Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Trained by the US

The United States European Command has officially confirmed that the U.S. will begin training and arming the National Guard of Ukraine this spring. It stated that the U.S. Department of State is heading the initiative to assist Ukraine in operating its “internal defense.” Funding, already authorized by Congress, is provided by a special fund set up by the Pentagon and the State Department to “provide training and equipment to foreign security forces,” so that “partner countries may confront the significant challenges posed to the national security of the United States.”*

The training mission in Ukraine serves to “demonstrate U.S. commitment to the security of the Black Sea and the value of U.S. forces spearheading the deployment.”** The units of the Ukrainian National Guard, including an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 volunteers, will be trained by U.S. instructors in the Yavoriv military camp near Lviv – roughly 50km (approximately 31 miles) from the Polish border. The National Guard, formed by the Kiev government in March 2014 with initial funding of $19 million, has incorporated neo-Nazi formations, already trained by NATO instructors during the coup of Kiev (as shown in photo documentation on neo-Nazi militants trained in 2006 in Estonia). [1]

The Donbass, Azov, Aidar, Dnepr-1, Dnieper-2 battalions and others, essentially the impact force of the National Guard, are made up of neo-Nazi Ukrainians as well as fighters from other European countries. The atrocities they committed against Russian national civilians in eastern Ukraine are widely documented by videos and testimonials (just search “neo-Nazi atrocities in Ukraine” on Google). But although Amnesty International accused the government in Kiev of being responsible for war crimes committed by these battalions, the U.S. continues to support the same provision of armored vehicles. And they are now backing their training and weapons program. This program falls under the category of “Operation Atlantic Resolve” launched by the U.S. European Command to “reassure our allies facing Russian intervention in Ukraine and as a deterrent to prevent Russia from taking control of the region.”***

As part of the growing deployment of U.S. forces in Eastern Europe, the Pentagon sent “military experts to increase Ukrainian military units’ combat capacity” and allocated a further $46 million to provide “military equipment, including vehicles and night-vision goggles.” Washington is thus already arming Kiev forces and while it has not provided heavy weapons, these can be purchased with the millions of dollars at their disposal. Meanwhile, Germany, France and Italy are in favor of a diplomatic solution and are therefore against providing arms to Kiev. At the same time, alongside Britain, Spain and Poland at the Brussels summit, they committed to supporting a large-scale mission to form a NATO task force to respond to the conflict which has been supplied with between 13,000 and 30,000 men and six command and control centers in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. However, in preparation for the summit in Minsk on Ukraine (in which it is voluntarily not participating), the U.S. has insisted, as Secretary of State John Kerry stated, that among the allies “there are no divisions, we are united […] in diplomacy and we work together, [we] all agree that there cannot be a military solution.”

However, at the same time, by training and arming Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the U.S. is feeding the flames of war in the heart of Europe.

[1] See the photos in the article published by Mondialisation.ca “Le régime de Kiev en Ukraine n’est pas « officiellement » un gouvernement néonazi” by Michel Chossudovsky, 5 June 2014.

*Editor’s Note: The quotations in this paragraph, although accurately translated, could not be independently verified.

**Editor’s Note: This quotation, although accurately translated, could not be independently verified.

***Editor’s Note: This quotation, although accurately translated, could not be independently verified.