{"id":1406613,"date":"2023-08-17T15:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T19:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1406613"},"modified":"2023-08-17T15:05:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T19:05:00","slug":"zelensky-holds-court-with-ukraines-most-notorious-neo-nazi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/zelensky-holds-court-with-ukraines-most-notorious-neo-nazi\/1406613\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky Holds Court With Ukraine’s Most Notorious Neo-Nazi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zelensky Holds Court With Ukraine’s Most Notorious Neo-Nazi<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Alexander Rubinstein via The GrayZone,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Western media has dismissed evidence of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine by citing President Zelensky\u2019s Jewish heritage. But new footage published by Zelensky shows the leader openly collaborating with a fascist ideologue who once pledged to \u201clead the white races of the world in a final crusade\u2026against Semite-led Untermenschen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky has uploaded a video to his Telegram channel showing him holding court with one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in modern Ukrainian history: Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky &\u00a0Azov Battalion founder Andriy Biletsky.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

On August 14, just over an hour after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced another $200 million in military aid to Kiev<\/strong>, Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky published the video depicting what he called an \u201copen conversation\u201d with Ukraine\u2019s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful to everyone who defends our country and people, who brings our victory closer,\u201d Zelensky wrote, following his encounter with the unit on the outskirts of Bakhmut. While casual Western observers might not have realized it, the brigade Zelensky was addressing is actually the newest iteration of Ukraine\u2019s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 3rd separate assault brigade, excellent fighters,\u201d Zelensky wrote days after the consultation, in a Twitter post which also alluded to a separate meeting with the Aidar Battalion, another neo-fascist outfit that has been\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0of war crimes by Amnesty International. \u201cThey have stopped the enemy from advancing towards Kostiantynivka and pushed the occupiers back up to 8 kilometers.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the group\u2019s origins are no secret<\/strong>. Describing their most recent rebrand in a YouTube video released in January, the unit\u00a0explained<\/a>: \u201cToday we officially announce that the SSO AZOV is expanding to a brigade. From now on, we are the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.\u201d Like its predecessor, the unit is led by Andriy Biletsky, who founded the Azov Battalion and has long served as a figurehead for the closely-aligned National Corps political movement.<\/p>\n

Zelensky publishes a video of his visit to Biletsky, the leader of Azov neo-Nazis who said that the Ukrainian nation’s mission is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen” and thanks them for defending \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6https:\/\/t.co\/xQXqqKcxsg<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/E53ETomQab<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Voxkomm (@Voxkomm) August 14, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n

But in spite of Biletsky\u2019s rich Nazi pedigree, the video Zelensky\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0shows him sharing a moment of bonhomie with a white nationalist militant who has described Jews as \u201cour enemy,\u201d<\/strong> or as the \u201creal masters\u201d of the oligarchs and craven politicians that have corrupted Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could I be a Nazi?\u201d Zelensky asked on the eve of Russia\u2019s intervention, pointing to his Jewish heritage. \u201cHow could a people who lost eight million lives fighting Nazis could support Nazism?\u201d\u00a0Perhaps the question needs to be asked again of the Ukrainian president following the tribute he paid to his country\u2019s top neo-Nazi ideologue.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Jewish leader meets \u201cThe White Leader\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since Russia\u2019s military operations in Ukraine kicked off in 2022, Biletsky had taken pains to distance himself from his fascist past. He now claims that an infamous promise he made to rid the world of \u201cSemite-led untermenschen\u201d was actually fabricated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.\u00a0But Biletsky\u2019s most notorious screed against Jews was not an isolated outburst<\/strong>. Indeed, his record of Nazi-inspired tirades is extensive, and has been a matter of public record for decades.<\/p>\n

Biletsky\u2019s college\u00a0thesis<\/a>\u00a0was a defense of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a group of paramilitary Nazi collaborators founded by Stepan Bandera\u2019s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists <\/strong>that carried out ethnic cleansings of more than 100,000 Jews and Poles<\/strong>. After leaving university, Biletsky quickly embedded with multiple fascist outfits, including the \u201cStepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization \u2018Tryzub\u2019\u201d and the Social-National Party \u2014 not to be confused with the National Socialist Party of 1940\u2019s Germany.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade fighters perform a fireside fascist salute in a video announcing their re-formation.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Biletsky left the Social-National Party in protest in 2004 as the group began to rebrand and move away from overt neo-Nazi symbolism. Two years later, he led an organization called Patriots of Ukraine, which has been\u00a0linked<\/a>\u00a0to numerous mob assaults. One Patriot of Ukraine member has\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0the group was behind the seizure and torching of the headquarters of a political party during the US-backed \u201cMaidan\u201d coup in 2014.<\/p>\n

According to Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group<\/a>, Patriots of Ukraine \u201cespoused xenophobic and neo-Nazi ideas, and was engaged in violent attacks against migrants, foreign students in Kharkiv and those opposing its views.\u201d What\u2019s more, \u201cBiletsky and some other members were suspected of violent seizures of newspaper kiosks and similar criminal activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor three years running, the organization has gained notoriety for its torch processions around student campuses in Kharkiv, Kyiv and Chernivtsi which fill foreign students studying in Ukraine with terror,\u201d the human rights group\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0in 2008. During a Patriots of Ukraine general meeting in 2009, Biletsky raved: \u201cHow can we describe our enemy? The authorities and the oligarchs. Do they have anything in common? Yes, they have one thing in common: they are Jews, or behind them are their real masters \u2014 Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011, Biletsky was arrested for allegedly ordering Patriot of Ukraine members to kill a fellow ultranationalist inside the group\u2019s office following a dispute, and spent the following years in pre-trial detention. Thanks to a resolution passed by the Ukrainian parliament after the Western-backed overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, he would ultimately be released in 2014. But during his three years in custody, Biletsky managed to have a number of his fascist screeds published in a collection titled \u201cThe Word of the White Leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

One essay in the collection, dated to 2007, rails against Jews and Black migrants, casually dropping the n- word in the process. \u201cUkraine is the light of Europe! Our Nation still has enough strength to withstand this influx of foreigners, to cleanse our land and light the fire of purification throughout Europe!\u201d the essay concludes.<\/p>\n

In another essay outlining the ideology of \u201cSocial-Nationalism,\u201d Biletsky praised National Socialism as a \u201cgreat idea,\u201d but criticized the Nazis as having been insufficiently eugenicist in their family welfare programs. He complained they supported parents with multiple children \u201cwithout considering the biological quality of each individual family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result,\u201d he continued, was \u201ca significant increase in the birth rate, [but] a significant decrease in the percentage of the Nordic type in the population.\u201d Because \u201cthese social benefits are aimed at the masses, they encouraged the worst human material to give birth to a child in the first place,\u201d the self-proclaimed \u201cWhite Leader\u201d lamented.<\/p>\n

A subsequent Biletsky manifesto entitled \u201cLanguage and Race \u2013 Primary Issues\u201d expanded on the \u201csocial-nationalist\u201d concept: \u201cUkrainian social-nationalism considers the Ukrainian Nation to be a blood-racial community\u2026 Race is everything for nation-building \u2013 Race is the basis on which the superstructure grows in the form of national culture, which again comes from the racial nature of the people, and not from language, religion, economy, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine, Biletsky wrote, \u201cThe issue of total Ukrainization<\/strong> in the future social nationalist state will be resolved within 3-6 months with the help of a tough and balanced state policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following his release from prison, Biletsky got his chance to carry out a campaign of violence against the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine<\/strong>. As war broke out in the country, with the Russian majority of the east seeking self-determination in the face of a nationalist post-coup government viewed as Western puppets, Biletsky dissolved the Patriot of Ukraine and formed the Azov Battalion to wage a war against the separatists. Around this time, he was also elected to the Ukrainian parliament, remaining in office until 2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The new paramilitary outfit set up shop in Mariupol, using the port city as a staging ground for attacks on the Donbas, and\u00a0violently crushing<\/a>\u00a0forms of feminist and liberal political expression on the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the National Corps, a political party founded by Biletsky in 2016, has been\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cnationalist hate group\u201d even by the US State Department. The party has repeatedly incited violence against the Kiev Pride march, in 2018\u00a0calling on<\/a>\u00a0\u201call concerned citizens of Ukraine\u201d to prevent the march from being held. In 2019, one National Corps leader had a more direct\u00a0message<\/a>: \u201cStay home, and don\u2019t show up in public. Ever. That will make our life easier and keep you safe ;).\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, it seemed almost as though Biletsky\u2019s influence was waning. An electoral coalition he formed with several other prominent neo-Nazis in Ukraine failed to gain enough votes to pass the threshold to gain any seats in parliament. Meanwhile, Vlodomyr Zelensky won the presidential election on a platform of making peace with Russia.<\/p>\n

But Biletsky still held on to a trump card as a nationally-recognized strongman. When a Ukrainian news channel announced a two-hour live studio \u201cTV bridge\u201d between Ukrainian and Russian civilians aimed at fostering a stronger mutual understanding, Biletsky seized the moment to issue a thinly-veiled\u00a0threat<\/a>\u00a0against Zelensky if he did not have the event canceled in a day\u2019s time. If Zelensky did not intervene, \u201cthe answer to the Kremlin\u2019s \u2018little green men\u2019 will begin to be given by \u2018little black men,\u2019\u201d Biletsky said, referring to the black garb of fascist elements like Azov.<\/p>\n

Biletsky called on Zelensky to be \u201cThe leader of a state at war,\u201d and, \u201cNot a clown, not an artist from oligarchic corporations, but the President.\u201d Zelensky\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0within the timeframe of the ultimatum by denouncing the dialogue and seemingly offering a jab back at Biletsky, arguing that Ukrainians were being \u201cmanipulated by politicians who really want to get into parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months later, the pair butted heads again after Zelensky\u00a0ordered<\/a>\u00a0Ukrainian troops, including Azov fighters, to withdraw from a frontline town in the Donbas in an apparent effort to honor the terms of the Minsk Accords. Biletsky fired back with threats to dispatch thousands more troops in open defiance of the president\u2019s orders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zelensky\u2019s showdown with fighters refusing his orders culminated with the head of state nearly breaking down on camera and pleading to the militants: \u201cI\u2019m the president of this country. I\u2019m 41 years old. I\u2019m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just a few short years later, in the midst of a hot war with Russia, Ukraine\u2019s Jewish president and Ukraine\u2019s most famous living antisemite seem to have put aside their differences. As Shakespeare put it, \u201cmisery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 08\/17\/2023 – 11:05<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/zelensky-holds-court-ukraines-most-notorious-neo-nazi<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zelensky Holds Court With Ukraine’s Most Notorious Neo-Nazi Authored by Alexander Rubinstein via The GrayZone, Western media has dismissed evidence of neo-Nazi influence in Ukraine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1406613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-5TVj","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1406613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1406613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}