Thousands of Nationalists march in Kiev

Published by carolyn on Fri, 2015-01-02 01:19

New Year's Eve march to honour the 106th birthday of second world war revolutionary fighter Stepan Bandera, who Russian President Vladimir Putin has called " Hitler's accomplice”

Thousands of Ukrainian nationalists held a torchlight procession across Kiev on Thursday in honour of a 1940s anti-Soviet insurgent branded by Moscow as a Nazi collaborator whom Europe must reject.

The march on what would have been Stepan Bandera’s 106th birthday moved along the same streets on which hundreds of thousands rallied for three months last winter before ousting a Moscow-backed president.

Some wore second world war-era army uniforms while others draped themselves in the red and black nationalist flags and chanted “Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians” and “Bandera will return and restore order”.

“The Kremlin is afraid of Bandera because he symbolises the very idea of a completely independent Ukraine,” Lidia Ushiy said while holding up a portrait of the far-right icon at the head of the march.

His movement’s slogan – “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” – was also the catchphrase of last year’s pro-European revolt.

Ukrainians carry a banner with a portrait of Stepan Bandara

Russian President Vladimir Putin in March called that uprising’s leaders “the ideological heirs of Bandera, Hitler’s accomplice during World War II.”

Bandera was the ideological patron of resistance fighters who fought alongside invading German forces.

The Ukrainian famine of the 1930s created by Soviet collective farming had turned many against Moscow and in favour of any foreign presence that could help fend off Kremlin rule.

But Bandera himself was arrested by the Germans for trying to set up a Ukrainian government and spent the war years in a concentration camp.

He was poisoned by a KGB agent in Munich in 1959.

Bandera was posthumously decorated with a Hero of Ukraine medal in January 2010 by the then pro-Western president Viktor Yushchenko.

The decision outraged Russia and was revoked by the Moscow-backed leadership prior to its own ouster in February.

From South China Morning Post 

Category 

Russia, Slavs

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Ukraine Today looks back at the best Ukrainian internet memes of 2014
 
Ever since Russia started its aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainians have maintained a sense of humour and pride and that's been evident in a variety of internet memes that have appeared over the past year. Ukraine Today takes a look the year's top 5 Ukrainian internet memes.
 
http://uatoday.tv/geopolitics/top-5-ukrainian-internet-memes-400914.html
 
Post-Soviet Communists Mourn Loss of Ukraine: Old guard gathers in Minsk for defiant summit
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYA9NjgZWng&index=87&list=UUjX58COleIWwvc0_e9r_oMA

        Bandera is truly insignificant and really made no difference, Ukraine nationalistic "movements" go way back. WW1-postWW1 movements that actually had competting nationlistic factions fighting one another, with the winners buying Lenin's pie in the sky  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 
 
        Ukraine nationalism is engrained since Prince Olekh established the Kyivan State. The  Mongols and Tatars invaded and forcibly hoisted the first of many yokes around their necks others they have foolishly put around their own necks.
 
      From the Hetmans, and Cossack society as brave as they were (when all of Europe was trembling from the Turks, Cossacks were jumping in thier Chaikas, raiding and terrrorizing Turkish cities) they have had terrible decisions made by their leadership and general fickle attitudes. 
 
       Today is no different, historically (by choice) they divided themselves west/east (Polish/Lithuania - Russia) just as today. They have been sold another pie n sky jewish pipe dream (western ipods/ Russian empire of gas) and are just as split on their future for present desires. Now I know Russian transplants are in the east, but they surely are not all Russians. The squabbles between the competing jewish mafia families Ukraine and Russian are what is driving this faux nationalistic 'movement'. I mean really, did they not pass The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine split from USSR collapse ?

Northpal, I'd say you summed up things quite well as regards Ukrainian history and present activities.  They are all confused and messed up over there.  A long time ago, Ukraine, independent or not, was a beautiful land.  The people were beautiful and hardworking.  Their traditions were beautiful.  Writers from western Europe have said so, and I'll take their word for it.  Today, as always, the Ukrainians don't know which way to turn, are not famous for "sticking together", and are flailing around like fish out of water.  I see nothing good coming of any of this. 

Very noticeable:

This is a newsworthy event, irregardless of how you feel about it's long-term importance. Yet there was not a word about it on The Daily Stormer, a site that doesn't miss much of anything ... unless its pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian. The Daily Stormer reflects strictly the views of Andrew Anglin, just like this site reflects my views. But people confuse TDS with a "news" site, where they can find the news. But it isn't.

Andrew Anglin - is a phony, we have all heard his new word of the day and stuttering, nonsensical attempt at being "in-tel-lectual".
When will you people ever learn ?????

ukrainians are always marching.........."this way in to the pen, don't push we can squeeze all of you in the brand new box".

Andrew never fails to post nonsense about how Putin is some kind of White savior but never mentions the mass amounts of evidence that Pewtin is the biggest jew ass-licker in the world today. Remember when Anglin posted an opinion piece about how Pewtin was sent by god to save the Western world?
 
Vladimir Putin is a Christian Man by Andrew Anglin - Daily Stormer March 11, 2014
 
"The more I think about and look at the situation, the more I believe that Vladimir Putin is truly a Christian man, in the process of building a Christian empire to save Western civilization." - Andrew Anglin

It made me see red. AA's insistence that he is a National Socialist, at the same time as he promotes enemies of Adolf Hitler, hardly causes a ripple among his loyal fanbase. This shows the level of denial (and maybe stupidity) in this "movement."

I wonder how much his closeness to Golden Dawn (to whatever degree that can be said) influences his reporting on Putin/Russia. I believe it is significant.

"people confuse TDS with a "news" site"

People like me? Haha, but no, point taken and understood.

What closeness to Golden Dawn? No one in Golden Dawn had any interest in Andrew. So it can't have anything to do with his strong attraction to Putin. in my estimation, he just likes the type of man he believes Putin is. And he speaks up for Russians and other Slavs because they don't criticise him. That is really the key to Andrew. Accept him unconditionally.

He has insinuated such by speaking (at least once) about how he's met party officials, and even MP's, and just kind of leaves it for people to wonder. I remember once someone asked him why he never writes anything about his life in Greece and he responded to the effect of "Good question, I'll be doing so rather soon." and I want to say he claimed (perhaps at another time) that there was a forthcoming interview with a party member as well. At the least, he claimed it was something likely to be soon taking place, but neither happening has come to fruition.
 
Looking at things with that reconsidered, I doubt he regularly comes in contact with anyone in the party, or that he has received anything resembling instruction on how to handle coverage of Russia, but I wouldn't dismiss the idea of him being influenced to some degree by what he imagines to be pleasing to GD (who also doesn't care for Pravy Sektor). Those he associates with socially in Greece may be a factor as well. It's hard for me to believe one in Andrew's position would be that impressed with Putin's carefully presented image and banning of gay propaganda to kids to be so one-sided in his coverage...but perhaps it shouldn't be hard for me to believe, as it certainly wouldn't be his only display of self-contradiction, and he is really into those "studly" pics of Putin.
 

Interesting photo. The guy in the middle (top photo) could be a Jew and is wearing a scarfe that looks like something to do with the EU or freemasonry. They do seem to like to get themselves in such pictures.

You pay a lot of attention to seeing freemasonry symbols. I thought it looked like EU. Here's how the Jerusalem Post sees it:

A new year’s torchlight march through downtown Ukraine in honor of Holocaust era-Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera drew harsh criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Sunday, but failed to elicit condemnations by Ukrainian Jews.

Members of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party and the Right Sector movement marched down Khreshchatyk Street, one of Kiev’s main boulevard’s and the site of last year’s EuroMaidan revolution, to celebrate the 106th birthday of Stepan Bandera, whose faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists helped murder thousands of Jews during the Second World War.

Five thousand people participated in the march, according to organizers, The Kyiv Post reported.

The “current government came to power using Bandera’s slogans, so it has to follow his ideas,” Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok said before the march began, according to the Ukrainian newspaper.

SWC Jerusalem Bureau Director Effraim Zuroff said in a statement: “Holocaust perpetrators are the last people on Earth who deserve to be glorified, regardless of their nationalist credentials. This phenomenon, currently so common in post-Communist Eastern Europe, and especially in Ukraine and the Baltics, clearly shows that these countries don’t fully comprehend the obligations of true democracy,”

“The march has more to do with the systematic Holocaust distortion prevalent in post-Communist Eastern Europe, which has a very fundamental anti-Semitic component, than outright anti-Semitism,” Zuroff told the Post.

The march is a good example of three separate phenomena, he continued: “hiding or minimizing the role of local Nazi collaborators in Holocaust crimes; promoting the canard of equivalency between Nazi and Communist crimes; and glorification of anti-Communist freedom fighters (the new heroes of these countries), who were local Nazi collaborators who participated in Shoa crimes.”

Right Sektor has made efforts to disassociate itself from anti-Semitism, with its leaders meeting with community representatives and protesting in favor of Israel during last summer’s Gaza war.

Svoboda, known as the Social-National Party of Ukraine until 2004, has been accused of being a neo-Nazi party by Ukrainian Jews and while party leaders have a history of making anti-Semitic remarks, their rhetoric has toned down considerably over the past years as they attempted to go mainstream.

Prior to the revolution the party had 36 seats out of 450, or roughly eight percent of the total representation in parliament, but the party failed to make the election threshold in October’s election.

While Svoboda has several lawmakers in the legislature who were elected in direct elections in their districts, the party’s representation is now minimal. Parliamentary seats are apportioned through both a proportional representation system and by direct election of candidates by region.

Ousted president Victor Yanukovich’s predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, engaged in an effort to rehabilitate figures such as Bandera, posthumously awarding him the title of “Hero of Ukraine” in 2010, riling the Jewish community.


“To glorify Bandera is to reject Stalin and to reject any pretension from Moscow to power over Ukraine,” one academic explained at the time.

*     *      *

Noting Svoboda’s failure to pass the election threshold, the rabbi said that while Ukraine’s past should not be ignored, the problem is not anti-Semitism but the “difficult financial situation and lack of security and political stability which has resulted in a large number of Ukrainian Jews immigrating to Israel and, unfortunately, to Germany.”

Zuroff, however, sees things differently, saying many Jews living in Ukraine “believe that in order to secure their existence in today’s Ukraine, they have to turn a blind eye to the glorification of people like Bandera.”

In response, Kaminezki stated that Ukrainians see Bandera as a national hero rather than as an anti-Semitic figure, similar to how Scotts view William Wallace or the Italians see Garibaldi, and do not always associate him with anti-Semitism.

“My perception out of what I hear and see: In contemporary Ukraine Bandera has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, but more with national self-identity of Ukrainians,” said one Ukrainian Jew who asked not to be identified, explaining that support for Bandera for many has less to do with anti-Semitism than anti-Russian sentiments.

I saw this rather unsavory image on the instagram page "rightsectorinfo", which is by all appearances an official page, but nevertheless the picture is what it is:
 
I surmise it relates with the pro-Israel lobbying described above. Looking at various pages of nationally-minded Ukrainians, it seems there is not much ideological cohesiveness among them. Also, some will post pictures like this: and no one ever corrects them (I can tell because there's often no comments, and certainly no back-and-forth going on). As you're aware I have no agenda to smear Ukrainian nationalists and remain open to new info, but all in all I'm led to believe that for better and worse, not much has changed with them since WWII (particularly referring to your coverage of Ukraine in the "Hitler and the Slavs" series).

I do not mean to champion Ukraine. But this "separatist, pro-Russian breakaway" with the help and instigation of Russia is entirely unjustified. It seems the Russians are just clumsy and heavy-handed; they always become unlikeable. That's enough reason to sympathize with Ukraine and all the other countries bordering Russia.

I agree. Here's a couple other images of note that I came across:
 
http://i57.tinypic.com/f2ld2a.jpg
 
http://i60.tinypic.com/20r3i3r.jpg
 
I also came across pics sharing info related to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
If anyone I follow had already brought this up, I missed it, but this Budapest Memorandum was where Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons stockpile - the third largest in the world - in exchange for the following guarantees from the US, UK, and Russia:

  1. Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
  2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
  3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
  4. Seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, "if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
  5. Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine.
  6. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.