Vanden Heuvel's vile apologia of Putin

Not to get too personal, but Katrina vanden Heuvel's husband is Prof. Stephen F. Cohen of NYU, the most prominent Putin/Russia apologist in the U.S. Here's how the Kyiv Post described Cohen:

Cohen represents the part of the American left that used to admire some aspects of the Soviet Union and transferred their allegiance to Putin, who has increasingly appealed to the Soviet legacy. While Cohen criticized some Soviet policies, he was an ardent fan of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and a vehement critic of anti-communist President Boris Yeltsin.

In 2008, Cohen asserted that Putin “ended Russia’s collapse at home and re-asserted its independence abroad.” He has paid little attention to problems with free speech, freedom of assembly, rule of law and separation of powers in Russia, as well as to pervasive corruption that has only worsened since Putin came to power.

Cohen has also accused Ukrainian authorities of “war crimes” while ignoring numerous reports on kidnappings, torture, rape and murder by pro-Russian insurgents.

So now to vanden Heuvel's apologia in the Washington Post of Putin's 7-month war of aggression in Ukraine. In it she accuses "NATO leaders -- including President Obama" of having "escalated tensions, while dismissing opportunities to bring the conflict to a reasonable conclusion quickly."  Vanden Heuvel continued:

There would have been no civil war if the European Union’s leadership had not insisted on an exclusive association agreement that prejudiced Ukrainian industry in the east and trade with Russia, or if the United States and European nations had used their influence with the demonstrators to abide by the Feb. 21 agreement then-President Viktor Yanukovych signed, which would have handed more power to parliament and called for elections in December, or if the United States and Europe had been willing to work with Russia to restore the Feb. 21 agreement and calm worries in Crimea and the east about the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Instead the U.S. and E.U. have encouraged the most radical elements in the Kiev government in their campaign to subjugate the east with military force — to seek a military solution to what is essentially a political problem in a deeply divided and economically fragile Ukraine.

In a few sentences vanden Heuvel throws out several mistruths -- coincidentally, this paragraph is the Russian propaganda line, verbatim.

Mistruth 1: Negotiations between the EU and Ukraine (headed then by pro-Russian President Yanukovych) caused the civil war. Let's recall that those negotiations were ongoing since February 2008, after Ukraine's admission to the WTO, after which Yanukovych's government made public and private announcements to EU leaders that it certainly intended to sign such an Association Agreement (AA) and enter into a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with the EU. So, if the EU had "insisted" on the AA, then it did so very patiently with a very willing partner, while painstakingly negotiating the 1,200-page draft document.

Of course President Yanukovych and his team led by Arbuzov understood that the AA would have been a net economic benefit to Ukraine. Yanukovych's government only changed its position on the AA on the eve of signing because of Russian threats of retaliation -- higher gas prices, WTO-violating trade sanctions against Ukraine, etc. 

For more info, read some of the myths surrounding the Association Agreement here; much more recent explanation of the EU's position, offers of macro- and technical assistance to Ukraine, post Feb. 21, here; and the EU's Guide to the AA here.  

Mistruth 2: The U.S. and EU used their influence to nix the agreement on Feb. 21, 2014 between then-President Yanukovych and political leaders representing the Maidan protesters. In fact, Russia, which was involved in those negotiations, refused to sign the Feb. 21 agreement, yet today Russia calls for all sides to abide by it!  And in fact, on Feb. 22, President Yanukovych, without a word of explanation, fled Ukraine and surfaced a few days later in Russia. Meanwhile, Ukraine's new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced that $37 billion had gone missing from Ukraine's state coffers -- certainly the reason Yanukovych fled in the first place, to avoid prosecution. Despite Yanukovych's theft and absconding from Ukraine, Ukraine's opposition continues to abide by the Feb. 21 agreement. To quote the EU:

Violence in the capital ceased and protesters withdrew from public buildings; a Law reinstating the 2004 constitution has been adopted; a comprehensive constitutional reform envisaged along with new electoral laws and a balanced Central Electoral Commission; democratic and inclusive Presidential elections have now taken place. Investigations into acts of violence have been ordered by the new Prosecutor General, with expert advice of the Council of Europe's International Advisory Panel, inaugurated on 9 April.

More recently new Parliamentary elections have been called for October 26, giving all Ukrainians yet another opportunity to have their voices heard. 

Mistruth 3: The U.S. and EU did nothing to calm worries in Crimea and the east of Ukraine about the rights of Russian speakers. Vanden Heuvel is partly right: the U.S. and the EU did do almost nothing to counter the Kremlin's vile propaganda that Russian speakers would be forced to speak Ukrainian, or worse, be killed by roving bands of Right Sector "fascists." I witnessed this propaganda firsthand in Crimea, where many sincerely believed that battalions of Right Sector vigilantes were coming to kill them and rape their daughters for speaking Russian. With Russia's help, so called "self-defense militias" were formed to repel this non-existent threat; in the end these militias ended up rousting pro-Ukrainian citizens and kidnapping and killing Crimean Tatars and other "anti-Russian" citizens. Not a single attack or even appearance of Right Sector in Crimea ever occurred.  

Ditto in eastern Ukraine: Human Rights Watch, the OSCE and other observers have not documented the kind of anti-Russian pogroms that Putin's media fabricated on Russian TV channels and social media.  

Indeed, the sad irony of all these phony accusations is that the city of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, is mostly Russian-speaking. The charges by Russia of fascism and discrimination were all a lie designed to lubricate the penetration of "little green men" -- Russian soldiers, spies, mercenaries and irregulars -- into eastern Ukraine.

Mistruth 4: The U.S. and EU have encouraged the most radical elements in the Kyiv government. Ask any pro-Russian who those radical elements are and they will tell you Oleh Tyahnybok's right-wing Svoboda party, and Dmitry Yarosh's Right Sector militia and political party. Vanden Heuvel doesn't offer any evidence of her accusation, and it's hard to imagine how she could, since these two parties do not represent Ukraine's President, Prime Minister; and only Svoboda has about 35 seats out of 450 in the Supreme Council (Parliament). One can only wonder what the vanden Heuvel thinks the devilish West must be doing in Ukraine behind the scenes?....

Mistruth 5: The U.S. and EU have encouraged a "military solution" in eastern Ukraine "to what is essentially a political problem."  Fact: Starting in March 2014, pro-Russian militias, headed by Russian agents and special forces, seized government buildings throughout eastern Ukraine. This looked like a repetition of Russia's Crimea scenario, where Putin at first denied (in March 2014) and then admitted (in April 2014) that most of the "local self-defense militias" were in fact Russian troops. A few days later, "little green men" were fixed in eastern Ukraine. 

As in Crimea, admissions in eastern Ukraine follow denials. Now rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine and in the Kremlin say Russian troops "on vacation" are fighting against Ukraine. But we need not rely on their admissions/denials: NATO has estimated that over 3,000  Russian troops are active in Ukraine. And in Russia, associations of soldiers' mothers, brave journalists and human rights activists have cataloged hundreds of secret burials of Russian regular troops KIA in Ukraine -- and met with harassment from the Russian government for revealing the truth.

Just imagine if NATO soldiers "on vacation" turned up fighting in the ranks of Ukraine's military -- what apoplectic fits of outrage vanden Heuvel and her husband would have!  But of course they are not, and the U.S. and NATO have so far refused to offer any lethal military assistance to Ukraine.   

Next, vanden Heuvel throws out a red herring, NATO: 

Our responsibility goes beyond the immediate crisis, too. There would not have been such a concerted Russian nationalist response to the crisis had the West not sowed the seeds of suspicion and mistrust over the past 18 years by growing NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe.

Yet by her own admission this whole "civil war" in Ukraine started over the EU Association Agreement that had nothing to do with NATO! So there's no real point in discussing it.

Later, vanden Heuvel writes [emphasis mine]:

[T]he hawkish outcry for a more confrontational stance toward Putin has yet to give way to common sense. Across the political spectrum, prominent figures are demanding harsher sanctions targeting Russia, as well as military assistance and NATO membership for Ukraine. These demands seem to increase regardless of what Moscow does and regardless of the fact that Russian cooperation is essential for the stabilization and rebuilding of the shattered Ukrainian economy. Never mind that Putin has just helped broker a long-sought cease-fire; sanctions, we are told, must be broadened and deepened. Punishing Russia is far more important than a political settlement in Ukraine.

Even most Russians would have to smile at, "Never mind that Putin has just helped broker a long-sought cease-fire..." since Putin is the one providing weapons and troops to fight Ukraine's military. So of course Putin can "broker" peace -- he only has to broker with himself!

Vanden Heuvel's denial of Russia's deep and sustained military action in Ukraine deprives her arguments of any credibility.

Indeed, vanden Heuvel also ignored the despicable Russian missile attack on MH flight 117 that killed 298 people, mostly Europeans, and how this attack hardened Europe's resolve to impose harsher sanctions against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine!

Now a final word about the ceasefire and "political reform" in Ukraine. As I've said before, President Poroshenko and just about every political party in Ukraine, including Svoboda (!), has come out in favor of decentralization of Ukraine's government, i.e. more local government control. But the kind of "federalized" Ukraine that Russia wants would be unacceptable; it would technically be a confederacy and make Ukraine ungovernable and disunited ... which is exactly what Putin wants.  

Again, vanden Heuvel ignores this, ignores the fact that such a confederate political structure exists exactly nowhere on Earth, and for good reason: both times it was tried in the United States it failed miserably, most tragically during the U.S. Civil War that took 750,000 lives.   

UPDATE (09.15.2014): My post drew a heated response from a few Russian academics that I know. (So far every Russian studies professor that I've come across is extremely defensive of Putin's policies in Crimea and Donbas. Funny how that works....).

First, I was criticized for daring to question Prof. Stephen Cohen's objectivity and "putting labels on people." 

To which I replied:

Well, Cohen said that "the U.S. would go down in history as having blood on its hands" in Ukraine. That was an amazingly unobjective  statement considering that Russian troops and weapons are killing people in Ukraine, and not a single U.S. soldier or weapon is there!  Cohen can't even bring himself to say directly that Putin is fighting a war in Ukraine (check out 19:20):

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-07/top-russia-expert-ukraine-joining-nato-would-provoke-nuclear-war

Cohen is certainly knowledgeable but also clearly a russophile to a fault.

Also debatable -- in fact, unknowable -- is Сohen's assertion that Ukraine would still be in a civil war even without Russian interference. We can never know that for certain because Russia has been there from the start.  But I would say look at places like Kharkiv that seemed to be tipping toward Russia but then came back strongly in favor of Ukraine.  I have no doubt that now many people in Luhansk and Donetsk hate Ukraine after all the fighting and Russian propaganda, but I would wager that most of them want a return to нормальная жизнь, regardless of who can give it to them. 

Perhaps worst of all, he's from Kentucky and yet said that "we" fought for the South in the U.S. Civil War, which is false!  

http://www.ket.org/civilwar/kyrole.html

Second, I was challenged on the merits of what I wrote above. I won't write down what my interlocutor said, in the interest of space. You can glean it from my replies:

1) The EU certainly seemed to take [President Yanukovych] and Arbuzov at their word that they were serious about it. What they thought in private -- I don't know. The EU didn't realize what an unreliable counterpart Yanu was. More important, many Ukrainians took Yanu at his word that he intended to sign the AA. Even the folks who hated him and PR [Party of Regions] thought that at least Yanu was doing one thing right -- moving Ukraine toward the EU. And when Yanu broke that promise too, it was the last straw. I was there and you had to see the despair then anger of many Ukrainians who just couldn't tolerate Yanu's deceit toward the Ukrainian people.

This is of course what started Maidan, not Western NGOs, agents or any baloney like that. I hope you're not one of those people who believe such simple fairy tales. Again, I have friends who were joining up on Maidan via Facebook and VK when there were only a few dozen, and they thought that nobody would come. But eventually more people did come, and it was all driven by Ukrainians, not the West, mostly through social networks. I saw this movement evolve before my eyes on FB. So yes, "the whole thing started because of DCFTA," but for the reasons I just explained, because of the stifled will of the Ukrainian people.
What "consequences" did the EU threaten Ukraine with?  Besides that, it's elementary that Ukraine couldn't be part of the tomozhenniy soyuz and enjoy special trade status with the EU. 

2) There is no evidence that [President Yanukovych] was under threat; and anyway, he could have gone to another city to stay, for instance Donetsk or Simferopol, but instead he went to Russia. As policemen say, "If you're not guilty, why are you running away?" Yanu stole from Ukraine for years and he knew the new government would uncover it soon. He didn't want to go to jail so he ran away. No innocent and responsible president flees his own country; this is what African dictators do, not European leaders. 

3) The law on language was reversed and never implemented. Yes, the new gov't went too far there but cooler heads prevailed. Re: pogroms, numerous statements of Ukrainian Jews and rabbis have confirmed that there was no more anti-Semitism on Maidan than at any other time; in fact many Jews (I know them personally) were there; and even some Israeli Jews returned from Ukraine to participate.  So please let's not support this Kremlin myth with any more wasted words, since Russia has more anti-Semites and neo-Nazis than Ukraine by many times. 

By the way, I see you ignored that pogroms against Crimean Tatars started right away -- in fact Aksyonov was known in years past for clearing out Tatar samozakhvat. Tatars got the message when Putin named him acting PM of Crimea. The Tatars' "Nelson Mandela" [Mustafa Djemilev] is once again exiled from his homeland. Kidnappings and murders of Tatars, pro-Maidan activists and Ukrainian Orthodox priests in Crimea remain unsolved, and Putin's "brownshirt" militias still rove Crimea's streets. Anti-fascists indeed! 

4) Yarosh can say whatever he wants, it's up to reasonable people to assess the situation rationally. Vizitka Yarosha was the joke of the year. Putin needs a bogeyman and Yarosh is the closest thing.

5) Are you seriously denying that regular Russian troops have not been sent to fight in Ukraine -- that is, sent a second time, after Crimea? If you can't be honest about that then we probably cannot find common ground about anything else.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/russian-military-vehicles-enter-ukraine-aid-convoy-stops-short-border

6) The plane [MH flight 117] was hit by an object moving at high speed. Of course it was a missile and the Ukrainians had no reason to shoot down an airplane over their own skies, since Russia has not yet sent aircraft to Ukraine. The terrorists were shooting down Ukrainian aircraft. And at first the rebels admitted on social networks that they shot down the plane, that they had the missile systems from Russia.  You must know about this but you choose to ignore it.  They are the culprits. Or do you believe it was a conspiracy to garner sympathy for Ukraine? Or do you believe what the Russian media says -- the first missing plane from Asia was diverted to the U.S., everybody onboard was killed by the CIA, then at the right moment the plane was sent over Ukraine to be exploded with a payload of corpses?  It's disgusting that such filth could be discussed on television, but that's Russia for you. 

7) I'm sure you understand what I was saying, but I'll explain. Putin may call it "federalization" but what he talked about -- autonomous economic and foreign policies for Donetsk and Luhansk -- is not a federation, it's a confederation. All federal systems have a strong central government that makes economic and foreign policy, period. So Putin can call a duck a zebra but we still know it's a duck.

I didn't call anybody subhuman, but all the Russian spies and soldiers fighting in Ukraine should leave or face death. Unfortunately Russia is the stronger country militarily and without Western help Poroshenko cannot defeat them, hence the ceasefire and negotiations.  This is a war by Russia against Ukraine. (Incidentally, many Russians say it's a war by the U.S. against Russia, but the logic is the same: Russia vs. _____.)

Time to end the bloody Ukraine conflict

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

September 9, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1qC5orr

Applebaum: Ukraine needs MORE nationalism, not less

Yes, exactly!  Nationalism -- called patriotism in most contexts -- is necessary for any country to form its own identity and stay together.

Nationalism is not a scary word by itself; and it is certainly not synonymous with "fascism," "jingoism" or "xenophobia," as Russian media, politicians and academics would have us believe.

Concludes Anne Applebaum [emphasis mine]:

Thus do the tiny group of nationalists in Ukraine, whom perhaps we can now agree to call patriots, represent the country’s only hope of escaping apathy, rapacious corruption, and, eventually, dismemberment.

And this should be no surprise: In the nineteenth century, no sensible freedom fighter would have imagined it possible to create a modern state, let alone a democracy, without some kind of nationalist movement behind it. Only people who feel some kind of allegiance to their society—people who celebrate their national language, literature, and history, people who sing national songs and repeat national legends—are going to work on that society’s behalf. This goes for Russians, too, though tragically they insist on looking to their imperial traditions as a source of national pride, instead of to their liberal leaders in the early twentieth century or to their outstanding Soviet-era dissidents, the founders of the modern human rights movement.

In the West, we know this, but lately, we rarely admit it. That’s in part because we remember very well the disasters that ethnic nationalism, cloaked as fascism or sometimes as communism, brought in the twentieth century. Europeans in particular now go out of their way to downplay national differences, which is usually good. Territorial disputes in Europe have dissolved, since open borders make it simply less important whether Alsace is French or German. But European democracy would fail if European politicians did not also appeal to patriotism, did not take national interests into account, and did not address themselves to the special problems of their particular nations, too.

In the United States, we dislike the word “nationalism” and so, hypocritically, we call it other things: “American exceptionalism,” for example, or a “belief in American greatness.” We also argue about it as if it were something rational—Mitt Romney wrote a book that put forth the “case for American greatness”—rather than acknowledging that nationalism is fundamentally emotional. In truth, you can’t really make “the case” for nationalism; you can only inculcate it, teach it to children, cultivate it at public events. If you do so, nationalism can in turn inspire you so that you try to improve your country, to help it live up to the image you want it to have. Among other things, that thought inspired the creation of this magazine 100 years ago.

Ukrainians need more of this kind of inspiration, not less—moments like last New Year’s Eve, when more than 100,000 Ukrainians sang the national anthem at midnight on the Maidan. They need more occasions when they can shout, “Slava Ukraini—Heroyam Slava”—“Glory to Ukraine, Glory to its Heroes,” which was, yes, the slogan of the controversial Ukrainian Revolutionary Army in the 1940s, but has been adopted to a new context. And then of course they need to translate that emotion into laws, institutions, a decent court system, and police training academies. If they don’t, then their country will once again cease to exist.

Incidentally, the leader of Ukraine's most nationalist party, Svoboda, recently wrote an op-ed saying much the same thing: that given Ukraine's history and geography, nationalism is much more about national defense and preventing any future dismemberment of the Ukrainian state by outside powers. See: "Oleh Tiahnybok: Rescue nationalism from 'Pandora's box'."

Nationalism Is Exactly What Ukraine Needs

By Anne Applebaum

May 12, 2014 | New Republic

URL: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117505/ukraines-only-hope-nationalism

Russia, not Ukraine, is flirting with Far Right politics

I meant to send this a few days earlier. It shows that Vladimir Putin's Russia is the truly neo-fascist state, not Ukraine!

East Ukraine crisis and the 'fascist' matrix

By Halya Coynash

April 17, 2014 | Al Jazeera

Ukraine's main far-right party, VO Svoboda, has been dumped by its erstwhile European ultra-nationalist allies. It was dumped for Russia with whom the most virulently anti-Semitic, anti-migrant and far-right parties in France, Hungary and other EU countries are developing close ties. The Kremlin's blossoming contacts with those parties, and the far-right roots of prominent pro-Russian activists in Ukraine do not deter Russia from claiming to be protecting Russian nationals from the anti-Semitic and fascist hordes who have allegedly seized control in Ukraine.

The claims have been refuted countless times and attempts to use anti-Semitism condemned by the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine,prominent Jewish civic figures, academics and others. The UN's High Commissioner on Human Rights has rightly indicated that "misinformation, propaganda and incitement to hatred need to be urgently countered" but missed the point entirely about the source of it all.

Who is fascist?

Russia's propaganda machine, and especially Russian-language TV channels are feeding not only the Russian audience, but also a significant number of Ukrainians with lies and manipulated reports. Images of a Crimean rabbi forced to leave for Kiev after condemning Russian intervention are presented as showing a rabbi forced to leave Ukraine because of mounting anti-Semitism.

In one astounding attempt to explain the denial by Ukrainian Jews of Russia's claims, viewers on the Kremlin-funded Russia Today were asked whether such Jewish organisations "are with their own hands bringing on a second Holocaust?" 

You have only to listen to those on the streets supporting the armed "federalists" in the Donetsk region to see that the propaganda works. The armed separatists and their supporters would tell journalists that they do not want to live in the same country with "fascists". It is no accident that the puppet government "elected" after armed Russian soldiers seized government buildings in the Crimea immediately closed down almost all Ukrainian media and gave the broadcasting frequencies to Russian channels.

A number of the main actors in the pro-Russian protests in the Donetsk region have strong links with far-right parties. Pavel Gubarev, for example, is a Donetsk business owner and the head of the "People's Militia". On March 1, he was supposedly elected "people's governor" and led a crowd in storming the Donetsk regional administration building, demanding that a referendum be held on the oblast's secession and calling for Russian military intervention. His detention was presented by Russian TV channels as politically motivated persecution. They preferred not to delve into Gubarev's ideological roots as a member of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity Party.

Gubarev, and a number of other leading figures in the Donetsk federalist protests, are members of Natalya Vitrenko's Progressive Socialist Party. That party was singled out by Josef Zissels, head of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress when he rejected Russian claims that the EuroMaidan protesters were anti-Semitic. He said that the Congress which monitors anti-Semitism and xenophobia had instead found a lot of anti-Semitic material on pro-Russian sites like that of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) aimed at inciting antagonism to EuroMaidan. The latter was presented as having been instigated by Jews.

A rather small rally in Mykolaiv on April 6 declared another PSP supporter, Dmitry Nikonov, "people's governor", while two members - Alexander Kharytonov and Alexander Kravtsov - are leading figures in the Luhansk Guard, a major separatist organisation in the south-east. Kravtsov is also involved in organisations with neo-Nazi leanings.

More can and has been said about the relatively small number of such pro-Russian activists. It should, however, be stressed that none was well-known or had any influence before the events which led to Russia's annexation of the Crimea. This changed on April 6 when administrative buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv were seized, then most dramatically on April 13, with the deployment of armed militants noted by the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, as being "equipped with Russian weapons and the same uniforms as those worn by Russian forces that invaded Crimea".

A public opinion survey carried out in the second half of March reported a majority in Ukraine favouring joining the EU and a majority in all regions believing that Crimea should remain a part of Ukraine in some manner. Another survey was undertaken by Civic Watch with the participation of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, from March 16 to 30, with respondents from throughout Ukraine, including the Crimea. An absolutely majority - 89 percent - consider Ukraine to be their motherland. Only 8 percent support separatism. Even in Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk regions) only 18 percent were in favour of it.

The so-called referendum on March 16 on Crimea's future has not been recognised by the international community for many reasons, including the presence of armed Russian soldiers. The self-styled prime minister, Sergei Aksenov whose pro-Russian party gained a mere 4 percent of the votes at the last parliamentary elections, had previously gained notoriety for criminal connections rather than far-right views.

Russian ties with Europe's far right

The same cannot be said of those invited by Russia to "observe the referendum". The choice was clearly limited since Ukrainian and international election watchdogs had refused to recognise a "referendum". Those who turned up were Russia's far-right (or neo-Stalinist) allies.

Russian TV channels reported the essentially full stamp of approval provided by this "team of international observers". These included at least two members of the radical right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria: Aymeric Chauprade, adviser on international issues for the French National Front; Belgian Luc Michel, former neo-Nazi FANE member and now member of an extreme right party, as well as two compatriots from the far-right Vlaams Belang; two members of the Bulgarian far-right Ataka Party; Hungarian Bela Kovacs from the far-right Jobbik party, and others.

Some of the above-mentioned and others are members of the Alliance of European National Movements which issued astatement on Ukraine that effectively drops its former ally, Ukraine's VO Svoboda Party and sides with Russia. The statement's anti-Semitic argumentation is well-worth reading given the constant Kremlin narrative about supposed Ukrainian anti-Semitism.

Shekhovtsov reports that on April 9, Tamas Gaudi Nagy, MP from the far-right Jobbik party gave a three-minute speech against European democracy at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He was wearing a t-shirt reading: "Crimea belongs to Russia; Transcarpathia [in Ukraine - HC] belongs to Hungary." It is worth recalling that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union once signed a collaboration pact which involved a similar carving up of Poland.

Besides Jobbik, Russia is also cultivating relations with Marine Le Pen's French National Front and other far-right movements. Strong showing by these parties in the upcoming May European Parliament elections will presumably add other voices, like Nagy's, in support for Moscow's annexation of a part of Ukraine.

In a recent study, the Political Capital Institute suggests that there are ideological links between some far-right European parties and the current Russian leadership. Russia, it says, has under Vladimir Putin, set its sights on the restoration of the country's status as a world power. Far-right and other parties seeking to undermine European unity and taking an anti-Western line are presumably to play a role in its fulfilment of Russia's imperialist aspirations. So, too, are the references to "fascists" used as an attempt to justify Ukraine's dismemberment. The world has been here before, and the price for collaborating with fascists and for failure to react to clear danger proved tragically high.

Who are these neo-Nazi bogeymen in Ukraine?

I'm pasting the most relevant graphs here, since most frequently I hear that Pravy Sector and Svoboda are powerful neo-Nazi bogeyman who will... do what, I'm not sure, but they're definitely the worst guys since Hitler, all pro-Russians assure us [emphasis mine]:

The leader of the Right Sector is Dmytro Yarosh, born and raised in the predominantly Russian speaking south-eastern city of Dniprodzerzhinsk. Yarosh was a member of the Young Pioneers and the Countrywide Leninist Communist Youth League  and served two years in the Soviet Army. One of the key forces during the Kyiv Revolution, the Right Sector has many Russian speaking members and has not been associated with any ‘fascist’ or anti-Jewish statements. In his first foreign interview, Yarosh told TIME that while the revolution needs to steer the country into a new direction, not dependent on either the West or East, he understands that any new opposition government is not likely to carve out a place for him and his men.

The Svoboda party was established in 1991 but only within the last four years attained a noticeable profile. Both Svoboda and Right Sector are very minor players on the current political landscape and have no realistic hope of a major role in the coming government. Svoboda members have recently bullied a TV journalist. Svoboda formally says it is not anti-European, nor anti-Russian, nor anti- Jewish but pro-Ukrainian.

Actually, the ‘anti-Semitic’ theme is now being played by Moscow at low volume ever since the chief Rabbi of Ukraine, seconded by every major Ukrainian Jewish organization, issued statements categorically affirming the freedoms Jews have in Ukraine and supporting the new Kyiv government. There are no instances of any Human Rights Watch organization reporting either Jewish or Russian “persecution” in Ukraine.

What the West does not understand about the “right”-ist groups in Ukraine is that they are here because the anti-Imperialist battle is not over, and they are not that frightening. They are certainly not saying “ban all foreigners…or Russians… or Jews” like Right groups in other European countries. What they are saying is it is time to save their culture and society which the Russians destroyed.

Europe and the EU have many more militant, far-right parties than Ukraine does, and yet these countries are not under existential threat as Ukraine is from Russia. Their language and culture are not under systematic assault as Ukrainian is by Russia. Extreme nationalism is a reaction, not a cause.  If it was OK to be pro-Ukrainian without being accused of fascism, if it was considered normal to defend the Ukrainian language the same way France's gov't. defends French, or Estonia's gov't. defends Estonian, then there would be little cause for nationalist fervor in Ukraine.  

And again, I repeat that there are way more neo-Nazis in Russia than Ukraine. Go to YouTube and search "skinheads russia" or "neo-nazis Russia" and see what horrible videos pop up!

“The Wolf who cried Fascist!” – Pathology of Russian Propaganda against Ukraine, pt. 2

By Adrian Bryttan

March 21, 2014 | Euromaidan PR

URL: http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/03/21/the-wolf-who-cried-fascist-pathology-of-russian-propaganda-against-ukraine-pt-2/#more-5340

All sides agree: Hilter was a bad guy (Atlantic)

At least they can all agree on something.

Good News From Ukraine: Everyone Still Hates Hitler

By Matt Ford

March 20, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/good-news-from-ukraine-everyone-still-hates-hitler/284489/

Ukraine's revolution about corruption, not nationalism or language

This is an excellent, excellent essay about what's been happening in Ukraine, mainly in Kyiv.  (HT: PR).  

Everybody, including Russian speakers, should read it!

I enjoyed this paragraph about Crimea the most:

Instead, Putin decided to help himself to Crimea. It is true that many Crimeans – a majority, I suspect – would like a very close relationship with Russia, perhaps reunification, but it would be hard to think of a better way of encouraging the most chauvinistic aspect of Ukrainian nationalism than invading Ukraine.

BTW, my own view is that Putin's invasion and occupation of Crimea makes little rational sense -- Russia has so much to lose and so little to gain by holding Crimea.  The only way it makes sense is if it is a first step toward an attempted annexation of other parts of Ukraine. Such an attempted annexation would also make little sense, since it would be so risky, but Putin "in the warm September of his years" seems to feel untouchable, and there is hardly a man in his inner circle of fellow KGB siloviki to tell him he is overreaching. 

Putin’s Counter-Revolution

By James Meek

March 20, 2014 | London Review of Books

URL: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n06/james-meek/putins-counter-revolution