Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Sir Adrian]

The only reason we know it was Ukraine is because of the investigation conducted by EU member states. But let's not let facts derail a good RIA Novosti narrative, right?

[Kyriakos]

Assuming it was simply "Ukraine", do you think there is much value in establishing this now, two years later? Or to juxtapose: can you think of a reason it wasn't established back when it would matter?

[Ludicus]

Back in 2018
Congress bans arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis-2018

And now.
Read full article.
Ukraine Azov Battalion Got U.S. Training Despite Ban- A Photo Shows Training Was Already Happening- June 22 2024

An excerpt,

The administration says the “Azov Brigade” is separate from the old, Nazi-linked “Azov Battalion.” The unit itself says they’re the same.
The photo, in tandem with the administration’s own statements, highlights the murky nature of the arms ban, how it was imposed, and under what U.S. authority. Two mechanisms could have barred arms transfers: a law passed by Congress specifically prohibiting assistance to Azov, and the so-called Leahy laws that block support to units responsible for grave rights violations. One former American official said that because of the unit’s byzantine history of reorganizations and official status, the State Department should better explain its decisions.
“Given the history of the Azov Regiment, the Azov Battalion, and the Azov Brigade, the State Department’s ought to provide a more detailed rationale for the finding that the Brigade is eligible pursuant to the Leahy law,” Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights, My guess is that the Department found that the Brigade is a ‘new unit,’ distinguishable from the Battalion and the Regiment. If that’s correct, the Department should say so.”

Restrictions on U.S. military support may have been in effect when the Azov Brigade’s official Telegram channel and X account announced in March that the unit’s personnel recently completed an American military training. The course, on civil–military cooperation, was provided by U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, or SOCEUR, according to the posts.
One attached photo shows a captain in the Azov unit being presented with a certificate dated December 2023 by a person with a blurred face in U.S. military fatigues. A second photo shows a group of people in U.S. military apparel holding an American flag next to a group of several dozen others, some of whom are holding a flag with the Azov insignia.
Department of Defense spokesperson Tim Gorman would not comment on the SOCEUR training, including whether or not it was legal, and referred The Intercept to the State Department. (The Azov unit did not respond to a request for comment.)

The State Department also declined to answer repeated questions about the SOCEUR training and its legality, or whether there had been other U.S. military training with Azov before clearing the group under the Leahy laws.

---
Which brings us to an old book. L' Orquestre Noir, by Frédéric Laurent, a former Libération journalist, published in 1978, when there was no Putin, but Brezhnev, no Russia, but the Soviet Union, contains a chapter dedicated to the European far-right and how the Allies recovered the Ukrainian Nazis, bringing them to Germany to join their intelligence services and secret armies to fight the then Soviet Union.
Public access, Internet Archive. L-orchestre-noir.pdf
Operation Ohio illustrates one of the main reasons why fascism did not die out with Nazism. For those who don't read French, here's a translation of these pages.
Original French,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

De la guerre a la guerre froide, de l'antifascisme a l'anticommunism
En Alemagnne
Soucieux d'éviter la propagande et les infiltrations communistes dans les camps d'Autriche et d'Allemagne où sont parqués, après la guerre, plusieurs millions de personnes déplacées, les services du contre-espionnage de l'armée américaine embauchent des auxiliaires. Ainsi, ils chargent, en 1946, les membres de l'Organisation des nationalistes ukrainiens (O.U.N.) de contrôler, surveiller leurs compatriotes et, éventuellement, de liquider les suspects. Ce programme s'appelle
L'opération Ohio¹
Quels étaient donc ces nouveaux alliés des défenseurs du monde libre? Un groupe de nationalistes extrémistes créé en 1929 et qui, dès 1938, collaborait étroitement avec les nazis. En 1941, ses dirigeants avaient même participé à la formation de deux bataillons ukrainiens, « Nachtigalle » et « Roland », qui, sous le commandement de la Wehrmacht, jouèrent un rôle déterminant dans l'invasion de l'Union soviétique. Ils se distinguèrent par de nombreux massacres de Juifs et de communistes "²
1. Voir étude de Maris Catrars et Barton Osborn in Win, 1975.
2. Voir étude publiée par Institute of Jewish social science of New York.
C'est avec la même efficacité que les membres de l'O.V.N. vont remplir la mission qui leur a été confiée par les Américains, éliminant physiquement leurs adversaires modérés et tous ceux qu'ils soupçonnent de sympathies progressistes,. D'après le témoignage d'un ancien interné du camp de Mittenwald, l'O.V.N. n'hésitait pas à utiliser des méthodes héritées du nazisme pour faire disparaître les corps des victimes en les brûlant dans les grands fours qui servaient ordinairement à cuire le pain des résidents du camp.
Ce genre d'exactions étaient surtout le fait de la Sluzhba Bezpeky (S. B.), la police secrète de l'O.U.N., dont la structure avait été calquée sur le modèle des services de sécurité nazis (Sicherheitdienst). Elles étaient activement couvertes par les services secrets américains. C'est par l'intermédiaire de l'ancien aumônier du bataillon« Nachtigalle», Ivan Grinyokh, que les lAméri- ' cains étaient entrés en relation avec la S.B. et l'O.V.N. Ce prêtre, décoré de la Croix de fer, avait travaillé pour la Gestapo et participé à la création de la S.B. Après lui, la liaison sera assurée par un autre ecclésiastique, le jésuite Ott qui, lui aussi, avait travaillé pour les services de renseignements allemands (et qui serait aujourd'hui le patron des services secrets du Vatican).

Le programme Ohio - dont s'inspirera vingt ans plus tard le sinistre programme PhQenix mis en œuvre au Vietnam - sera appliqué jusqu'en 1954. En cours ' d'exécution, il passera sous le contrôle de la C.I.A. , et plus précisément de Richard Helms, futur directeur de la centrale de renseignements. Au demeurant, le chef de ' la S.B., Mykola Matwyeko, disparaîtra en 1951 au cours d'une mission en Union soviétique effectuée . pour le compte de la C.I.A.

Au moins deux de ses anciens camarades (dont l'ancien chef de la police de Trembov en Ukraine occupée, responsable de la liquidation de . nombreux Juifs) vivent aujourd'hui tranquillement aux États-Vnis. Une enquête du quotidien new-Yorkais Daily News, publiée en 1976, évalue entre cinq cents et deux mille les criminels de guerre européens réfugiés aux U.S.A. Le gouvernement américain a décidé récemment de poursuivre certains d'entre eux.

Une brigade spéciale a été créée au début de l'été 1977 par la police de l'immigration, avec pour mission de rouvrir les dossiers de 106 individus accusés ou soupçonnés d'avoir ordonné ou participé à des massacres de Juifs durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Pour la plupart, ils sont aujourd'hui de nationalité américaine. Parmi eux figure, par exemple, Andreja Artukovic, ancien ministre de l'Intérieur de Croatie, auteur avec son chef Ante Pavelich du massacre de milliers de Juifs, de gitans et de Serbes. Joshua Eilberg, président de la sous-commission de l'immigration à la Chambre des représentants, explique cette longue impunité : « Le service de l'immigration et le ministère de la Justice dont il dépend s'intéressaient davantage aux communistes et à leur propagande, et aussi à nos relations avec l'Allemagne occidentale, qu'aux criminels qui ont pris part à des génocides sans précédent dans l'histoire. »
Autre raison de cette impunité : certains de ces criminels de guerre ont été employés durant la guerre froide par les services secrets américains. Comme Edgar Laipenieks, ancien agent d'espionnage letton que la C.I.A. a employé dans les années 60. Ou Vilis Haznurs, accusé d'avoir massacré des centaines de Juifs à Riga en 1941, employé par la C.I.A. pour faire des émissions à Radio Liberty. Etc. (Los Angeles Times, 4 août 1977, et France-Soir, 9 août 1977.) L'exemple du programme Ohio illustre bien l'une des raisons essentielles pour lesquelles le fascisme ne s'est pas éteint avec le régime hitlérien. Comme le dit assez candidement l'histoire officielle du Pentagone : « Bien que cela n'apparaisse pas dans les directives officielles, le service de contre-espionnage de l'armée comprit rapidement que sa mission première de dénazification serait bientôt supplantée par le problème soviétique. » En moins d'un an, par peur du communisme, ceux-là mêmes qui avaient été les premiers à découvrir l'horreur des camps de concentration faisaient appel aux spécialistes de la lutte contre le bolchevisme : les nazis et leurs alliés fascistes. Ce renversement d'alliances était prévu bien avant que Winston Churchill ne prononce son célèbre discours sur le « rideau de fer » qui s'était « abattu sur l'Europe ».

English translation,

From War to Cold War, from Anti-Fascism to Anti-Communism
In Germany
Concerned with avoiding communist propaganda and infiltration in the camps in Austria and Germany where, after the war, several million displaced persons were housed, the American army's counterintelligence services hired auxiliaries. Thus, in 1946, they entrusted members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) with the task of controlling and monitoring their compatriots and, if necessary, eliminating suspects. This program was called "Operation Ohio."¹
So, who were these new allies of the defenders of the free world? A group of extreme nationalists created in 1929 that, as early as 1938, was closely collaborating with the Nazis. In 1941, its leaders even participated in the formation of two Ukrainian battalions, "Nachtigall" and "Roland," which, under Wehrmacht command, played a decisive role in the invasion of the Soviet Union. They distinguished themselves by numerous massacres of Jews and communists.²

1. See the study by Maris Catrars and Barton Osborn in Win, 1975.
2. See study published by the Institute of Jewish Social Science of New York.

With the same efficiency, members of the OUN would carry out the mission entrusted to them by the Americans, physically eliminating their moderate opponents and all those they suspected of progressive sympathies. According to the testimony of a former inmate of the Mittenwald camp, the OUN did not hesitate to use methods inherited from Nazism to make the bodies of their victims disappear by burning them in the large ovens ordinarily used to bake bread for the camp residents.

These kinds of atrocities were mostly the work of the Sluzhba Bezpeky (SB), the secret police of the OUN, whose structure was modeled on the Nazi security services (Sicherheitsdienst). They were actively covered up by American secret services. It was through the former chaplain of the "Nachtigall" battalion, Ivan Grinyokh, that the Americans established contact with the SB and the OUN. This priest, decorated with the Iron Cross, had worked for the Gestapo and participated in the creation of the SB. After him, the liaison would be ensured by another clergyman, the Jesuit Ott, who also worked for German intelligence services (and who is said to be the head of the Vatican secret services today).

The Ohio program, which would inspire the sinister Phoenix program implemented in Vietnam twenty years later, would be applied until 1954. During its execution, it would come under the control of the CIA, and more precisely of Richard Helms, the future director of the intelligence agency. Incidentally, the head of the SB, Mykola Matwyecko, would disappear in 1951 during a mission in the Soviet Union carried out on behalf of the CIA.
At least two of his former comrades (including the former chief of police of Trembov in occupied Ukraine, responsible for the liquidation of many Jews) are living peacefully in the United States today. An investigation by the New York daily Daily News, published in 1976, estimates that between five hundred and two thousand European war criminals found refuge in the USA. The American government recently decided to prosecute some of them.

A special brigade was created in early summer 1977 by the immigration police, tasked with reopening the files of 106 individuals accused or suspected of having ordered or participated in the massacres of Jews during World War II. Most of them are American citizens today. Among them is Andreja Artukovic, the former Minister of the Interior of Croatia, who, along with his leader Ante Pavelic, orchestrated the massacre of thousands of Jews, Roma, and Serbs. Joshua Eilberg, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, explains this long-standing impunity: "The Immigration Service and the Justice Department, on which it depends, were more interested in communists and their propaganda, and also in our relations with West Germany, than in criminals who took part in unprecedented genocides in history."

Another reason for this impunity is that some of these war criminals were employed during the Cold War by American secret services. Like Edgar Laipenieks, a former Latvian spy who was employed by the CIA in the 1960s. Or Vilis Hazners, accused of massacring hundreds of Jews in Riga in 1941, who was employed by the CIA to make broadcasts on Radio Liberty. And so on. (Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1977, and France-Soir, August 9, 1977.)

The example of the Ohio program clearly illustrates one of the main reasons why fascism did not disappear with the Hitler regime. As the official history of the Pentagon quite candidly states: "Although it does not appear in the official directives, the army's counterintelligence service quickly understood that its primary mission of denazification would soon be supplanted by the Soviet problem." In less than a year, out of fear of communism, those who were the first to discover the horrors of the concentration camps were turning to specialists in the fight against Bolshevism: the Nazis and their fascist allies. This reversal of alliances was anticipated long before Winston Churchill gave his famous speech on the "Iron Curtain" that had "descended upon Europe."

Ukrainian Nazism was born with Nazism and survived Nazism. It is as old and as violent as Germany's. It doesn't seem that Nazism defended democracy and freedom. It is old and persistent, it is impregnated in society and in the state apparatus, and it came to the surface as soon as the conditions were created for it to manifest itself. The process of recovering the Ukrainian Nazis for the Western-friendly “new democracy”, a candidate for NATO and the European Union, follows exactly the same path as the use of the Nazis as agents against Russia's enemies, which was followed immediately after the end of the WW2. It's not about defending freedom and democracy; it's about having unscrupulous troops to carry out criminal actions beyond the control of public opinion and without legitimacy that the states intend to carry out.

[Sir Adrian]

Assuming it was simply "Ukraine", do you think there is much value in establishing this now, two years later? Or to juxtapose: can you think of a reason it wasn't established back when it would matter?

Probably because people are not psychic and an investigation had to be carried out, which takes time, and also because all EU countries have a vested interest in Ukraine winning the war and putting extra diplomatic pressure would have helped no one.

[Laser101]

Do you mean complete vassalage to the US and its interests in Ukraine, even so far as not investigating things that everyone knows that the US and Ukraine were behind such as the destruction of the Nord Stream 2?

Ukraine may have been responsible for that, but there's no evidence that the US was involved.

[Kyriakos]

Biden did say that the pipeline would be taken out, or something to that effect. I am sure those were just words - I wonder if the investigation bothered checking

[Sir Adrian]

Anyone could have predicted the pipeline would be attacked, it was a source of revenue for Russia. Just because he said it does not mean he did it.

[Alastor]

Oh yes, the great Nordstream pipeline attack mystery. Who could have done it? It's such an opaque event, so many people threatened those pipes and have orchestrated a proxy war against Russia it's hard to pick a likely candidate. You know what, it was probably those damn Russians that blew it up because they are all drunk and like blowing up stuff. Doesn't matter if its theirs... right? Right? Isn't that what the totally honest and sensible western media tried to gaslight us all into thinking? That totally plausible take?

Pfft, that we are still discussing this is just laughable. The US blew up the pipelines, either directly, or via Ukrainian proxy. Poland and the rest of the rabid Russophobes in the vicinity may also have played a part. That much was obvious from the very beginning. As far as finding hard evidence goes. Well it's hard to find evidence against yourself when you are the one running the investigation. Well you, or your lackeys.

What a great show of EU cohesion that was though. Everyone piling up to kick Germany to the curb, including the German government.

----
Meh, on more important news Russia keeps gaining ground towards Toretsk and Pokrovsk. While Zelensky has sent the Ukrainians that should be defending those crucial areas to capture some more forest in Kursk. I guess I can understand this. Forests are important, they provide... oxygen.

[Kyriakos]

Back then Germany did not want to stop using the pipeline - not that it's a mystery as to why, their industry now has to pay for energy an ocean away.
But they are as much a US vassal (if not even more, due to regional importance) as anyone else.

Russia sucks too, of course. They've made a habit out of invading and strong-arming countries. Yet I can't buy that Ukraine was helped out of humanism, just the usual calculation.

[Loyt]

Ukrainian Nazism was born with Nazism and survived Nazism. It is as old and as violent as Germany's.

I am sure you can point at laws discriminating other nations? Maybe concentration camps for indesirables? If it's "as violent as Germany"? And you are not accuse just Azov, but the whole state - very bold claim.

And how can it be "as old", if those neo-nazi movements, connected to early Azov, had appeared in Ukraine only in nineties?

[AqD]

everyone knows that the US and Ukraine were behind such as the destruction of the Nord Stream 2?

Russia started the war.

Russia alone is thus responsible for every single losses. Every deaths on either side, destructions, inflation, and the cost of every ing bullets used to shoot Russian soldiers in self defense. Also the cost of the operation to construct and blow up nord stream.

The only time we'll need those investigations is when we take over all oil and gas in Russia and needs to decide who gets what.

[Kyriakos]

That gas isn't going to help with nuclear winter.

[Loyt]

The only time we'll need those investigations is when we take over all oil and gas in Russia and needs to decide who gets what.

Like someone would bother to actually try to conquer Russia? For what? It's useless in modern economy. And they will sell those resources anyway, just give them a chance.

[Loyt]

That gas isn't going to help with nuclear winter.

Yeah, one big volcano eruption put more soot in atmosphere than all those potential nuclear strikes. It causes certain problems for a while indeed, but we all are still somehow alive. "Nuclear winter" is the same thing as those manhattan project physicians fearing that their experiment will destroy Earth in chain reaction.

[Alastor]

Russia started the war.
Russia alone is thus responsible for every single losses. Every deaths on either side, destructions, inflation, and the cost of every ing bullets used to shoot Russian soldiers in self defense. Also the cost of the operation to construct and blow up nord stream.

The only time we'll need those investigations is when we take over all oil and gas in Russia and needs to decide who gets what.

Yeah, that's not how any of that works.

Even if one was to accept that Russia "started this war" and that is pretty debatable, who started a war doesn't give the other side a blank check. For example, it is well established that either side in a war can commit war crimes and, if the UN wasn't full of impotent hypocrites, should be prosecuted for them.

[Loyt]

For example, it is well established that either side in a war can commit war crimes and, if the UN wasn't full of impotent hypocrites, should be prosecuted for them.

But how could they do that? Russia doesn't allow foreign investigations, and all accusations come from controlled sources. They often don't even allow foreign inspectors then they have to. Like blocking Red Cross from checking on captives.
Story with the downed Boeing showed clearly how unreliable russian sources are, even on most official level.

[Alastor]

But how could they do that? Russia doesn't allow foreign investigations, and all accusations come from controlled sources. They often don't even allow foreign inspectors then they have to. Like blocking Red Cross from checking on captives.
Story with the downed Boeing showed clearly how unreliable russian sources are, even on most official level.

How could the impotent hypocrites at the UN do their job? Hm, maybe by not being impotent hypocrites? I already made it clear there are "practical difficulties" with applying the principle. It doesn't mean that's not the principle.

[mishkin]

How could the impotent hypocrites at the UN do their job? Hm, maybe by not being impotent hypocrites? I already made it clear there are "practical difficulties" with applying the principle. It doesn't mean that's not the principle.

you want the UN Blue Helmets to be deployed in Russia to facilitate the activities of impartial journalists and NGOs there?

[Alastor]

you want the UN Blue Helmets to be deployed in Russia to facilitate the activities of impartial journalists and NGOs there?

I don't know how the UN could work mishkin. I don't even know if it should work considering the sacrosanct treatment state sovereignty gets. What I know is that the UN doesn't work. And considering the UN is one of the key pillars of international law, international law doesn't work either. The point remains though that who started a war isn't what matters when it comes to moral culpability for one's own actions. That's not the framework we are operating, at least in principle, under.

[Laser101]

Even if one was to accept that Russia "started this war" and that is pretty debatable, who started a war doesn't give the other side a blank check. For example, it is well established that either side in a war can commit war crimes and, if the UN wasn't full of impotent hypocrites, should be prosecuted for them.

The UN has exactly as much authority as its members (more specifically the big ones) deign to give it. Which is of course not a lot.