Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir (pre-order)

My forthcoming book Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir is now available for pre-order via Routledge or via several Amazon websites: France, Italy, Spain, UK, Canada, Japan, US, India.

Description:

The growing influence on the Western far right has been much discussed in the media recently. This book is the first detailed inquiry into what has been a neglected but critically important trend: the growing links between Russian actors and Western far right activists, publicists, ideologues, and politicians. The author uses a range of sources including interviews, video footage, leaked communications, official statements and press coverage in order to discuss both historical and contemporary Russia in terms of its relationship with the Western far right.

Initial contacts between Russian political actors and Western far right activists were established in the early 1990s, but these contacts were low profile. As Moscow has become more anti-Western, these contacts have become more intense and have operated at a higher level. The book shows that the Russian establishment was first interested in using the Western far right to legitimise Moscow’s politics and actions both domestically and internationally, but more recently Moscow has begun to support particular far right political forces to gain leverage on European politics and undermine the liberal-democratic consensus in the West.

Contributing to ongoing scholarly debates about Russia’s role in the world, its strategies aimed at securing legitimation of Putin’s regime both internationally and domestically, modern information warfare and propaganda, far right politics and activism in the West, this book draws on theories and methods from history, political science, area studies, and media studies and will be of interest to students, scholars, activists and practitioners in these areas.

How Alexander Dugin's Neo-Eurasianists geared up for the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2005-2013

The Neo-Eurasianist perspective on Ukraine was formed already in the 1990s, when Russian fascist Alexander Dugin argued, in his Foundations of Geopolitics, that Ukraine was “an unnatural state” consisting of four major regions with allegedly different geopolitical loyalties, and that a sovereign and united Ukraine constituted a major threat to the geopolitical security of Russia and the envisioned Eurasian Empire.

Dugin specified the means for neutralising the "Ukrainian threat to Russia" in 2009 in his book The Fourth Political Theory. In particular, he argued that “extending Russian influence on the post-Soviet space” would not necessarily imply “direct colonisation in the old tradition”: “in our world, more sophisticated and efficient network technologies are developed that allow to achieve the same results with the different means – with the use of information resources, social organisations, faith-based groups, and social movements”.  However, Russia’s direct action was also possible:

It cannot be excluded that a battle for Crimea and Eastern Ukraine awaits us.
Only a short time ago, the most hot-headed among the Russian hawks presumed only an internal conflict in Ukraine, as well as political, economic and energy pressure [on Ukraine] from the Russian side, but now a possibility of a direct military clash no longer appears unrealistic.

Dmytro Yarosh’s Resignation from the Right Sector

The recent resignation of Dmytro Yarosh from the leadership of the Right Sector may be a sign of the forthcoming changes in the strategies of both the Right Sector and the Ukrainian state.

In order to understand the significance of Yarosh’s resignation statement, one needs to consider two important points related to Ukraine’s domestic situation and international relations.

The far right "March of Heroes" in Kyiv, Ukraine (photo report)

A number of Ukrainian far right organisations, in particular, the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" (Svoboda) and Right Sector, took part in the "March of Heroes" held in Ukraine's capital Kyiv on 14 October. The march was dominated by harsh anti-government and nationalist rhetoric.

Far right activists and their supporters rally on the Mykhailivska Square for a meeting before starting the march

Russian fascist militants give money to Swedish counterparts

One of the previous posts addressed the issue of two Russian far right organisations, namely the Rodina party and the Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe Imperskoe Dvizhenie, RID), engaged in building of an international extreme right network under the title “World National-Conservative Movement” (WNCM). According to its political programme, the WNCM - rather than being just a framework for conferences - is focused on action.

A few days ago, new information has emerged that further corroborates this argument. On 5-6 September 2015, representatives of the RID visited Sweden and took part in a meeting of the Swedish fascist organisation Nordic Resistance (Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen), which was invited to join the WNCM earlier. During his talk, the RID's leader Stanislav Vorobyov, warned about "a full-scale war against the traditional values of Western civilisation" and explained that the uniform in which he showed up at the meeting was a symbol of their fight against "the Jewish oligarchs in Ukraine" on the side of pro-Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine. Furthermore, he claimed that "the Zionist strategy in the Middle East would be used int he future to divide and rule the nations of Europe".

Stanlislav Vorobyov, the leader of the Russian Imperial Movement, speaking at the meeting of the "Nordic Resistance", 5/6 September 2015

A new book: Alina Polyakova - The Dark Side of European Integration

A new book published in the "Explorations of the Far Right" book series which I edit for ibidem-Verlag:



Alina Polyakova, The Dark Side of European Integration: Social Foundations and Cultural Determinants of the Rise of Radical Right Movements in Contemporary Europe

The three pins of a murderous grenade by the Rada

In the course of the violent protests that took place by the Verkhovna Rada (the building of the Ukrainian parliament) on August 31, three National Guards were killed, and several dozens more servicemen, as well as protesters themselves, were wounded. The 3,000-strong protesters demanded from the parliament not to endorse amendments to the Ukrainian constitution. They were co-organised by the far-right Svoboda party, and two populist parties – the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko and the Ukrainian Union of Patriots (better known as UKROP).

The three national guards were killed by a single grenade. The Ukrainian authorities suspect that it was thrown by a member of the Sich Battalion associated with Svoboda. (While it is not clear whether the suspect was an actual member of Svoboda, he expressed his positive attitudes towards the party on social media.)

However, even if a Sich Battalion member threw the deadly grenade that killed three and heavily wounded many more, it may be too convenient to blame him alone for the incident. (Some very bad, manipulated analyses of the incident only obscure the problem.) Metaphorically, the grenade had three safety pins; in other words, there are three aspects that one needs to consider to understand the complex nature of this tragedy.

A statement on the developments in the Ukrainian town of Mukacheve

Members of the Ukrainian, anti-European far right organisation Right Sector have killed one civilian and injured four more, as well as injuring six policemen, using Kalashnikov rifles and a heavy machine gun, in the West Ukrainian town of Mukacheve.

As I have argued previously in this blog, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian far right organisations are criminal gangs that exploit a radical right-wing ideology for mobilisation purposes. The incident in Mukacheve seems to be an example of a criminal (far right) group trying to hijack an illegal business operated by another (non-political) criminal gang.

A protest of the Right Sector

Consequently, the Right Sector has tried to mobilise the Ukrainian society in support of the allegedly patriotic agenda of the Right Sector. So far, the Right Sector has succeeded in organising protests in more than a dozen of cities and towns across the country, including the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. Despite the fact that the protests have failed to gather any significant amount of Ukrainian citizens - reflecting the fringe status of the Right Sector in the Ukrainian politics - the security threats of the protests organised by armed members of the criminal, far right gang are potentially devastating. Right Sector thugs demand, in particular, the resignation of the Minister of Interior, dissolution of the parliament, and early parliamentary elections.

The Right Sector has clearly challenged the democratic nature of the Ukrainian state and is trying to undermine the state monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force. The actions of the Right Sector are blatantly unconstitutional, and the state must act urgently and forcefully against the criminal, anti-democratic actions of the Right Sector.

My recent articles (spring 2015)

"The Russian Mass Media and the Western Far Right", Center for European Policy Analysis, 30 March 2015

"How the European Far Right Became Mainstream", Politico, 22 April 2015

"Who Killed Buzina and Kalashnikov?", Zeit Online, 23 April 2015

"The Challenge of Russia’s Anti-Western Information Warfare", Diplomaatia, April 2015

"It’s Getting Ugly in Hungary", Foreign Policy, 20 May 2015

The Uneasy Reality of Antifascism in Ukraine

The Uneasy Reality of Antifascism in Ukraine
First published in German language in Beton International: Zeitung für Literatur und Gesellschaft (10 March 2015). The German version can be found below.

Ukrainian antifascists hold a banner that reds: "Against political terror". Kyiv, 19 January 2015

For almost twenty years of Ukraine’s independence, the term “antifascism” used to have very limited currency in the established political discourse in Ukraine. Until 2010, “antifascism” was primarily used as a form of self-identification by an element of Ukraine’s left-wing movement, as well as being employed by the far right groupuscules to refer to their left-wing opponents. Hence, until 2010-2011, “antifascism” remained a notion that largely belonged to the subcultural sphere of the physical and symbolical strife between left-wing and far right activists.

Whither the Ukrainian Far Right?

Introduction

The early presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine that took place in May and October 2014 correspondingly proved to be disastrous for the Ukrainian party-political far right.

Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (Svoboda), obtained 1.16% of the vote in the presidential election, while his party secured only 4.71% of the vote in the parliamentary election and, eventually, failed to pass the 5% electoral threshold and enter the parliament. In comparison, Svoboda managed to obtain 10.44% of the votes in 2012 and form the first ever far right parliamentary group in the history of Ukraine.

Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, obtained 0.70% in the presidential election, and 1.80% of the voters supported his party in the parliamentary election. The Right Sector, at the same time, can only provisionally be considered a far right party, and “national conservative” would perhaps be a more relevant and cautious term. In contrast to Svoboda, the Right Sector interprets the Ukrainian nation in civic, rather than ethnic, terms, while Yarosh’s election programme even insisted that the values of human dignity and human rights should become a fundamental ideology of a new constitution of Ukraine.

A comment on the involvement of the Patriot of Ukraine in the Ukrainian revolution

Adrian Karatnycky, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has written a good article, titled "Warlords and armed groups threaten Ukraine’s rebuilding", in which he discusses important issues related to today's Ukraine.

In March this year, I wrote that the newly-elected (then acting) government had to "urgently address two most important problems: the military Russian invasion that [had] already started in the Crimea, the southernmost region of Ukraine, and the dire economic situation". Writing at the end of this year, Karatnycky argues that Ukraine's established government is relatively successfully dealing with these two problems: "Ukraine is intelligently addressing its key challenges: restructuring the national budget to avoid default and meeting the military threat posed by Russia".

At the same time, Karatnycky highlights another problem, namely "independently operating warlords and armed groups", some of which are guided by far right ideology, as well as the cooperation between these groups and Ukraine's Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov - the cooperation that I have briefly discussed here.

Center for Eurasian Strategic Intelligence, a fraudulent "hawkish" think tank

Readers of this blog may have heard of the Center for Eurasian Strategic Intelligence (CESI) that seems to promote a "hawkish" view on Russia's foreign policy. In his Twitter, Edward Lucas has recently raised doubts about the authenticity of this organisation, and, as I found out, for a good reason. Let's have a closer look at CESI.

(Note that I will not be discussing their analyses, as they tend to plagiarise from other sources.)

Major resources of CESI:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eurasianintelligence. Registered on 18 March 2014.
- Website: http://eurasianintelligence.org. Registered on 18 July 2014.
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/eurasianintelligence/ Registered on 6 August 2014.
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/EurasianIntel. Date of registration unknown, first tweet on 12 August 2014.

How cronyism exploits Ukrainian neo-Nazis

Ukraine’s early presidential and parliamentary elections earlier this year proved to be disastrous for the Ukrainian party-political far right.

Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union “Freedom” (Svoboda), obtained 1.16% of the vote in the presidential election, while his party secured only 4.71% of the vote in the parliamentary election and, eventually, failed to pass the 5% electoral threshold and enter the parliament. In comparison, Svoboda obtained 10.44% of the votes in 2012 and formed the first ever far right parliamentary group in Ukraine’s history. Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, obtained 0.70% in the presidential election, and 1.80% of the voters supported his party in the parliamentary election.

However, the electoral failure of Svoboda and the Right Sector did not mark “the end of history” of the Ukrainian far right, and some other developments proved to be much more problematic. One of these developments is the rise of the previously obscure neo-Nazi organisation “Patriot of Ukraine” (PU) led by Andriy Bilets’ky.

Neo-Nazi leader Andriy Bilets'ky. Kharkiv, several years ago

Russians involved in the fake elections in eastern Ukraine

According to the article "Ukraine Tensions Rise as U.S., EU Weigh More Sanctions" that was published by Bloomberg on 13 November 2014, officials from the EU and U.S. meeting in Brussels "will weigh further sanctions against Russia’s economy and Ukrainian separatists, after the reported movement of tanks, artillery and combat troops into eastern Ukraine".

Moreover, "the likeliest first step, they said, is to blacklist Ukrainian separatists and Russians involved in the Nov. 2 elections in eastern regions, which the Ukrainian government considers illegitimate".

I have already posted the list of "election monitors" that travelled to Eastern Ukraine (illegally) and to neighbouring Russian regions to "observe" fake elections for the "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic". The list, to which I refer, is not complete, but this is the most complete list of fake "observers" available today. In this post, I will provide more information on the Russians who were involved in organising the "observation mission" in the Donbass and participated in it.

Who organised the "observation mission"?

From the Russian side, the main group that was involved in organising the "observation mission" is the Moscow-based "Civic Control" Association. "Civic Control" is what can be called a "GONGO", i.e. a "government organised non-governmental organisation", as the groups that compose this association are loyal to the Kremlin, while the key figures in the management of the association are members of – or, at least, closely associated with – the Russian parliament and the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.

The co-chair of the "Civic Control", who was directly involved in organising the "observation mission", is Aleksandr Brod, director of the "Moscow Bureau for Human Rights". He also participated in the "observation mission" himself.

Aleksandr Semyonovich Brod (Александр Семенович Брод), born on 19 August 1969.

International "observers": Moscow - Rostov - Donetsk

International fake observers of the fake elections in the Donbass arrived in Moscow on the 31st of October and checked in the 5-star Metropol Hotel. They had a late dinner at the hotel restaurant and some of them went for a walk to the Red Square:

Alessandro Bertoldi, member of Forza Italia and "observer" of the terrorist "elections", Moscow, 31 October 2014

Vladimir Djukanovic, member of the Serbian Progressive Party and "observer" of the terrorist "elections", Moscow, 31 October 2014

Helping international "observers" see armed men at "polling stations" in the Donbass

Graham Phillips, a controversial British reporter for the Kremlin's disinformation service Russia Today, has interviewed Austrian right-wing politician Ewald Stadler, who is one of the "observers" at "elections" in the Donbass.

According to Stadler, "there is no pressure to the people. Soldiers and people with guns are outside, not inside. Everybody can vote here free".

OK, so Stadler does not see a man in military fatigues standing behind him. So let's help Stadler see something else, shall we?

Fake monitors "observe" fake elections in the Donbass

The "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR) and "Luhansk People's Republic" (LNR), which are officially considered terrorist organisations by the Ukrainian authorities, will hold "parliamentary elections" on Sunday, 2nd of November, on the territories occupied by them with the help of the Russian army.

These "elections" are widely considered illegal and illegitimate, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored "the planned holding by armed rebel groups in eastern Ukraine of their own “elections” on 2 November, in breach of the Constitution and national law" adding that "these “elections” will seriously undermine the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which need to be urgently implemented in full".

Nevertheless, the Kremlin is said to be willing to recognise these "elections", yet again completely dismissing the advice from the UN let alone defying the laws of Ukraine that Russia has invaded in February-March 2014. The DNR/LNR "elections" will not be recognised as legitimate either by the EU or the US that threaten Russia with further sanctions for undermining Ukraine's independence and sovereignty.

Ukraine's parliamentary elections and the far right

On the 26th of October 2014, Ukrainians voted at the early parliamentary elections. Ukraine currently has a mixed electoral system (50% under party lists and 50% under constituencies) with a 5% election threshold. Here are the results of the National Exit Poll 2014 (I mention only those parties who seem to be entering the parliament and the parties which can be termed as far right):

Petro Poroshenko Bloc	23.0
People’s Front	21.3
Samopomich	13.2
Opposition Bloc	7.6
Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko	6.4
Svoboda	6.3
Batkivshchyna	5.6
Right Sector	2.4
Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists	0.1

Ukrainian intellectual was attacked by paramilitary right-wing thugs in Kyiv

Here is an extremely unsettling message from Kyiv:

Vasyl Cherepanyn, lecturer at the National University ''Kyiv-Mohyla Academy'' and head of Visual Culture Research Center, was attacked on Kontraktova square in Kiev, next to the university were he works.

A group of unknown men dressed in camouflage paramilitary uniforms suddenly attacked Vasyl Cherepanyn in broad daylight in a crowded square in central Kyiv. The police was late to the scene, and the attackers were not arrested. Vasyl Cherepanyn received heavy injuries, including fractures of facial bones. He links this incident to his professional activity.

Vasyl Cherepanyn, PhD of Theory of Art, is a lecturer at the Cultural Studies Department at the National University ''Kyiv-Mohyla Academy''. He is the head of Visual Culture Research Center and Editor of the Political Critique journal. He is an organizer of numerous scientific conferences, public discussions and art exhibitions. Among the latest events, co-organized by Vasyl Cherepanyn, is the conference "Ukraine: Thinking Together", with the participation of Timothy Snyder, Ivan Krastev, Agnieszka Holland, Paul Bermann and other leading intellectuals, and also the series of events during the Open University of Maidan.

While the military aggression is carried out against Ukraine, aggressive young men in military uniforms carried out an unprecedentedly violent attack on the university lecturer in the center of Kyiv. During the attack, the thugs were accusing Vasyl Cherepanyn of being ‘a separatist’, which is totally absurd to anyone aware of his activities. These unfounded and absurd claims, along with accusations of being ‘a communist’, are more and more often used by aggressive ignorants who aim to impose their ideology of hatred upon Ukrainian society, and to suppress any manifestations of critical thought. We demand a quick investigation of this appalling attack. We also demand to investigate the activities of paramilitary groups that use the war in Ukraine as a pretext to justify their own misantropic views.

I know Vasyl personally and consider this outrageous attack on him, which has been most likely carried out by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, as an attack on the most intelligent and intellectual part of the Ukrainian society. Vasyl is known for his pro-Ukrainian, pro-revolutionary left-wing views, and, together, we took part in several events providing academic analysis of the Ukrainian revolution from social, political and cultural perspectives.

I join the VCRC in their demands to immediately investigate the shocking attack on Vasyl Cherepanyn and arrest all those responsible for this crime.