The Guardian: Antisemitic echoes in Ukraine, 2012

quote:

Svoboda [Ukrainian political party] is a morbid symptom. While some kind of new European idea of nationhood is waiting to be born, Svoboda adheres to an older, catastrophically failed notion of blood-and-soil nationalism. It is also the fastest-growing political party in western Ukraine.

The party's followers honour the veterans of the Waffen-SS's local Halychyna brigade, formed in 1943 to fight the Soviets. They also pay tribute to the OUN and OUP, militias that carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the region's Polish population during the war that makes the events in Bosnia seem almost tame: disembowelling of Catholic priests, villagers rounded up into barns and churches that were then set on fire.

How much overlap there was between the militiamen and the SS units is a subject of dispute, as is the overlap with earlier groups that helped the Nazis murder more than 95% of the region's Jews – more than 200,000 people – a task that was essentially completed in just 18 months from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 until January 1943.

Svoboda's leaders admire proto-Nazis such as Ernst Jünger, and are "understanding" of Goebbels. They speak of "purity of blood" and Ukraine as "one race, one nation, one fatherland".

"We are against diversity," says Yuri Michalchyshyn, the party's media-savvy young propagandist. "Ukraine is for Ukrainians." But the truth is Ukraine as a pure-blooded nation-state is more an idea than a historical fact.

Ukrainian Truth*: Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine about AZOV: They have peculiar ethics, 2016

quote:
The journalist: Many note your sympathy for the Azov battalion and personally for Biletsky. You gave him weapons and used the services of the battalion, in particular, a group of fighters from the battalion went to meet businessman Dmitry Firtash at the airport.

Arsen Avakov: "Azov" began more than two years ago, in this office, at that table, when we planned the assault and liberation of Mariupol. After that, there was Mariupol, Ilovaisk, Dzerzhinsk, and then an operation in Shirokino. During this time, they - these heroic warriors of Ukraine - have gone a long way from accusations - of nationalism, of Nazism, which was very popular at that time. Before the victories, which were applauded by the whole country, and the obvious recognition from all foreign ambassadors that this unit is one of the most disciplined and most combat-ready in Ukraine.

These are guys with a peculiar ethic. But this is one of the most disciplined units, and this is definitely a combat unit that performs its tasks well for Ukraine.
===end of quote===

*Українська правда — is a Ukrainian online newspaper founded in 2000. The third most popular news website in Ukraine (as of 2015).

The Washington Post: The Deputy for the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine is a neo-nazi, 2017

quote:

Most importantly, the government must also break any connections between law enforcement agencies and far-right organizations. The clearest example of this problem lies in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is headed by Arsen Avakov. Avakov has a long-standing relationship with the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary group that uses the SS symbol as its insignia and which, with several others, was integrated into the army or National Guard at the beginning of the war in the East. Critics have accused Avakov of using members of the group to threaten an opposition media outlet. As at least one commentator has pointed out, using the National Guard to combat ultranationalist violence is likely to prove difficult if far-right groups have become part of the Guard itself.

Avakov’s Deputy Minister Vadym Troyan was a member of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine (PU) paramilitary organization, while current Ministry of Interior official Ilya Kiva – a former member of the far-right Right Sector party whose Instagram feed is populated with images of former Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini – has called for gays “to be put to death.” And Avakov himself used the PU to promote his business and political interests while serving as a governor in eastern Ukraine, and as interior minister formed and armed the extremist Azov battalion led by Andriy Biletsky, a man nicknamed the “White Chief” who called for a crusade against “Semite-led sub-humanity.”

The Foreign Policy: Member of Ukraine Parliament is stripping pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives of Ukraine, 2016
quote:

... a young, rising Ukrainian historian named Volodymyr Viatrovych* has placed himself at the center of that fight. Advocating a nationalist, revisionist history that glorifies the country’s move to independence — and purges bloody and opportunistic chapters — Viatrovych has attempted to redraft the country’s modern history to whitewash Ukrainian nationalist groups’ involvement in the Holocaust and mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during World War II. And right now, he’s winning.
...
Under Viatrovych’s reign, the country could be headed for a new, and frightening, era of censorship.
...
Even more worrisome for the future integrity of Ukraine’s archives under Viatrovych is his notoriety among Western historians for his willingness to allegedly ignore or even falsify historical documents.

“Scholars on his staff publish document collections that are falsified,” said Jeffrey Burds, a professor of Russian and Soviet history at Northeastern University.

“I know this because I have seen the originals, made copies, and have compared their trannoscriptions to the originals.”
...
Burds’s experience was not unusual. I corresponded with and interviewed numerous historians for this article, and their grievances against Viatrovych were remarkably consistent: ignored established historical facts, falsified and sanitized documents, and restricted access to Security Service of Ukraine archives under his watch.
===end of the quote===

* In 2008 he was the chief archivist at the Security Service of Ukraine. In 2014, Viatrovych was appointed to head the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. Now [from 2019] he is a Member of The Ukraine Parliament

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Here @TrFormer 💤 we do not believe in impartial journalism. We are passionate about what we are doing and in this way we maintain balance.
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3 minutes of proof that Nazis do not exist in Ukraine. Sorry guys, no more denazification, these are all good people and patriots who only want the best for their nation.

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