Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
www.thenation.com
Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant.

Here’s how Ukraine was being reported by the West before the war.

Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.

These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.

Five years after Maidan, the beacon of democracy is looking more like a torchlight march. A neo-Nazi battalion in the heart of Europe

If you whitewash NAZI POGROMS just because you want to beat Russia, fuck you. Siding with far-right fascists to defeat far-right fascists doesn’t make you the good guy. There is no lesser of two evils here.

If you dismiss any criticism of Ukraine as Russian propaganda, you might want to ask why the rest of the world, including the West, was concerned about Nazism in the area and then suddenly changed their tune only after the war started.

We should be getting both sides into peace negotiations, not prolonging the bloodshed and providing Nazis with illegal cluster bombs

            • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              72·
              1 year ago

              The funny thing about Zelensky is not only is he Jewish, but he is a Russian speaking Jewish man. The parts of Ukraine that overwhelmingly voted for him were not the nazi hotbeds in Lviv but the Russian separatist regions of Donbass and Luhansk. Turns out support for Zelensky was strongest in the regions that wanted to leave in the first place? Why is this? Because Zelensky ran on a peace platform, and presented himself as in favor of Minsk II, against escalation with Russia, and not as much of a rabid reactionary as the (US-backed, nazi-glorifying) Petro Poroshenko, who was put in power through a transparent US-backed right-wing coup during Euromaidan in 2014.

              The people in the Donbass and Luhansk regions mostly speak Russian. They were part of Russia historically, but Lenin, Stalin, and Khruschev all granted more land to the Ukrainian SSR in an attempt to keep them happy and better integrate the agriculture with the industry.

              This is why there was strong Russian identity in those regions, and strong separatist tendencies. The west half of Ukraine meanwhile, especially near Lviv, is the home of the most far right parts of Ukrainian society, who want to be part of NATO, who glorify nazi collaborators like Bandera, who join fascist street gangs like C14 and ethnically cleanse Roma people living in tents.

              Zelensky presented himself as wanting to prevent the Ukrainian civil war (going on since 2014) from escalating into a full scale war with Russia, but after he got in office, he made few efforts to actually do this, and rather turned out to be a quite willing collaborator with the United States, and was willing to turn a blind eye to the reactionaries despite himself being a Russian-speaking Jewish man. He made a big show at the beginning of the presidency of filming himself “confronting” Azov battalion and telling them to put down their weapons. But guess what? He had no mechanism of enforcement. They didn’t take him seriously, and made clear their intention to violate any and all attempts to de-escalate. Zelensky, being a man who is Jewish and speaks Russia, is actually the perfect mascot this shit, because his surface appearance covers up the underlying reality. of the Banderite situation in Ukraine.

                • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  41·
                  1 year ago

                  What has that got to do with this argument?

                  You said that it’s not possible for a country to have Nazi elements if it had a Jewish president. I pointed out that this is an illogical statement, as the USA still had plenty of anti black racism, even at the institutional level, while having a black president. So it’s definitely possible for a country to have Nazi elements and a Jewish president, just as it is possible for a country to have a black president and anti black racist elements in it’s social fabric.

                  There is likely lots of racism in modern day Russia, but I don’t see what that has to do with your argument.

            • Bnova [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              40·
              1 year ago

              You wouldn’t know a Nazis if they were goose stepping right in front of you. Nazis obviously do not care for Jewish people but their real enemy is and has always been the left. Otto Skorzeni litterally worked on behalf of the Israeli government. Walther Rauff, the inventor of “gas vans” also worked for Israel. About a dozen Nazis war criminals worked for Israel, and both the Nazis and the Israeli government knew this. Contemporary Nazis fucking love Israel because they’ve created a white ethnostate and admire their ability to have done so.

              So to answer your question can Ukraine have a Nazi problem with a Jewish head of state? Absolutely, Nazis have no problem working with Jewish people when it serves their interests and it has served their interest to work with Zelensky because people such as yourself who are incapable of seeing through this thin veil guzzle the propaganda willingly and supported giving them a fuck ton of weapons to carry out pogroms on Roma and Russians.

            • DivineChaos100 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              28·
              1 year ago

              Good to know everything a fascist movement needs to gain the unconditional support of unwitting liberals is to put a token jewish person on top. They could literally march all the others to the camps you would be cheering them saying “well the president is jewish so they cant be fascist.”

            • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Ever hear of Emil Maurice, friend and bodyguard to Hitler, Founding member of the SS, Jewish, Honorary Aryan by decree?

              Jewish people can, have, and do support nazis. Its actually racist to think that because of their heritage they are incapable of doing such. Its as bad as saying “African Americans love fried chicken.”

        • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          72·
          1 year ago

          are you deliberately or only accidentally unable to distinguish between being a “Z apologist” and simply recognizing that the United Snakes created the current geopolitical situation by pitting former Soviet countries against each other and pouring money into the most reactionary ghouls in both Russia and Ukraine?

          don’t actually live in Russia?

          very-intelligent

          I’m not Russian, but you know people besides Americans use the internet right?

        • ElChapoDeChapo [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          72·
          1 year ago

          The letter Z isn’t the new swastika, the swastika is still the swastika and the people who wear the swastika are still the nazis

          You are the only nazi supporter here you bootlicking fascist scum

          The only analogy libs can even make between modern Russia and the nazis is invading another country, as if that was the worst thing the nazis ever did

          Funny how the entire premise of your side relies on minimizing and whitewashing the horrors of the Holocaust

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              24·
              1 year ago

              Why do people keep doing this? Why this deflection against admitting that there are many Nazis in the UA military establishment? Is it that important for you that UA be as pure and white as driven snow?

            • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              13·
              1 year ago

              https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/19/zrjy-j19.html

              UN report confirms Ukrainians’ use of civilians as “human shields”

              In March, the Ukrainian government blamed Russian forces for the deaths of more than 50 elderly and disabled residents of a care home in the village of Stara Krasnyanka in the eastern province of Lugansk. According to Ukrainian officials, a fire broke out in the facility following a supposedly unprovoked attack on the innocents by Russian forces.

              In reality—in a case the report found to be “emblematic” of the war—on March 7, days before the attack, Ukrainian forces had taken up positions within the care home “as it had strategic value due to its proximity to an important road.” Previous requests by the facility to local Ukrainian authorities to evacuate residents were denied due to the fact that Kiev had mined the surrounding area and blocked roads, thereby preventing anyone from fleeing.

              Do you see what’s happening? These fucking nazi fucks who have absolutely zero respect for human life are manipulating you with lies about atrocities by deliberately putting their own citizens in the crossfire of a war. This is the kind of shit nazis do. And your own institutions are the ones calling them out for it, not just the other side. And you just don’t hear it.