Unholy Alliance: America's Tacit Support For Ukrainian Extremists

Members of the far-right Azov Battalion

HonorSociety.org just published my latest article today. In this one, I address America's support for the new Ukrainian government, which is not only soft on neo-Nazis and other assorted extremists but in fact employs their services as well as it carries out it's "anti-terrorist operation" in that nation's eastern region. It's funny because I was aware of this development for some time, but the insanity of it fully dawned on me only when I sat down and wrote this piece. I must confess, I hope you feel that way as you're reading it, because it really is shocking. The original article can be accessed here, or read in it's entirety below.

                                                         Unholy Alliance: America's Tacit Support For Ukrainian Extremists

Last December, an issue of Elle magazine featuring an article about young Ukrainian Vita Zaverukha hit the newstands. At just 19 years old, Zaverukha has taken up arms and joined one of the many ragtag militias fighting alongside the Ukrainian military against Russian-speaking rebels in the nation's eastern region. Although there are thousands fighting (to say nothing of dying) in that conflict, Zaverukha's youth and, yes, her gender apparently made her heads and shoulders above other Ukrainians in the eyes of Elle, which adoringly lauded her as "brave". The magazine even went as far as to equate her with Joan of Arc, albeit one who traded in her sword and mail armor for an RPG and army fatigues. Perhaps to Westerners like us, safely watching the violence (if we're even watching it at all) from miles and miles away, a 19-year old girl might take up arms to defend her country against separatists is a novelty warranting media coverage, and to that extent, we can't really hold it against Elle. But as it turns out, Elle missed one very significant, one very unfortunate fact when they were writing their puff piece about Vita Zaverukha: she is a neo-Nazi.

Unsurprisingly, upon learning of Zaverukha's penchant for "Nazism, terror, [and] genocide" and posting Facebook pictures of herself with her arm raised in the infamous Roman salute, Elle's editorial board issued a statement condemning racism and extremism - six months after the article was published and without specifically mentioning her. A very embarrassing oversight on the part of Elle for sure, but nobody was actually hurt, right? The problem, though, is that the people eulogizing or otherwise supporting Ukrainian militants are hardly relegated to the Parisian fashion scene and away from the levers of power. On the contrary, Congress, in the form of the House Rules Committee, voted down an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act last year barring neo-Nazis and other extremists in Ukraine from receiving U.S. weapons, supplies, and training. That anyone in their right mind would oppose a measure like this is mind-boggling enough, but what makes it all the more baffling is that the Committee was pressured to reject it by, among others, the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. When confronted about the blatant absurdity of an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred lobbying for the defeat of a measure to keep American weapons and tactical know-how out of the hands of avowed fascists, an ADL representative effectively shrugged his arms and said "the focus should be on Russia," without bothering to explain just why the focus should be on that country or for that matter how pushing American policy in a hostile direction towards a particular country combats intolerance. Perhaps if this statement were made by the John Birch Society it wouldn't be unexpected, but the fact that it was made by a representative of a centre-left, anti-racist group reveals the lengths to which many Americans are willing to go to zero in on Moscow's alleged perfidy while minimizing the disturbing ideology and flagrant abuses of those fighting for Kiev.

Indeed, any mention of the far-right leanings of a significant minority of the figures fighting for or tied to the new Ukrainian government has been dismissed as Russian propaganda for the past year, with those pointing it smeared as "Kremlin trolls" or "Putinbots". Nowadays, however, even the most hawkish pundits and commentators are forced to acknowledge the nature of the regime they went to bat for, with the imminently-interventionist Daily Beast grudgingly admitting, "In some ways the incessant, noxious, and once seemingly absurd Russian propaganda has become a self-fulfilling prophecy: The U.S. government is knowingly training and arming neo-Nazi Ukrainian ultranationalist paramilitary members in broad daylight in an unstable country with an unclear future. Nineteen million dollars is going into this. We are all paying for it, there is no denying this one." Astonishingly, even as The Daily Beast concedes there was truth to the "Russian propaganda", it refuses to recognize the perceptiveness of those who tried to shine a light on said truth, referring to them as "incessant" and "noxious". Even when they're right, they're wrong, The Daily Beast seems to be saying, undoubtedly in an attempt to downplay their lack of foresight. In all fairness, you probably would be doing the same if you didn't see how a government that proudly displayed a portrait of a one-time Nazi collaborator outside it's headquarters could attract legions of white supremacists to it's ranks.

Some might counter that while a number of the militants fighting against the Russian rebels are fascists, they are only a minority and thus not worth taking into account when considering the question of whether to support the post-Yanukovych Ukrainian government. This argument, however, ignores the degree to which said government is involved with these neo-Nazis. "We work with all defense systems of the government," brags Sergeant Ivan Kharkiv of the Azov Battalion, a militia whose symbol, despite constant denials on their part, unmistakably resembles a swastika and whose founder is an adherent of a political ideology he calls "social nationalism", a pathetic attempt at obfuscation via word play that should fool readers about as much as Monty Python's "Mr. Hilter" did. Furthermore, the government is not simply cooperating with national socialists, but it is effectively whitewashing any past crimes committed by them as well, as evidenced by two laws signed by President Petro Poroshenko that respectively criminalize speaking positively in any way about the nation's Soviet era and honor the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a nationalist group that fought alongside the Nazis against the Red Army and massacred thousands of people belonging to ethnic minority groups such as Poles. In short, praising or even mildly applauding the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II is a punishable offense in the new Ukraine, while known Nazi collaborators and racists are celebrated as national heroes. 

Of course, this is all just rhetoric so far, and at the end of the day, all these shocking statements and stances could just be hot air meant to rile up supporters, and if their actions don't match their appalling words, what's the big deal? This is a fair point: actions do speak louder than words, and what the Ukrainian government and it's extremist underlings' actions are saying is not very pretty. The New York Times reported last October that there is considerable evidence that the Ukrainian Army is not only indiscriminately shelling rebel-held cities such as Donetsk, but that it is also using cluster munitions, a type of weapon outlawed by most nations. Given the weapon's ability to release smaller "bomblets" that cause even more destruction and death, the Ukrainian military is putting the lives of thousands of civilians at risk, and judging by it's continued use of these munitions it couldn't care less. But the government's willingness to wage war on it's own people is not confined to shelling: it has also launched air strike after air strike in pursuit of the rebels, killing untold numbers of civilians and earning nothing more from President Obama than praise for "an incredible outpouring of democracy" and the government's demonstrably-empty promise to "reject violence". Nor is the conduct of the various nationalist battalions mobilizing on behalf of Poroshenko's government what one would call becoming. In it's report on the government-aligned Aidar Battalion, Amnesty International opens up with a quote from one of the battalion's commanders. "It's not Europe, it's a bit different... there is a war here. The law has changed, procedures have been simplified... If I choose to, I can have you arrested right now, put a bag over your head and lock you up in a cellar for 30 days on suspicion of aiding separatists," the commander chillingly revealed. The report continues to reveal a series of war crimes committed by the battalion, which Amnesty describes as having a reputation amongst civilians for "brutal reprisals, robbery, beatings, and extortion". Amnesty concluded by urging the government to rein in Aidar and investigate the abuses it documented. To this day, the only action Kiev has taken against the battalion is dropping prosecutorial immunity for two MPs connected to the battalion, whilst Aidar at large continues to run rampant.

With all this in mind, is it any wonder that young, able-bodied Ukrainians are refusing to enlist in the army despite Poroshenko's attempts to conscript soldiers for his "anti-terrorist operation" and fleeing en masse to Russia, the supposed existential threat to all that is Ukrainian? If the threat were as real and the government as popular as many claim it is, Kiev would have no problem rallying fighters against the rebels. Instead, the government is forced to rely on neo-Nazi militias that preach hate and commit war crimes because they are the only ones who believe this is a cause and a government worth fighting for. Even more astonishingly, our government believes this regime deserves support, not just rhetorically but materially as well. This is why American paratroopers are training Ukrainian soldiers in counterinsurgency tactics and why both houses of Congress have pushed for arming Ukraine with lethal weapons (because cluster bombs apparently aren't enough). I am fully aware that politics is a often-difficult topic for many to wrap their heads around. I am also fully aware that this difficulty is magnified a thousand times when the political topic in question is foreign affairs. That being said, I think a good rule of thumb that even somebody who failed high school civics could not only understand but quite eloquently uphold as well is "don't give neo-Nazis or people allied with them grenade launchers". Unfortunately, it seems like the only people who don't get this rule run our government.