Russia invades Ukraine. This is the hottest story in the news cycle since that fateful day last week. Of course, Vladimir Putin is the villain while the US and NATO are the good guys. I’ve heard this before. Donald Trump called Putin a genius last week and got crucified on media. It simply doesn’t happen that you side with Putin when more than the majority of the global community of nations have condemned him for his action. The old good versus bad narrative is in play again but this is not the truth.
The historical background of relations between Russia and Ukraine is complicated and goes back centuries to the founding of Rus in Kiev. This is the origin of the Russian Empire under the Tsars. You need to read the whole history of the conflicts between Western and Eastern European states from the 7th century to the present to gain an understanding of the origins of the present conflict and how the US became involved.
The present day conflict began in 2004 with the Orange Revolution and continued with the EuroMaidan protests of 2014 which led to the ouster of Viktor Yakunovych, the pro-Russian President. This led Putin to seize Crimea and support the separatist movements in Donbas and Luhansk which led to the first round of sanctions against Russia.
Dr. Dan Steinbock writes in The Manila Times. Russia’s allegations: NATO expansion, far-right paramilitaries
Neither the demonization of President Vladimir Putin nor the vilification of Russia and its people can nullify some allegations, particularly the role of NATO expansion and that of far-right extremists in the Ukrainian paramilitary.
As declassified files evidence, a series of security assurances were given to Soviet leaders against NATO expansion from all major US, European and NATO leaders. In 2017, these declassified assurances were posted online by the National Security Archive, an independent US nongovernment organization.
More recently, the Orwellian denials of the role of far-right and neo-Nazi paramilitaries entered an ominous phase. Before Christmas, Russia’s UN motion against the “glorification of Nazism” was passed by more than three of four UN member countries. Yet, EU members abstained en masse from the UN resolution. Worse, the Ukraine, Canada and even the US rejected the motion. In Moscow, this was seen as a carte blanche for the Ukrainian far-right against Russia.
During World War 2, the Ukraine’s far-right forces collaborated with Nazi Germany and during the Cold War, with Washington. After the 2014 crisis and increased Western military aid, the groups became increasingly active. Last September, a US watch-group reported a far-right group, Centauria, had made its home in the Ukraine’s major Western military training hub, built ties with the far-right Azov movement and infiltrated the Armed Forces to reshape the Ukraine’s military along white supremacism.
In the past year, repeated warnings by fellow Democrats that these groups sought to radicalize the Ukrainian military were ignored by Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Instead, Western training, financing and arming prevailed for violent regime change in the Ukraine. When Putin gave his TV address, even Facebook decided to allow praise of Ukrainian neo-Nazis as long as they fought Russian invasion.
Lev Golinkin writes in The Nation February 22, 2019. Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.
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.
The DC establishment’s standard defense of Kiev is to point out that Ukraine’s far right has a smaller percentage of seats in the parliament than their counterparts in places like France. That’s a spurious argument: What Ukraine’s far right lacks in polls numbers, it makes up for with things Marine Le Pen could only dream of—paramilitary units and free rein on the streets.
Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the gang’s leader who became Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Biletsky is now a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament.
In the fall of 2014, Azov—which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations—was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard.
While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Times called the battalion “openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.
In January 2018, Azov rolled out its National Druzhina street patrol unit whose members swore personal fealty to Biletsky and pledged to “restore Ukrainian order” to the streets. The Druzhina quickly distinguished itself by carrying out pogroms against the Roma and LGBT organizations and storming a municipal council. Earlier this year, Kiev announced the neo-Nazi unit will be monitoring polls in next month’s presidential election.
In 2017, Congressman Ro Khanna led the effort to ban Azov from receiving U.S. arms and training. But the damage has already been done: The research group Bellingcat proved that Azov had already received access to American grenade launchers, while a Daily Beast investigation showed that US trainers are unable to prevent aid from reaching white supremacists. And Azov itself had proudly posted a video of the unit welcoming NATO representatives.
(Azov isn’t the only far-right formation to get Western affirmation. In December 2014, Amnesty International accused the Dnipro-1 battalion of potential war crimes, including “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Six months later, Senator John McCain visited and praised the battalion.)
Particularly concerning is Azov’s campaign to transform Ukraine into a hub for transnational white supremacy. The unit has recruited neo-Nazis from Germany, the UK, Brazil, Sweden, and America; last October, the FBI arrested four California white supremacists who had allegedly received training from Azov. This is a classic example of blowback: US support of radicals abroad ricocheting to hit America.
STATE-SPONSORED GLORIFICATION OF NAZI COLLABORATORS
“Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions…in the middle of a major Ukrainian city”—Anti-Defamation League Director of European Affairs, April 28, 2018
It’s not just the military and street gangs: Ukraine’s far right has successfully hijacked the post-Maidan government to impose an intolerant and ultranationalist culture over the land.
In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation making two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of Ukraine, and made it a criminal offense to deny their heroism. The OUN had collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the Holocaust, while the UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and 70,000-100,000 Poles on their own volition.
The government-funded Ukrainian Institute of National Memory is institutionalizing the whitewashing of Nazi collaborators. Last summer, the Ukrainian parliament featured an exhibit commemorating the OUN’s 1941 proclamation of cooperation with the Third Reich (imagine the French government installing an exhibit celebrating the Vichy state!).
Torchlight marches in honor of OUN/UPA leaders like Roman Shukhevych (a commander in a Third Reich auxiliary battalion) are a regular feature of the new Ukraine. The recuperation even extends to SS Galichina, a Ukrainian division of the Waffen-SS; the director of the Institute of National Memory proclaimed that the SS fighters were “war victims.” The government’s embrace of Bandera is not only deplorable, but also extremely divisive, considering the OUN/UPA are reviled in eastern Ukraine.
Predictably, the celebration of Nazi collaborators has accompanied a rise in outright anti-Semitism.
“Jews Out!” chanted thousands during a January 2017 march honoring OUN leader Bandera. (The next day the police denied hearing anything anti-Semitic.) That summer, a three-day festival celebrating the Nazi collaborator Shukhevych capped off with the firebombing of a synagogue. In November 2017, RFE reported Nazi salutes as 20,000 marched in honor of the UPA. And last April, hundreds marched in L’viv with coordinated Nazi salutes honoring SS Galicia; the march was promoted by the L’viv regional government.
The Holocaust revisionism is a multi-pronged effort, ranging from government-funded seminars, brochures, and board games, to the proliferation of plaques, statues, and streets renamed after butchers of Jews, to far-right children camps, where youth are inculcated with ultranationalist ideology.
Within several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes.
The broader context is explained in detail by Professor John Mearsheimer even before the invasion.
Bottomline the US and NATO have been partners in keeping the peace in Europe. This is what they want the global audience to believe in. But in reality, each great power or superpower, will always have security concerns and prioritize protecting its interests. What is happening in Ukraine is the same as what is playing out in the South China Sea between the US and China. This is separate from the issue of Taiwan, although the latter is also a claimant of territory in the disputed waters.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is no different than what is taking place in Ukraine now. But you need to ask yourself the question, why is it when the US acts in its interests and invades another country, there is no uproar? The Arab Spring created failed states in Yemen and Libya. It created a crisis in Egypt and a larger humanitarian crisis in Syria. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan gave rise to ISIS.
Like it or not, Putin restored order in Russia after Yeltsin’s fall. Germany’s defeat in World War I and the onerous terms of peace in the Treaty of Versailles laid the premise for World War II which began in Europe and spread to Asia with the rise of Japan and its expansionist ambitions to be the dominant country in the Asia-Pacific region at that time.
While the world is cheering on the US, NATO and Zelensky, there is the greater danger to be thought about Putin’s fall, which is clearly what the US wants. Putin’s fall could force China to act to show the US it will not tolerate any efforts at destabilizing their power structure.
While the US and the UK have the advantage of financial hegemony, the fragility of the global economy which is still reeling from the disruption caused by the pandemic may just force the hands of other countries which stand to suffer as the conflict persists.
The events are being played out as this this being written. In the Philippines, we have to be on guard against US interferference in the May election as Biden has made the commitment to continue with Obama’s pivot to Asia strategy which was suspended during the four years of the Trump administration.
Duterte has been lumped together with Putin and Brazil’s Bolsonaro as the world’s strongmen. The opposition is already jumping into this narrative comparing Putin with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as the symbol of the impending dictatorship which is far from the truth considering that neither Duterte or Marcos, have shown such inclination.
But make no mistake about it, the Philippines is a crucial piece in the US’ Asia chessboard because of its geographical location which is right smack in the middle of Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the South China Sea.
We cannot allow the US to interfere in our election and install a President who will be their puppet and kowtow to their every want. This has happened before. We should remain vigilant. Our foreign policy should be for the Filipino and not for any foreign power as it was from 1946 up to 2016.
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