19/84! Russian and European fascists reverse the 1945 Yalta Conference

Everybody who is following the developments in Ukraine, which is now under a direct attack from Russia, has perhaps noticed that Putin's propaganda machine is joyfully playing with meanings and concepts turning them upside down.

The deliberate confusion that Putin's Russia produces and the inverted concepts it employs have an ideological underpinning: Russia is trying to hide its right-wing extremist attempts to undermine the post-war liberal-democratic order in Europe under the guise of "anti-fascist struggle".

French Eurasianists join (pro-)Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine

An Internet TV channel of (pro-)Russian extremists has published a video featuring four Frenchmen who came to Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine to fight against Ukrainian forces. They do not say their names and think that France will not know of their participation in the terrorist activities in Ukraine. Now it's time to reveal some of their secrets.

(from left to right) Mickael Takahashi, Guillaume "Lenormand" Cuvelier, Nikola Perovic, Victor-Alfonso Lenta in Donetsk, August 2014

(from left to right) Victor-Alfonso Lenta, Mickael Takahashi, Guillaume "Lenormand" Cuvelier, Nikola Perovic in Donetsk, August 2014

This video and other evidence I have gathered suggest that Guillaume "Lenormand" Cuvelier, Nikola Perovic and Mickael Takahashi first came to Moscow in the second half of June where they met Russian citizen Mikhail Polynkov.* The latter is engaged in assisting international extremists to get to Eastern Ukraine.

(Pro-)Russian extremists in 2006 and 2014: the Dugin Connection

In August 2006, Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin and his Eurasian Youth Union (Евразийский союз молодежи, ESM) organised a summer camp where ultranationalist activists were further indoctrinated and trained to fight against democratic movements in neighbouring independent states. Looking at the pictures from that camp, I have identified at least five people who, in 2014, were engaged in the terrorist activities of (pro-)Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine.

Andrey Purgin in the ESM camp, 2006

Andrey Purgin, 2014

Andrey Purgin, first "Prime Minister" of the "Donetsk People's Republic". In 2006, he was a leader of the organisation "Donetsk Republic".

Putin’s useful idiots and little ribbentrops in Europe

The Ukrainian revolution that started from pro-European protests (Euromaidan) in November 2013 and eventually ousted former president Viktor Yanukovych in March 2014 turned Russian president Vladimir Putin’s blood cold. There were two major – political and geopolitical – reasons for Putin to be terrified.

First of all, with his antagonism towards mass protests, which his regime systematically crushes in Russia itself, Putin feared that Maidan – which, after the “Orange revolution” in 2004, has become a name for a successful popular protest – could be somehow transferred to Russia and cause problems to his rule.

Neo-Nazi Russian National Unity in Eastern Ukraine

Here are some photos of the Russian neo-Nazi organisation Russian National Unity (Русское национальное единство, RNE) who are fighting against Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine.

RNE's logo, a swastika, on a St. George ribbon hailed by Putin's Russia as an allegedly anti-fascist symbol

June 2014, Eastern Ukraine

What Can Be Expected from Ukrainian Right in the Midst of Political and Military Crisis?

My interview to Nikolas Kozloff, author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and founder of the Revolutionary Handbook project.

In addition to the military crisis in Eastern Ukraine and the rise of pro-Russian separatist rebels, Kiev now confronts a growing political crisis as the country gears up for new elections. What can we expect from the Ukrainian right, and how will nationalist forces seek to profit from escalating tensions with Russia? For answers, I caught up with Anton Shekhovtsov, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna and an expert on Ukrainian politics.

NK: In the aftermath of the Malaysia flight 17 disaster, the media has tended to examine events in Ukraine in military and geopolitical terms. Yet we hear very little about what effect the crash will have upon domestic politics in Ukraine and nationalist as well as rightwing sentiment. What are your thoughts?

AS: I don't think the crash has exerted much impact on domestic Ukrainian politics. Bear in mind that Kiev has been militarily engaged with Russian separatists for some time now, and so the Malaysia airliner disaster won't do much to change the fundamental dynamic one way or the other. I also don't believe this incident has had much of an impact upon nationalist groups, again for similar reasons.

Article: "Ukraine’s Radical Right" published in Journal of Democracy

Journal of Democracy has recently published a new issue that features a special section "The Maidan and Beyond". Andreas Umland and I co-authored an article for this section:

Ukraine’s Radical Right

Abstract:
Thanks largely to the Kremlin’s information war, Ukraine’s ultranationalists have become global media stars of a sort, depicted in Western and other reports as key players in Ukraine’s third major political upheaval in less than a quarter-century. How do we explain the paradox of ultranationalist parties becoming involved in a protest movement whose thrust is toward greater integration between Ukraine and the European Union? And are the fears that swirl around these parties justified? The most obvious explanation for the Ukrainian far right’s ardent participation in the EuroMaidan may be found in the primary goal shared by all Ukrainian nationalists, radical and moderate alike: to liberate Kyiv from the Kremlin’s hegemony.