Activists of various nationalist parties carry torches during a rally in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022. The rally was organized to mark the birth anniversary of Stepan Bandera, founder of a rebel army that collaborated with Nazi Germany and murdered thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
I have not seen anything yet about rallies in Ukraine commemorating the birth anniversary of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. These usually occur on January 1. Maybe such demonstrations in Kiev are banned under existing martial law. But this certainly has not stopped the commemoration of this birthday – after all Stepan Bander and other Nazi collaborators (responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians in World War II are treated as national heroes in Ukraine.
For example, I hear from Eduard Dolinsky, Director General of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee that:
“The Verhovna Rada [Parliament] of Ukraine’s official FB and Twitter pages are celebrating the 114th birthday of Stepan Bandera.”
You cannot get a higher political level than that!
From the Twitter account of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – Ukrainian Parliament (NOTE):
🇺🇦1 січня виповнюється 114 років від дня народження Степана Бандери (1909-1959).
Степан Бандера: 📌Коли між хлібом і свободою народ обирає хліб, він зрештою втрачає все, в тому числі і хліб. Якщо народ обирає свободу, він матиме хліб, вирощений ним самим і ніким не відібраний. pic.twitter.com/NxEmHa0SA7
“January 1 marks the 114th anniversary of the birth of Stepan Bandera (1909-1959).
Stepan Bandera: ‘When the people choose bread between bread and freedom, they ultimately lose everything, including bread. If the people choose freedom, they will have bread grown by themselves and not taken away by anyone.’“
And from the Facebook account of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – Ukrainian Parliament (NOTE):
NOTE: Both the Twitter and Facebook posts of the Verkhovna Rada were highly criticized by mainly Polish commentators. Both posts have subsequently been removed. A similar post by the Verkhovna Rada last year listing current Ukrainian “heroes” including Bandera and other Nazi collaborators was removed after complaints by Polish commentators and politicians.
Eduard Dolinsky has also commented on several other events in Ukraine marking this birthday.
Ivano-Frankivsk priests and officials have today celebrated 114th anniversary of Stepan Bandera pic.twitter.com/57xVLIsxdR
Yet people try to tell me that Ukraine does not have a neo-Nazi problem. That the ultranationalists in the National Battalions formed after the 2014 coup have all been weeded out. Etc., etc. The examples above are only a small fraction of the commemorations held for Nazi collaborators in Ukraine. Then there are all the street names, statues, etc., commemorating these murderers.
Don’t tell me Ukraine doesn’t have a neo-Nazi problem!
Our media insists on telling us that Ukraine is a unified country suffering aggression from its neighbour the Russian Federation. But it is hardly unified. A violent civil war has raged there since the overthrow of the democratically elected government in February 2014.
This civil war arose from deep divisions within Ukrainian society. These divisions and their political effects are one of the reasons for the current war.
Richard Sakwa, in his book Frontline Ukraine, describes these divisions as between “the monist Ukrainian nationalist aspirations of creating culturally uniform Ukrainian-speaking nation, by contrast with the pluralist concept of Ukraine as culturally and linguistically diverse.” With the rise of ultranationalism after independence this was manifest in conflict between ultranationalist political forces and those recognising the fact of cultural diversity in the country and the need for friendly relations with their ethnically similar neighbour, Russia. In the end a conflict between the ultranationalists and the ethnic Russians living in the east.
So, it is no surprise that many people in eastern Ukraine may prefer living in an area administered by Russia. They may be interested in travelling from Ukrainian administered parts of the country into Russian administered parts of the country, even moving there, as indicated in the video above.
But these facts contrast with stories we usually get from our mainstream media.
UN refugee data
The refugee data also conflicts with the mainstream media narrative.
Far from seeing the Russian Federation as a brutal enemy, many Ukrainians that flee the country as refugees go to Russia. In fact, the UN data shows that the country hoisting the largest number of Ukrainian refugees who fled the country since February this year is the Russian Federation. With almost two million refugees, Russia is hosting a much larger number than Poland which has the next highest number of about one and a quarter million.
See the data below which was taken from the Ukraine Refugee Situation on the UN Operational Data Portal.
Understandably, simple stories are promoted in a war situation, and they may well appeal to many people. Understandably and many people “pick sides” and have a desire to confirm their bias.
But simple stories rarely convey the truth of a situation. And in the case of Ukraine one simply cannot understand the conflict of one does not recognize the divisions in that country. In fact, ignoring those divisions means one easily falls into the trap of believing the propaganda from the preferred side and inevitably aligning with that side – no matter how unjustified their position is.
The Wagner Group is a private military company – effectively mercenaries. It has been used for the military activity of the Russian Federation in various parts of the world. Currently, it is operating in Ukraine and apparently has a reputation as a very brave and effective force in the battle for Donbass. Its name comes up frequently in the reports from the Military Summary Channel I referred to in How is the war going?
As the video above shows even Russian reporters treat the group as somewhat of a mystery – although an effective mystery. It would be nice to dig deeper into its formation and history but that is not the purpose of this post. I will only say I am not a fan of private military or mercenary companies – they seem to be a way governments use capitalism to do their dirty work. A way of handling problems but refusing to take responsibility.
The sole reason for this article is that it was requested on Twitter by Grae O’Sullivan (@GraeSullivan). It is another one of those requests people who discuss the problem of ultranationalism in Ukraine are often confronted with – “Russia has neo-Nazis too.” Or “Putin supports neo-Nazis.” It’s usually a way of diverting the discussion away from the Ukrainian problems. And rather than discussing any evidence for the assertions, I am usually confronted with only a citation or a link – as I was in this case.
Grae insists I “explain away the Wagner Group’s links to neo-Nazi ideology because he (ME) thinks the Ukr govt’s links to the Azov battalion gave RU a reason to invade.” Incidentally, he misrepresents me as I have never “justified” the current war that way. Putin may have given denazification as one of his aims in this war, but my analysis is aimed at understanding the situation, not justifying the action of any country. Still, it seems that the minute one tries to apply reason and evidence to the situation in Ukraine someone will accuse you of “parroting Putin” or being a “Putin puppet.”
Responding to this request is probably a waste of time and I have been burned before by someone who has made a similar request and then refused to engage with any discussion on my analysis of his citation (see Confusion about neo-Nazis in Ukraine-Russia war, Neo-Nazis in Ukraine – stages of denial, and What about those Russian neo-Nazis? which were responses to a similar request from Peter Ballie). But Gae has assured me he won’t run away from the analysis like Peter did and will engage with it – so here goes.
Grae has insisted I discuss the evidence in the article Neonacizmas Rusijos samdinių tarpe by Lucas Andriukaitis. Originally in Lithuanian, the English title is “Signs of neo-nazi ideology amongst Russian mercenaries.”
I will start by explaining that Lucas Andriukaitis is a researcher at the Atlantic Council DFR Laboratory. The Atlantic Council is well known to be strongly linked to NATO and funded by it. Ukrainians occupy many of the Council’s fellowships. Its articles are usually rather polemical in a naive sort of way, and I see it as one of the main conduits for spreading disinformation on geopolitical issues. These sorts of organisations and think tanks are often used by governments, military and intelligence groups to get opinions into the media without tainting with the associations of the real source. Bellingcat and The White Helmets are similar fronts for this purpose.
I don’t wish to condemn the article by describing the source and association. Let its claims be judged by the evidence presented in the article.
The article makes a few completely unsubstantiated claims to set the scene for the reader. Sentences like “the type of far-right ideology expressed in Russian mercenaries is showing homage to Nazi ideology,” “the numerous mercenaries who went to fight in Donbass, Syria and Libya are neo-Nazis themselves,” and its final conclusion –“open-source evidence suggests that fighter sporting neo-Nazi symbols serve in military groups associated with the Kremlin, including the founder of the infamous Wagner group.”
So what evidence is presented in the article?
Very little, really. Just some vague tattoos, a hat and some insignia noticed on military vehicles or in other countries where the Wagner group was meant to have served.
Tatoos
The article refers to tattoos on a single individual, Dimitry Utkin. It’s all very vague, though, as are tattoos.
The photo on the left is claimed to be of Dimity Utkin bearing neo-Nazi tattoos. Somehow the Microsoft safe recognition software was used to prove the two people are the same.
The article says:
“When this photo surfaced, some concerns online were expressed about the person in the photo. In order to check if the person in the photo is really Utkin, an old passport photo of him was used with Microsoft Azure face recognition software. This software allows to compare two photos and give a confidence rating of how likely it is that the two faces belong to the same person. A score above 0.7 suggests with high reliability that it is the same person. In this case, the score given by Microsoft Azure was 0.71723.”
Yeah, right. Rather shonky evidence and it smacks of the sort of tricks Bellingcat uses in their open source “research.” But, one person with a few tattoos!
This article was pointed out to me because there are plenty of online photographs of Ukrainian ultranationalists sporting pro-Nazi tattoos. I should remind readers, however, that questionable tattoos may be quite common in young men that are conscripted for military service. To some extent the tattoos of Azov battalion soldiers could well have originated from their days as soccer hooligans. The Azov groups were originally financed by the Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky who owned a football club with an accompanying fan club from which he recruited young men for the group.
So, by itself, the presence of a tattoo is not evidence of a crime or war crime and I do feel a little bit sorry for the way Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in Mariupol, Ukraine, recently were first filtered by checking for tattoos. No one should be made to suffer for the indiscretions of their youth.
Frankly, I find this sole evidence of the ideological leanings of the claimed founder of the Wagner group very pathetic.
But wait. There is more
The only other evidence offered for the far-right ideological leanings of this founder of the Wagner group is this photograph showing someone wearing a “Wehrmacht hat.”
Photo allegedly taken in Syria The man in the Wehrmacht hat is alleged to be Utkin
This is extremely weak evidence to support the claim of the ideological views of the individual concerned. As the article says:
” Even though the exact location of the photo is unknown and the faces of the soldiers in the photo are blurred, the man in the [photograph] wearing the hat is suspected to be Utkin. The bald head and the shape of an ear visible in the photo suggests that the person in question could be Utkin.”
Let’s move on to the only other individual mentioned in this article, Yan Petrovsky. Apparently, he was “deemed a war criminal by the Ukrainian authorities.” No detail of his alleged crimes, although another Ukrainian report links them to “torturing and killing POWs from the Ukrainian Aidar Volunteer Battalion.” The Aidar battalion is one of the neo-Nazi or ultranationalist militias which has also been accused of torture and killing of citizens of Donbass in the war that has raged there since 2014.
Thi is presented as evidence that Petrovsky is a neo-Nazi
But this article mentioned Petrovsky because of his alleged Nazi salute in Syria (see photo) and his “posing for numerous photos with hate symbols.” The photos from Syria are very vague but the article assures as they “show exactly where he was, but also his identity was verified despite the blurred faces in the photos.” Context is left to the readers, even if we assume the identity was correct. Is he pointing to something, lecturing to other soldiers or making a Nazi salute to some unidentified person or object?
Neither of these vague bits of evidence refers to any specific crimes – only to the use of particular symbols. We have no indication if they are associated with real neo-Nazi ideology and actions, represent indiscretions of youth or are used for ideological reasons.
The Vaknut has a “variety of purposes in modern popular culture.” It is a national symbol of Norway but has been used by some white supremacists. “Nonracist pagans may also use this symbol, so one should carefully examine it in context rather than assume that a particular use of the symbol is racist.” (See Valknot).
The Tyr rune is an ancient European symbol commonly used by Germanic neopagans to symbolize the veneration of the god Týr. But it has also been used by Nazis and neo-Nazis today. “Because today the Tyr rune continues to be used by non-racists as well, including members of various neo-pagan religions, one should not assume that use of the symbol is racist but instead should judge the symbol carefully in its specific context.” (See Tyr rune).
So, the symbols portrayed in these photos(and other photos in the article where they appear in graffiti and on a military vehicle) may result from far-right ideology or the views of members of the Wagner group. Or they may be more innocent. But these very few instance are nothing compared with the evidence for the far-right ideology of the ultranationalist groups in Ukraine.
Comparing Ukraine and Russia
Nothing in this article compares with the reported incidents of war crimes or the treatment of Russian and Roma ethnic minorities in Ukraine and videos of them torturing and killing Russian POWs.
Street names and monuments
There is no evidence that members of the Wagner group treat Nazi collaborators who committed massacres in WWII as heroes in the way that Ukrainian ultranationalists do. Hell, the growth of ultranationalism in Ukraine since independence has lead to moments to these “heroes” and naming streets aftyet them.
Kiev Street map. The road to the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial is along the avenues named after Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych – ultranationalist collaborators with Nazi Germany during World War II.
A statue of Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera stands in Ternopil, Ukraine. Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist leader, politician and theorist of the militant wing, who served as head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, an organization responsible for ethnic cleansing and implicated in collaboration with Nazi Germany Image Credit: Times of Israel
Monument to Shukhevych in Krakovets, Ukraine. Roman Shukhevych was one of the commanders of Abwehr’s Nachtigall Battalion, a hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion, a military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , and one of the organizers of the Halych-Volhyn Massacre.Image Credit: Wikipedia
Of course, the Ukrainian President is not a neo-Nazi, but prominent members of ultranationalist groups such as The Right Sector commonly in government and local government positions. That is not the case in the Russian Federation. Nor has there been a coup in Moscow led by ultranationalist or neo-Nazis as there was in Kiev in February 2014 when the democratically elected government of Ukraine was overthrown.
And consider this. Ultranationalist or neo-Nazi rallies have been common in Ukraine over the last decade – but not in Russia.
Activists of various nationalist parties carry torches during a rally in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022. Image credit: The Times of Israel: Hundreds of Ukrainian nationalists march in honor of Nazi collaborator.
In fact, the Lithuanian article I have used actually points out:
“The strong despise towards anything Nazi and Fascist, which in Russia often come as synonyms, is deeply rooted in the society.”
That is why the equivalent street demonstration in Russia are more likely to be those of the Immortal regiment.
The ‘Immortal Regiment’ march is an annual event held throughout Russia and in other countries. The event is dedicated to the victory in the Great Patriotic War (or WWII) that claimed lives of about 28 million Soviet people, both soldiers and civilians. During the march, people carry portraits of their relatives who fought or died during the war.
Finally, the Immortal Regiment marches held on Victory Day underline the difference between Ukraine and the Russian Federation when it comes to the attitude towards neo-Nazis. Whereas these demonstrations are annual events throughout Russia that have only become possible again in eastern Ukraine after the defeat of the Ukrainian ultranationalist like the Azov Battalion.
Russian soldier guarding the “Immortal Regiment” march in Melitopol, 9 May (Credit: Telegram/RIA “Melitopol”) Geneva Solutions.
Open Parachute 