Monthly Archives: August 2015

The fascists in Russia’s hybrid army

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There’s an old saying about the thief who cries thief in order to distract attention from himself. The same applies to the supporters of Russian imperialism and the Putin regime. They have been quick to take on board Putin’s propaganda that paints the Ukraine independence struggle as a fascist one, yet far-right parties received a much smaller vote in the Ukrainian elections than do similar parties, some of which are neo-fascist, in western Europe and the UK. Also, a cursory survey of the websites of such far-right parties reveals sympathy for the “anti-fascist” Putin. Far right and fascist groups both in Russia and throughout Europe are backing the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘People’s Republics’ (DPR/LPR) in word and deed.

– c21styork

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The following is from Paul Canning and is reprinted for non-commercial reuse under aAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.

Type ‘fascist Ukraine’ into Google and the first dozens of results all refer to the Ukrainian government and those forces fighting the Donbas separatists.

You will be hard pressed to find any references to the presence of fascists in Russia’s hybrid army in Ukraine. Ones like those pictured above in an astonishing piece of detective work by Dajey Petros.

Petros is a Dutch blogger who has been doing great work using similar tools to those employed by Eliot Higgins’ Bellingcat. Taking content from social media and using various tools to tell a story from it – like the story of the Russian missile which shot down the Malaysian Boeing.

Far right and fascist groups both in Russia and throughout Europe are backing the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ‘People’s Republics’ (DPR/LPR) in word and deed. They are raising money for them, despite the sanctions. They hold mass rallies and other events. They send representatives to the Donbas to endorse the ‘Republics’. And they send Russians – and sometimes other Europeans – to join the fighting. All with the tacit approval of the Kremlin.

Gubarev

That approval was most sharply on display in March when Europe and Russia’s far right groups came together in a conference in St Petersberg. It was organised by the Rodina party whose leader is a Russian Deputy Prime Minister.

The event’s star was Alexei Milchakov, the leader of the ‘Rusich’ group of rebel fighters. Milchakov is infamous for photographs of him with a Nazi flag and a puppy he had allegedly killed. He has also posed in front of the dead bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.

Naming the separatist fascists

Many fascists were involved in setting up the DPR/LPR, such as Pavel Gubarev, the self-proclaimed first ‘People’s Governor of Donetsk’. His press secretary, Aleksander Kriakov, was described by Donetsk city Chief Rabbi Pinchas Vishedski as “the most famous anti-Semite in the region.”

When separatists took over TV broadcasting towers last year they boasted that:

Here, from Sloviansk, we are inflicting a powerful information conceptual blow to the biblical matrix … to Zionist zombie broadcasting.

They then presented a lecture by former Russian Conceptual Party Unity leader Konstantin Petrov, who the European Association for Jewish Culture (EAJC) describe as a “anti-Semitic neo-pagan national-Stalinist sect.”

In March last year Josip Zisels, Chair of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities in Ukraine, noted that pro-Russian organisations’ websites “have published many anti-Semitic materials which were meant to instigate hatred against the Maidan as being allegedly inspired by the Jews.”

Former DPR Prime Minister Aleksandr Borodai was a writer for the Russian fascist newspaper Zavtra. He opened the DPR’s first foreign ‘consulate’ on the premises of the Moscow branch of the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU), the youth wing of the Eurasia Party, headed by fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin has openly called for genocide against Ukrainians.

Another prominent Russian fascist in the Donbas is Gennadiy Dubovoy, whose colleagues are shown in the top and left photos participating in some sort of bizarre Nazi ritual. (See lots more whacky photos.)

Yuli Kharlamova

Participating in the ritual are several women and one is Yuli Kharlamova, a presenter on the Russian TV channel ANNA- News and an FSB (Russian security services) agent.

There are many other individual as well as organised Russian fascists who have been documented from social media engaged in leading roles among the separatists. As Petros puts it “in Russia’s [hybrid] army the Nazis structurally and openly belong to the core and they train others.” Not only that but Russian soldiers who have been captured have been found to have Nazi tattoos.

Here are the patches for five fascist militias in that separatist hybrid army (there are others):

And according to the expert on the far-right in Europe Anton Shekhovtsov there is evidence that proves that “Russian fascist organisations have been heavily infiltrating and instigating pro-Russian separatist movements in South-Eastern Ukraine” before the Maidan.

The real politics of the DPR/LPR

The UK has an organisation supported by leading lights in the so-called and unfortunately influential ‘Stop The War Coalition’ which claims that the DPR/LPR are socialists fighting fascists, but when the DPR/LPR organised sham elections last November socialists and communists were excluded.

The DPR constitution has the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate as the official religion. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Roman Catholics, and Protestants, are officially regarded as ‘anti-Russian’ and have been actively persecuted.

According to a separatist recruitment video:

This war is a religious war. For Banderist money, agents of the Vatican, splitters, heretics fight against us, all of them traitors to Christ. And that’s why this war is a religious one.

The constitution also says that “any forms of perverted unions between people of the same sex are not acknowledged and will be prosecuted.”

The separatists running DPR/LNR have the documented support of only 18% of locals.

A further sign of the real politics of the separatists is shown by how anti-semitism fuels their infighting.

And in February, at a press conference, the leaders of the DPR/LPR, Zakharchenko and
Plotnitsky, ended their interview with anti-Semitic remarks.

Zakharchenko said: “I can’t remember, that at any time in Ukrainian history, cossacks were ruled by, well, not exactly those people, who ever carried a sword. Jews…”
Plotnitsky, (interrupting, grinning): “There is a video on Youtube ‘When the Jewish Cossacks have risen’, let them watch it”. Zakharchenko: “It’s not Jewish Cossacks, it’s miserable representatives of a great people, but they never ruled over cossacks. Taras Bulba and Taras Shevchenko would be turning in their graves because of such rulers in Ukraine.”

Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said that “those watching understood very well that this was an anti-Semitic appeal.”

This climate is being encouraged by Russian television, the only TV available in the ‘People’s Republics’, who during last year’s Ukrainian elections, accused leading candidates of being Jews.

Antisemitic meme against Alexander Khodakovsky, DPR ‘Security Council’ secretary

The lies about fascism in Ukraine

Human rights and Jewish groups both say that Russian claims, including by Putin himself, of rampant antisemitism, even ‘pogroms’, in Ukraineare not correct. Some of the incidents they recorded may actually have been orchestrated by Russian secret services, such as one which took place in July in Lviv.

The reality is that Ukraine has one of the lowest levels of anti-Semitic incidents in all of Europe, according to Josef Zissels, General Council Chairman of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

An antisemtic poster distributed in Luhansk during the initial unrest. It reads “Jew Shuster [Savik Shuster, Kyiv-based TV presenter] will explain why Ukrainians must defend the interests of Jew [Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk and Jewish oligarchs. Why Slavs must kill each other.”

Researchers of Ukrainian nationalism issued a collective statement last March saying that the Maidan was a liberationist, and not extremist, mass action of civil protest. It condemned reporting which “misrepresents the role, salience and impact of Ukraine’s far right within the protest movement.”

Left forces in Ukraine have also consistently spoken out at the mischaracterisation of the Maidan revolution as a ‘fascist coup’, however their voices have been drowned by the Kremlin propaganda machine and its Western sympathisers – as well as by much of the mainstream reporting.

Dmitry Mrachnik (a member of the Ukrainian Autonomous Workers Union) is here extremely blunt!

The claim that fascists control Ukraine is propaganda by Putin. To those anarchists and left-wingers who believe Putin’s propaganda about a fascist regime in Ukraine and who support Russia I say:

Take a deep breath, gormless half-wits. For many years Russia has already had something like the kind of fascism which Ukraine is accused of. Anyone who supports fascists who save a neighbouring country from fascists must be either pretty stupid or completely devoid of any conscience.

The propaganda about Ukraine being ‘fascist’ directly fuels violence. It is consistently cited as a reason for those joining the DPR/LNR. This does not mean that the growth of nationalism in Ukraine should not be a concern.

Says Halya Coynash of Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group:

Ukraine’s leaders have laid themselves open to criticism over the role of the Azov volunteer battalion, with its neo-Nazi leaders and probably members, as well as the more extreme elements in Right Sector and VO Svoboda. A few individuals such as Andriy Biletsky and Ihor Mosiychuk have won seats in Parliament, while others have received questionable appointments on the basis of their bravery in defending Ukraine. There are legitimate concerns about their role beyond the battlefield, as well as doubts about their motives as the recent conflict in Mukacheve has demonstrated.

All this is a gift for Kremlin propaganda, but it still does not justify broad claims about Ukrainian society. Ukraine’s two far-right parties did very badly in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, and no evidence exists that voters support anti-Semitic or xenophobic views. Now in Parliament, Biletsky reportedly claims that stories about his neo-Nazi and white supremacist views is all Russian slander. The denial is unconvincing, but it is telling that he sees the need to make it.

It is unlikely, she says that the Kremlin will “abandon its propaganda arsenal” and she warns about “fakes, manipulation, and total fabrication.”

Petros uncovered one such manipulation last year. A member of the now famous Ukrainian Azov battalion, whose members undoubtedly do include fascists, had posted a photo of his battalion posing with a Swastika flag. Petros proved it was a photoshopped fake, the original had no Nazi flag in it. Nevertheless here it was on Russian primetime TV news …

It is entirely right that Western media should report, as the BBC’s leading news show ‘Newsnight’ did recently, on the far right in Ukraine. What is wrong is that the presence of fascists in powerful positions among the separatists is being totally ignored.

Western journalists often say that they strive for ‘balance’. Well, where is it? On this issue they are doing what the Russians do – only report one part of one story.

Second Anniversary of The Ghoutal Chemical Attack: Assad’s fascist regime must be overthrown

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1359839008-nationalist-demonstration-against-globalism-and-imperialism--paris_1766972
Extreme right-wing protestors in Europe with portraits of those they support

The Assad fascist regime is responsible for extreme human rights violations in Syria today. More than 220,000 people have been killed, 10 million people – half the country – have been forced from their homes, hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have been detained and 640,000 are living under brutal sieges without regular access to food, water or medicines. In September last year, the US-led coalition invaded Syrian airspace to bomb Daesh (ISIS) positions; yet a blind eye is turned when Assad’s aircraft bomb civilian populations and the revolutionary democrats from the same airspace, killing many more than Daesh.

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From Planet Syria: Two years ago on 21st August 2013 the world was focused on Syria after the government of Bashar al-Assad used Sarin on civilians in the worst chemical attack for a quarter of a century. (Since the Halabjah chemical attacks by the Saddam Hussein regime in 1988).

The world feigned outrage. Obama said a red line had been crossed.

But today the chemical attacks continue. Chlorine is routinely used in barrel bomb attacks on civilian neighborhoods. But it’s not the chemicals that are killing most people, it’s the bombs themselves.

Here are 5 things everyone should know about what is happening in Syria today:

1. The Assad regime is killing 7 times more civilians than Isis.

2. More than 11,000 barrel bombs made of scrap metal and high explosive have been rolled out of regime helicopters onto hospitals, homes and schools since the UN banned them. They are the biggest killer of civilians. They drive extremism.

3. These barrel bombs are the leading cause of displacement, forcing refugees to cross the Mediterranean and other borders.

4. Many of the barrel bombs are dropped on areas under siege. More than half a million people in Syria live in areas with no access to food, water or medicine since 2013, including the areas of Ghouta that were targeted by the sarin gas attacks in the same year.

5. The international anti-Isis coalition is flying in the same airspace where many of these barrel bombs are dropped, choosing to look the other way.

On the occasion of the second anniversary of the chemical attack on Ghouta, a suburb of Damascas, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces has issued this statement:

It was a declared crime whose details and elements are well-known to everyone, whether they admitted it or not. They know the only party that does not lack the ability, the authority or the criminal will required to commit such a massacre, which is the Assad regime. They also fully aware that the regime has all the means of production, assembly and delivery of chemical weapons that were the tools of this this crime. They know the perpetrator by name, and also the names of the top regime officials who were involved with him. They know how he committed this crime and how he handed, with the utmost shamelessness, the murder weapon.

Two years have passed since the crime of the century, but the perpetrator is still at large. The families of 1,507 victims killed are still looking around for an international response equivalent to the size of the crime committed against their loved ones. And yet not a single measure has been taken to prevent the repetition of this crime. Death stills looms large over the head of Syrians, armed with every means of killing, ranging from knives and cleavers to barrel bombs, Scud missiles and chemical weapons. The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented 125 regime breaches of UN Security Council resolution 2118 and 56 breaches of UNSC resolution 2209 which criminalizes the military use of chlorine gas.

While we in the Syrian Coalition renew calls on the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities in maintaining security and peace in Syria, and to take immediate action to stop the crimes against humanity and violations and to ensure that criminals are held accountable, we deplore the indifference of the international community which continues to deal with the blood of Syrians as a bargaining chip, a means to settle scores and exhaust opponents.

Having paid heavily for the sake of achieving our goals, we Syrians are now fully aware that we have to fight this battle relying only on the resolve of rebel fighters. Indeed, unity, rejecting discord, commitment to the principles of the revolution are the only guarantee of victory and liberating Syria from the Assad regime and its thuggish repressive security apparatuses and of the establishment of democratic rule which is bases on pluralism, justice and the rule of law.

We ask for Mercy for our fallen heroes, recovery for the wounded, and freedom for detainees.
Long live Syria and its people, free and with honor.

Assad’s strategy: don’t fight Daesh; direct it

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The left has a proud history of opposition to fascism and indeed is the most reliable anti-fascist group politically. It is a puzzle as to how and why what passes for ‘left wing’ today can either be so neutral toward the Assad regime or adopt the entirely crypto-fascist slogan ‘Hands off Syria’. The puzzle is explained, in my opinion, by the fact that the left is more than a self-identifying label. It has a real content, defined by history, practice and theory. If someone tells you that western military involvement on the side of the Syrian people against the regime would be a disaster for the region, just ask the fundamental question: “A disaster for whom?” To those who beat their chests warning that US imperialism is out to dominate the region and that that claim somehow should mean leaving the unarmed populus to Assad’s barrel bombs, just tell them: “Your anti-imperialism is worthless if it ends up putting you on the side of the regional dictators who are oppressing and massacring the people as we speak”.

I wish to thank the good people at NOW. for permission to publish this article by Haid Haid, who is a program manager at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s office in Beirut. He tweets @HaidHaid22

c21styork

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 images

Assad is trying to turn his problems into opportunities by helping ISIS (Daesh; ISIL) choose what’s in his own best interests and allowing ISIS easier access to some areas than to others.

“Reports indicate that the regime is making air-strikes in support of#ISIL‘s advance on #Aleppo, aiding extremists against Syrian population,” the US Embassy in Syria tweeted on 1 June. Similar reports were published by other regional and international media outlets when ISIS made an unexpected and successful move against rebel groups north of Aleppo, disrupting their recent momentum.

To many of those who have been closely following what’s happening in Syria, this might not come as a surprise. Assad has avoided confronting ISIS, as they both benefit from one another. ISIS degrades and eliminates rebel groups that would otherwise be fighting Assad, and Assad’s regime presents itself to the West as the only local partner that can fight the terrorist group. This—at least publicly—unspoken agreement was broken in June last year after ISIS announced its caliphate. It seems, however, that the same arrangement is back on the table with some amendments due to recent developments.

Game changer Palmyra

Seizing Palmyra gave ISIS the advantage of many new strategic options, which will most likely change the dynamics of the armed conflict in Syria. The strategic location of Palmyra has allowed ISIS to cut the regime’s supply line to Deir Ezzor, and it opens the possibility of capturing other strategic locations, such as the Shaer gas and oil field. The broad desert has given them many alternative roads to various areas of Syria to expand and enforce their presence there; eastern Ghouta and eastern Qalamoun, rural Hama, rural Homs and rural Sweida. Capturing Palmyra was a game changer not only for ISIS but for the regime as well. Just consider the big number, and high symbolic value, of Assad regime losses on various fronts; the fear of the next rebels attack; the continued draining of resources (locally and regionally); the withdrawal of Iraqi militias who have returned home to fight; and the division in strategies between Assad and Iran—the former still trying to control all provincial centers, the latter restricting itself to areas considered useful within Iranian strategy.

Revised strategy

These developments have pushed Assad and his allies to find ways to cut down their losses and to conserve resources. It seems that Assad has found a way to turn his problems into opportunities by giving ISIS access to areas controlled by the rebels in order to drain their resources as they fight away from the regime, and he does so even if this costs him more territory. In Aleppo, for example, ISIS could advance through regime-controlled areas, including As-Safirah or Kweires Air Base, given the importance of these locations and due to pressure on the regime by other rebels groups in Idleb, combined with rumors that an Aleppo battle will be launched, which has made the regime even weaker. Even though capturing air bases might be considered its most important strategic goal, ISIS instead decided to intensify its attacks on areas controlled by rebels along the Suran-Mare axis in rural Aleppo. The regime also intensified its attacks on areas that have helped ISIS advance and control new villages. These developments forced many rebel groups, including members of the Army of Conquest coalition, to mobilize their forces and move them to prioritize fighting ISIS over the regime—at least in Aleppo.

The regime might also help ISIS to enforce its presence in eastern Ghouta, which will help the regime completely besiege Ghouta and engage rebels in another fight. Some recent reports mentioned that the regime has been busy transporting equipment from Al-Seine Airbase to Ad-Dumayr Airbase, which Assad’s opponents interpret as an evacuation plan. If this is the case, it could mean that the regime is either trying to conserve resources, or is scared that it might lose the air base, or both, which in any case will give ISIS access to eastern Ghouta. The same thing could also apply in eastern Qalamoun, Ar-Ruhaybah and Jayrud, to enforce their presence there and to keep the opposition busy in the fight against it.

US inaction

While the air force of the American-led coalition played a large role in defeating ISIS in Kobani, it didn’t react to ISIS’s latest attack on rebel-held areas, which gave ISIS the opportunity to move its forces freely. Many rebel leaders complained publically about the lack of US interest in helping them defeat ISIS in Syria, though it’s now apparent the US administration knows of the cooperation between Assad and ISIS. Sarcastically, activists started wondering if the US Air Force didn’t strike ISIS because Assad had crowded up the sky striking rebel groups. Maybe sarcasm is the only way that many Syrians, and to some extent non-Syrians, are able to understand US policy towards fighting ISIS.

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