NoBC4U Note: Are my eyes deceiving me? A major British newspaper finally notices that there are Nazis in Ukraine? Better late than never, I guess...
Pro-Russian supporters use the term “fascist junta” to criticise the Ukrainian government. This wording is not only obviously wrong from an understanding of the words “fascism” and “junta”, but has also been detrimental to peace in Ukraine by fuelling the civil war. If your country is governed by a fascist junta, any progressive person should take arms and fight it.
But despite the hypocritical instrumentalisation of the Russian propaganda, the Ukrainian authorities and mainstream opinion in Ukraine continue to show unacceptable ignorance of the danger from the far right and even openly neo-Nazi forces, cooperating with them in elections and allowing them to take positions within law enforcement.
Moreover, some of the new MPs are not just far right but actual neo-Nazis. Take Andriy Biletsky, elected in a single-member district in Kiev with support from the People’s Front party led by Arseniy Yatseniuk. Biletsky was the head of an openly racist Patriot of Ukraine group which was involved in hate crimes against minorities, and later formed the core of the infamous Azov volunteer battalion, which uses neo-Nazi symbolism. He was celebrated as commander of the Azov battalion and assigned to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the police.
Biletsky is not the only neo-Nazi recently appointed to law enforcement bodies. In October, Vadym Troyan, another Patriot of Ukraine member and deputy commander of the Azov battalion, was appointed as the head of the police in Kiev Oblast province. A Kharkov human rights group called it a “disastrous appointment”. At the same time, another infamous extreme right politician from the Svoboda party Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, who once promoted Joseph Goebbels’ A Little ABC of National Socialism and the 25-point NSDAP Program, will head up propaganda and analysis in the Security Service of Ukraine. Allowing people with such extreme views control over positions with significant enforcement resources is an obvious danger to democracy.
Complete story at - Ukraine has ignored the far right for too long – it must wake up to the danger | Volodymyr Ishchenko | Comment is free | theguardian.com
Pro-Russian supporters use the term “fascist junta” to criticise the Ukrainian government. This wording is not only obviously wrong from an understanding of the words “fascism” and “junta”, but has also been detrimental to peace in Ukraine by fuelling the civil war. If your country is governed by a fascist junta, any progressive person should take arms and fight it.
But despite the hypocritical instrumentalisation of the Russian propaganda, the Ukrainian authorities and mainstream opinion in Ukraine continue to show unacceptable ignorance of the danger from the far right and even openly neo-Nazi forces, cooperating with them in elections and allowing them to take positions within law enforcement.
Moreover, some of the new MPs are not just far right but actual neo-Nazis. Take Andriy Biletsky, elected in a single-member district in Kiev with support from the People’s Front party led by Arseniy Yatseniuk. Biletsky was the head of an openly racist Patriot of Ukraine group which was involved in hate crimes against minorities, and later formed the core of the infamous Azov volunteer battalion, which uses neo-Nazi symbolism. He was celebrated as commander of the Azov battalion and assigned to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the police.
Biletsky is not the only neo-Nazi recently appointed to law enforcement bodies. In October, Vadym Troyan, another Patriot of Ukraine member and deputy commander of the Azov battalion, was appointed as the head of the police in Kiev Oblast province. A Kharkov human rights group called it a “disastrous appointment”. At the same time, another infamous extreme right politician from the Svoboda party Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn, who once promoted Joseph Goebbels’ A Little ABC of National Socialism and the 25-point NSDAP Program, will head up propaganda and analysis in the Security Service of Ukraine. Allowing people with such extreme views control over positions with significant enforcement resources is an obvious danger to democracy.
Complete story at - Ukraine has ignored the far right for too long – it must wake up to the danger | Volodymyr Ishchenko | Comment is free | theguardian.com
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