New York Times Nazi Article New York Times Nazi Art

Sectional: Throughout the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. State Section and mainstream media have downplayed the role of neo-Nazis in the U.Due south.-backed Kiev regime, an inconvenient truth that is surfacing over again equally right-wing storm troopers fly neo-Nazi banners equally they attack in the east, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

The New York Times reported almost in passing on Dominicus that the Ukrainian authorities's offensive confronting ethnic Russian rebels in the east has unleashed far-right paramilitary militias that have even raised a neo-Nazi imprint over the conquered town of Marinka, just west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

That might seem similar a big story a U.Southward.-backed war machine functioning, which has inflicted thousands of by and large civilian casualties, is beingness spearheaded past neo-Nazis. Merely the consequent pattern of the mainstream U.S. news media has been since the outset of the Ukraine crisis to white-out the role of Ukraine's chocolate-brown-shirts.

Far-correct militia members demonstrating exterior Ukrainian parliament in Kiev. (Screen shot from RT video via YouTube video)

Only occasionally is the discussion "neo-Nazi" mentioned and ordinarily in the context of dismissing this inconvenient truth equally "Russian propaganda." However the reality has been that neo-Nazis played a primal role in the vehement overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych final February also every bit in the subsequent coup regime holding power in Kiev and now in the eastern offensive.

On Dominicus, a Times article by Andrew East. Kramer mentioned the emerging neo-Nazi paramilitary role in the final three paragraphs:

"The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular ground forces bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the 6 or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat.

"Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their deportment, but the militias, which count virtually vii,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. I known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika equally its flag.

"In pressing their advance, the fighters took their orders from a local army commander, rather than from Kiev. In the video of the attack, no restraint was evident. Gesturing toward a suspected pro-Russian position, one soldier screamed, 'The bastards are right at that place!' Then he opened fire."

In other words, the neo-Nazi militias that surged to the forepart of anti-Yanukovych protests terminal February accept now been organized as stupor troops dispatched to kill ethnic Russians in the east and they are operating so openly that they hoist a Swastika-similar neo-Nazi flag over one conquered village with a population of most 10,000.

Burying this information at the end of a long commodity is also typical of how the Times and other U.S. mainstream news outlets have dealt with the neo-Nazi problem in the past. When the reality gets mentioned, information technology usually requires a reader knowing much almost Ukraine's history and reading between the lines of a U.S. news account.

For instance, last April six, the New York Times published a homo-interest profile of a Ukrainian nationalist named Yuri Marchuk who was wounded in the uprising against Yanukovych in February. If you read deep into the story, y'all learn that Marchuk was a leader of the right-fly Svoboda from Lviv, which if you did your own research yous would discover is a neo-Nazi stronghold where Ukrainian nationalists concur torch-light parades in accolade of World War Two Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

Without providing that context, the Times does mention that Lviv militants plundered a government arsenal and dispatched 600 militants a twenty-four hour period to Kiev's Maidan square to do boxing with the law. Marchuk also described how these well-organized militants, consisting of paramilitary brigades of 100 fighters each, launched the fateful attack against the police force on Feb. 20, the battle where Marchuk was wounded and where the death toll suddenly spiked into scores of protesters and about a dozen police.

Marchuk later said he visited his comrades at the occupied City Hall. What the Times doesn't mention is that City Hall was festooned with Nazi banners and even a Confederate battle flag as a tribute to white supremacy.

The Times touched on the inconvenient neo-Nazi truth again on April 12 in an article nearly the mysterious death of neo-Nazi leader Oleksandr Muzychko, who was killed during a shootout with constabulary on March 24. The article quoted a local Right Sektor leader, Roman Koval, explaining the crucial part of his organization in carrying out the anti-Yanukovych coup.

"Ukraine's February revolution, said Mr. Koval, would never take happened without Right Sector and other militant groups," the Times wrote.

Burning Insects

The brutality of these neo-Nazis surfaced again on May 2 when right-fly toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a merchandise wedlock building which was and then prepare on burn with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to blackness-and-red-striped irish potato beetles chosen Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.

"Fire, Colorado, burn down" went the chant.

As the fire worsened, those dying within were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building too was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading "Galician SS," a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist regular army that fought alongside the German language Nazi SS in World State of war II, killing Russians on the eastern front.

The death past fire of dozens of people in Odessa recalled a World War II incident in 1944 when elements of a Galician SS police regiment took function in the massacre of the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka, which had been a refuge for Jews and was protected by Russian and Polish partisans. Attacked by a mixed strength of Ukrainian police and German soldiers on Feb. 28, 1944, hundreds of townspeople were massacred, including many locked in barns that were set afire.

The legacy of Earth State of war II especially the bitter fight betwixt Ukrainian nationalists from the west and ethnic Russians from the eastward seven decades ago is never far from the surface in Ukrainian politics. I of the heroes historic during the Maidan protests in Kiev was Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose name was honored in many banners including one on a podium where Sen. John McCain voiced support for the uprising to oust Yanukovych, whose political base was among indigenous Russians in eastern Ukraine.

During Earth State of war 2, Bandera headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B, a radical paramilitary motility that sought to transform Ukraine into a racially pure country. OUN-B took part in the expulsion and extermination of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Though most of the Maidan protesters in 2013-xiv appeared motivated by anger over political corruption and by a desire to bring together the European Union, neo-Nazis fabricated up a significant number and surged to the front end during the seizure of government buildings and the climatic clashes with police.

In the days after the Feb. 22 coup, as the neo-Nazi militias finer controlled the authorities, European and U.S. diplomats scrambled to aid the shaken parliament put together the semblance of a respectable regime, although at least iv ministries, including national security, were awarded to the right-fly extremists in recognition of their crucial role in ousting Yanukovych.

Every bit extraordinary equally it was for a modern European state to hand ministries over to neo-Nazis, virtually the entire U.S. news media cooperated in playing down the neo-Nazi role. Stories in the U.S. media delicately step around this neo-Nazi reality by keeping out relevant context, such as the background of coup regime's national security master Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, blending radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy was commandant of the Maidan's "self-defence forces."

Concluding Apr, as the Kiev government launched its "anti-terrorist operation" against the indigenous Russians in the east, Parubiy announced that his correct-wing paramilitary forces, incorporated as National Guard units, would lead the way. On April fifteen, Parubiy went on Twitter to declare, "Reserve unit of measurement of National Guard formed #Maidan Self-defense volunteers was sent to the front line this morning." (Parubiy resigned from his post this past week for unexplained reasons.)

At present, still, equally the Ukrainian military machine tightens its noose effectually the remaining insubordinate strongholds, battering them with artillery fire and aerial bombardments, thousands of neo-Nazi militia members are over again pressing to the front as fiercely motivated fighters determined to impale as many ethnic Russians as they can. It is a remarkable story merely one that the mainstream U.S. news media would prefer not to notice.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. Y'all can buy his new book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-volume (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you too can society Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush-league Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for simply $34. The trilogy includes America'southward Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

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