Where are the fascists?

8 05 2014

As both Russia and Ukraine prepare to mark Victory Day (May 9), the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group continues to monitor the spread of fascist and neo-Nazi groups and ideas in eastern Ukraine.

Contrary to official Russian propaganda, the most visible neo-Nazis are Russians whose connections to the pro-Russian eastern Ukrainian separatists are incontrovertible. See Halya Coynash’s “Neo-Nazis in Moscow’s service,” as well as the links at the bottom of that article. Like Aleksandr Dugin (whom I’ve posted about before), Aleksandr Barkashov is well known to those who monitor fascism in the former Soviet Union.

Read the rest of this entry »





Rolling Stone: Report from Moscow

8 05 2014

In “Putin Clamps Down: A Chilling Report from Moscow,” Rolling Stone reporter Janet Reitman details the destruction of independent media in Russia, the marginalization of the country’s opposition politics, and the replacement of both by “Sovietism with a tsarist face.” (Reitman is the author of Inside Scientology, which contemporary Russia feels a little bit like.)

“Now Russia has entered a new phase, something [cultural critic Artemy] Troitsky recently dubbed “Staliban”: a meld of Soviet-style totalitarianism and ultraconservative orthodoxy, highlighted by vast distrust and moral superiority toward the “decadent” West.

Read the rest of this entry »





Nation vs. New Republic

6 05 2014

While it’s not the first time that The Nation and The New Republic — two of the most influential left liberal newsmagazines in the U.S. — have disagreed on matters of foreign policy, their divergence on the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been interesting to watch. (See note 1.)

In “Cold War Against Russia — Without Debate,” The Nation‘s Russia specialist Stephen F. Cohen and his wife, the magazine’s editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, have penned the latest in a series of critiques of the Obama administration’s — and mainstream media’s — move toward portraying Putin’s Russia as irrational, dangerous, and requiring a critical U.S. response.

Writing in The New Republic — which has featured a series of substantial pieces on Ukraine and Russia in recent months — Julia Ioffe’s “Putin’s American Toady at The Nation Gets Even Toadier” responds to Cohen’s and vanden Heuvel’s argument. (See note 2.)

Read the rest of this entry »





More Odessa observations

6 05 2014

The comments by the Left Opposition observer whom I quoted in the last post have now been translated into English here.

And here is a rich trove of images from the May 2 events. (The captions provide somewhat of a pro-Ukrainian unity slant.) The first link is particularly helpful. The last two links are not recommended for sensitive viewers.

 





Ukraine after Odessa’s May 2 tragedy

6 05 2014

People wait to be rescued on the second storey's ledge during a fire at the trade union building in Odessa

Due to travels last week, I was not able to post anything on this blog. I have spent the last few days catching up on the media coverage — Ukrainian, Russian, and international press as well as social media — of the worsening turn of events in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Below is a brief summary of what happened in Odessa on May 2 and its immediate and likely impacts. (updated 4:06 p.m. EST)

 

Read the rest of this entry »





Galeotti & Bowen: Putin’s strategic shift

24 04 2014

Writing in Foreign PolicyMark Galeotti and Andrew S. Bowen provide an analysis of Vladimir Putin’s shift “from realist to ideologue.” They write:

“In Putin’s actions at home as well, the Russian president is eschewing the pragmatism that marked his first administration. Instead of being the arbiter, brokering a consensus among various clans and interests, today’s Putin is increasingly autocratic. His circle of allies and advisors has shrunk to those who only share his exact ideas. Sober technocrats such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu played seemingly no role in the decision-making over Crimea and were expected simply to execute the orders from the top. [. . .]

Read the rest of this entry »





Separatist profiles (updated)

24 04 2014

Profiles of the pro-Russian separatists are appearing in the western press. Here are a few of them, along with some related reports.

Read the rest of this entry »





Fishman: on the anti-Semitic flyers in Donetsk

23 04 2014

In The Real Truth About Those Anti-Semitic Flyers in Donetsk, historian David Fishman provides an analysis of the flyers as an “act of political theater” consistent with a broader strategy of “playing the ‘Jewish card’.” Fishman is a professor of Jewish history and director of the Moscow-based Project Judaica.

A few quotes:

“With all the focus on the Donetsk incident, the conversation has missed the forest while being distracted by a single tree. During the past month, since the annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin has shifted its rhetoric and tactics in playing the “Jewish card.” It has embraced the language of classical Russian nationalism, going back to tsarist times, and has engaged the dark forces of the Russian ultra-right. That includes using anti-Semitism as an ingredient in the anti-Ukrainian campaign.

Read the rest of this entry »





Mitrokhin: Who are the separatists?

18 04 2014

In a piece written for the anti-racist/anti-fascist Searchlight magazine, Bremen University researcher Nikolay Mitrokhin provides at least a partial answer to the question: who are the leaders of the pro-Russian separatist movement in Ukraine?

His analysis broadly concurs with other researchers’ (notably Anton Shekhovtsov’s and Andreas Umland’s) linking of the pro-Russians with the Eurasian Youth Movement and other far-right and (sometimes) neo-fascist groups.

See “Ukraine’s Separatists and Their Dubious Leaders.”

 





Language and ethnicity in Ukraine

18 04 2014

Claims about language and ethnicity in Ukraine, including confusions between the two — for instance, that parts or all of eastern Ukraine are “majority Russian” — still appear in western media reports. Now that Vladimir Putin has proclaimed all of eastern and southern Ukraine “Novorossiya” (New Russia) — that is, “really” part of Russia and not part of Ukraine — these facts become all the more important to understand.

Here are a few maps to help with that.

Read the rest of this entry »








Skip to toolbar