. The MH17 was shot down “by mistake” according to an official statement by the head of Ukraine’s Secret Service, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (Ukraine News Service, August 7, 2014).

    According to SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko:

    “Ukraine’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies have established during the investigation into a terrorist attack on the Boeing… that on that day, July 17, and at that time military mercenaries and terrorists from the Russian Federation planned to carry out a terrorist attack against a passenger aircraft of Aeroflot en route from Moscow to Larnaca… as a pretext for the further invasion by Russia,”

    “This cynical terrorist attack was planned for the day when the [Malaysia Airlines] plane happened to fly by, planned by war criminals as a pretext for the further military invasion by the Russian Federation, that is, there would be a casus belli,” he added.

    Thus, according Nalyvaichenko, the terrorists downed the Malaysian airliner by mistake.” (Ukraine Interfax News, August 8, 2014)

    According to the Daily Mail (August 9, 2014):

    The head of Ukraine’s secret service has claimed rebels intended to down a Russian airliner to give Vladimir Putin a pretext for invasion – but blasted Flight MH17 out of the sky by mistake.

    Nalyvaichenko said that the Kiev government reached this conclusion “in the course of its own investigation into the downing of MH17”.

    “Had the terrorists succeeded in downing the Aeroflot jet, it would have created the needed casus belli for Russia to invade Ukraine from its East to its West” according to Nalyvaichenko (see Tweet above, see also Transcript of August 7, 2014 SBU document in Annex)

    While Nalyvaichenko was dismissed by Poroshenko from the SBU in June 2015, much of the “evidence” of MH!7 had been gathered and processed during his mandate.

    There was no visible shift in direction of the SBU following his dismissal. Nalyvaichenko’s Deputy Vasyl Hrytsak was appointed head of SBU (July 2015- May 2019)

    The so-called “pro-Russian rebels” had allegedly planned an Operation Northwoods type “false flag” with utmost proficiency.

    The covert op allegedly consisted in downing a Russian passenger plane with Moscow’s support. The alleged objective was for Moscow to place the blame on the government of Ukraine for having ordered the downing of the Aeroflot plane (resulting in the deaths of Russian tourists), thereby creating a “useful wave of indignation” across the Russian Federation.

    The  alleged “false flag” slated to be implemented by the Donetsk “terrorists and mercenaries” would then, according to the scenario depicted by Ukraine’s Chief Spy, spearhead public support for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, with patriotic Russian troops coming to the rescue of the “pro-Russian separatists”:

    The mass killing of Russian tourists could then have been blamed on the Ukrainian army, giving Moscow a justification for invasion, said Mr Nalyvaichenko, head of the Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU. (Daily Mail, August 9, 2014)

    The official SBU report states that the:

    “The Russian side would need a compelling argument for such a step, for example accusation of the Ukrainian government in mass murder of the Russian citizens [on the plane]” (See complete SBU statement in Annex below).

    According to the head of Ukraine’s Secret Service: “It is incredibly cynical that the act of terrorism was planned [by the rebels] against peaceful innocent Russian citizens who were on the way to their holidays with children”:

    ‘This cynical terrorist act was intended to justify an immediate military invasion by the Russian Federation,’ he said.

    Aeroflot flight AFL2074 was close to Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 when it was blown out of the sky on July 17, killing all 298 on board, he said.

    … He claimed this was a significant conclusion of Kiev’s probe into MH17’s downing. (Daily Mail, August 8, 2019)

    A Russian invasion plan had allegedly been scheduled –according to the official SBU report– to commence on July 18, on the day following the planned downing of Aeroflot flight 2074. But when the MH17 flight was downed by mistake, the Russian invasion plan scheduled for July 18, according to the Kiev scenario, was cancelled.

    This whole scenario was fabricated. There were no indications or evidence that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine on July 18th, 2014.

    Mainstream Media Response to Kiev Regime’s Accusations

    Normally, the Western media would provide ample coverage and commentary to an official Kiev statement pertaining to MH17 accusing Russia. It’s part of the MSM routine of “Russia bashing” and demonizing president Vladimir Putin.

    With the exception of Ukraine News Service and London’s Daily Mail, however, the official statement of the head of Ukraine’s Secret Service went largely unnoticed. Normally, a declaration of this nature would be picked up by the wire services with syndicated reports flooding the front page of the Western news chain.

     Screenshot Daily Mail on Sunday, August 09, 2014

    Was the mainstream media instructed to temporarily “put a hold” on reporting the “revelations” of  Ukraine’s Secret Service.

    The Kiev regime’s allegations are far-fetched to say the least: the Donesk rebels –largely involved in combat operations– had neither the capabilities nor the desire to undertake a complex intelligence operation of this nature. What purpose would it serve? Cui Bono?

    Does Russia require a fake humanitarian pretext to intervene when several thousand civilians in the Donbass region had been killed by the Azov Battalion (image right, flag with Nazi SS symbol) and Ukrainian Armed Forces, not to mention the Odessa massacre perpetrated by the Kiev regime’s Neo-Nazi national guard.

    Ironically, barely four days after being accused by Kiev of planning to invade Ukraine, Russia’s President Putin agreed with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that Moscow would not only collaborate with the Red Cross on channeling humanitarian aid to Eastern Ukraine through Russian territory, but that the agreement reached with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had the support of the Kiev government.

    It is worth noting that neither the Russian government nor the Russian media have commented extensively on (or responded to) the accusations directed against Moscow contained in Ukraine’s dodgy Secret Service’s MH17 report.

    Dodgy Ukraine MH17 Intelligence ReportKiev’s Western “Allies”

    Was Washington consulted before the release of the dodgy SBU False Flag report?

    Did Washington give them the “Green Light” to release the SBU report as a means of “Framing Russia”?

    Or did the White House or the State Department decide that the SBU’s “fake intelligence” was visibly flawed and could not effectively be used for propaganda purposes against Russia?

    Were the CIA and MI6 consulted? Britain’s Secret Service MI6 subsequently had access to the plane’s black box, which was handed over by a Malaysian official to the Dutch task force and which in turn was entrusted to an unnamed partner entity in the UK.

    Concluding Remarks

    The Day After

    According to the SBU in its August 7, 2014 official report on behalf of the Ukraine government, the Kremlin’s planned “false flag” to bring down a commercial Aeroflot flight en route to Cyprus and blame the tragedy on the Kiev regime, was to be used to justify the launching of a major war against Ukraine.

    the crime was planned as a ground for bringing of Russian troops into Ukraine, that is – CASUS BELLI for the Russian military invasion.  …

    “the [Donesk] rebels were meant to down [the] Aeroflot plane… to justify the invasion [of Ukraine by Russia]” (see complete text in Annex)

    These statements border on ridicule. They reveal the corrupt and criminal nature of  the SBU.

    If a Russian military invasion of Ukraine had been planned to commence on July 18th, 2014 there would have been ample evidence of deployment and movement of Russian forces in proximity of the border in the days prior to the July 17th tragedy. Sloppy intelligence? No such evidence was forthcoming indicating the movement of Russian forces.

    It is worth noting that the only movement of military hardware documented by both Ukrainian and Russian sources was the deployment of a BUK missile system belonging to the Ukrainian armed forces, reported on July 15, 2014.

    According to Ukrainian sources, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Vitaliy Yarema confirmed that “the Donesk rebels did not have [Ukrainian] Buk or S 300 ground to air missiles which could have downed the plane”, which suggests that the missiles of the Ukraine armed forces had been deployed but they were not in the possession of the rebels, a premise which remains central to the US-Kiev official version that the rebels, supported by Moscow, were responsible for attacking Malaysian Airlines MH17.

    A final note:

    The alleged Russian Invasion Plan was slated to start on the 18th according to SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko.

    Intelligence data proved that on July 18 the militants have already waited for the introduction of Russian Armed forces into the territory of Ukraine. (See official report of Ukraine Security Service (SBU, in annex below)

    This account  seems to be at odds with both the SBU and JIT statements that the alleged Russian BUK Missile  had been brought in secretly on the 16th of July into Donesk, and was planned to be discreetly moved back across the border into Russia on the 17th or 18th.

    If Russia had been planning an invasion to commence on July 18th, why on earth would they need to discretely move their military hardware back across the border to Russia.

     


    Annex

    Official Statement of Ukraine’s Security Service (August 7, 2014)

    sbu.gov.ua/…/article;jsessionid=73352780A12C97E27DD0BF852482D3C0.app1

    Terrorists and Militants planned cynical terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft

    retrieved at Way Back Machine Archive

    https://web.archive.org/web/20140807205620/http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/en/publish/article?art_id=129860&cat_id=35317

    Screenshot of original report

    Transcript

    [emphasis added]

    During the investigation of Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 downing the law enforcement and intelligence bodies established that terrorists and militants have cynically planned the terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft, AFL-2074 Moscow-Larnaca, which was flying over the territory of Ukraine at that moment. Hereof informed the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Mr. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko during the briefing today.

    He underlined – the crime was planned as a ground for bringing of Russian troops into Ukraine, that is – CASUS BELLI for the Russian military invasion.

    According to the official Ukrainian data, June 17, 2014, at the mentioned time two regular international flights were operating over the territory of Ukraine following the filed requests for aircraft clearance – MAS17 plane of the Malaysia Airlines and AFL-2074 one of Aeroflot.

    The routes of the mentioned international flights were approaching the sky over Donetsk. At 16:09 in the area of Novomykolaivka town the routes of the mentioned flights crossed. It is worth noting that the flight specifications of the aircrafts were almost identical – the Malaysian aircraft flew at a height of 10,100 m at a speed 909 km/h, while the Russian one – at a height of 10,600 m at a speed 768 km/h.

    At 16:20 from the area of ‘Pervomaiske’ village, north-east from Donetsk, near the town of Torez, terrorists shot down the Malaysian jet, which then crashed near Grabove, Donetsk region.

    According to the intercepted and published data about the ‘Buk” missile system, the terrorists had received an order to place the system near ‘Pervomaiskoe’ village, V. Nalyvaichenko mentioned. The namesake village is located about 20 km to the north-east from Donetsk.

    The terrorists (most of them are not locals, but the Russian mercenaries) misrecognized the namesake villages and moved the other way, the SSU Head said. The odd route of the ‘Buk’ missile system on the territory of Ukraine proves that fact. The system crossed the Russia-Ukraine border in Luhansk region, then was deployed westward to Donetsk and moved back to the border between Donetsk and Luhansk regions afterwards.

    By setting up the ‘Buk’ missile system in ‘Pervomaiske’ village located to the west from Donetsk and taking into consideration the military specifications of the weapon, the terrorists could have shot down the Russian civilian jetliner with its further crashing on the Ukrainian territory controlled by the ATO [Ukraine] forces.

    In that case Russia would receive an opportunity to accuse the Ukrainian authorities of downing the Russian plane, assaulting the Russian citizens and would use this irresistible proof for its invasion into Ukraine.

    Russian side would need a compelling argument for such a step, for example accusation of the Ukrainian government in mass murder of the Russian citizens.

    “A peculiar cynicism appears in the fact that the terrorist act was planned just against the peaceful, innocent Russian citizens, who were flying with their children on vacation”, – V. Nalyvaichenko, stressed.

    Intelligence data proved that on July 18 the militants have already waited for the introduction of Russian Armed forces into the territory of Ukraine. The Russian side had been giving grounding for such developments for the several previous days. The Russian Mass Media had massively published information about the alleged shelling of the RF territory from the Ukrainian side.

    For further details see  [link no longer available]

    http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/en/publish/article;jsessionid=73352780A12C97E27DD0BF852482D3C0.app1?art_id=129860&cat_id=35317

    can be retrieved at the WayBack archive

     

    screenshot of original report

     

     

    https://web.archive.org/web/20140807205620/http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/en/publish/article?art_id=129860&cat_id=35317 


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  • Ukraine State Structure in Crisis: Neo-Nazi Junta Starts Unraveling. Clash within its Military-Intelligence (SBU-GUR) Apparatus/By Drago Bosnic

    Ukraine State Structure in Crisis: Neo-Nazi Junta Starts Unraveling. Clash within its Military-Intelligence (SBU-GUR) Apparatus/By Drago Bosnic

    Original Link Here: Ukraine State Structure in Crisis: Neo-Nazi Junta Starts Unraveling. Clash within its Military-Intelligence (SBU-GUR) Apparatus – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

    Global Research, December 06, 2025

    There have been several instances where I’ve been criticized for refusing to accept the notion that the Neo-Nazi junta is Ukraine.

    In response to that criticism, I‘ve always argued that the Ukrainian state stopped existing in early 2014 at the latest, when it was replaced by a US/NATO-installed regime composed of Nazis, criminals, murderers and their enforcers (it could easily be argued that these are all synonyms and listing them separately might be redundant).

    This was unequivocally confirmed by the infamous Victoria Nuland, one of the architects of the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict.

    Namely, during a leaked phone call between her and the then US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyattshe fully acknowledged the American role in the color revolution that brought the Nazi regime to power.

    Even more interestingly, Nuland said that “Yats is our guy”, referring to Arseniy Yatseniuk, one of the leading US-backed opposition politicians.

    And who could’ve guessed that, after the “free and democratic election”, precisely Yatseniuk would become the “Prime Minister of Ukraine”. The Nazi thugs and goons took over the entire unfortunate country, turning it into their feudal estate. NATO (particularly the United States and United Kingdom) had a free hand to establish the structures it needed to launch the kinetic segment of the new “Barbarossa 2.0”, which included the restructuring of former Ukraine’s GUR and SBU (military and state intelligence). The two agencies effectively became terrorist organizations that had no qualms about targeting prominent Russian civilians, including journalists, writers and philosophers or just random people.

    Washington DC and London are still directing the actions of both the GUR and SBU, making them the most important institutions of Western control over the Neo-Nazi junta. However, this “privileged” status makes both hugely unpopular in the rest of NATO-occupied Ukraine, including in the military.

     

    There have been numerous reports about this antagonism, but as the battlefield situation keeps deteriorating for the Kiev regime, this is slowly degenerating into an open confrontation. Namely, according to Ukrainian Pravda, a firefight broke out between GUR operatives and servicemen of military unit A4005 on the premises of the “Zhovten” sanatorium in Koncha-Zaspa, Kiev. GUR insists that the servicemen “illegally took over” the sanatorium that was used by the agency and demanded they vacate the facility.

    Pravda cited “informed interlocutors of the Ukrainian People’s Party in law enforcement agencies, the General Staff and the State Security Service [SBU]” as its primary sources. They claim that on the evening of December 3, GUR operatives entered the premises of the “Zhovten” sanatorium, “breaking down the gate and the fence, firing in the air and the ground, and taking ten servicemen of military unit A4005 as prisoners, causing significant injuries”. They then released the wounded soldiers and barricaded themselves in the sanatorium. The sources also said that a National Police outpost, the Main Directorate of the Special Operations Command and the military commander of the Kiev region are in the vicinity. They all tried to intervene and prevent further escalation, but GUR operatives refused to allow them in.

    The State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) intervened and eventually seized the sanatorium, but not before Commander-in-Chief of the Kiev regime forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, arrived at the scene. It turned out the conflict stemmed from mistrust between various units and agencies, who feared that information on their whereabouts could be relayed to the Russian military, which would then send one of its hypersonic missiles to “greet” whoever was occupying the building. In fact, the sources cited by Pravda said that “any disclosure of information about the locations of security and defense forces poses a direct threat to the lives of the personnel of the units”. Interestingly enough, it seems someone really wanted the Kremlin to find out about this sanatorium and destroy it.

    Namely, the incident occurred amid massive long-range precision strikes on various Neo-Nazi junta targets across NATO-occupied Ukraine. This includes the SBU building in Krivoy Rog in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast (region), which was obliterated by a single 9M723 hypersonic missile of the 9K720M “Iskander-M” system. In other words, Moscow doesn’t discriminate between the GUR and the SBU. Both terrorist organizations will inevitably get the same treatment by Russian hypersonic “shovels”. However, that doesn’t stop the two sides from sabotaging each other (including by relaying the other side’s position to get them killed). On the other hand, additional information indicates that the controversy is actually even worse, as some Ukrainian sources claim shady businessmen are also involved.

    Namely, the plot on which the sanatorium is located has long been coveted by oligarchs Boris Kaufman and Oleksandr Granovsky. They invested heavily in real estate in the prestigious Koncha-Zaspa neighborhood, including areas surrounding the sanatorium. Apparently, their goal was to “further develop” the land (i.e., most likely bring down the old facility and replace it with a luxury apartment block). However, their plans were disrupted after the special military operation (SMO) started, as the Kiev regime forces and various intelligence services needed the derelict facility for training and spy operations. Pravda’s sources report that this followed the DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks and Kyivgastrade initiating bankruptcy proceedings for LLC Clinical Sanatorium “Zhovten” due to a debt of around $120,000.

    This “coincided” with the acquisition of part of the land plot and real estate of “Zhovten” by a shady company connected to Boris Kaufman, who sought to obtain the rest through his connections in the Kiev City Council. The entire investment reportedly cost him nearly $1.5 million, which would certainly be a powerful motivation to ensure he can use the land. However, as the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict could drag on for years, Kaufman had to do something. An optimal solution could’ve been to work with the SBU and possibly the military against their GUR rivals occupying the building.

    The information could be indirectly relayed to Russian forces, who would obliterate the old facility, allowing Kaufman to build his luxury apartment block and make millions.

    Obviously, while we have no direct evidence to support this theory, it still demonstrates the endemic levels of corruption among the Neo-Nazi junta and its henchmen. Their desire to accumulate as much wealth as possible, regardless of the means and consequences, should be a wake-up call to hundreds of millions of European, North American and other taxpayers whose countries are sending hundreds of billions, claiming it’s “aid for Ukraine”, a nation that effectively no longer exists and is occupied by all sorts of criminals. Worse yet, in doing so, Western governments are actively risking total war with a military superpower with the world’s most destructive thermonuclear arsenal that can wipe out entire continents and make them uninhabitable for centuries (if not millennia) to come.

    READ MORE:

    There are No Neo-Nazis in Ukraine. The US and Canada do not Support Fascism – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

    *

    Click the share button below to email/forward this article. Follow us on Instagram and X and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost Global Research articles with proper attribution.

    This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

    Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

     

  • Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Persecuted By His Own Government

    Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Persecuted By His Own Government

    Author, journalist, former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, correctly advised the world that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to Washington’s criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 “for humanitarian reasons”.

    The war continues to take a toll on multitudes with Washington’s siege of Mass Destruction having killed about 600,000 children under five, its use of depleted uranium still destroying lives, and the death toll from on-going combat and destabilization still growing. (1)

    More recently, Ritter has been decimating Establishment narratives about Russia and Ukraine with a view to promoting peace.

    What are some of these inconvenient though well-documented truths?

    First, as admitted by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the war started in 2014. (2) In 2014, Washington and its allies orchestrated a coup, using neo-nazis and genocidal ethnic nationalist groups, groomed since the end of WW2 by Western Intelligence agencies,  to mass-murder civilians at Odessa, to send the elected President fleeing, and to install a nazi-infested coup government.

    Currently, these same NATO and nazi-infested troops are occupying areas in Kursh, Russia, in an ill-fated surge hauntingly similar to Operation Barbarossa 80 years earlier.

     

    Second, Ritter has deflated the war propaganda that Russia has never sought peace, even as draft agreements at Istanbul were signed in March/April 2022, only to be scuttled by the West (3), even as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Petro Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine, have admitted that they used the MINSK Accords not for peace but to buy time to upgrade Ukraine’s military to NATO standards. (4)

    All of the aforementioned facts are well-documented though heavily censored, and  Ritter, who has a large social media presence, is now being persecuted by U.S authorities. FBI recently raided his house in an investigation into Ritter’s possible violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). (5)

    Those amongst us who are seeking truth and peace and justice are increasingly being persecuted by our own nazi-supporting, terrorist-supporting governments.

    Who will be next?

     

    Notes:

    (1) James A. Lucas, “US Has Killed More Than 20 Million In 37 Nations Since WWII.” countercurrents.org, 27 November, 2015. (FBI raids home of Scott Ritter over allegations he is an unregistered foreign agent – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) ) Accessed 14 August, 2024.

    (2) Mark Taliano, “Russian President Vladimir Putin Bursts the Bubble of Western ‘Perception Managers’.” Global Research, 19 Fenruary, 2024. (Russian President Vladimir Putin Bursts the Bubble of Western “Perception Managers” – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 14 August, 2024.

    (3) Ted Snider, ” According to Ukrainian Officials, There Could Have Been Peace.” the American Conservative, 22 January, 2024. (According to Ukrainian Officials, There Could Have Been Peace – The American Conservative) Accessed 14 August, 2024.

    (4) Mark Taliano, “The West Seeks War Not Peace.” Global Research, 30 November, 2022. (The West Seeks War, Not Peace – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 14 August, 2024.

    (5) Kevin Reed, “FBI raids home of Scott Ritter over allegations he is an unregistered foreign agent.” World Socialist Web Site, 9 AUgust, 2024. (FBI raids home of Scott Ritter over allegations he is an unregistered foreign agent – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) ) Accessed 14 August, 2024.

    Research Assistance by Basma Qaddour

     

    READ MORE: 

    The FBI’s Raid on Peace – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

    Gabbard on TSA Watchlist as Terrorist-Supporting Politicians Get a Free Pass

    The Western World Has Succumbed to Tyranny. “The notion that the West is Free is a Joke”. The Arrest of Richard Medhurst

    Person of Interest? The Detention of journalist Kit Klarenberg

    “The UK Has Criminalized Dissent”: The Transition of Britain and the West Into Tyranny. Former British Ambassador Craig Murray – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

  • Britain Funds Nazis, Condones Political Assassinations, the Odessa Trade Union Massacre and Banning Political Parties/By Rodney Atkinson

    Britain Funds Nazis, Condones Political Assassinations, the Odessa Trade Union Massacre and Banning Political Parties/By Rodney Atkinson

    Original Link Here: Britain Funds Nazis, Condones Political Assassinations, the Odessa Trade Union Massacre and Banning Political Parties – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

    Global Research, July 25, 2024

    On May 2, 2014, heavily-armed fascist militia forces attacked the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine. Trapped inside were demonstrators opposed to the government in Kiev that had been put in place in a U.S.-orchestrated coup against the democratically elected government just weeks earlier. A campaign of ethnic cleansing had been launched against Russian-speaking Ukrainians, with the Russian language being banned from public life.

    In the aftermath of the attack and fire 48 deaths were confirmed. Openly nazi militia shelled civilians in the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk (now not surprisingly independent republics). Those militia have since been armed and trained by Britain and the USA with the full knowledge of their trainees’ extreme politics. See this. By the end of 2021 some 15,000 Russian Ukrainians had died including hundreds of children. None of this was covered in the UK press or discussed in parliament.

    “Ukraine a Democracy” – Stoltenberg

    In recent days, as NATO/EU continues to stoke their war against Russia at the cost of some 500,000 Ukrainian dead and wounded the NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg called Ukraine a “democratic country.”

    Zelensky, coming to power by banning the main opposition party and arresting its leader, then abolished 12 political parties. He has just cancelled elections for the presidency. Ukrainian intelligence services arrest anyone who expresses a critical opinion. Neo-Nazi gangs rule the streets. Churches are attacked and closed. Men are press-ganged from the streets and sent within days to die in the trenches. (If the (TCC) press gangs fail then they are sent to the front!) The Border force shoots Ukrainians crossing the border and lays mines to stop them and political assassinations are commonplace – see this.

    Zelensky’s Assassinations

    On June 8, 2024 the former mayor of Kupyansk Gennady Matsegora was shot on the doorstep of his house in Stary Oskol (Belgorod Region). Despite the efforts of doctors, Matsegora died without regaining consciousness. He had been threatened by Ukrainians and Kiev authorities (specifically the GUR, the Intelligence Directorate) admitted their involvement.

    On 1/4/2024, in a car explosion in Starobelsk, Luhansk Region, Valery Chaika, the deputy head of the Luhansk “Center for Services to Educational Organizations,” was murdered – an evident political assassination. The explosion occurred near the Starobelsky Faculty of the Lugansk Pedagogical University.

    SBU (Ukraine State security service) head Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk admitted assassinations inside Russia, see this.

    Ukraine raised its attacks on the Donbas republics as elections were being held there. A  woman who died as a result of a terrorist attack in Berdyansk was a member of the election commission; a bomb was planted under her car, the Investigative Committee reported. See this.

    Popular Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Sharij just survived an assassination attempt in Spain. Two unknown gunmen shot at his car using a machine gun affixed with a silencer. In February of 2021, Shariy was accused of treason by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) which unsuccessfully attempted to extradite him from Spain back to Ukraine.

    In November 2023 a Russian hit man was arrested who had been employed by Ukrainian Intelligence to assassinate the American journalist Tucker Carlson. See this.

    The head of the Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov accused Ukrainian Armed Forces of using toxic substances to carry out terrorist acts.

    On August 9, 2022, Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo was hospitalized with signs of poisoning, probably ricin

    On December 5, 2023, Luhansk Peoples Republic head Leonid Pasechnik received severe poisoning from phenols

    The reporter who solved the case of Zelensky’s mother-in-law buying a villa for $4.85 million was found dead, Clear Story News reports Egyptian journalist Mohammed Al-Alawi, known for his exposure of the purchase by Olga Kiyashko, the mother-in-law of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, of a luxury villa in the Egyptian resort of El Gouna, was found dead with numerous abrasions, fractures and bruises on his body, which led to a fatal brain hemorrhage as a result of severe traumatic brain injury.

    Ahmed Al-Alawi, the brother of the deceased journalist, said that Mohammed received numerous threats after the publication of this groundbreaking investigation. He stressed that the police are developing a theory suggesting that the killers could have acted on the personal instructions of President Zelensky or another official in the Office of the President of Ukraine. In addition, there were reports suggesting the possibility that the criminals could be agents of the GUR of Ukraine.

    The Spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Yusov confirmed the murder of Ilya Kiva (ex Verkhovna Rada – Ukrainian parliament – deputy who defected to Russia). He was found dead from small arms fire in Moscow. (Source)

    DEC 7th 2023 In Crimea, the intelligence network of the Ukrainian Kyiv regime, created under Western control, was destroyed. The Ukrainians, using agents, had planned the murders of the head of Crimea Aksenov, the chairman of parliament Konstantinov, the blogger Talipov and the public figure Tsarev. After the coup in Ukraine in 2014, Oleg Tsarev left the country and supported the DPR and LPR. For this, a Kiev court sentenced him in absentia to 12 years in prison.

    The British singer Roger Waters of Pink Floyd says he is on the infamous Ukrainian hit list Myrotvorets – for criticism of the West for provoking war in Ukraine

    That is the nature of the Kiev regime for which UK, EU and US governments have  provided over $200bn in aid and weapons and which they call a “democracy”, attacking scores of countries around the world for not supporting Ukraine in the same way. The Western stance is, as they say, no longer “sustainable”. Their peoples are waking up. No one needs a more radical awakening to the evils they are supporting than the British political class – an issue which in the present election they studiously avoid.

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  • History of Nazism in Ukraine: The OUN during World War Two, 1941-1945 Part II/ By Hugo Turner

    History of Nazism in Ukraine: The OUN during World War Two, 1941-1945 Part II/ By Hugo Turner

    Global Research, November 08, 2022

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    The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or OUN is the most successful post-war fascist group.  During the war the OUN played a major role in helping the Germans carry out the Holocaust, which claimed 1.2 million Jewish lives.

    They also attempted genocide against the Polish population in Volhynia and Galicia in what is today Western Ukraine. These mass murders were carried out in the most brutal manner imaginable.

    Jews were beaten to death with iron bars. Poles were chopped up with axes or cut in half with saws. The OUN took a sadistic delight in humiliating their victims and torturing them to death. Russians were sometimes skinned alive.

    The 2014 CIA coup in Ukraine made the OUN ideology the official ideology of the Ukrainian state. Even Ukraine’s current Jewish president Zelensky, whose family were victims of the mass murder in Ukraine, said of Stepan Bandera “He is a hero for a certain percentage of Ukrainians, and it’s normal, and it’s cool.”  Ukrainian history has been falsified to portray the OUN as heroes who battled both the Nazis and the Soviets. 

    Yet it is not only in the madhouse that is post-Maidan Ukraine that the history of Ukraine has been falsified. Because of the close ties of the OUN to the American, British, German, Polish and other governments the OUN have also been able to make their twisted mythology into the accepted mainstream version of events.

    The OUN were considered too valuable by the CIA and other intelligence agencies to have their wartime crimes exposed. Equally importantly the OUN became a major source for anti-Soviet propaganda, which then became mainstream history. During the Cold War academia became a major weapon in the battle between capitalism and communism.

    Today nothing has changed and in the new cold war with Russia Ukraine is currently the most important battleground. Shielding Western publics from the truth about the insanity and cruelty of the Ukrainian fascists the West are supporting is the main goal of the media and academia when it comes to Ukraine. Ukraine is only the most extreme example of the “memory wars” being waged across the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw pact countries of Eastern Europe where pro-western governments seek to turn Nazi collaborators into heroes, demonize the Soviet Union, and destroy all monuments to the role the Soviet Union played in defeating fascism. I will be relying mainly on the brilliant work Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist Fascism, Genocide and Cult by Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, the first critical and scholarly account of the history of the OUN. Ironically his book was released just before the start of the 2014 civil war and Ukrainian nationalists did everything they could to prevent the book from being published, waging a public campaign against the author.

    In part one of this series I described the origins of Ukrainian nationalism and its transformation into a fascist movement. I explained how present day Ukraine had long been divided with Central and Eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia. Western Ukraine, which was originally part of Poland, became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when Poland was dismembered in the 18th century. After World War One it became part of a reborn Poland known as the Second Republic, which had absorbed the short, lived Republic of Western Ukraine.  I traced the origins of the OUN and its terrorist campaign within Poland. The OUN engaged in assassinations, massacres, arson and other crimes. This landed the leader of the OUN’s Homeland executive Stepan Bandera in prison although his two trials made him famous. The OUN was controlled by its leaders in exile. After Stepan Bandera escaped from prison, thanks to the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he tried to seize the leadership of the OUN. This led the organization to split into an OUN/M answering to Andrei Melnyk and an OUN/B answering to Bandera. During the brief two-week window after the German invasion of Poland, but prior to the Soviet invasion, the OUN massacred thousands of Jews and also murdered many of the defeated Polish army who were trying to escape or return home. The OUN leaders then headed for Western Poland. Eastern Poland became Western Ukraine. Once the Soviets arrived they reunified Ukraine and cracked down hard on Polish nationalists as well as on the OUN.

    The exiled OUN leaders in German-occupied Poland, known as the General Government, along with tens of thousands of their supporters who had fled the Soviets, were busy working closely with the Germans, who had been their sponsors for decades, to plan the invasion of the Soviet Union. Stepan Bandera and the other OUN/B leaders wrote down their plans in the months before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It was known as the “Struggles and Activities” plan. It called for the OUN/B to activate its networks to give a welcome the Nazis and form militias for elimination of Jews, Poles, and all non-Ukrainians as well as any Ukrainians who opposed the OUN. The OUN/B came up with a bunch of fascist anti-communist and anti-Semitic slogans with which to blanket the country. The OUN/B and OUN/M were both working closely with the Abwehr, German military intelligence, who provided military training, police training, and political training. 800 OUN/B members joined special task forces who were to follow the Wehrmacht into the Soviet Union and mobilize Ukrainians to support their planned Nazi puppet Government. 800 other OUN/B members joined the Nachtigall battalion, which was controlled by the Abwehr. The OUN/B also had a network of 20,000 active members in Soviet western Ukraine along with 1.5 million supporters that could be mobilized. The OUN/B planned to declare an “independent” Ukrainian state with Stepan Bandera as its Providnyk or fascist dictator. Hitler however had other plans for Ukraine. Hitler viewed Ukrainians as sub-human Slavs, like the Russians, who would have to be massacred or enslaved to make way for German settlers. Ukraine’s rich black soil would feed the German Reich. Hitler thought Ukraine would be for Germany what India was for the British or America was for the U.S. who wiped out the Native Americans. The OUN did have a major Nazi ally in the form of Alfred Rosenberg, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.   Rosenberg saw the potential of an OUN-controlled Ukraine as a valuable ally.

    This was the situation on the eve of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941. The war would lead to the death of 27 million people in the Soviet Union. 5.2 million civilians would die in Ukraine. 2.3 Million Ukrainians would be deported to German slave labour camps.  Of Ukraine’s 2.7 million Jews 1.6 million would be killed. 700 cities and town were destroyed in Ukraine along with 28,000 villages. The impact of the OUN on the success of the Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews was dramatic. In areas that had been long subjected to OUN propaganda in Western Ukraine local Jews had much less chance of survival. In Ternopil in Western Ukraine 97% of the Jews were killed. In contrast, in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine 91% of the Jews managed to survive.

    The OUN/B had been warned in advance of the invasion date and had smuggled the “Struggles and Activities” plan into Ukraine with its blueprint for the coming genocide. OUN activists spread out across the countryside setting up militias, and local governments. On 25 June 1941, the OUN/B tried to stage an uprising in Lvov but it was crushed by the Soviets. Sometimes the OUN/B forces would attack the retreating Red Army. However they usually waited until after the Red Army retreated before entering an area. On 30 June 1941, the Wehrmacht entered the city including the Ukrainian Nachtigall battalion whom locals greeted with flowers, calling them the Stepan Bandera battalion. The Nachtigall battalion seized control of the radio station and began broadcasting Nazi and OUN propaganda. That morning the Germans and the OUN discovered that the Soviet secret police the NKVD had massacred its political prisoners when the German invasion began to prevent them from collaborating with the Germans. Many were doubtless OUN members killed before they could carry out horrific crimes, like Roman Shukhevych’s brother. This happened in a number of areas and was used by the OUN to scapegoat the Jewish population for the killings. They were falsely accused of being NKVD informants and blamed for the victims’ deaths. This would be the pattern across western Ukraine and where there had been no recent executions those executed in the terror years earlier were dug up to enflame the masses. Thus already on 30 June 1941 small-scale massacres of the Jews of Lvov began. That night at 8 PM Yaroslav Stetsko held a ceremony in which he declared a new Ukrainian state under the leadership of Stepan Bandera. The day would be celebrated by OUN exiles until today as a national holiday. With Stetsko were the Metropolitan of the Greek Catholic Church in Lvov Andrei Sheptyts’kyi, clergyman and Nachtigall battalion member Ivan Hryn’okh and two officers in the German Abwehr Hans Koch and Wilhelm Ernst zu Eikern. Metropolitan Sheptys’kyi endorsed the idea of a Ukrainian state led by Bandera but paid lip service to the idea of tolerance for minorities. His church would later be implicated in inciting genocide against both the Jews and Polish Catholics. The German Abwehr officers welcomed the celebration but warned that it was not time to declare independence and that only Hitler could decide.

    Hitler had already decided against an “independent” Ukraine, which was why Stepan Bandera had been forbidden from returning to Ukraine. According to OUN mythology and to the OUN’s western apologists Stepan Bandera was immediately sent to a concentration camp because of Stetsko’s premature declaration of independence. Actually he and Stetsko were placed in “honourable confinement” which initially meant simply that he was confined to Berlin where he could roam freely and was even allowed to carry a pistol for self-defence. It was the later OUN/B murders of leaders of the OUN/M carried out in broad daylight that then provoked a mild German crackdown on the OUN/B. I will return to this topic later. Even when Bandera was sent to a concentration camp he was incarcerated in a special section reserved for prisoners who might prove useful later, like the leader of the Romanian Iron Guard or Stalin’s son. Bandera was given special privileges and needless to say was not treated like the other inmates in a concentration camp. He was not gassed, enslaved, shot, tortured, experimented on or starved to death. On the contrary he was allowed conjugal visits from his wife who served as his go between to the OUN.  Bandera received weekly care packages, and was not even confined to a cell.

    To return to Lvov by 1 July 1941 the OUN/B and the Germans had whipped the populace up into a fury directed at the city’s Jews. An angry mob rounded up thousands of Jews and brought them to the prisons where the NKVD’s victims had been found. The Jewish men were made to move the rotting corpses while they were brutally beaten to death. Jewish women were made to wash the rotting corpses and kiss their hands before being beaten to death, often after being raped. Others were shot by German military units. The OUN/B had formed a Ukrainian militia to conduct the executions on the day they arrived. They would soon be transformed into the Ukrainian police on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS. They would answer to the SS but remained loyal to Stetsko. It was in their role as auxiliary police recruits that the OUN/B would play a major part in the Holocaust. It was their role to round up the victims, to enforce all the anti-Jewish laws. They often also acted as executioners. Much of the killing in Lvov was carried out by angry mobs fired up by OUN propaganda. They loved to humiliate their victims before killing them. Women were stripped naked and often raped in the streets. Jews were forced to clean up broken glass, with their bare hands and clean streets in front of jeering crowds, whipping them with steel cables. Jews were forced to sing communist songs before being shot or they were forced to shout Slava Ukraini before being beaten to death. Everywhere there were Nazi and Ukrainian flags and the walls were plastered with genocidal OUN slogans. The pogrom would last until 3 July 1941. On 2 July, the Germans took thousands of Jews out to the forest for a mass execution. Ukrainian peasants streamed in from the countryside with carts to carry the loot they planned to steal from their victims. Greed is often a major motivator in genocide. At the high end it involved German corporate takeovers of Jewish-owned business, often financed by American investors. In the Soviet Union there were no big businesses. Yet genocidal Ukrainians and other collaborators or German soldiers were able to loot their victims’ personal property. Robbery and extortion were a constant in these Ukrainian pogroms. Always the victims were threatened into turning over their valuables then murdered anyway. Banderites became synonymous with bandits in the view of their potential victims. Around 8,000 Jews were killed in a couple days during the first Lvov Pogrom but the Nazis and the OUN were just getting started. During the Lvov Pogrom the OUN/B also supplied a death list of Polish professors, their families and hundreds of their students. The professors were shot along with some of their family members and 100 Polish students. A month later to please the OUN/B, angry about Germany’s refusal to recognize Ukraine’s independence and the arrests of Bandera and Stetsko, the Germans gave them permission to hold a second Lvov Pogrom from 25-28 July 1941, known as the Petliura days in honour of the mass murdering Symon Petliura. Petliura was infamous for his army’s massacres of Jews during the Russian Civil War, which I discussed in Part 1.

    Image: Emblem of OUN-B (Photo by Alex Tora, licensed under CC BY 3.0)

    Emblem of OUN-B

    All across the countryside the same pattern was repeated. The OUN/B held Independence Day ceremonies, destroyed all communist symbols, put up Ukrainian flags and Nazi Swastikas and then launched pogroms. There were up to 140 Pogroms in Western Ukraine in July 1941 and they claimed 35,000 to 39,000 victims. The biggest pogroms besides Lvov were in Ternopil and Zolochiv. During this period the OUN/B were not merely carrying out German orders but were enthusiastically carrying out genocide in line with their own ideology. They conducted massacres of Jews in places where there was no German presence. When the Hungarian forces forbade the OUN from carrying out a big pogrom, they defiantly carried out a little one and then complained to the Germans. Across the countryside the OUN erected triumphal arches welcoming the Nazis and praising Stepan Bandera and Adolf Hitler. The Nazis were greeted by adoring crowds and their invasion was blessed by the Greek Catholic clergy. OUN/B activists had the crowds sign “plenipotentiary letters” which praised Hitler and the German Army while also asking for the release of Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko.

    During the early days of the German invasion, Stepan Bandera had set up his headquarters close to Ukraine and used couriers to communicate his orders to the OUN/B. He had ordered and approved of the massacres of Jews. Stetsko’s 30 June 1941 declaration of independence had angered the Germans. Bandera did his best to repair relations with the Nazis. On 3 July 1941, Bandera attended a meeting in Cracow with the Undersecretary of State for the General Government Ernst Kundt (German occupied Poland). Bandera argued that as leader of the OUN it was the will of the people that he head Ukraine. Kundt countered that only Hitler could decide such matters. Bandera conceded that he could only create a Ukrainian state with German permission. On 5 July 1941, Bandera was sent to Berlin and placed in “Honourable Captivity”. On 8 July 1941, someone tried to assassinate Yarsolav Stetsko and on 9 July 1941, Stetsko was arrested and escorted by the Abwehr to Berlin. On 12 July 1941 Stetsko was freed. On 14 July 1941 Bandera was freed. They were confined to Berlin and lived together in an apartment. Bandera was allowed to carry a gun and held an ID issued by the RSHA (Heidrich’s “Homeland Security” department). These two networked with the Lithuanian fascists in exile and the Japanese ambassador. Stetsko kept busy writing his autobiography for his German handlers: writing that, while he considered Moscow his main enemy, he fully endorsed exterminating the Jews since he considered them tools of Moscow.

    On 19 July 1941, Hitler decided to incorporate Eastern Galicia into the General Government. This offended the OUN/B who wanted to rule a united Ukraine. Now their territory was being absorbed back into German-occupied Poland. Actually it turned out to be beneficial to the OUN/B’s interests as Ukrainians in Galicia were favoured over the Poles and Jews and they were allowed to continue to carry out Ukrainization of Polish educational institutions.  Ukrainians in East Galicia were treated like fascist allies Slovakia and Croatia. The Nazis set up UTSK in the Ukrainian Central Committee run by Volodymyr Kubiiovych in the General Government area. Kubiiovych had been a close ally of the OUN in the 1930s and shared their ideology while being more flexible. He lobbied for the creation of a Ukrainian National Army to fight alongside the Nazis and argued that all Jewish property should be turned over to Ukrainians. In 1943 he would get his wish with the creation of the Waffen-SS Galizia division, composed of Ukrainians. Ukrainians in the former Soviet Ukraine on the other hand were mercilessly exploited. All education beyond the 4th grade was banned. The Germans modelled their behaviour in Soviet Ukraine on American plantation owners treating Ukrainian peasants like Black slaves who could only be kept in check with whips and clubs. The main goal was to loot Ukraine’s grain. The result would be very different attitudes towards the memory of the Nazis in Western and Eastern Ukraine.

    On 30 August 1941, the OUN/B assassinated the OUN/M leaders Melina Senyk and Mykola Stibors’kyi in broad daylight on the streets in Zhytomyr. This outraged the Germans and other Ukrainian nationalists. The Germans were further outraged when the OUN/B tried to blame Germany for the killings. The OUN/M provided the Germans with names and addressees of OUN/B leaders who were then arrested. The Germans also shot some OUN/B members as looters and closed their offices in Berlin and Vienna. They tried and failed to purge the administration and police of OUN/B members. On 13 September 1941, Bandera and Stetsko were arrested again. Despite this both continued efforts to repair relations with the Germans. Both sent orders to the OUN/B not to resist the Germans and to continue to supply recruits for the police and the puppet government. Even after being sent to a cushy concentration camp and even after two of his brothers died in a concentration camp, Bandera never ceased attempts at reconciliation with the Germans. Even when it became clear the Germans were losing in 1944, Bandera was more committed then ever to allying the OUN/B with the Nazis. The German purge was totally ineffective. The OUN/B was continually flooded with new recruits and continued to grow in power. The head of the Ukrainian police simply ignored orders to get rid of OUN/B members. In other words even when the Nazis turned on the OUN/B the organization continued to supply recruits for the police, which would play a major role in carrying out the holocaust. Many Ukrainian police would also go on to join the Waffen SS Galizia division. Others would later join the UPA, using their experience in mass murder to massacre Poles.

    The Ukrainian police were formed from the Ukrainian militias that the OUN/B had recruited in the wake of the German invasion. They were known as the Schutzmannschaften or auxiliary police. In March 1942, despite the Nazi’s earlier crackdown, the OUN/B ordered its members to join the police en masse. The Ukrainian police answered ultimately to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, overall commander of the SS. It was ordered that they be given two hours of Nazi indoctrination every day. In the cities the Ukrainian police assisted in raids, deportations, and shootings. They also patrolled the ghettoes. They enforced the anti-Jewish laws, forced Jews to wear identifying arm bands, created death lists by interviewing locals, rounded up the victims, guarded the prisoners, escorted them to the site of the execution and often shot the victims, especially if they were children. The Nazis had their own killing squads, the Einsatzgruppe C that also carried out many of the mass executions. In the countryside there were few German forces or German police and the Ukrainian Police played the leading role in destroying the Jews and then spent years hunting down the survivors. The Ukrainian police often displayed the same sadistic brutality the OUN/B had shown in the Lvov pogroms. One survivor recounted being locked in a bathhouse with dozens of victims who were forced to desecrate their holy books. Some had had their beards set aflame. The fire then spread to their clothes and they were burned alive. Others were beaten to death. Throughout it all the victims were forced to sing to entertain their Ukrainian tormentors. The Ukrainian police were used not only to terrorize Ukraine but also to terrorize Belarus, Poland, Slovakia and other areas. Particularly infamous was Battalion 201, which included Roman Shukhevych. He would also join the Waffen-SS Galizia division and become leader of the UPA.  Shukhevych, a monster like Bandera, is now widely promoted as a “Hero of Ukraine.” In addition to carrying out mass murders of Jews, Byelorussians and Poles; Shukhevych loved to have Eastern Ukrainian’s shot for little or no reason and privately contemplated exterminating them all. Many recruits to Battalion 201 like Shukhevych had been part of the Abwehr’s Nachtigall and Roland battalions and carried out mass murders of Byelorussian civilians as part of their anti-partisan warfare in 1942.

    Early in 1943 Heinrich Himmler created the Waffen-SS Galizia division, also known as the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS. It was called Galician instead of Ukrainian to pander to Hitler. Hitler, born in Austria-Hungary, felt that since Galicia had once been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there was probably some German blood in them. Over 80,000 Ukrainians volunteered to join the SS Galizia but only 8,000 were accepted. It soon expanded to 14,000 men by recruiting members of the Ukrainian police. The Ukrainian general commanding the SS Galicia was Pavlo Shandruk. The SS Galicia was established to battle the Red Army. It was also deployed to crush the Slovakian national uprising and played a major role in the destruction of Warsaw after the Warsaw uprising. On 22 July 1944 the Waffen SS Galicia division, by then much larger, was encircled and destroyed by the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army under the command of Pavel Rybalko. They were decimated by the Soviet artillery and Katyusha rocket batteries. However the Germans were able to replace the units by recruiting more members and the SS Galicia division went on to wage dirty wars against partisans and civilians in Italy, Yugoslavia, France and Czechoslovakia. They surrendered to the British two days after the war ended and with the help of the Vatican were able to avoid deportation back to the Soviet Union by claiming to be Polish citizens. Eventually they would end up in Britain before being resettled in Canada and America strengthening the OUN diaspora during the Cold War. Unknown to most citizens of Canada and the US there are public monuments to these Waffen SS veterans in both countries.

    In 1943 at the same time that the OUN/B were joining the Waffen SS en masse, and while they were setting up the UPA to exterminate the Poles, the OUN/B was publicly distancing themselves from the Nazis and secretly trying to forge an alliance with the western allies for a future struggle with the Soviet Union. Here the considerations were the Soviet victory at Stalingrad foreboding Germany’s ultimate defeat. The more farsighted Nazis were already planning their escapes, and their deals with Western intelligence agencies. The hardliners in American and British Intelligence like Allen Dulles were already gearing up for a covert war against the Soviet Union using committed anti-communists and anti-Russians among their current fascist “enemies” (for men like Dulles they were friends and business partners).

    When Poland was investigating the Pieracki assassination in the mid-1930s, it discovered that the OUN had ties to MI6 as well as the German Abwehr. When it comes to such matters the historical evidence is always a sanitized version or some sort of limited hang out. The CIA spent decades destroying incriminating records and declassifying misleading or altered records. Which is my way of saying we will never know the early history of the ties of the OUN with MI6 and the OSS and US military intelligence during the war.

    The OUN/B was already trying to improve their image in the west in April 1942. At their second OUN/B conference they claimed that they would no longer take part in anti-Jewish actions. At the same conference they still condemned Jews as “a tool of Russian Bolshevik Imperialism. In addition the OUN/B did not quit the police and so continued to be a vital element in carrying out the mass murder of Jews. By 1943 the Jews had largely been eliminated in western Ukraine. The survivors were being hunted by the Ukrainian police, which was full of OUN/B members. At their third Conference from 17-21 February, the OUN/B was now claiming that it would fight both Germany and the USSR and that they were now democrats ruled by a triumvirate, led by the (war criminal) Roman Shukhevych. In July 1944 the OUN sent emissaries to attempt to make a deal with the Western allies, including Mykola Lebed, head of the OUN internal security branch or SB, known for its bloodthirsty assassinations of alleged OUN traitors. Lebed would later receive decades of backing from the CIA. In July of 1944 the OUN/B furthered their “Democratic” rebranding, creating the front group UHVR, the Supreme Liberation Council of Ukraine. It would later provide many recruits for the CIA and MI6.

    A few months before the February 1943 OUN conference, the OUN started what was to become the UPA.  Contrary to myth the UPA only attacked Germans when it needed to steal arms. It made a secret deal with the German military to avoid confrontations. The UPA was formed for the purpose of exterminating the Poles and despite the OUN’s public statements that it would fight the Germans, the UPA was secretly funded by the Abwehr (German military intelligence). When the Germans retreated the Abwehr secretly turned over the Wehrmacht’s huge arms stockpiles to the UPA. Still the OUN’s two-faced strategy to win Western support would be very useful later for muddying the historical record and creating the myth that the OUN had battled both the Nazis and the Soviet Union. The UPA would later become a CIA proxy army run with the help of war criminal Reinhard Gehlen. It would wage an anti-Soviet war for five more years after the end of World War 2. Seventy years later the return of Ukrainian fascism to power via the Maidan coup would be universally celebrated as the triumph of “Democracy.”

    Cover of Bandera’s OUN II Conference Resolutions which legalize the existence of Bandera’s OUN. OUN leader Andriy Melnyk denounced it as “saboteur”. April 1941 General Government (Licensed under the Public Domain)

    The UPA was founded at the November 1942 OUN conference although it originally was called the UVV the Ukraine Liberation Army. The OUN/B stole the name UPA or Ukrainian Insurgent Army from a rival group of Ukrainian fascists lead by Taras Bulba-Borovets who led his own armed group in Ukraine with a similar ideology and methodology to the OUN/B. It too shared responsibility for mass murders of Jews and other Ukrainians. The OUN/B waged war on this rival group assassinating Bulba-Borovets’ wife and many of his top officers. When he went to the Germans for help they instead sent him to the same cushy concentration camp as Bandera and Stetsko. In March and April of 1943 OUN/B sent out word that its many members in the Ukrainian police should quit and join the UPA. Of 12,000 police, 5000 quit to join the UPA. Other Ukrainian police joined the Waffen-SS Galizia division. The new UPA recruits brought their experience in mass murder of Jews to the new plan for ethnic cleansing of Volhynia and Galicia of Poles. Poles were given the ultimatum leave or die. Often the threat was posted on a murdered Pole who had been unspeakably tortured and mutilated.

    In February and March of 1943 the UPA began experimental massacres that claimed hundreds of lives. Whole Polish villages were wiped out. Soon Mykola Lebed ordered the complete cleansing to begin. The UPA would arrive in carts to carry away the loot and often recruited local Ukrainian peasants to join their massacres. The massacres were often carried out in the most horrific way possible with axes, pitchforks and saws. The UPA would sometimes spend hours sadistically torturing their victims to death. The aim was both to save bullets and to terrorize the Poles into fleeing. Another of their favourite methods was to attack churches with hand grenades or set them on fire when the whole town was attending. They also liked to gather all their victims up for a town hall meeting and burn them alive. The UPA would usually return again a couple days after their massacre so that they could kill all the survivors. They even slaughtered nuns who were caring for Polish orphans. On 11 July 1943, the UPA launched attacks on 96 different Polish villages in a single day killing 10,000 Poles. The UPA killed between 100,000 and 250,000 Poles during this genocidal campaign. The UPA would often pretend to be Soviet partisans and in addition to carrying out false flag attacks that could be blamed on the partisans they were probably playing their role for German intelligence, gathering information on which villages were sympathetic to the partisans.

    The UPA also continued to hunt the few remaining Jews who were hiding out in the forests or in Polish villages. The UPA had learned from the Germans how to exploit their Jewish victims. Some were kept as slave labour working the farmlands of massacred Poles and then killed before they could be liberated by the Red Army. Others Jews who were doctors, dentists, nurses or tailors were conscripted into the UPA and then murdered when the Red Army was approaching. Later these facts would be spun by OUN apologists into the myth that the UPA wasn’t allied to the Nazis because it had Jewish members or that the UPA had acted to “save” the Jews. By 1944 the UPA had grown to 25,000-30,000 members. With Soviet forces advancing the UPA was now openly allied with Nazi Germany. The UPA attacks on the Jews hiding in the forests were so terrible that some Jews actually fled to German concentration camps believing their chances of survival would be better as slave labourers. In the summer of 1944 the Red Army would liberate Western Ukraine. The UPA would continue to kill Poles and increasingly began to target any Ukrainians who submitted to Soviet authority. Anyone who paid their taxes or joined a collective farm could be killed or have their home burnt down by the UPA. The UPA would become a sort of proto-Gladio, a stay-behind network behind enemy lines, created first by the Nazis and then absorbed by MI6 and the CIA. The UPA war with the Soviet Union would continue until 1950. Their network would survive into the 1960s. The UPA war was not only waged in Ukraine but also in Poland, Byelorussia, and Czechoslovakia. The story of the UPA will be continued in Part 3 of this series dealing with the Cold War.

    As the war turned in favour of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany faced defeat, the Germans increasingly realized that they needed the OUN/B. The Nazis granted an OUN/B request to be allowed to meet with Stepan Bandera. The details of Bandera’s imprisonment are clouded in mystery. It is not clear when exactly he was transferred from Gestapo custody following the OUN/M murders to his cushy Sachenhausen concentration camp, where he received care packages and visits from his wife. Stetsko claimed it was in January 1942. Bandera claimed it was in 1943. Records claim it was October 1943. On 28 September 1944, the Germans released Stepan Bandera and soon thereafter also released Stetsko, Melnyk, Bulba-Borovets and 300 more OUN/B prisoners. Melnyk had been arrested when the OUN/M tried to contact Western intelligence in 1944. The OUN/M had had much better relations with the Nazis and was appointed to serve in the puppet government. It had supplied many recruits to the Waffen SS Galicia division.  Bandera would spend the rest of the war working with the Nazis to recruit Ukrainian support to their cause. However Bandera would refuse to merge OUN forces with the Vlasov army’s KONR- the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia- created 14 November 1944. Bandera claimed they were “Russian Imperialists.” Instead Rosenberg set up the separate Ukrainian National Committee (UNK), which included Bandera, Melnyk, Kubiiovych and was headed by Shandruk, the general commanding the Waffen SS Galicia division on 23 February 1945. Prior to this, in December 1944, Bandera and Stetsko helped train the Abwehr Commando’s unit of Ukrainian paratroopers who were to be dropped into Lvov with one million rubles for UPA head Roman Shukhevych to continue the fight against the Soviet Union. Bandera sent the message that he would return soon, a promise he never kept. Stetsko claimed that he was still Prime Minister of Ukraine because of his earlier declaration back in 30 June 1941; the one that had unleashed a wave of OUN/B massacres.

    Bandera’s next stop, after celebrating Greek Catholic Christmas with his family, was Weimar, Germany. Bandera argued that the OUN/B must give its “Full Support” to Nazi Germany until the end. He was busy recruiting for the soon to be created Ukrainian National Army (UNA). Bandera spent three weeks in Berlin. He then headed for Vienna where he was elected head of the Foreign Units of the OUN (ZCh OUN). On 5-6 February 1945, the OUN in Ukraine elected Bandera as their leader but decided he should remain in exile. On 17 March 1945, the Germans announced the creation of the Ukrainian National Army (UNA). The Waffen SS Galicia division was rebranded the 1st division of the UNA and its commander, Shandruk, was named commander of the UNA. Meanwhile Bandera fled Vienna as the Red Army approached, escaping to Czechoslovakia and then Innsbruck in Austria. Eventually Bandera would end up under the protection of the infamous Reinhard Gehlen, the first president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the espionage service founded by the US Forces in the American occupation zone. Gehlen had been recruited by the US intelligence services because he had been responsible for occupied Eastern Europe in the Abwehr. When German forces fled the Red Army back in the first half of 1944 over 120,000 Ukrainian collaborators and war criminals fled west with them. During the Cold War many of these escaped Ukrainian war criminals would work for Western intelligence services. Many would eventually be resettled in the US and Canada. Ukrainian fascism would live on in exile for decades. Eventually with the help of its Western sponsors it would seize power in Ukraine yet again sparking a new covert war and triggering the on-going proxy war between NATO and Russia.

    For Ukraine the war would not truly end until 1950. However that is the subject for Part 3. This is only a scratch to the surface of the history of Ukraine during the war. The crimes of the Nazi Germany would require their own articles or books. The Nazis created massive machinery for genocide. However they relied on Ukrainian collaborators every step of the way. An article also needs to be written just about the German conquest of Ukraine and the Soviet liberation of Ukraine. These were huge battles between millions of men.

    However the crimes of the OUN are clear. They propagandized the Ukrainians to carry out mass murder. The OUN/B created militias that carried out genocide in 1941 and again in 1943. They supplied recruits to the Ukrainian police, which played a major role in the Holocaust. They joined the Waffen SS Galicia division along with the OUN/M. They formed the UPA to carry out genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Poles. Bandera was unable to supervise this directly but he came up with the plans before being imprisoned and after his release he worked enthusiastically for the Nazis. Bandera never admitted to the OUN/B’s crimes, let alone apologizing or condemning them. His OUN followers took an active role carrying out unspeakable atrocities. Banderite became a synonym for murderous bandits. There has been shamefully little written about the history of the OUN and much of what was written was from a pro-OUN perspective. Sadly due to the nature of academia the more relevant the story of the OUN becomes the fewer people will dare to tell it for fear of being labelled “Russian propagandists.”

    After the Orange revolution of 2004 Stepan Bandera was declared a “Hero of Ukraine”. Even a postage stamp was issued commemorating him. During the 2014 Maidan coup, a huge poster of Stepan Bandera hung on the stage. Few in the west had ever heard of Stepan Bandera or the OUN back in 2014. Now in 2022 the world is on the brink of nuclear war and the global economy is collapsing all because CIA and other western intelligence agencies have been using Ukrainian fascists as proxies for nearly 80 years. In Parts 3 and 4, I intend to trace the history of the OUN and its ideological heirs through the Cold War and post-Cold War eras up to the Maidan coup and the Ukrainian civil war.

    *

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    With special thanks to T.P. Wilkinson.

    Sources

    My main source is Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist: Fascism, Genocide and Cult, an in depth history of Stepan Bandera and the OUN. It is a must read although written with the standard academic anti-Soviet bias.

    I also read “Children of the Borderlands” by Lucyna Kulinska, a collection of survivors’ testimonies from the Polish victims of the UPA genocide. An English translation is available on EBay. It gives a vivid and horrifying picture of events. However it is edited from a strongly anti-Soviet perspective. Still the author should be applauded for exposing a forgotten genocide, which the strongly pro-Ukrainian Polish government is intent on covering up.

    Hitler’s Shadow Nazi, War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence and the Cold War by Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda has a chapter on Mykola Lebed and the CIA ties to the OUN. Based on declassified U.S. intelligence files, it provides a limited hangout version of events.

    Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine by Wendy Lower provides a horrifying picture of the German occupation and the complex machinery that carried out the genocide. However it is extremely misleading whenever discussing the OUN/B, always portraying it as hostile to the Nazis. Perhaps that is because the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute funded her work. Worse still, she worked closely with the archetypical Cold War propagandist/historian Timothy Snyder, who helped her edit the book. Generally if you want to uncover an author’s shady connections look in the acknowledgments section which most people skip.

    Moss Robeson on the history of the OUN

    One of my favourite documentary series the Unknown War had an episode on Ukraine while it doesn’t mention the OUN/B it does describe the epic battle to liberate Ukraine

    Evan Reif on the history of the OUN Part 1Part 2

    Evan Reif on the true heroes of Ukraine the Soviet Partisans

    Gerald Sussman on the OUN and the CIA

    I’ve done a number of articles that intersect with the story of the OUN during the Cold War

    Nazis and the CIA

    Operation Gladio

    The World Anti-Communist League Part 1

    The World Anti-Communist League Part 2

    Ratline: the Vatican, The Nazis, and the CIA

    Old Nazis, New Right

    The Zelensky quote is from here

    Featured image: An OUN-B leaflet from the World War II era. (Licensed under the Public Domain)


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  • Russia, Donbass and the Reality of Conflict in Ukraine/ By Daniel Kovalik

    Russia, Donbass and the Reality of Conflict in Ukraine/ By Daniel Kovalik

    Global Research, August 23, 2023
    CovertAction Magazine 10 August 2023

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    *** 

    I just returned from my third trip to Russia, and my second trip to Donbas (now referring to the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk collectively) in about eight months. This time, I flew into lovely Tallinn, Estonia, and took what should be about a six-hour bus ride to St. Petersburg. In the end, my bus trip took me about 12 hours, due to a long wait in Customs on the Russian side of the border.

    Having a U.S. passport and trying to pass the frontier from a hostile, NATO country into Russia during wartime got me immediately flagged for questioning. And then, it turned out I did not have all my papers in order as I was still without my journalist credential from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which was necessary given that I told the border patrol that I was traveling to do reporting. I was treated very nicely, though the long layover forced me to lose my bus that, understandably, went on without me.

    However, sometimes we find opportunity in seemingly inconvenient detours, and that was true in this case. Thus, I became a witness to a number of Ukrainians, some of them entire families, trying to cross the border and to immigrate to Russia. Indeed, the only other type of passport (besides my U.S. passport) I saw amongst those held over for questioning and processing was the blue Ukrainian passport. This is evidence of an inconvenient fact to the Western narrative of the war that portrays Russia as an invader of Ukraine. In fact, many Ukrainians have an affinity for Russia and have voluntarily chosen to live there over the years.

    Between 2014—the real start of the war when the Ukrainian government began attacking its own people in the Donbas—and the beginning of Russia’s intervention in February 2022, around one million Ukrainians had already immigrated to Russia. The fact that Ukrainians were going to live in Russia was reported in the mainstream press back then, with the BBC writing in September 2014 about some of the refugees while noting that “[s]eparatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

    Participants at the rally in support of the Donetsk People's Republic on Lenin Square in Donetsk

    Partisans fly Donetsk flag. [Source: envoicesevas.ru]

    Since the violence erupted, some 2,600 people have been killed and thousands more wounded. The city of Luhansk has been under siege by government forces for the past month and is without proper supplies of food and water.” The number of dead in this war would grow to 14,000 by February 2022, again before Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) had even begun.

    Around 1.3 million additional Ukrainians have immigrated to Russia since February 2022, making Russia the largest recipient of Ukrainian refugees in the world since the beginning of the SMO.

    When I commented to one of the Russian border officials—Kirill is his name—about the stack of Ukrainian passports sitting on his desk, he made a point to tell me that they treat the Ukrainians coming in “as human beings.” When my contact in St Petersburg, Boris, was able to send a photo of my newly acquired press credential to Kirill, I was sent on my way with a handshake and was able to catch the next bus heading to St. Petersburg almost immediately.

    Once in St. Petersburg, I went to Boris’s house for a short rest and then was off by car to Rostov-on-Don, the last Russian city before Donetsk. I was driven in a black Lexus by a kind Russian businessman named Vladimir along with German, the founder of the humanitarian aid group known as “Leningrad Volunteers.” The car was indeed loaded with humanitarian aid to take to Donbas. After some short introductions, and my dad joke about the “Lexus from Texas,” we were off on our 20-hour journey at a brisk pace of about 110 kilometers an hour.

    We arrived in Rostov in the evening and checked into the Sholokhov Loft Hotel, named after Mikhail Sholokhov, Rostov’s favorite son who wrote the great novel And Quite Flows the Don. We were told that, until recently, a portrait of the titular head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had adorned the lobby wall. They took this down after members of the Wagner Group invaded Rostov, putting fear in many of the residents. Now, the hotel only has Hollywood movie posters decorating the walls.

    In the early afternoon the next day, my translator Sasha arrived from her hometown of Krasnodar, Russia, a seven-hour train ride from Rostov. Sasha, who is 22 years old, is a tiny red-headed woman who quickly turned out to be one of the most interesting people I met on my journey.

    As Sasha explained to me, she has been supporting humanitarian work in Donbas since the age of 12. She told me that she derived her interest in this work from her grandmother who raised her in the “patriotic spirit” of the USSR. As Sasha explained, her parents were too busy working to do much raising of her at all. Sasha, who is from the mainland of Russia, attends the University of Donetsk to live in solidarity with the people who have been under attack there since 2014.

    At age 22, Sasha, who wore open-toed sandals even when we traveled to the front lines, is one of the bravest people I have ever met, and she certainly disabused me of any notion that I was doing anything especially brave by going to the Donbas. But, of course, as Graham Greene once wrote, “with a return ticket, courage becomes an intellectual exercise” anyway.

    We quickly set out on our approximately three or four-hour drive to Donetsk City, with a brief stop at a passport control office now run by the Russian Federation subsequent to the September 2022 referendum in which the people of Donetsk and three other Ukrainian republics voted to join Russia.

    I was again questioned by officials at this stop, but for only 15 minutes or so. I just resigned myself to the fact that, as an American traveling through Russia at this time, I was not going to go through any border area without some level of questioning. However, the tone of the questioning was always friendly.

    We arrived in Donetsk City, a small but lovely town along the Kalmius River, without incident. Our first stop was at the Leningrad Volunteers warehouse to unload some of the aid we had brought and to meet some of the local volunteers. Almost all of these volunteers are life-long residents of Donetsk, and nearly all of them wore military fatigues and have been fighting the Ukrainian forces as part of the Donetsk militia for years, many since the beginning of the conflict in 2014.

    A person holding a rifle in a parade Description automatically generated

    Members of the Donetsk militia escort Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Donbas. The militias have been fighting the Ukrainian Army, backed by the U.S., since the war really started in 2014. [Source: medium.com]

    This is something I cannot impress upon the reader enough. While we are often told that these fighters in the Donbas are Russians or “Russian proxies,” this is simply not true. The lion’s share of fighters are locals of varying ages, some quite old, who have been fighting for their homes, families and survival since 2014.

    While there have been Russian and international volunteers who have supported these forces—just as there were international volunteers who went to support the Republicans in Spain in the 1930s—they are mostly local.

    Of course, this changed in February 2022 when Russia began the SMO. Nonetheless, the locals of Donetsk continue to fight, now alongside the Russian forces.

    The lie of “Russian proxies” fighting in the Donbas after 2014 is actually one of the smaller ones of the Western mainstream press, for the claim at least acknowledges that there has been such fighting. Of course, the mainstream media have tried to convince us that there was never such fighting at all and that the Russian SMO beginning in February 2022 was completely “unprovoked.” This is the big lie that has been peddled in order to gain the consent of the Western populations to support Ukraine militarily.

    What is also ignored is the fact that this war was escalating greatly before the beginning of the SMO and this escalation indeed provoked it. Thus, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a 57-member organization including many Western countries, including the United States, there were about 2,000 cease-fire violations in the Donbas just in the weekend before the SMO began on February 24, 2022.

    In a rare moment of candor, Reuters reported on February 19, 2022, “Almost 2,000 ceasefire violations were registered in eastern Ukraine by monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Saturday, a diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday. Ukrainian government and separatist forces have been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2014.”

    Jacques Baud, a Swiss intelligence and security consultant and former NATO military analyst, further explains the precipitating events of the SMO:

    “[A]s early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians had begun shelling the civilian population of Donbass, putting Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.

    …This is what he explained in his speech on February 21.

    On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.

    The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.

    In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public we deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence services were well aware. Jurists will judge.”

    Of course, none of this was news to the people I met in Donetsk, for they had been living this reality for years. For example, Dimitri, a young resident of Donetsk who has been fighting since 2014 along with his mother and father, told me quite exasperatedly as he pointed to some of the weapons and ammunition behind him, “what is all this stuff doing here? Why have we been getting this since 2014? Because the war has been going on since then.”

    Dimitri, who was studying at the university when the conflict began, can no longer fight due to injuries received in the war, including damage to his hearing which is evidenced by the earplugs he wears. He hopes he can go back to his studies.

    Just a few days before my arrival in Donetsk, Dimitri’s apartment building was shelled by Ukrainian forces, just as it had been in 2016. Like many in Donetsk, he is used to quickly repairing the damage and going on with his life.

    Dimitri took me to the Donetsk airport and nearby Orthodox church and monastery which were destroyed in fighting between the Ukrainian military and Donetsk militia forces back in 2014-2015. Dimitri participated in the fighting in this area back then, explaining that during that time, this was the area of the most intense fighting in the world. But you would not know this from the mainstream press coverage that had largely ignored this war before February 2022.

    Bridge near the Donetsk airport which was destroyed in 2015 by Donetsk militia forces to prevent Ukrainian troops and tanks from crossing. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

    One of the first individuals I interviewed in Donetsk was 36-year-old Vitaly, a big guy with a chubby, boyish face who wore a baseball hat with the red Soviet flag with the hammer and sickle. Vitaly, the father of three children, is from Donetsk and has been fighting there for four years, including in the very tough battle for the steel plant in Mariupol in the summer of 2022. He decided to take up arms after friends of his were killed by Ukrainian forces, including some who were killed by being burned alive by fascist forces—the same forces that, we are told, do not exist. Vitaly, referring to the mainstream Western media, laughed when saying, “they’ve been saying we’ve been shelling ourselves for nine years.”

    Vitaly has personally fought against soldiers wearing Nazi insignia, and he is very clear that he is fighting fascism. Indeed, when I asked him what the Soviet flag on his hat meant to him, he said that it signified the defeat over Nazism, and he hopes he will contribute to this again.

    When I asked him about claims that Russia had intervened with soldiers in the war prior to February 2022 as some allege, he adamantly denied this, as did everyone else I interviewed in Donetsk. However, he has witnessed the fact that Polish and UK soldiers have been fighting with the Ukrainian military since the beginning. Vitaly opined that, given what has transpired over the past nine years, he does not believe that the Donbas will ever return to Ukraine, and he certainly hopes it will not. Vitaly told me quite stoically that he believes he will not see peace in his lifetime.

    During my stay in Donetsk, I twice had dinner with Anastasia, my interpreter during my first trip to the Donbas in November. Anastasia teaches at the University of Donetsk. She has been traveling around Russia, including to the far east, telling of what has been happening in the Donbas since 2014 because many in Russia themselves do not fully understand what has been going on. She told me that as she was recounting her story, she found herself reliving her trauma from nine years of war and feeling overwhelmed.

    Anastasia’s parents and 13-year-old brother live near the front lines in the Donetsk Republic, and she worries greatly about them. Anastasia is glad that Russia has intervened in the conflict, and she indeed corrected me when I once referred to the Russian SMO as an “invasion,” telling me that Russia did not invade. Rather, they were invited and welcomed in. That does seem to be the prevailing view in Donetsk as far as I can tell.

    During my five-day trip to Donetsk, I was taken to two cities within the conflict zone—Yasinovataya and Gorlovka. I was required to wear body armor and a helmet during this journey, though wearing a seatbelt was optional, if not frowned upon.

    While Donetsk City, which certainly sees its share of shelling, is largely intact and with teeming traffic and a brisk restaurant and café scene, once we got out of the city, this changed pretty quickly.

    Yasinovataya showed signs of great destruction, and I was told that a lot of this dated back to 2014. The destruction going back that far included a machine factory which is now being used as a base of operations for Donetsk forces and the adjacent administrative building which looks like it could have been an opera house before it was shelled.

    For its part, the city center of Gorlovka looked largely unmolested with signs of street life and even had an old trolley, clearly from the Soviet era, running through the center of town. But the outskirts of Gorlovka certainly showed signs of war. In both cities, one could frequently hear the sounds of shelling in the distance.

    In Gorlovka, we met with Nikoli, nicknamed “Heavy.” Nikoli looks like a Greek god, standing at probably 6 feet, 5 inches, and all muscle. I joked with him while I was standing next to him that I felt like I was appearing next to Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. He got the joke and laughed. While a giant of a man, he seemed very nice and with a strong moral compass.

    He led us to a makeshift Orthodox chapel in the cafeteria of what was a school, but which is now the base of operations for his Donetsk militia forces. He told us that, even now after the SMO began, about 90% of the forces in Gorlovka are still local Donetsk soldiers, and the other 10% are Russians. Again, this is something we rarely get a sense of from the mainstream press.

    Nikoli, while sitting in front of the makeshift chapel, explained that, while he still considers himself Ukrainian—after all he was born in Ukraine—he said that Donetsk would never go back to Ukraine because Ukraine had “acted against God” when it began to attack its own people in the Donbas. He made it clear that he was prepared to fight to the end to ensure the survival of the people of Donetsk, and I had no doubt that he was telling the truth about that.

    At my request, I met with the First Secretary of the Donetsk section of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), Boris Litvinov. Boris, who has also served in the Donetsk parliament, explained that the Communist Party under his leadership had been one of the leaders and initiators of the 2014 Referendum in which the people of Donetsk voted to become an autonomous republic and leave Ukraine.

    According to Boris, about 100 members of the Donetsk section of the CPRF are serving on the front lines of the conflict. Indeed, as Boris explained, the CPRF supports the Russian SMO, only wishing that it had commenced in 2014. Boris is clear that the war in Ukraine is one over the very survival of Russia (regardless of whether it is capitalist or socialist) and that Russia is fighting the collective West that wants to destroy Russia.

    Boris compares the fight in the Donbas to the fight of the Republicans against the fascists in Spain in the 1930s, and he says that there are international fighters from all over the world (Americans, Israelis, Spanish and Colombians, for example) who are fighting alongside the people of Donbas against the fascists just as international fighters helped in Spain.

    The last person I interviewed, again at my own request, was Olga Tseselskaya, assistant to the head of the Union of Women of the Republic of Donetsk and First Secretary of the Mothers’ United organization. The Mothers’ United organization, which has 6,000 members throughout the Donetsk Republic, advocates for and provides social services to the mothers of children killed in the conflict since 2014.

    I was excited that Olga opened our discussion by saying that she was glad to be talking to someone from Pittsburgh because Pittsburgh and Donetsk City had once been sister cities.

    I asked Olga about how she viewed the Russian forces now in Donetsk, and she made it clear that she supported their presence in Donetsk and believed that they were treating the population well. She adamantly denied the claims of mass rape made against the Russians earlier in the conflict.

    Of course, it should be noted that the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, Lyudmila Denisova, who was the source of these claims, was ultimately fired because her claims were found to be unverified and without substantiation, but again the Western media has barely reported on that fact.

    When I asked Olga whether she agreed with some Western peace groups, such as the Stop the War Coalition in the UK, that Russia should pull its troops out of the Donbas, she disagreed, saying that she hates to think what would happen to the people of the Donbas if they did.

    I think that this is something the people of the West need to come to grips with; that the government of Ukraine has done great violence against its own people in the Donbas, and that the people of the Donbas had every right to choose to leave Ukraine and join Russia. If Westerners understood this reality, they would think twice about “standing with” and continuing to arm Ukraine.

    *

    Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

    Daniel Kovalik graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019. 

    Mr. Kovalik received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law and was the recipient of the Project Censored Award for his article exposing the unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Colombia.

    He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. He is the author of several books including The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, which includes a Foreword by Oliver Stone.

    Daniel can be reached at dkovalik@outlook.com.

    Featured image: Cathedral in Donbas destroyed by Ukrainian bombing in 2014. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

  • Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi` By ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN

    Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi` By ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN

    Western media has dismissed evidence of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine by citing President Zelensky’s Jewish heritage. But new footage published by Zelensky shows the leader openly collaborating with a fascist ideologue who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen.”

    Original Link Here:Zelensky holds court with Ukraine’s most notorious neo-Nazi – The Grayzone

    Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky has uploaded a video to his Telegram channel showing him holding court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history: Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.

    On August 14, just over an hour after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced another $200 million in military aid to Kiev, Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky published the video depicting what he called an “open conversation” with Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.

    “I am grateful to everyone who defends our country and people, who brings our victory closer,” Zelensky wrote, following his encounter with the unit on the outskirts of Bakhmut.

    While casual Western observers might not have realized it, the brigade Zelensky was addressing is actually the newest iteration of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

    “The 3rd separate assault brigade, excellent fighters,” Zelensky wrote days after the consultation, in a Twitter post which also alluded to a separate meeting with the Aidar Battalion, another neo-fascist outfit that has been accused of war crimes by Amnesty International. “They have stopped the enemy from advancing towards Kostiantynivka and pushed the occupiers back up to 8 kilometers.”

    But the group’s origins are no secret. Describing their most recent rebrand in a YouTube video released in January, the unit explained: “Today we officially announce that the SSO AZOV is expanding to a brigade. From now on, we are the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

    Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade fighters perform a fireside fascist salute in a video announcing their re-formation.

    Like its predecessor, the unit is led by Andriy Biletsky, who founded the Azov Battalion and has long served as a figurehead for the closely-aligned National Corps political movement.

    But in spite of Biletsky’s rich Nazi pedigree, the video Zelensky published shows him sharing a moment of bonhomie with a white nationalist militant who has described Jews as “our enemy,” or as the “real masters” of the oligarchs and craven politicians that have corrupted Ukraine.

    “How could I be a Nazi?” Zelensky asked on the eve of Russia’s invasion, pointing to his Jewish heritage. “How could a people who lost eight million lives fighting Nazis support Nazism?”

    Perhaps the question needs to be asked again of the Ukrainian president following the tribute he paid to his country’s top neo-Nazi ideologue.

     

    Ukraine’s Jewish leader meets “The White Leader”

    Since Russia’s military operations in Ukraine kicked off in 2022, Biletsky had taken pains to distance himself from his fascist past. He now claims that an infamous promise he made to rid the world of “Semite-led untermenschen” was actually fabricated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

    But Biletsky’s most notorious screed against Jews was not an isolated outburst. Indeed, his record of Nazi-inspired tirades is extensive, and has been a matter of public record for decades.

    Biletsky’s college thesis was a defense of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a group of paramilitary Nazi collaborators founded by Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists that carried out ethnic cleansings of more than 100,000 Jews and Poles. After leaving university, Biletsky quickly embedded with multiple fascist outfits, including the “Stepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization ‘Tryzub’” and the Social-National Party — not to be confused with the National Socialist Party of 1940’s Germany.

    Biletsky left the Social-National Party in protest in 2004 as the group began to rebrand and move away from overt neo-Nazi symbolism. Two years later, he led an organization called Patriots of Ukraine, which has been linked to numerous mob assaults. One Patriot of Ukraine member has claimed the group was behind the seizure and torching of the headquarters of a political party during the US-backed “Maidan” coup in 2014.

    Center: Azov founder Andriy Biletsky.

    According to Ukraine’s Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Patriots of Ukraine “espoused xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideas, and was engaged in violent attacks against migrants, foreign students in Kharkiv and those opposing its views.” What’s more, “Biletsky and some other members were suspected of violent seizures of newspaper kiosks and similar criminal activities.”

    “For three years running, the organization has gained notoriety for its torch processions around student campuses in Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernivtsi which fill foreign students studying in Ukraine with terror,” the human rights group noted in 2008.

    During a Patriots of Ukraine general meeting in 2009, Biletsky raved: “How can we describe our enemy? The authorities and the oligarchs. Do they have anything in common? Yes, they have one thing in common: they are Jews, or behind them are their real masters — Jews.”

    In 2011, Biletsky was arrested for allegedly ordering Patriot of Ukraine members to kill a fellow ultranationalist inside the group’s office following a dispute, and spent the following years in pre-trial detention. Thanks to a resolution passed by the Ukrainian parliament after the Western-backed overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, he would ultimately be released in 2014. But during his three years in custody, Biletsky managed to have a number of his fascist screeds published in a collection titled “The Word of the White Leader.”

    The cover of an introduction essay by an “organizational foreman” on Biletsky’s leadership in “The Word of the White Leader”

    One essay in the collection, dated to 2007, rails against Jews and Black migrants, casually dropping the n- word in the process. “Ukraine is the light of Europe! Our Nation still has enough strength to withstand this influx of foreigners, to cleanse our land and light the fire of purification throughout Europe!” the essay concludes.

    In another essay outlining the ideology of “Social-Nationalism,” Biletsky praised National Socialism as a “great idea,” but criticized the Nazis as having been insufficiently eugenicist in their family welfare programs. He complained they supported parents with multiple children “without considering the biological quality of each individual family.”

    “The result,” he continued, was “a significant increase in the birth rate, [but] a significant decrease in the percentage of the Nordic type in the population.” Because “these social benefits are aimed at the masses, they encouraged the worst human material to give birth to a child in the first place,” the self-proclaimed “White Leader” lamented.

    A subsequent Biletsky manifesto entitled “Language and Race – Primary Issues” expanded on the “social-nationalist” concept: “Ukrainian social-nationalism considers the Ukrainian Nation to be a blood-racial community… Race is everything for nation-building – Race is the basis on which the superstructure grows in the form of national culture, which again comes from the racial nature of the people, and not from language, religion, economy, etc.”

    As for the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine, Biletsky wrote, “The issue of total Ukrainization in the future social nationalist state will be resolved within 3-6 months with the help of a tough and balanced state policy.”

    Zelensky meets with Biletsky in a video posted by the president on August 14, 2023

    Following his release from prison, Biletsky got his chance to carry out a campaign of violence against the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine. As war broke out in the country, with the Russian majority of the east seeking self-determination in the face of a nationalist post-coup government viewed as Western puppets, Biletsky dissolved the Patriot of Ukraine and formed the Azov Battalion to wage a war against the separatists. Around this time, he was also elected to the Ukrainian parliament, remaining in office until 2019.

    The new paramilitary outfit set up shop in Mariupol, using the port city as a staging ground for attacks on the Donbas, and violently crushing forms of feminist and liberal political expression on the city’s streets.

     

    Meanwhile, the National Corps, a political party founded by Biletsky in 2016, has been described as a “nationalist hate group” even by the US State Department. The party has repeatedly incited violence against the Kiev Pride march, in 2018 calling on “all concerned citizens of Ukraine” to prevent the march from being held. In 2019, one National Corps leader had a more direct message: “Stay home, and don’t show up in public. Ever. That will make our life easier and keep you safe ;).”

    In 2019, it seemed almost as though Biletsky’s influence was waning. An electoral coalition he formed with several other prominent neo-Nazis in Ukraine failed to gain enough votes to pass the threshold to gain any seats in parliament. Meanwhile, Vlodomyr Zelensky won the presidential election on a platform of making peace with Russia.

     

    But Biletsky still held on to a trump card as a nationally-recognized strongman. When a Ukrainian news channel announced a two-hour live studio “TV bridge” between Ukrainian and Russian civilians aimed at fostering a stronger mutual understanding, Biletsky seized the moment to issue a thinly-veiled threat against Zelensky if he did not have the event canceled in a day’s time. If Zelensky did not intervene, “the answer to the Kremlin’s ‘little green men’ will begin to be given by ‘little black men,’” Biletsky said, referring to the black garb of fascist elements like Azov.

    Biletsky called on Zelensky to be “The leader of a state at war,” and, “Not a clown, not an artist from oligarchic corporations, but the President.”

    Zelensky responded within the timeframe of the ultimatum by denouncing the dialogue and seemingly offering a jab back at Biletsky, arguing that Ukrainians were being “manipulated by politicians who really want to get into parliament.”

    A few months later, the pair butted heads again after Zelensky ordered Ukrainian troops, including Azov fighters, to withdraw from a frontline town in the Donbas in an apparent effort to honor the terms of the Minsk Accords. Biletsky fired back with threats to dispatch thousands more troops in open defiance of the president’s orders.

    Zelensky’s showdown with fighters refusing his orders culminated with the head of state nearly breaking down on camera and pleading to the militants: “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons.”

    Just a few short years later, in the midst of a hot war with Russia, Ukraine’s Jewish president and Ukraine’s most famous living antisemite seem to have put aside their differences. As Shakespeare put it, “misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”