Josh Cohen, a former USAID project officer, who managed economic reform programs in Russia, wrote about Ukraine’s Nazi problem for the Atlantic Council in 2018 [h/t Saker.is]:

Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women’s Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they evenarrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators.

International human rights groups have sounded the alarm. After the March 8 attacks, Amnesty International warned that “Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions.”….

….To be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in Ukraine’s polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of “red herring.” It’s not extremists’ electoral prospects that should concern Ukraine’s friends, but rather the state’s unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity. ……..

……Luckily, the authorities still have time to nip things in the bud if they act now. President Petro Poroshenko could start by enacting a “zero-tolerance” policy on unsanctioned vigilantism and direct authorities to cleanse law enforcement agencies of far-right sympathizers such as Sergei Korotkykh, who heads the National Police’s head of security for sites of strategic importance.

Government agencies at all levels should also stop cooperating with far-right groups. In addition to the Youth Ministry’s problematic funding, C14 and a Kyiv city district recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a “municipal guard” to patrol the streets; three such militia-run guard forces are already registered in Kyiv, and twenty-one operate in other cities as well. And C14’s dangerous leader Yevhen Karas even boasts openly about cooperating with the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU). All this needs to end and state officials found to be cooperating with extremists must be removed.”

To be clear, Cohen’s article is written from the point of view of a Euromaidan supporter, who fears the neo-Nazi issue will be used pretextually by Russia to claim that Ukraine is a fascist state, for its own purposes. But that fact only lends more weight to Cohen’s observations.