Joe, thank you. See this: Brendan Devenney's research of the timeline of Ukrainian Nazi coup since 2014. The aggression against Donbass civilians in order to exterminate them.
👇🏼
From the 2014 coup to the Eve of the 2022 Invasion
Donbass
The Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, populated by a large number of ethnic Russians, did not recognize the coup government, whose first act was to outlaw the public use of the Russian language (which it later reversed). The Donbass immediately sought autonomy from Kiev. It saw the U.S.-installed regime as illegitimate and hostile to its interests and culture. In essence, it was defending a democratic election.
Accountability for killings in Ukraine *from January 2014 to May 2016*:
OHCHR estimates that between mid-April 2014 and 31 May 2016, at least 9,404 people, of which up to 2,000 are civilians, have been killed as a result of the conflict. The vast majority of civilian casualties, recorded on the territories controlled by the Government of Ukraine and on those controlled by armed groups, were caused by the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas,
About 85 to 90 per cent of these deaths, recorded by OHCHR both in the territories controlled by the Government and in the areas controlled by armed groups, are as a result of shelling of populated areas with mortars, canons, howitzers, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems.
By early June 2016, the number of non-combat fatalities among Ukrainian servicemen had reached 1,294, according to the Chief Military Prosecutor, including 259 suicides and 121 case of “intentional homicide”. OHCHR is concerned that some deaths – such as those of servicemen who were whistle-blowers regarding misdeeds of Ukrainian forces in the conflict zone (corruption and looting) – have been investigated ineffectively.
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/OHCHRThematicReportUkraineJan2014-May2016_EN.pdf
Update on fatalities Feb 2019
KYIV -- Some 13,000 people have been killed, a quarter of them civilians, and as many as 30,000 wounded in the war in eastern Ukraine since it broke out in April 2014, the United Nations says.
The estimated toll includes more than 3,300 civilian deaths, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a document dated February 25 and provided to RFE/RL the same day.
The estimated death toll also includes 4,000 members of Ukrainian forces and 5,500 "armed groups," the OHCHR document said.
When the civil war began in eastern Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists, the new western-backed government began to arm Azov. The militia soon fell under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian interior ministry, and saw some of the most intense frontline combat against the separatists.
The group stands accused in United Nations and Human Rights Watch reports of committing war crimes against pro-Russian separatists during the ongoing civil war in the eastern Donbass region, including torture, sexual violence and targeting of civilian homes.
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_13th_HRMMU_Report_3March2016.pdf
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/ReportCRSV_EN.pdf
Today, Azov is run by Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior minister. According to the BBC, he pays its fighters, and has appointed one of its military commanders, Vadym Troyan, as his deputy – with control over the police.
Avakov last year met with the Israeli interior minister Aryeh Deri to discuss “fruitful cooperation.”
Azov’s young founder and first military commander Andriy Biletsky is today a lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament.
As journalist Max Blumenthal explained on The Real News in February, Biletsky has “pledged to restore the honor of the white race” and has advanced laws forbidding “race mixing.”
https://therealnews.com/stories/max-blumenthal-us-is-arming-neo-nazis-in-ukraine
According to The Telegraph, Biletsky in 2014 wrote that “the historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led untermenschen.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-arming-neo-nazis-ukraine/24876
On the 21st of March the interim government of Ukraine officialy signs the controversial European Union Association Agreement into law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union–Ukraine_Association_Agreement
The U.S. had also claimed that Russia “invaded” Crimea in March 2014, when Russia already had troops stationed there under an agreement with Ukraine. “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who voted in the Senate for what a real invasion looks like: the 2003 U.S. unprovoked attack on Iraq — on a completely trumped-up pretext.
Fucking. Wow.
By the way, an excellent breakdown of the situation in Crimea can be found here:
https://alethonews.com/2022/03/08/timeline-the-crimean-referendum/
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s vow to send more U.S. troops to NATO’s eastern allies; NATO exercises near Russia’s borders and the supply of $450 million in weaponry to Ukraine are presented as the proper order of things: neither threatening, aggressive nor escalatory.
Two key demands by Russian President Vladimir Putin, namely, that Ukraine never host U.S. missiles or join NATO, were dismissed by Nuland saying, “Those are decisions for Ukraine to make and for NATO to make, not for the Kremlin to make.”
(How Not to Explain the Ukraine Crisis, Mike Madden, Consortium News, December 24, 2021)
In Odesa, 48 people were deprived of their lives in the violence of 2 May 2014 when they were trapped in government buildings and burned alive by mainly far right groups.
In April 2014, the Kiev regime launched “anti-terrorist” military operations against the breakaway provinces. Worse yet, it turned a blind eye to the real terrorists, neo-Nazi paramilitary squads like the Azov Battalion, that moved into the region. A bloody civil war was now underway, instigated by Kiev’s willingness to kill its own people in the Donbass. To date, the war has claimed 14,000 lives.
NATO and U.S. officials said regular units of the Russian military crossed a few kilometers into Ukrainian territory on August 2014, which Russia denied, when the separatist forces had been pushed eastward toward the Russian border and hundreds of civilians had been killed.
As happened in Georgia in 2008, a government militarily attacked its own people and Russia intervened to drive the military forces back and protect the local population. In that 2008 case, a European Union investigation determined that Georgia, not Russia, was the aggressor.
https://www.france24.com/en/20090930-georgia-war-russia-eu-south-ossetia-tskhinvali-putin-military
On 25 May 2014, Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine in snap election
The same far right that had led the charge in toppling Yanukovych, including Parubiy, found themselves with plum roles in the interim government that followed.
The winner of the 2014 snap presidential election — Ukraine’s seventh-richest man, Petro Poroshenko — had a history of corruption.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131103105813/http:/en.for-ua.com/analytics/2005/10/28/164030.html
His interior minister soon incorporated the Azov Regiment, a neo-Nazi militia, into Ukraine’s National Guard.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2014/10/09/azov-regiment-to-join-ukraines-national-guard/
The country was now a Mecca for far-right extremists around the world, who come to learn and get training from Azov — including, ironically, Russian white supremacists who were hounded from their country by Putin.
https://ctc.usma.edu/the-nexus-between-far-right-extremists-in-the-united-states-and-ukraine/
https://www.politico.eu/article/pro-trump-insurrection-vladimir-putin-worst-nightmare/
Despite far-right parties ultimately losing seats in Parliament, ultranationalist movements successfully shifted the country’s politics to the extreme right.
Poroshenko and other centrists backed measures to marginalize the speaking of Russian and glorify Nazi collaborators.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
Even so, far-right candidates have entered Parliament on non-far-right tickets, and extremists like former Azov commander Andriy Biletsky have taken high-ranking law enforcement positions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/13/ukraine-far-right-fascism-mps
Far-right vigilantism spread through the country, Poroshenko himself granted citizenship to a Belarusian neo-Nazi and engaged in some borderline anti-Semitism of his own.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/5/20/ukraines-far-right-popular-or-propaganda
https://khpg.org/en/1417957695
September 2014
Minsk agreement
Between September 2014 and February 2015, Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany signed several iterations of the so-called Minsk agreements, which eventually stopped the forward movement of troops and reduced fighting significantly. But the agreements were never implemented, and the fighting has transformed into a trench war, with roughly 75,000 troops facing off along a 420-km-long front line cutting through densely populated areas. The war has ruined the area's economy and heavy industries, forced millions to relocate and turned the conflict zone into one of the world’s most mine-contaminated areas.
https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer
OCTOBER 2014
Following the 2014 parliamentary elections, the 5-party coalition government officially makes joining NATO a “national priority”.
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-parliament-coalition-agreement/26703123.html
https://off-guardian.org/2022/02/24/timeline-euromaidan-the-original-ukraine-crisis/
2016
The Ukrainian government’s links to Neo-Nazis are never openly admitted in the U.S., but this is the reason why Congress refused to pass a bill that banned funding of Neo-Nazi groups.
2017
frustrated Ukrainians who had helped drive Yanukovych out, was neither peace and stability, nor a move toward liberal values and democracy. In fact, almost all of the protesters’ demands have gone unfulfilled.
- law enforcement and special services reform
- judicial reform
- anticorruption legislation
- Anti-elitism in politics
- Investigation of the events at Euromaidan
2018
A March 2018 report by Reuters stated that “(neo nazi youth organization) C14 and Kiev’s city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a ‘municipal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effectively giving them the sanction of the state to carry out pogroms.
As The Grayzone reported, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s railway station in collaboration with the Kiev police.
https://thegrayzone.com/2018/10/30/c14-ukrainian-nazi-kiev-police-america-house/
Not only was this activity sanctioned by the Kiev city government, the US government itself saw little problem with it, hosting Bondar at an official US government institution in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 continued to receive state funding throughout 2018 for “national-patriotic education.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2018/10/30/c14-ukrainian-nazi-kiev-police-america-house/
https://web.archive.org/web/20180617020140/https://hromadskeradio.org/derzhava-finansuye-c14
Karas has claimed that the Ukrainian Security Serves would “pass on” information regarding pro-separatist rallies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on.”
“In general, deputies of all factions, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.
2019
Little to nothing has changed about Ukrainian corruption or authoritarianism, under either Poroshenko or current president Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in 2019 as an outsider change agent.
Each has governed like an autocrat, using their powers to go after political opponents and weaken dissent.
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/editorial/budding-autocrat.html
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-zelensky’s-ukraine-becoming-increasingly-autocratic-182124
And have been embroiled in personal enrichment scandals that remain endemic to the Ukrainian political class.
https://eurasianet.org/a-brief-history-of-corruption-in-ukraine-the-poroshenko-era
With Yanukovych out, the interim government and Washington’s handpicked prime minister signed the EU deal whose rejection had started it all, solidifying Ukraine’s move to the West, and ushering in the brutal austerity measures demanded by the IMF.
Over the years, Yanukovych’s successor signed off on a round of privatization, raised the pension age, and slashed gas subsidies, urged on by then vice president Joe Biden.
Unsurprisingly, angry Ukrainians both voted with their feet and threw him out in a landslide.
https://www.unian.info/society/2188574-reasons-why-ukrainian-population-shrinks.html
Zelensky
Zelensky’s name was on a recent list by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Pandora Papers.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/
According to the ICIJ’s findings published in The Guardian, Zelensky owned a stake in a British Virgin Islands firm described as holding shares in film-production and distribution companies. A month before he was elected president, Zelensky transferred his shares to Serhiy Shefir, a friend and business partner, ICIJ reported.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-leak-dataset/
Someone tried to murder him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/world/europe/ukraine-assassination-attempt.html
Shefir is believed to have created a network of offshore entities for Zelensky and others, such as Zelensky former business partner and employer, and a U.S. sanctioned Ukrainian banking and media tycoon named Ihor Kolomoisky. U.S. authorities allege that Kolomoisky “laundered $5.5 billion through a tangle of shell companies, purchasing factories and commercial properties across the U.S. heartland,” according to the ICIJ.
A recent report published September 23 by the European Court of Auditors on corruption in Ukraine said that between 2016 and 2020, the three main obstacles to economic growth were the same as they were pre-Maidan movement, when people were protesting in favor of a push towards EU integration. The perception was that corruption, no trust in the courts, and market monopolies (state capture by a few private business owners) were major obstacles to modernizing Ukraine.
https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=59383
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2021/10/14/ukraine-2021-the-crisis-continues/?sh=2d456e974a8a
Zelensky once publically “confronted” the extremist elements in the military. He became the target of an angry backlash.
Andriy Biletsky, the proudly fascist Azov Battalion leader who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”, vowed to bring thousands of fighters to Zolote if Zelensky pressed any further.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from the party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly fantasized about Zelensky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade.
Though Zelensky achieved a minor disengagement, the neo-Nazi paramilitaries escalated their “No Capitulation” campaign. And within months, fighting began to heat up again in Zolote, sparking a new cycle of violations of the Minsk Agreement.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51543463
https://www.unian.info/politics/1043394-minsk-agreement-full-text-in-english.html
By this point, Azov had been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military and its street vigilante wing, known as the National Corps, was deployed across the country under the watch of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and alongside the National Police.
https://khpg.org/en/1517275970
In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
Behind the corporate media spin lies the complex and increasingly close relationship Zelensky’s administration has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political posts by the Ukrainian state, and the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014.
In fact, Zelensky’s top financial backer, the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a key benefactor of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremists militias.
Incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, the Azov Battalion is considered the most ideologically zealous and militarily motivated unit fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region.
With Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel insignia on the uniforms of its fighters, who have been photographed with Nazi SS symbols on their helmets, Azov “is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology…[and] is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing US-based white supremacy organizations,” according to an FBI indictment of several US white nationalists that traveled to Kiev to train with Azov.
Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian energy baron of Jewish heritage, has been a top funder of Azov since it was formed in 2014.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions, and has deployed them as a personal thug squad to protect his financial interests.
In 2019, Kolomoisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s presidential bid. Though Zelensky made anti-corruption the signature issue of his campaign, the Pandora Papers exposed him and members of his inner circle stashing large payments from Kolomoisky in a shadowy web of offshore accounts.
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/reactions-in-ukraine-to-pandora-papers-revelations.html
When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages. As Open Democracy noted, “Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.”
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/entrepreneurs-of-political-violence-ukraine-far-right/
Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.
In March 2019, members of the Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked the home of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leading opposition figure in Ukraine, accusing him of treason for his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Zelensky’s administration escalated the attack on Medvedchuk, shuttering several media outlets he controlled in February 2021 with the open approval of the US State Department, and jailing the opposition leader for treason three months later. Zelensky justified his actions on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-medvedchuk-tv-channels-zelenskiy-defends-ban/31085877.html
Next, in August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus containing members of Medvedchuk’s party, Patriots for Life, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Throughout 2019, Zelensky and his administration deepened their ties with ultra-nationalist elements across Ukraine.
Just days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk – then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-pm-minister-attended-neo-nazi-concert-in-kyiv/
In November 2021, one of Ukraine’s most prominent ultra-nationalist militiamen, Dmytro Yarosh, announced that he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Yarosh is an avowed follower of the Nazi collaborator Bandera who led Right Sector from 2013 to 2015, vowing to lead the “de-Russification” of Ukraine.
https://www.facebook.com/dyastrub/posts/4533858036691045
A month later, as war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation. Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joke to visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/world/europe/-ukraine-russia-putin-invasion.html
When Russian forces entered Ukraine this February 24, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, President Zelensky announced a national mobilization that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia. He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries like the Azov Battalion.
https://twitter.com/RussiaUSA/status/1498245126300311552
On March 1, Zelensky replaced the regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accused of an array of war crimes in the Donbass region.
