By Robert Parry
In
a curiously upbeat account, The New York Times reports that Islamic
militants have joined with Ukraine’s far-right and neo-Nazi battalions
to fight ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. It appears that no
combination of violent extremists is too wretched to celebrate as long
as they’re killing Russ-kies.
The
article
by Andrew E. Kramer reports that there are now three Islamic battalions
“deployed to the hottest zones,” such as around the port city of
Mariupol. One of the battalions is headed by a former Chechen warlord
who goes by the name “Muslim,” Kramer wrote, adding:
“The Chechen
commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen
resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a
Ukrainian militia. … Right Sector … formed during last year’s street
protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups
like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera.
“Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the ‘Wolf’s Hook’
symbol associated with the [Nazi] SS. Without addressing the issue of
the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the
nationalists because, like him, they loved their homeland and hated the
Russians.”
As casually as Kramer acknowledges the key front-line
role of neo-Nazis and white supremacists fighting for the U.S.-backed
Kiev regime, his article does mark an aberration for the Times and the
rest of the mainstream U.S. news media, which usually dismiss any
mention of this Nazi taint as “Russian propaganda.”
During the
February 2014 coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the
late fascist Stepan Bandera was one of the Ukrainian icons celebrated by
the Maidan protesters. During World War II, Bandera headed the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B, a radical paramilitary
movement that sought to transform Ukraine into a racially pure state. At
times coordinating with Adolf Hitler’s SS, OUN-B took part in the
expulsion and extermination of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.
Though
most of the Maidan protesters in 2013-14 appeared motivated by anger
over political corruption and by a desire to join the European
Union, neo-Nazis made up a significant number and spearheaded much of
the violence against the police. Storm troopers from the Right Sektor
and Svoboda party seized government buildings and decked them out with
Nazi insignias and
a Confederate battle flag, the universal symbol of white supremacy.
Then,
as the protests turned bloodier from Feb. 20-22, the neo-Nazis surged
to the forefront. Their well-trained militias, organized in 100-man
brigades called “sotins” or “the hundreds,” led the final assaults
against police and forced Yanukovych and many of his officials to flee
for their lives.
In the days after the coup, as the neo-Nazi
militias effectively controlled the government, European and U.S.
diplomats scrambled to help the shaken parliament put together the
semblance of a respectable regime, although
four ministries,
including national security, were awarded to the right-wing extremists
in recognition of their crucial role in ousting Yanukovych.
At
that point, virtually the entire U.S. news media put on blinders about
the neo-Nazi role, all the better to sell the coup to the American
public as an inspirational story of reform-minded “freedom fighters”
standing up to “Russian aggression.” The U.S. media delicately stepped
around the neo-Nazi reality by keeping out relevant context, such as the
background of national security chief Andriy Parubiy, who founded the
Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, blending radical Ukrainian
nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy was commandant of the
Maidan’s “self-defense forces.”
Barbarians at the Gate
At
times, the mainstream media’s black-out of the brown shirts was almost
comical. Last February, almost a year after the coup, a New York Times
article
about the government’s defenders of Mariupol hailed the crucial role
played by the Azov battalion but managed to avoid noting its
well-documented Nazi connections.
That article by Rick Lyman
presented the situation in Mariupol as if the advance by ethnic Russian
rebels amounted to the barbarians at the gate while the inhabitants were
being bravely defended by the forces of civilization, the Azov
battalion. In such an inspirational context, it presumably wasn’t
considered appropriate to mention the Swastikas and SS markings.
Now,
the Kiev regime has added to those “forces of civilization” — resisting
the Russ-kie barbarians — Islamic militants with ties to terrorism.
Last September, Marcin Mamon, a reporter for the Intercept,
reached
a vanguard group of these Islamic fighters in Ukraine through the help
of his “contact in Turkey with the Islamic State [who] had told me his
‘brothers’ were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.”
The new Times
article avoids delving into the terrorist connections of these Islamist
fighters. But Kramer does bluntly acknowledge the Nazi truth about the
Azov fighters. He also notes that American military advisers in Ukraine
“are specifically prohibited from giving instruction to members of the
Azov group.”
While the U.S. advisers are under orders to keep
their distance from the neo-Nazis, the Kiev regime is quite open about
its approval of the central military role played by these extremists –
whether neo-Nazis, white supremacists or Islamic militants. These
extremists are considered very aggressive and effective in killing
ethnic Russians.
The regime has shown little concern
about widespread reports of “death squad” operations targeting suspected
pro-Russian sympathizers in government-controlled towns. But such human
rights violations should come as no surprise given the Nazi heritage of
these units and the connection of the Islamic militants to
hyper-violent terrorist movements in the Middle East.
But the
Times treats this lethal mixture of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists as a
good thing. After all, they are targeting opponents of the
“white-hatted” Kiev regime, while the ethnic Russian rebels and the
Russian government wear the “black hats.”
As an example of that
tone, Kramer wrote:
“Even for Ukrainians hardened by more than a year of
war here against Russian-backed separatists, the appearance of Islamic
combatants, mostly Chechens, in towns near the front lines comes as
something of a surprise — and for many of the Ukrainians, a welcome one.
… Anticipating an attack in the coming months, the Ukrainians are happy
for all the help they can get.”
So, the underlying message seems
to be that it’s time for the American people and the European public to
step up their financial and military support for a Ukrainian regime that
has unleashed on ethnic Russians a combined force of Nazis, white
supremacists and Islamic militants (considered “brothers” of the Islamic
State).
[For more on the Azov battalion, see Consortiumnews.com’s “
US House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine.”]
~ Investigative
reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
