A Neo Nazi US Foreign Policy Outcome: It Should be Front Page News but has not Even Made it to the News
w/ Special Guest: Lev Golinken
Key Words:
Ukraine, Coup, Russia, Uprising, Quebec, Refugee, Neo Nazi, Charlottesville, Odessa, Kharkiv, Bandera
Pedro Gatos 00:00 - Introduction
Welcome alternative news listeners. This is 91.7 KOOP community radio. This is Bringing Light Into Darkness news and analysis. I'm your host Pedro Gatos and we are transmitting from Austin, Texas. For your listening edification. Today is Friday May the 14th 21 we are pre taping a show to be aired this Monday May the 17th 2021 from 6pm to 7pm Central Standard time@kop.org Many of the shows are archived at PedroGatos.org. All comments are welcomed and can be sent to Pedro at pgatos00@gmail.com. That's pgatos00@gmail.com. This is our 56th post COVID show, a new world but the same place, so stay tuned for a very informed and documented dialogue. Thank you for joining us, and we hope to have a recording of the show up on PedroGatos.org website for your closer scrutiny within the week. Again, thank you for joining us tonight. And thanks for inviting your friends to join us in future shows. So stay tuned. But first, in the battle of ideas, let's get ready to go to war. Pedro Gatos and Bringing Light Into Darkness Monday news and analysis since we began broadcasting on Co Op radio in 2002 has been investigating and seeking to present genuine truth seeking perspectives of how US foreign policy impacts majority populations around the world. We also seek to identify other human generated behaviors that either create or aggravate human misery outcomes in the world that by definition are preventable and therefore reversible. Over the past 18 years, Our Record speaks to the veracity of our reporting. The impact of US foreign policy in the world on the world population is unrivaled in reach and impact. Our presumption is that the US population is a compassionate and social justice driven people that if we know the truth of the matter, we support policies that promote the most fair and democratic outcomes. The problem is too often we are misinformed by our government and our mainstream media. Therefore, this show is dedicated to critically evaluating our information before accepting it as believable and as worthy for becoming the foundation for building our worldview understandings upon consistent with Dr. King's views on foreign policy, our foreign policy reveals the character of our nation, however, it is presented to the US public as how we would like it to be instead of reflecting and reporting the objective reality of what transpires in the countries we have such a large determinant impact upon tonight, we asked you to judge your perceptions of US foreign policy and its outcomes regarding white supremacy and Neo Nazism in Ukraine with this presentation of disturbing but evidence based events and history that our guests along with our hosts of Bringing Light Into Darkness, bring to you for consideration. I urge you to listen to the whole show as it unfolds and we guarantee through investigative reporting its veracity in content, a content that challenges our most common perceptions. We encourage your feedback and critical discourse. Enjoy. Well welcome alternative news listeners. This is 91.7 KOOP, Hornsby, Austin. This is Bringing Light Into Darkness Monday news and analysis we are broadcasting from the heart of Texas in Austin. Today is Friday, May the 14th 2021 we are pre recording a show that we will be broadcasting this Monday night may the 17th 2021 at six to 7pm on your premiere community station of the nation 91.7 KOOP I am very excited. We are blessed to have with us and author and expert on far right movements, particularly in the European theater. And that would be them going in on more formally introduce you them in just a second. But first, welcome to Bringing Light Into Darkness.
Lev Golinken 04:19 -
Thank you so much. It sounds like you've done a whole lot of talking to your listeners about this issue. And I think it's fantastic. I think as dark as it is, I think it's important that we know about it. So it sounds like you've been doing the Lord's work on it.
Pedro Gatos 04:32 - Kharkiv
Well, thank you for that. And I just wanted to share that. Mr. Golinken, he's an author. He's also a writer on the subject that we'll be talking about tonight. I actually wanted to share that you're also a refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv have now called, now called Kharkiv, please correct my pronunciation if I'm wrong, but that you came to the States in what 1990 Is that right?
Lev Golinken 04:59 - Soviet Ukraine
Yeah I came here. So yeah, we came here as refugees from Soviet anti semitism. So we were taking in my family and I was five of us and I was just a kid back then. But and keep in mind that of course, it's the experience we had the refugees was refugee the locks, it was, it was nothing like what some of the some of the other people experience, but it was still enough to give me an appreciation of, of kind of, of what it's like to be upon when between different various countries. And it's, it also gave me an appreciation for America too, which is why I've been writing a lot about, but the various ways that white supremacy affects us.
Pedro Gatos 05:36 - Russia, Ukraine, News Media, NATO
Very good and love Golinken's writings on the Ukraine crisis. Also on Russia, the far right and immigrant and refugee identity has has appeared throughout our country and throughout many mainstream and very powerful media entities, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico, Europe, Time magazine online, and among other venues, including NPR, MSNBC, and we can go on, I just wanted to share that I came across your piece in The Nation magazine just last week that we'll be trying to zero in on a little bit and have you speak more to, but before we do, I wanted to back up and frame our discussion tonight around the Ukraine history, the recent history that is and I'll let you do the more deep diving history, which is very important to understand these circumstances and these traditions and the reemergence of some of these very dangerous political tendencies. But in 2014, in February, there was a government in Ukraine that got queued out of power. I was led by President Yanukovych, who had been actually voted in by landslide majorities in south and eastern Ukraine, the nets in against areas where separatists emerged in response to the later coup of 2014, as well as Camilla Oh, had landslide majority is for you new kovich in 2010 election that brought President Yanukovych to power. Meanwhile, the Donbass and the Donetsk areas, these are what later became the separatist areas, over 75 to 80%. According to the polling that we've cited on this show, before, I had actually voted for this guy. And while while you know, he certainly wasn't absent of corruption, it was an election that he won in landslide amounts in these very areas. Meanwhile, the history of the Ukraine separatists uprising is presented to the US public completely devoid of this important historical fact, namely, that the president that was removed from power through a coup was a president that was supported by 75 to 80% of the people that lived in those regions. And in the in the events that led up to that coup, many years transpired ahead of the coup, in which there's all sorts of monies being poured into Ukraine. It's something we talk about on the show quite a bit, that when we think about the sovereignty of a nation, it's hard to remain sovereign if you have $5 billion being poured in by one interest. And of course, I'm sure there's other interest too, but $5 billion. That's what Janet Newland had spoke to in a speech about the amounts of monies that were going into Ukraine, as it was being wrestled between the East and the West, so to speak. And during this process, it looked like the Ukrainian government led by Yanukovych was going to move towards the west and the NATO nations and the EU and accept some economic austerity conditions that would come with that loan. But then the Russian government offered them apparently a better package of economic incentives in those things, and that's what they decided to do. And when they made that decision, it triggered a series of events in which our own embassy Ambassador George Pyatt in a taped phone call with one of his bosses Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland revealed the meddling by US interests into the sovereign affairs of Ukraine. So it was very clear that this was from the content.
Pedro Gatos 09:31 - Russian media. CIA, National Party of Ukraine
We won't get into that content of that phone call, but that they really wanted certain people in power that did eventually come to power in this coup, and it was clearly according to many independent sources uku for instance, Stratfor, which is known as the shadow CIA private entity into December 19 2014 interview in the Russian magazine, Kommersant, the founder and CEO of Stratfor, George Freeman said the overthrow of Ukraine's President Victor eunuch KOVITCH that occurred on February 22 2014. Quote, it really was the most blatant coup in history and quote in the result of that coup, for the first time since 1933, the followers of movements that adored and sang the prayers of Adolf Hitler came to rise in this government into cabinet positions. And I wanted to just set the stage and document with absolute clarity by mentioning a few names because I think it's important number one, in 2014, the cabinet positions were awarded to two main neo Nazi fascist parties in the Ukraine, the social National Party of Ukraine, later renamed aboda Party and the Right Sector party. There was fully eight Cabinet positions in the post coup government that went to folks that were clearly connected to a history of Neo Nazism. Ali. Tiana buck is a Svoboda Party head Andre Petro be. He was co founder, co founder of the neo Nazi social National Party of Ukraine letter names for Botha. They're both followers of the Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera who will ask you to talk about here in just a minute who collaborated in World War Two mass murder of Jews and Poles the other individuals I just wanted to mention, just to get them on the record. We've talked about this in the past but it's really important as I were to continue to ENYUKH is it was an interim defence minister and a member of this aboda political Council. We mentioned pair obey. There was also Dimitra Jarosz deputy head of National Security Council and this is like the pulley right sector. Yep, yeah, Oleh Makhnitsky. The server boat, a member of parliament and Prosecutor General another very important post coup position that helped engineer the repression in the east. Also Alexandra seach. S y CH is from a boat a party parliamentarian and one of the chief party ideologists, Prime Minister of Economic Affairs and and Sarah COVID, a leading member of Botha and headed the education ministry. And then finally, the Ministry of Ecology as a former civil Budda envoy to other European fascist parties throughout Europe, Andre, Nick was also in finally the number eight was these aggro oligarch, and a member of Sobota iHeart. Shaikha. So anyhow, with that background, it was shocking to me, I love that none of this was really being covered by MSNBC, Fox News by anybody, and wash your posts are the times. And this was a shocking development for the first time since World War Two, there was a government now that was just riddled with, with Neo Nazis, clearly, neo Nazi elements and some of the signs and emblems and all of those things confirmed that as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about this profile of this government first, before we move into the specifics of your article?
Lev Golinken 13:13 - Russian media. CIA, National Party of Ukraine
Yeah, well, let me alright, you stopped me in different places, because I've been just jotting down a couple of different notes as just a general picture of playing off of what you said. Okay. So first thing is Ukraine. To understand Ukraine, you have to understand it is an extraordinarily divided nation and a diverse nation, thank US media speak of Ukraine, as if it is a single country marching in lockstep, which would be pretending that America is united in its support of Joe Biden or Donald Trump. I mean, it is, it's just nothing can be further from the truth. The united country, you look at the maps, and it is it is divided by language is divided by religion. It is divided by economic ties, which is also super important because Eastern Ukraine is tied or what's tied to Russia economically, which impacts the way that people vote. So just like people in Texas have a certain tie to Mexico and Mexico has to Texas impacts decisions. Same thing here except an even more tight region between eastern Ukraine and Russia. Okay. We have a country of 45 or at the time, 45 million people. Okay, those divided. Secondly, the reason why what happened at my dawn in 2013 2014, is a coup is because, as you pointed out, he and the COVID, who was the president at the time, he was not only elected by people in Eastern Europe, the election was legitimate. He was certified by the European Union, among others. That's something that you will never ever hear. He was a legitimately elected president. It's not just the people in eastern Ukraine wanted him president and the rest of the country didn't and they just said, Oh, well, too bad. Though they wanted him president, they voted for him as president. And he got the majority, which is how he became president. So he was a democratically elected leader. Now, he also happened to be a supremely corrupt scumbag putting to every metric,
Pedro Gatos 15:15 -
Not the first one in the world
Lev Golinken 15:20 - Russian media. CIA, National Party of Ukraine
Of course, but just like other countries have democratic elected corrupt scumbags. Okay. But that didn't make him any less democratically elected. So when the uprising happened, it was a coup because it toppled the democratically elected president. And the reason why Eastern Ukraine rose up is because they did it in response to not just the toppling of somebody they like, but somebody who they legitimately elected, it was a negation of the democratic will of the people. So that's number one. Okay. Second thing is, as you said, during this uprising, the decision needed to be made between going up tying Ukraine into the EU, or continuing its ties to Russia, and economics, the way it would just work that is that Ukraine was intimately tied to Russia. And you can tell the difference. And severing that tie, especially would impact people in eastern Ukraine whose industries relied on trade with Russia. So when people say that people in eastern Ukraine, a pro Russian, again, that's not an accurate thing. They weren't pro Russian, so much as they were pro having a job and their jobs had to do with Russia. Okay, just like there's plenty of people on the outskirts of Austin, for example, who may work in Austin, they might not necessarily be Austin loyalists, but they have jobs, they have careers, they have economic ties to Austin. Right. So that's the second thing. And you can tell that those ties were certainly strong because Ukraine is now firmly the poorest country in Europe. So everything that Yana COVID Just people predicted, which is that if you go towards the EU, you will lose your economic your economy with Russia, and it will crater the country happened. So now they're the poorest country in Europe. So obviously, the decision to not go with the EU was certainly one that was based in reality. Okay. And the last thing you have to know as far as the coup is concerned, is that in the middle of this coup s, people were rising up against General COVID. And by people I mean, at the most, you would see like maybe like 20% of Ukraine, you will still millions of people. But if you have a country of 45 million, of course, you're going to get you know, a large amount. American media portrayed. This is all of Ukraine rising up against Jericho, which is just utter garbage. The millions of people who did not want to do this, who wanted no part of it, were just ignored by that for the camera, they were ignored. And instead, they only focused on the people who are rising up against them. And the thing that just amazing, especially after the 2016 election is into the midst of this uprising against a democratically elected leader came American politicians came John McCain came Senator Chris Murphy, came Victoria Nuland, so can you imagine me talking about foreign interference? Can you imagine if we had some sort of, or even just take the January 6, uprising? Fine, you have people rise up? Okay. You imagine if Russia if Russia sent like, members of parliament, to like stand among the protesters and egg them on to physically have people who are part of another government come over and stand with the protesters and say we are with you? Could you imagine what would happen if if a dog catcher from Russia? Did that adhere? We're talking about some of the most powerful people in the world, who openly and brazenly went to this country and said, Go ahead, participate in this. We're with you.
Pedro Gatos 18:45 - John Brennan
At the same time. I remember John Brennan, who was the CIA chief went to Ukraine post coup. And apparently, they originally denied that he was there, he had some fake passport or something I think was reported. But regardless, it speaks to the accuracy of what you're saying that there's just a huge US presence, not just politically, but these people like John McCain and other very high ranking position. politicians and government figures in the United States are seen in photo ops with some of these neo Nazi like individuals, but but I think the fact that John Brennan, the head of the CIA went there, you know, that's something usually a station chief with the CIA would be responsible for coordinating and helping the response or advising that government on how to respond, which of course, is still an egregious form of meddling, but instead when you send your number one man there, that's a huge statement there was following his very quick return to the United States. After those meetings. There was a really huge upbeat in the repression in the east. Can you can you just talk a little bit more to about, you know, I know it's not as simple as East against West but those are in the east. They're these folks that were overwhelmingly supporters of the government that got queued out. They also their primary language was Russian and part of the impetus into the East was to demean these people by and take their language from them as an act of a new government. This this this Neo fascist led government. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Lev Golinken 20:25 -
Yeah sure. And I'm from eastern Ukraine, I speak Russian, that's my my primary language. I have people going back a in Ukraine for generations, and they've spoken Russian. So it's these people's native language, it's the language that they soak in that region for a very long time. So it's not like they're looking to like, it's one thing if you know, you're in New Jersey, for example, you can take your driver's license in like 19 different languages or something. Okay. So, you know, if New Jersey lets you take your driver's license and check test in Chinese, that's New Jersey being courteous you it's being nice. But this isn't that question. This is these people demanding the right to use your native language in their country. Okay. So this is something that it's not a we're not asking Ukraine to be nice to them, they were demanding. And the situation with Russian and Ukrainian in Ukraine, it's, it's really not that difficult to slick, it's a Canada and French, you know, every few years, the Government of Canada goes out of their way to tell Quebec that they love the French language, it is a wonderful and melodic and beautiful language. And Quebec should continue speaking, okay. And every document you will see out of Canada, even if somebody lives in Vancouver, on their, on their document, you also see French. And the reason we do this is because they know, if they do not make Quebec feel like they get comfortable with their language, Quebec will start talking about separating. And if they start pushing, if they start pushing the French language out, suddenly, millions of people in Quebec or whatever, or whoever is in Quebec is going to start it, they're going to be the enemy. And that's exactly what happened in eastern Ukraine, a new government came to power in an uprising in the very first order of business, like literally the first thing they moved to pass is stripping protection from the Russian language, to the half the country that speaks Russian, that just lost their elected president. I mean, that is a very strong thing. A, you know, your, again, these people, this is the language that they use. And they were told, we are not interested in having us equals, we're not interested in your language. We're not interested, we are interested in imposing our will on you.
Pedro Gatos 22:42 - Neo Nazi Battalions
So that's one element of it, you know, taking away your culture, taking away your language, treating you as in that way, as a second class citizen is one deal. But the thing that was so shocking to me at the time, I remember following the coup were some of these attacks, particularly the one in Odessa, in which she was awful. And before I asked you to talk a little bit about that, but there were these battalions that were connected to the Ukrainian security services when the as comm was one of them. And there were several other ones. And when they use this language that these were far right, that they were nationalists, these are neo Nazi volunteer battalions. And not only did the UN in a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights speak about the rate of atrocities that went on and mass graves that were later found in the Donetsk area, but that the trauma of these groups led to a United States effort that no none of them the monies would go to these groups. The National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA is a name for each of a series of US federal laws that specify annual budget and expenditures of the US Department of Defense in the summer of 2015, as the NDAA was making its way through Congress, representatives John Conyers, Michigan Democrat and Ted Yoho, Republican of Florida put forth an amendment that passed unanimously in the House of Representatives that would have ruled out training or arming the notorious Azov battalion and openly neo Nazi and fascist unit that uses symbols of the Nazi SS but by the time Congress and Obama finished resolving their differences six months later, the only part of that Conyers Yoho amendment that survived was the prohibition on portable air defense systems. MANPADS to Ukraine. Obama signed the omnibus spending bill, section 9014 of the law allocated 250 million to provide assistance, including training equipment, lethal weapons of a defensive nature logistic support supplies and services to the military and national security forces of the Ukraine without any exclusions Obama went forward without the ban on training or equipping the neo Nazi as are similar units being included. And by doing so we were turning our back on the neo Nazi nature and elements of the Ukrainian government that we were supporting. Let's take a step back first talk about the Konya bill. And that it was a unanimous decision but then six months later when the omnibus bill passed somehow the teeth and it was completely missing of these restrictions.
Lev Golinken 25:25 - Neo Nazi Battalions
Yeah it was stripped. Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about the battalions it gets firstly just explained what the on what part they played. Okay, thank you. You stop me if you want. If you need to redirect. So presence of Neo Nazis during my Dawn is something that was a very underreported as a kind way of saying, Okay, now, when we're talking about Neo Nazis,
Pedro Gatos 25:47 - Break
That before you explicate the neo Nazi profile. In reality, we need to take a quick break for the cause. This is 91.7 KOOP, Hornsby, Austin. This is the premier community radio station of the nation. We will continue our discussion with our esteemed guest live Golinken in his explanation of Neo Nazism in the Ukraine and how it impacts the United States. We'll be back right after this. We hope you will too.
Part 2
Pedro Gatos 00:00 -
We now return to our interview with Lev going in. And we return to our discussion on his explanation of Neo Nazism in Ukraine and the relationship to the United States.
Lev Golinken 0:14 - Neo Nazis
Now, when we're talking about Neo Nazis, again, here, we are not talking about the Neo Nazis that we see a lot in America, let's say largely overweight, not capable of doing much, okay. And we're not talking about people in polo shirts that are marching with torches, we're talking about gangs of rather serious Neo Nazis, both an idea not just ideology, but also the ability to fight, we're talking about street muscle, the ability to take on police, the organization, which was crucial, they were organized extremely well. Okay. So these games of Neo Nazis, they provided the crucial street muscles. In my Dawn, one of the people who you mentioned Andre, Ruby, he led a neo Nazi Party for a long time, he co founded it, he ran the security for the uprising. And while of course, the majority of people who participated in the uprising were not Nazis, the people who who made the crucial difference, and the people who then had an outsized impact, were Neo Nazis. And those are the people that were edited out of the story in America. And quite literally, because there was a film of winter on fire was actually nominated for the Oscars, as a documentary, it was just about how Ukraine is standing up against this government. And just, it was complete garbage. Because even the director purposefully said, in an interview, he actually admitted it in an interview that he edited out in convenient parts, but new Nazis. And you can see if you know what you're looking for, you can see a couple of flags, you can see the different, you know them in some places, but you have to know what you're looking for. And if you're a foreigner, who knows nothing about Ukraine, you're not going to say, Oh, well, this is this organization. So these neo Nazi games played a crucial role in the overthrow, which is why they've had so many of them come to power in the interim government. Soon after, when the war began in eastern Ukraine, of when the net similans grows up against the in response to the coup, these games transformed themselves into battalions, the Ukrainian army was in tatters, they had nothing to fight with. So that's when the same games have played a crucial role in the uprising, said, We're gonna form volunteer units. And they then began committing extraordinary war crimes against the people of eastern Ukraine. Now, I often get, people often say, you know, you cover both sides, and I do, because we're the war crimes, and I will the war crimes are also committed very much by the separatists, and separatist leaders. They are certainly not excused from that both sides. Were doing horrible things to the people of eastern Ukraine while weeping for the people of eastern Ukraine.
Pedro Gatos 03:13 -
Yeah, I mean, I think the intensity of it and the nature, there's differences in the volume of it. I mean, because I saw a number of concerns in the same UN group actually indicated that there were atrocities committed by the separatists as well, but it just was not at the at the type of level it wasn't the protocol. So to speak of the deal, you know.
Lev Golinken 03:37-
I mean, we're talking we're talking about purposefully like these battalions would purposely block food in the middle of winter to civilian areas. Well, that's a war crime. And that's not my word. That's Amnesty International, literally said that at the time, I wrote an article about it for the LA Times, and said this a crime against humanity.
Pedro Gatos 03:56 -
And the other one was the labor building in Odessa, where all those trade unions, people took refuge. And it was set of fire. And yeah thats -
Lev Golinken 04:05 - Donetsk and Luhansk
I can explain that real quick. So Donetsk and Luhansk. Because I said, we're only a part of eastern Ukraine. They're the ones who grows up. But the rest of Eastern southern and eastern Ukraine, the Russian speaking regions remained part of Ukraine and remain part of Ukraine to this day. And the reason why they remain part of Ukraine is because of what happened in Odessa on May 2 2014, which is when people in Odessa strike to try to speak up and try to Yeah, and try to say, you know, we're against this, this new government, they burned almost, I think it was 48 of them alive. They chase them into a a trade, taking a building, and then they said on fire. I watched him burn ever since then. Odessa was pretty quiet because the message was gotten pretty clearly and the rest of the world didn't care. The UN barely mentioned it. I think he makes us Back to this incident. People beat being burned alive and good citizen incident. Yeah.
Pedro Gatos 05:06 -
Yeah. Let me also add that when I was following that I remember reports where some of these 48 people were trying to escape the burning building and they were shot.
Lev Golinken 05:16
Yeah, let me get into that.
Pedro Gatos 05:18 -
Absolutely. Yeah. So this is just-
Lev Golinken 05:21 -
They were they were made, the message was extraordinarily clear as to what would happen, right. And to this day, they don't even allow people in the desert to mourn them. And where the Neo Nazis take take control on May 2, and they make sure that people can give him do things like if they leave flowers by within an hour, they're cleared out, that people can be monitoring, it can even honor their deaths.
Pedro Gatos 05:44 -
Let me ask you to reiterate the geographical location of Odessa again
Lev Golinken 05:49 - Russia
Ukraine is basically the when I say Eastern Ukrainians, the Russian speaking regions, it's the eastern part of Ukraine. That's where Donetsk pecans that's where also my city, Hargrave. Yes. Which is the second biggest city in Ukraine is and Odessa is along the south. So if you can imagine a country where the Eastern and the southern parts converge, speak, yes, they have their own, they follow their own church, right. They have their own language. And they also have economies are very intimately tied with Russia. Odessa is a seaport in the south of Ukraine, and particularly just, I mean, this was a horrible thing that happened was the burning people alive and then shooting anybody who tries to escape. But the fact that it happened in you, you know, DESA was particularly heartbreaking because this is a city that was you know, the way it described it in an article. I mean, it's, it's a city that invented hipsters before hipsters. You know, this is just a very, it's just a very beautiful, diverse, alive city, a city that a city will who's used was slaughtered during the Holocaust, a city with just this incredibly vibrant culture, where he so many, so many of the Jews, particularly from their escaped to America, they wound up doing all sorts of things from running their own mafias to working in Hollywood. And it just it just this incredible, just, it made it even worse, just this literary bottling hipsters city and seeing it happen there, you know what I mean? And send the message to people in heart give to people in my city, to any other city outside of to me, it's gonna go hot. This is what's going to happen if you stand up against this new governor got it, and the message was heard.
Pedro Gatos 07:35- Charlottesville, Azov Battalian
Listen, let me remind our listeners we are blessed to have with us live Golinken. He is an author. He recently wrote a piece in the nation called Secretary blinking faces a big test in Ukraine where Nazis and their sympathizers are glorified. Also, he is the author of a book a backpack, a bear and eight crates of vodka. It was a Amazon's debut of the month, but your historical understanding of this part of the world is incredibly important. And I think the more we understand people and histories, and the more we understand what's really, really important, and this whole scourge of Nazism and all this type of stuff, I remember in 2018, and everybody can relate to this, but this is what happens when you have a foreign policy that results in bringing this type of government to power but denies it censors all of this information that you have been just eloquently unrolling for us in the last 20 minutes or more. But you know, there was an indictment of several California men back in 2018 Towards the end of that year in the Charlottesville violence, and according to this indictment of several California men that were involved in this Charlottesville violence that we are also aware of Ukraine's neo Nazi Azov battalion was believed to have participated in training and radicalizing a US based white supremacist and as long been known that this battalion and other militias there's a number of other battalion militias have attracted volunteers with neo Nazi sympathies around the world. But this is according to an article by Max Blumenthal back in November of 2018. He outlined very clearly the conflict here. And for members of this rise above movement is a movement described by the FBI as a white supremacy extremist group were indicted for conspiracy to riot over the the August 2017 violence in Charlottesville that we were alluding to in Virginia, and among other things, there's an affidavit so this is not hearsay.
Lev Golinken 09:48 - Max Blumenthal
It’s not Max Blumenthal. As much as you know, maximum salt does a terrific job covering that but this is, this is the FBI. This is the FBI saying that that's very important to remember.
Pedro Gatos 09:57- FBI
Yeah, this is a special agent with Scott Bear with You're exactly right. The FBI Special Agent Scott beer with Bear with 28 year old Robert Rumo is said to have traveled to Germany, Italy and Ukraine in the spring of 2018. So, I mean, to me that hypocrisy of claiming the high ground when it comes to Neo Nazis in Charlottesville, yet we have a foreign policy that not just harbor but you know, nurtured and protected, as we indicated earlier with with the legislation that Conyers had put forth that got submarine and basically below the radar, they continue to get empowered, although they may not be in as great position of power as they were just immediately post. Cool. Can you speak a little bit about the Charlottesville connection there a little bit and white supremacy here in the United States and the connection to the Ukraine and not just the Ukraine, but this whole resurgence of neo Nazi ism that you write about so eloquently in your in your piece in the nation?
Lev Golinken 10:58 - Azov Battalion
Oh, yeah. The mean, and I'll just leave out the various I'll just let's just focus on the main group, there's off group, okay. This began as a battalion, it's a white supremacist battalion, they employ neo Nazi symbols that are just net internationally recognized as such, one of the symbols in the employee is called a wolf soak a wolf angles and symbol. It was used, he was found the shooter in Christchurch, New Zealand had that symbol. That symbol was also present in Charlottesville. So we're talking about, it's rather clear who these people are. They are very serious and not too serious. But they're, the thing is they're extraordinarily organized because they have this battalion. It grew. It grew by now it's a regimen. Okay regimen. And this Azov movement then began to grow various subgroups. It grew a civil core, it grew a street, a street, Brownshirt unit. Okay, called the nuts in Regina, the National, the National Guard element of it, okay, all subservient to this organization. And the most scary thing is that they began reaching out to white supremacists around the world. Okay. This group is thinking rather globally. Its founder basically said long before this is like years before the uprising, its founder he has written that his vision is that Ukraine would read the white races of the world against against the Jewish the sunlight led intermarriage, okay, in a global crusade for that this is everything that this is like white, white genocide theories, stuff, this is everything that today's Neo Nazis, we hear about. Okay. So the vision that is to turn Ukraine into an international hub of white supremacy, not just just with the time but also with politics with having conferences, with having concerts to have a neo Nazi concerts have a neo Nazi martial arts tournaments, having things like that, so and they have grown spectacularly in extraordinarily dangerous fashion, because you will see fighters from all all over the world go and fight and get battle battleground experience real experience in Ukraine. And again, to be accurate, there are also Neo Nazis who are fighting among the separatists, Neo Nazis from around the world also come to that part. So that is just as dangerous. The reason why we focus on Azov is it's a lot more highly organized. And as you said, the white supremacist on the other side, we're not sponsored them, whereas we're very much sponsoring Azov. John Conyers was phenomenal in trying to curtail the weapons going here. The thing is, there's been several articles, including by The Daily Beast, there's been, there's been other articles that basically say that we have no idea who the hell we're training in Ukraine, because we're not just providing them with weapons. We're providing them with military training and expertise. And that basically just gets funneled into the Ukrainian army. And from there, we have no idea in the National Guard. So we have no idea who it is we're training. And what happened was the FBI arrest of the white supremacist, the rise against movement is a perfect case of blowback, the term about what happens when we send things out abroad and ignore it, and then it comes back home. So here we are, we facilitated this coup that brought these would be battalions to power. We suppressed any reporting on this. For example, the great the late great Stephen Cohen of the nation would try it would write about this a lot and he was vilified for it. So we suppressed all of this is one of growing and growing and growing and then he's wound up starting to recruit white supremacists from across the world, including in America. So this is we raised we nurtured this white supremacist movement that in turn them started coming back to I started boomeranging back there was a there was a man who killed accused of killing two people in Florida who trained and he fought with the Ukrainian with the Ukrainian fight right. There is a superfund Center, which is a phenomenal group that was founded by the man who tried to prevent 911. The federal agent Joe prevent 911, Ali Soufan. And they have done an incredible report just outlining how the Azov movement is transforming Ukraine into a hub for transnational white supremacy. We have people from just all over the world. And again, it doesn't need to be a lot because a few of these well trained people can do a whole lot of damage, have they come back to their home?
Pedro Gatos 15:41- Secretary Blinken
Yeah, I had not heard I'd like to see the references to the white supremacists that were in the separatists region. I'm sure in any region, you're going to have people that are part of neighborhoods that rise up against the type of repression that was coming at them. But I hadn't heard that. I did want to indicate that the other things that in your article that that I've thought and you've been speaking to them as well. And I want to, again, remind people that we're talking to the author of this article, Secretary Blinken faces a big test in Ukraine, where Nazis and their sympathizers are glorified. I want to ask you in a few minutes that we have left to connect some of that history of particularly in the Ukraine and the 1.5 million Ukrainians that were slaughtered by Germans and collaborators back in the day. But also, in your article, you indicated that the reality is that the glorification of Nazi collaborators in the Holocaust perpetuators is not a glitch, but a feature of today's Ukraine. And then you also indicate that it brought in the Maidan uprising that as a new government that began whitewashing these collaborators on a statewide level. And then finally, you also mentioned and this is maybe can you can ties this back to that history. I asked you to flush out for us a little bit but that every January 1 Kiev hosted torchlit, march in which 1000s honor this Nazi collaborator step in Bandera who had an oh you infection. Can you talk a little bit about the the Bandera and the world war two air Nazi impact on Ukraine?
Lev Golinken 17:16 -
Yes. And this directly ties to white supremacy, by the way, because wherever you see organizations that are honoring Nazis and article operators, you will also find organized young men who are Neo Nazis. So again, just like the white supremacist in Charlottesville, congregating around the statue of Robert Iliev, you will see that statues and movements that honor Nazi collaborators, also wherever you see that is the canary in the coal mine, that is where you see organized by supremacy. Okay. These people I mean, they see this them continuing to fight these people feel very long game these people see themselves as continuing to fight from a very, very long time a battle that has not ended. But here's what happened and you couldn't do a World War Two, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians suffered tremendously and fought against Hitler. Okay, in the very western part of Ukraine, they formed organizations. And this is where the super ultra nationalists come from today. They allied with Hitler, they welcomed the Nazis with open arms, they started slaughtering Jews in some places before the Nazis got to go there. But by the time the Nazi death squads arrived, the Jews were already stated the job for them to use will be slaughtered. Okay, these were extraordinary up fascist, anti semitic savage groups. And the main one, it was called the Organization of Ukrainian nationalists.
Pedro Gatos 18:51-
That's a UN group. Is that right?
Lev Golinken 18:53- Stefan Bandera
Yep. Yep, that's Oh, un group. And Stefan Bandera was the leader of one of the factions of it, they wound up first of all, they allied themselves with the Nazis, they formed entire battalions that were part of the Third Reich that were literally in the system of the German military wing of Nazi Germany. They perpetuate the Holocaust directly, they slaughtered the Jews as part of the Nazis as part of the auxilary police that that guarded the gallows. And that and that murdered the Jews. And we're talking about 1.5 million Jews we're talking about one out of every four Jews killed in the Holocaust was killed in Ukraine. And often they were not even sent to concentration camps. So we're just taking out and come down like point blank.
Pedro Gatos 19:35-
Yeah, and that's 1.5 million is a huge number.
Lev Golinken 19:39 -
And the murders, not just us, of course, these the o un thing burgers, ethnic Ukrainian, so they believe the war against them, you know, and they murdered 70,000 200,000 poles in the most savage. I mean, if you look at the pictures of what they did to Poland, I mean, they didn't even use bullets. There was just handed you know, hand to hand work and this Just against villagers. I mean, they did things that Hannibal Lecter would consider, you know, a little too much. And I'm not and I'm not being flippant. I mean, it is just extraordinary what they did to the pollster. And now they're their official heroes of Ukraine. Now, they have songs written to them, they have marched to them. And the week before Secretary Blinken visited Ukraine. They had people in the middle of Kiev, celebrating a Ukrainian SS unit, a unit in the Waffen SS, the military arm of the Nazi party responsible for the Holocaust. And they got to the point where even Germany and Israel denounced
Pedro Gatos 20:42- Zelensky
Right, well, we're out of time. But I do want to mention that Zelensky. The President, he's a Jewish president. But you right that he's been appeasing and ignoring and kind of engaging in this whitewashing as well. I cannot imagine the horror and the terror that must be in the hearts and souls of so many people in the Ukraine. It's easy to say people should be against something, but boy, a bet if you're too vocal.
Lev Golinken 21:08-
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The lesson that we talked about in Odessa on May 2, when they burn people, as that lesson was learned very quickly. And people say that Ukraine has a Jewish president, and the easiest way to answer that is America had eight years of a black president, did that white absorbing racism, right? Okay. So people who say Ukraine cannot be anti semitic because it has a Jewish President he can say, yeah, just like America couldn't be racist, because it had a black president.
Pedro Gatos 21:34-
Very, very well put. Well, listen, we've had the pleasure. And it's been a pleasure. And it's been a great education for me, and I will continue to follow your work lead. But we have had love Golinken, as our guest tonight on Bringing Light Into Darkness. Mr. Golinken is a graduate of Boston College, he came to United States as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv back in 1990. He writes on the Ukrainian crisis, and this white supremacy and neo Nazi resurgence, that should be front page news, and it's not even made it to the news. So thank you for your eloquent history. If people want to follow your work, is there a website? Or how would you suggest people follow your work if they're interested.
Lev Golinken 22:20-
I am not on Twitter or anything, if they if they just want to Google me if they want to know if we'll be talking about Ukraine. So a lot of my work in Ukraine has been done in the nation. So if you just if you just look at me through the nation of the forward, if you want to do my work on just white supremacy in general, you can go to Google my articles at CNN and NBC. Holocaust distortion, wrote by the New York Times and Washington Post, so I guess probably the easiest thing would be to just Google my name, whatever topic whether it's immigration, whatever you want to go in, they'll pop up those, it'll pop up those articles.
Pedro Gatos 22:52-
Alright, so let's just end the show with that name. Let's Golinken G O L I N K E N that thank you so much for making time. I know your schedule is very busy. And you have a lot of options to be on media's throughout the country. And thank you for accepting our invitation of Bringing Light Into Darkness and thank you for bringing light into real darkness.
Lev Golinken 23:14 -
It's a privilege. I very, very much appreciate what you're doing. Thank you.
Pedro Gatos 23:18 -
Alright, my friend. Coming up next. Do not go anywhere unless you're not on kop.org right now switch on over to the internet. If you're on the FM dial to hear emo diaries with co ops very own Stephanie at the disco. I can't wait and we go out as we do every week with land of naivety. (Land of Navety plays)