Ukraine Crisis: 7 Signs of Russia's Far-Right Turn

Ukrainian security detained Maria Koleda in
April alleging she shot three people during
protests in Ukraine. Koleda, a Russian citizen,
appears to have associated with Russian neo-
Nazis, according to her social media posts.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has increasingly embraced far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Russia and Europe to promote his policies at home and abroad, including efforts to disrupt Ukraine and divide Europe.

So said this report last week in Tablet, a U.S. Jewish current-affairs magazine.

Here are seven signs that Putin's Russia has taken a hard swerve to the far right.

1) Putin's New Friends -- Marie Le Pen & Co. 

Putin has closely allied himself with Europe's fast-growing far-right parties -- France's National Front, Hungary's Jobbik party, Greece's Golden Dawn and the Ataka party in Bulgaria, according to Tablet and this report in the journal Foreign Affairs.

Russia is thought to have funded some of the parties, says the Foreign Affairs report, written by Northeastern University political scientist Mitchell Orenstein.

Europe's far right, in turn, has defended Putin's invasion of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and ultraconservative social policies such as his anti-gay legislation.

"I am very surprised that the European Union has now announced a kind of Cold War against Russia, which absolutely doesn't fit with the traditionally friendly relations between our countries," French National Front leader Marie Le Pen was quoted saying today during a visit to Moscow.

"Even the Soviet Union wasn't like this."

 - opposition leader Boris Nemtsov

Le Pen reportedly told the speaker of Russia's lower house Sergei Naryshkin she backed Russia's policies on Ukraine.

Le Pen has previously praised Putin. "As Vladimir Putin correctly stated, 20 years from now France will have become a colony of its former colonies," she was quoted telling Russian state television channel Rossia 1.

2) Putin Befriends U.S. Religious Right.

Putin also seems to be tight with segments of the U.S. religious right.

The World Congress of Families, an umbrella of the religious right, was apparently a key force behind Russia's anti-gay legislation, Mother Jones reported in February.

"We're convinced that Russia does and should play a very significant role in defence of the family and moral values worldwide," the group's executive director Larry Jacobs is quoted saying on its website.

The group's spokesman Don Feder wrote an article in March titled "Putin Doesn't Threaten Our National Security, Obama Does."

3) Far Right Invited to Monitor Crimea Referendum.

In March, Russian-appointed authorities in Crimea invited prominent European far-right and neo-Nazi leaders to act as observers in a jury-rigged referendum on joining Russia.

Despite widespread reports of fraud, the observers declared the vote was "open and transparent."

4) Russian State Media Stokes Anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Russian state media, according to this BBC report citing the Russian Jewish Congress.

In one incident in February, Evelina Zakamskaya, a presenter on the state-owned Rossiya 24 news channel, was interviewing Aleksandr Prokhanov, a far-right author who openly blames Jewish people for Russia's problems.

Referring to Jewish people who joined protests against Ukraine's pro-Moscow then-president Viktor Yanukovych, Prokhanov said: "Don't they realize that with their own hands they are hastening a second Holocaust?"

Flag of Russian ultranationalist anti-migrant group
Other Russia. It and other far-right Russian groups
are active in pro-Russia protests in eastern
Ukraine, the Kyiv Post reports.

Zakamskaya replied: "They also hastened the first one."

The state-owned Russia Today news channel hinted last month that the loss of a Malaysian passenger jet in the ocean in March could have been the fault of British billionaire Jacob Rothschild, who the story noted is Jewish and is now the sole holder of a valuable semiconductor patent.

The European Jewish Congress said the article "peddles (an) anti-Semitic theory."

5) Putin's Anti-Semitic Remark.

Putin himself was accused of anti-Semitism over a remark he made last year at Moscow's Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.

Putin claimed 80 to 85 percent of the first Soviet government was Jewish, which this Jewish Press item noted is false (only one of the 16 commissars was Jewish), calling the remark anti-Semitic.

6) Kremlin Backs Neo-Nazis at Home.

Putin's security services have supported Russia's neo-Nazi groups, according to this open letter to Putin from Ukrainian Jewish leaders.

The letter, published in March in The New York Times and other newspapers, dismissed Putin's claims that Ukraine's new pro-Western government is anti-Semitic.

"It seems you have confused Ukraine with Russia, where Jewish organizations have noticed growth in anti-Semitic tendencies last year," the letter said.

A Kremlin-backed youth movement called Nashi (Russian for "ours") has actively recruited Russian far-right skinheads from groups active in attacks on protesters, environmentalists and even rival extremists, this Financial Times story reported.

The story said the Russian government also appears to have repeatedly given "lenient treatment" to a skinhead group called Russian Image, which this Foreign Policy report said is "a neo-Nazi outfit" linked to several murders.

"Freedom evaporates with a clap of hands."

- Tatyana Lokshina of Human Rights Watch

Rights groups have also accused Russian authorities and state media of stoking anti-migrant fears and xenophobia and depicting migrants as criminals.

In one incident last October, police arrested 1,200 migrant workers -- mostly Muslims from the Caucasus and Asia -- at a warehouse that had been attacked by ultranationalist groups earlier that day.`

"Authorities are going after the victims, which seems completely absurd," said a Human Rights Watch official.

At the same time, Russia's media, increasingly under the Kremlin's tight control, has cranked up its ultranationalistic rhetoric during the conflict with Ukraine.

After Putin in March denounced domestic critics as "traitors" and a "fifth column," Russia closed down opposition websites and blogs, this Foreign Policy article said.

The article said Russia's growing nationalist fervour is silencing critics. "Freedom evaporates with a clap of hands," Tatyana Lokshina, director of the Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch, was quoted saying.

"Even the Soviet Union wasn't like this," opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is quoted writing in this New York Times story yesterday on Russia's "xenophobic chill."

"March 2014 marks a turn in the country from authoritarianism to dictatorship," he said.

One of the biggest backers of Putin's invasion of Crimea has been far-right leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the openly anti-Semitic deputy speaker of Russia's lower house. He has called for Russia to annex much of Ukraine.

7) Russian Far Right Active in Ukraine Unrest.

A number of far-right Russian activists have also turned up in Ukraine participating in pro-Russia protests, seemingly as part of the Kremlin's strategy of using provocateurs and crime gangs to destabilize Ukraine.

In March, Ukrainian security forces detained Oleg Bakhtiyarov, leader of the far-right Eurasian Youth Union of Russia, for allegedly planning an armed attack on Ukraine's parliament and government offices.

Bakhtiyarov reportedly recruited 200 people for the attack, promising them $500 apiece. He was apparently working with Russian TV channels to arrange for coverage of the raid, the Kyiv Post reported.

In April, Ukraine detained Maria Koleda, another Russian citizen, for allegedly shooting three people during protests in the southern region of Mykolaiv.

She reportedly participated in anti-Ukraine protests and had a pistol when she was detained. Her social media posts suggest she associated with Russian neo-Nazis and hard-right nationalists.

Ukraine has also detained Pavel Gubarev, a pro-Russian far-right activist who proclaimed himself the "people's governor" of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

This BuzzFeed story says Russian neo-Nazi and far-right groups have sent members to Ukraine to stoke unrest.

One group, the Russian People's National Socialist Initiative, reportedly posted footage of members receiving military training before heading to Ukraine.

The article quotes Russian ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is close to Putin, advising pro-Russian activists in Ukraine "not to find a common language with the new authorities in Kyiv but rather (to) act radically."

Members of two other Russian extremist anti-migrant groups, Moscow Shield and Other Russia, have also been active in the pro-Russia protests in Ukraine, this Kyiv Post story said Thursday.

See also:
4 Myths About the Ukraine Crisis, Crimea and NATO
7 Reasons Why Crimea Results Aren't Credible -- and Why Media Coverage Stinks

Russia's FSB Agency Helped Plan Maidan Sniper Killings: Ukrainian Investigation

Thirty members of Russia's FSB security service, the successor to the KGB, helped Ukrainian authorities plan a police assault on mass protests in Kyiv that left 76 dead and hundreds injured Feb. 18-20, Ukrainian security officials said Thursday announcing preliminary results of their investigation into the killings.

Ukrainian authorities also announced the arrest of 12 former riot police officers identified as government snipers who shot protesters in February.

They said dozens of other police and security personnel involved in the killings have fled to Russian-occupied Crimea.

The FSB and Russia's defence ministry also shipped five tonnes of grenades and other explosives to Ukrainian security forces, which used them against protesters, officials said.

Officials said hired civilian goons were also involved in killings of protesters and a journalist.

Russia denied being involved in the shootings, but later acknowledged that an FSB officer, Sergei Beseda, was in Kyiv Feb. 20-21 to check security at the Russian embassy.

UPDATE: Ukrainian military analyst Dmitry Tymchuk said today on his Facebook page (translated here) that Beseda is a colonel-general who commands FSB intelligence operations against ex-Soviet republics. His role doesn't involve embassy security.

Tymchuk said sources informed him Beseda arrived in Kyiv Feb. 20 with a delegation of seven FSB officers.

In addition, Tymchuk names 20 other members of the FSB and other Russian intelligence agencies, half of them ranked lieutenant-colonel or above, who he says were already present in Kyiv at the time.

New Footage of Bloodbath

This Daily Beast story on the shootings includes previously unreported details and new images of security personnel apparently readying to attack protesters and, afterwards, packing up vans as they fled. 

BBC also has this new footage of the carnage.

Footage Best Documenting Shootings

But the footage I think best documents the bloodbath remains this pair of videos showing heavily armed police with sniper rifles going into action -- as well as a 41-minute protesters' POV showing numerous unarmed protesters and medics getting shot, some while withdrawing.

The shootings were reportedly part of a failed larger plan involving over 20,000 police to crush the mass protests against Ukraine's pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych before he fled power Feb. 22, Toronto's Globe and Mail reported in February.

The story cited these documents from Hennadiy Moskal, a Ukrainian parliament member and former deputy chair of Ukraine's SBU security service.

Ukraine Crisis: Alleged Provocateurs Detained With 300 Machine Guns (UPDATED)

Ukraine's SBU security service said Monday it
had detained Russian military intelligence
operative Roman Bannik (above)
Saturday. Bannik had directed anti-
Ukraine protests in the eastern city of
Luhansk, the SBU said.

Ukrainian authorities said today they had detained 15 people reportedly plotting an armed seizure of power in the eastern region of Luhansk, near the Russian border.

Authorities say they seized 300 machine guns, an anti-tank grenade launcher and Molotov cocktails.

The announcement comes on the heels of two separate reports Monday of pro-Russia provocateurs being detained in other parts of Ukraine, including a Russian far-right leader allegedly planning to storm the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv.

Reports have multiplied of Russian soldiers and busloads of Russian citizens arriving in Ukraine to stage attacks and promote accession of various regions to Russia.

Amping up tensions, Russia's FSB security service, the successor to the KGB, said Thursday it had detained 25 Ukrainians on suspicion of spying on Russian military movements and planning sabotage.

(UPDATE: Russian state media reported April 9 that three of the arrested Ukrainians had been deported to Ukraine and banned from Russia for up to five years because they had planned to spy on the Russian military. The reports didn't mention the earlier sabotage allegations or the other Ukrainians reportedly detained.)

Pro-Russia Protesters Paid $500 Apiece: Report

UPDATE #2: Pro-Russia protesters were paid $500 apiece for participating in the seizure of a government building in Luhansk over the weekend, says Volodymyr Landik, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian from the Party of Regions, the party of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.

He said the protesters include titushki, hired thugs whom Yanukovych had hired to attack opponents and journalists.

Landik said most people in the city don't support the protesters' demand that the region joins Russia.

A new survey of Ukrainians in mid-March found only 14 percent supported implementation of a federal system of government in Ukraine, one of Russia's demands to resolve the crisis in the region.

The support rose to 45 percent in Ukraine's east, but still fell short of majority territory.

In another survey in February, only 12.5 percent of Ukrainians said they wanted Ukraine to join Russia. In Luhansk, just 24 percent wanted accession to Russia.

UPDATE #3: Ukraine's SBU security service said Monday it had detained a Russian military intelligence operative, Roman Bannik, on Saturday.

Bannik had been directing anti-Ukraine protests in Luhansk, the SBU said.

UPDATE #4: The SBU said April 9 it had detained a Russian citizen, Maria Koleda, for allegedly shooting three people during street clashes in the southern region of Mykolaiv.

She reportedly participated in anti-Ukraine protests and had a pistol when she was detained.

Her social media posts suggest she associated with Russian neo-Nazis and ultanationalists.

UPDATE #5: This Daily Beast story says a U.S. intelligence report warned in late February that Russia would send special forces and intelligence personnel into Ukraine to foment unrest to undermine Ukraine's new government.