Tag Archives: neo-Nazis

USAID Officer Confirmed Ukraine’s Nazi Problem 4 Years Ago

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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.

The NY Times’ Propaganda Campaign over Ukraine

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Walter Uhler, an independent scholar, has written an exhaustive analysis of the New York Times’ mendacity in its Ukraine coverage.

Here is a short excerpt from Part II:

In contrast to the incompetent or dishonest on-the-spot reporting by the Times, the “White Book,” gathered evidence months after the events and found that “among the participants of the Euromaidan” were “large and permanent groups of militants, numbering several thousand people, who organized the attacks…”

These groups had “military and official body armor…helmets, shields, knee and elbow pads, masks, respirators, [and] gas masks.” They had fire arms and cold arms, radio communication equipment and stun grenades. They dismantled stones, to be thrown at police, from bridges and pavements. And they manufactured Molotov cocktails and other explosive devices. (White Book, p. 37)

Unfortunately, the “White Book” fails to specify precisely when such weapons were used. I suspect that the most deadly weapons were not introduced until mid-January 2014.

These groups were “constantly present,” unlike most of the protesters, and were most active in initiating violence. According to the “White Book,” on December 1 some “protesters” attempted “to break through the Interior Ministry troops and police officer cordon on Bankovaya street in Kiev,” in order to assault the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. (Imagine an attempt to assault our White House.)

In addition, “supporters of Pravyi Sektor entrenched themselves on the fifth floor of the House of Trade Unions. Party activists in AUU Svoboda actually took control of the Kiev City State Administration building.” (p. 9-10)

The see-no-evil Times did not even mention Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor) until 1 February 2014 and paid no serious attention to the group until 16 February. Imagine that! The Times was self-righteously pontificating about events at Maidan – from late November to mid-February — without having a clue about Right Sector violence. In fact, the incompetent or dishonest Times would not take the threat posed by Right Sector seriously, until it began to menace the very provisional government (the coup regime) that it had just brought to power.

As early as 3 December 2013, John Allen Gay (writing in The National Interest) complained that “Western coverage of the protests has ignored or downplayed the role of the crypto-fascist All-Ukrainian Union party, ‘Svoboda.’” “Svoboda’s leaders have associated themselves with the protest’s most radical action, the occupation and barricading of the Kyiv City Hall.” On December 8, a group of extremists, led by Svoboda, demolished the Lenin statue on Shevchenko Boulevard.

Yet, it wasn’t until 16 December 2013, when the Times finally got around to Svoboda. In an article titled “Unease as an Opposition Party Stands Out in Ukraine’s Protest,” Andrew E. Kramer noted that Svoboda “traces its roots to the Ukrainian partisan army of World War II, which was loosely allied with Nazi Germany.” Until 2004 it was known as the Social-Nationalist Party – a word flip away from the National socialism of the Nazis — and that same year its leader, Oleg Tyagnibok, was expelled by the Ukrainian Parliament, due to his speech that extolled “World War II-era partisans bravely fighting Germans, Russians, Jews and ‘other scum.’”

Mr. Kramer noted that “unabashed neo-Nazis still populate its ranks” and that its black and red banner, which was viewed to be a racist symbol and thus banned at soccer matches by FIFA, is ubiquitous at Independence Square.

Having been bussed into Kiev for weeks, “the activists make up much of the street muscle on the square.” “As the protests have unfolded, the party’s role has grown.”

Although Svoboda took full control of City Hall in mid-December, Mr. Kramer reported that “Western diplomats say they respect Mr. Tyagnibok for keeping control of the unruly nationalist wing on the streets.” Indeed, minimizing the role played by right-wing violence fit neatly with the theme that a popular (and thus legitimate) revolution was occurring at Maidan, not an ugly coup spearheaded by nasty people. The theme of popular revolution allowed Western writers, pundits and politicians to overlook who, precisely, was throwing those Molotov cocktails at police and buildings.

But, if incompetence or dishonesty explains why the Times failed to highlight these particular “bad guys,” what explains the similarly egregious failure by Russia’s reporters? Let’s be clear: What the “White Book” reported after the fact was not what the Russian press was reporting on the spot.

The Russian press took its cue from President Putin. For example, on December 4, Russia Direct quoted Mr. Putin’s assertion that “the anti-government protests in Ukraine were organized and planned by the West as an attempt to overthrow the country’s legitimate government.”

Read the rest of Part II here:

“The New York Times Disinformation Campaign over Ukraine: Part II: The Propaganda War over Ukraine

(Dissident Voice, June 12, 2o14)

Read Part I here:

The Propaganda War Over Ukraine:  The New York Times versus Russia’s White Book: Part One

(Dissident Voice, May 9, 2014)

FEMEN: The empire’s booby-trap

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Update 2 (June 9, 2014):

OK. I just found the first documented direct link to Soros and the Open Society:

The Australian academic who directed the film about FEMEN in 2013, Sophie Pinkham, works for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Update 1:

I began this post simply to comment on Femen’s attacks on churches in recent months.

Then I found that, although CIA-backing of Femen is assumed by many bloggers, the links I came across didn’t show exactly how Soros or the CIA was tied into the outfit.

I will be updating the post with that information, as I find it.

ORIGINAL POST

The Times of Israel’s blog has a convincing criticism of one of the most visible Weapons of Mass Distraction – the annoyingly uncivilized radical “feminist” group, FEMEN, which allies itself with neo-Nazis in the Ukraine, openly spews (real) bigotry toward Muslims and Christians  and engages in breast-baring pranks, ostensibly in the service of suffering womanhood but actually in the service of the Anglo-Zionist empire.

“In support of  [Amina] Tyler, the Kiev-based feminist group FEMEN declared April 4th the International Topless Jihad Day, which consisted in white young women protesting topless against Islamist regimes at the entrance of mosques and Tunisian embassies around the globe. Because Muslim women do not have a voice of their own. They are all mute. Because Muslim women are inherently oppressed. Aha. And because the only way to liberate them all is by enforcing Western ideals upon their communities. Of course.…….

Another brilliant idea of FEMEN activists was to burn a Salafist flag in front of the Grande Mosquée de Paris. Three topless FEMEN activists started frolicking around the burning flag offending nearby worshippers. As if Parisian Muslims were responsible for the state of women rights in Islamic regimes. As if ALL Muslims were Salafists. FEMEN, congratulations for your amazing work towards perpetuating the stereotype of the Muslim community as monolithic rather than diverse. Hurrah………

In contrast to Tylor and her fellow FEMEN colleagues, who employ nudity as a tool of protest, talented Egyptian cartoonist Doaa Eladl employed her intellect to highlight issues such as underage marriage and sexual attacks against female demonstrators during the revolution. In late December, she was accused of blasphemy following the publication of one of her pieces in the Al-Masry Al-Youm. Unfortunately, her case did not receive as much attention as Tyler’s physical assets. Clearly, the media is not into pencils and brains as it is into nipples.“

Lila:

The world gives any woman plenty of choices.

But the dialectic promoted in the Western media – a propaganda tool of  centralizing money-power – herds these innumerable real choices of real women into two or three pre-determined avenues that  let those powers reap economic and political rewards in the swiftest possible way.

As for taking away attention from real activists, that is the point of such plastic activism, whether it is from the ubiquitous Julian Assange or from Edward Snowden or anyone else.

The point is to keep even politically discerning people fixated on mouth-pieces set up by the Central Controllers, so that real resistance is rendered impotent.

Notice that FEMEN’s lewd attacks and sacrilege are directed against mosques and mullahs and also against Catholic bishops and cathedrals:

Life-site News.com reports that in April 2014, Femen activists attacked the Archbishop of Madrid, chanting that “abortion is sacred.”

Notice that this attack roughly corresponds to Easter season, the time of resurrection, rebirth, and fertility.

According to another report, “Top-less activists attack Brussels archbishop again,” it was again at Easter, in April 2013, that the Catholic Archbishop of the Brussels Cathedral, a staunch traditionalist on abortion and homosexuality, was attacked by half-naked “activists,” cursing him and dousing him with water from bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary.

The Femen “sextremists” mocked Christianity, altering “agnus dei” (Lamb of God or Jesus Christ) into “anus dei” (anus god), both denigrating Jesus Christ and deifying homosexuality.

Another FEMEN “activist” posed in front of the Cathedral, a black cross over her bare breasts, simulating Jesus on the cross.

Ironically, it turns out that the master-mind behind all this oestrogen run amok is a rather unreconstructed male, Viktor Svyatskiy, who gets a kick out of pretty girls  stripping for him.

And, worse,  spends his time deriding and humiliating his charges, who, some argue suffer from Stockholm syndrome:

 “It’s his movement and he handpicked the girls,” she told The Independent. “He handpicked the prettiest girls because the prettiest girls sell more papers.”

He’s “quite horrible with the girls,” Green adds. “He would scream at them and call them bitches.” One scene in the film has Svyatski displaying utter contempt for his activists. “These girls are weak,” he says. “They don’t have the strength of character… They show submissiveness, spinelessness, lack of punctuality, and many other factors which prevent them from becoming political activists. These are qualities which it was essential to teach them.”

There you have  the left’s conflicted logic:

Denounce traditional families as hotbeds of patriarchal oppression, because a male is considered the head of the house-hold…..but fawn on a thug who uses, abuses and humiliates vulnerable young women publicly for purposes they’re too naive to suspect, let alone figure out.

The bottom line is that a pimp is paying a few  prostitutes (one activist really is a professional prostitute)  good money (2-3 times the average monthly wage in Ukraine) to spew out propaganda about female liberation.

This is the old Chicks Up- front strategy of the 1960s left.

Put attractive young women, preferably half-naked, out in front of any protest movement. That attracts attention to your message and distracts from the other fellow’s.

FEMEN members themselves have seen through this game.

Amina Sboui (Tyler), the Tunisian activist mentioned in the beginning of the this post, later denounced the group for being anti-Muslim.

She said its funding sources were mysterious and suspected they might be from Israel.

A mother of one of the Ukrainian activists, Alexandra Shevchenko, regrets letting her daughter go to Kiev to study economics:

“I work in the city center and when walking to work each morning I have to listen to many people reprimanding me what they think of my daughter’s behavior,” said Lyudmyla Shevchenko, Aleksandra’s mother. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t live worrying about her all the time. I and her dad tried to persuade her not to do [take off her clothes] anymore. But when she’s in Kyiv she does not listen to us. Femen leaders brainwashed girls like her.”

Actually, except for murder, FEMEN’s modus operandi sounds startlingly like the Charles Manson gang in the 1960s:

A charismatic sociopath picks  followers from among young, impressionable women and brow-beats them into promoting his political agenda….which involves promoting social strife…with the CIA not far behind.

But how exactly does FEMEN connect to the CIA, Israel, and/or the Anglo-Zionist enterprise? It’s still not clear to me.

FEMEN – ORIGINS

First, the Victor Sviyatskiy connection.

Sviyatskiy quickly took over FEMEN from Anna Shevchenko Hutsol.

Hutsol is the activist who originally set FEMEN up, it is reported, to protest sex-trafficking in the Ukraine in 2008.

Later, Inna (Anna?) Shevchenko  spread her wings and became a resident of France.

(Lila: I might be confusing Alexandra Shevchenko with Inna. I’ll check and get back to this later today.)

An image of her is now the new Marianne image, the official symbol of France, on postage stamps.

Anna/Inna claims she left for France to avoid the patriarchal set-up in Ukraine, but it’s more accurate to say that she fled there, after she sawed down a Catholic cross and drew the attention of the local police.

Apropos.org.uk points out how characteristic of FEMEN such bigoted attacks are:
In a banner headline, from which we have removed foul language, Femen proclaims “Don’t Rape [us] with Your Crucifixes” , stating that, ‘For two thousand years, the supposed sacrifice of the body of Christ has been used as a tool to control women, our sexuality, our bodies, our freedom.’ This referred to their protest against The March for Life in which white crosses are carried to represent aborted children. According to Femen, ‘ Your white crosses are symbols of hate, control and fear – we will not be your sacrifice.’ As if to emphasise the Satanic nature of their protest the Femen activists who attacked Cardinal Rouco Varela in Madrid had inverted crosses painted on their backs.”
And Pravda (in Ukraine) documents that Inna’s flight had nothing to do with patriarchal oppression and everything to do with the cops:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2013/08/31/6997008/
(Google translation, with my edits)
Femen activists fled Ukraine
Saturday, August 31, 2013, 12:00

Femen activists left Ukraine on Friday after having been brought in for questioning.According to the press service, 30 August, Femen activist Yana Zhdanov, Anna and Alexander Shevchenko Hutsol were summoned for questioning by the investigator. This means that the activists will be transferred from the status of “suspect ” to the status of ” charged “.“Fearing for their lives and freedom activists escaped from Ukraine to Europe to continue Femen activities,” so ran the statement from the activists.“

FEMEN – FINANCING

The financing of the group has been as mysterious as its origin, with conflicting reports.

Three names recur in the reports:

HELMUT GEIER

One of FEMEN’s early donors is said to be a German, Helmut Joseph Geier, alias, DJ Hell.

DJ Hell is a disc jockey and exponent of the musical trend known as electroclash.

He popularized it in the 1980s and 1990s in his home town, Munich.

JED SUNDEN

Another figure behind FEMEN is Jed Sunden, a native of Brooklyn, New York.

In 1995  Sunden  founded the Kiev Post, the first English language paper in the area.

Sunden is the owner of KP Media, which publishes the Post.

This article in the Kiev Post in April 2010 says that Sunden was one of the first to support FEMEN, which it describes as having a five-member board of directors (the names are here):

“I confirm that I do give money to Femen,” Sunden said. “I will not state the amount. After meeting with Anna Hutsol, I was impressed with her ideas and have been a supporter. I believe Anna is a young, independent voice in Ukraine. While I do not agree with all of her positions, I believe it is important to give her, and groups like hers, support.”

BEATE SCHOBER

A third figure mentioned as a backer is a Bavarian business-woman, Beate Schober.

An interview with Schober ran in the Kiev Post in Feb 2006.

It describes her as a senior managers at Austrian Airlines and a successful relocation entrepreneur, catering to major companies.

A Berliner Zeitung article in January 2009 states that Schober had been living in Kiev for twelve years, operating her relocation business.

She was very sympathetic to the sex tourism issue raised by the activists and hosted them on her web portal.

The article  also says that fellow Bavarian and German musical entrepreneur, DJ Hell, heard of FEMEN and became interested in publicizing them.

The Swiss Sonntag Zeitung (October 2013) also reported on the funding of the group.

It mentioned that Beate Schober first supported FEMEN, but later concluded that the group was not really interested in women’s emancipation at all.

The SZ piece mentions that 40 percent of the group’s income comes from the sale of T-shirts with their images.

Friends are also mentioned as a source of funds, but no details are given.

DJ Hell is once again mentioned as a backer, but, again, there are no specific figures.

The top four FEMEN activists are reported to get some 700 euros a month  ($1000 in other accounts), which is a large sum in Ukraine.

The outfit in Paris reportedly takes $2500/mth to run.

In Kiev, FEMEN ran out of a popular cafe named after Cupid, the child of Venus (the goddess of sexuality and beauty) and Mars (the god of war).

It provided free Internet access to FEMEN’s members.

The Sonntag Zeitung piece also adds interesting details about the origin of the group.

FEMEN began at a meeting between Sviyatskiy and Anna Hutsol on a park bench in Khmeinitsky in Western Ukraine in the mid-2000’s.

The two were watching married couples at the registry when they came up with the idea.

In the only recorded interview with him, Swiatskiy says Hutsol and he had already decided on FEMEN’s media strategy by that time.

In 2009, Sophie Pinkham, an American academic who was conducting research into Ukrainian feminism,  interviewed the FEMEN chief Anna Hutsol.

She found that the “volunteer” Victor Sviyatskiy was doing most of the answering.

He was extraordinarily passionate about his mission to promote feminism and spoke eloquently about the “eroticism of the social” and his ambition to create an activist group as “cheerful” as Greenpeace.

Despite this, he remains  a shadowy figure, with no foot-print on the Internet.

The non-existent Net footprint certainly suggests an intelligence operation of some kind, but that is only speculation, so far.

In the fall of 2013, a documentary debuted at the Venice film festival- Ukraine Is Not a Brothel.

It was directed  by Australian film-maker Kitty Green, who outed Sviyatskiy as the master-mind behind FEMEN.

To sum up:

  • An American female academic calls attention to the group in 2009, only a year after its official founding.
  • Around the same time an American newspaper publisher and libertarian promotes and funds the group. He stops funding FEMEN only in 2011, because it is offending too many people.
  • Two Germans from the same town in Germany back the group. One is  a multi-millionaire corporate senior manager now in the tourism business, who has  a clientele that includes the World Health Organization. The other is a famous disc jockey. The business-woman later says she thinks they are not really feminists.
  • France quickly makes one of the lead activists its national heroine and gives her residence on the spot, to save her from the investigations of the Ukrainian police.
  • The founder and master-mind of the group is a mysterious abusive male, who admires the ultra-left environmental group, Greenpeace, and is an expert on media strategy.
  • Everyone denies this man’s involvement and he  has no trail on the net.
  • An Australian film-maker publicizes the group in 2013 and “outs” its mysterious founder, although print accounts of his involvement in FEMEN long precede her outing.