Russian-Backed Militants Oppose "Zombie Zionists" and "Jewish Junta" in Ukraine Amid Rise in Russian Anti-Semitism

Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime
minister currently running for president,
"completely hides" her Jewish ancestry,
according to a recent Russian TV
documentary that one report says is part
of a new anti-Semitic campaign.

Pro-Russia militants have vowed in a TV program to oppose "zombie Zionists" in Ukraine, according to the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, which called the broadcast anti-Semitic.

The development comes amid reports of an upsurge of anti-Semitism in pro-Kremlin media stories and Russian government support for far-right Russian groups active in Ukraine.

Three unidentified pro-Russia militants promised a "powerful blow" against "zombie Zionists" in an inaugural broadcast Sunday of a new pro-Russia TV channel in Sloviansk, a city in eastern Ukraine under control of pro-Kremlin gunmen, according to this statement Monday from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

The congress, an umbrella group of Jewish groups in the ex-Soviet states, said it was one of the first broadcasts on the new station launched after gunmen backed by "Russian military experts" seized a local TV transmission tower and took Ukrainian TV off the air.

The broadcast (seen here on YouTube) features the logo and website of a pro-Russia group called the "People's Liberation Movement."

The group's website home page features this post about a so-called "Jewish junta" it says controls Ukraine.

Another post claims "a bunch of rich Jew-Scientologists" runs Ukraine's government.

After the broadcast, the channel aired a lecture by the late Konstantin Petrov, a retired Russian general who headed an "anti-Semitic Russian nationalist-Stalinist neopagan sect," the Jewish congress said in its statement.

Russian TV "Discloses" Politicians' Jewish Roots

The developments occur amid what the Jewish Daily Forward said in this story Tuesday is a new Kremlin effort to embrace the "dark forces of the Russian ultra-right," including "using anti-Semitism as an ingredient in the anti-Ukrainian campaign."

"The Kremlin is spreading the line that the Ukrainian leaders are Jews."

- David Fishman, director of Jewish studies at Russian State University of the Humanities

"The Kremlin's attempt, back in late February and March, to paint the new Ukrainian regime as Nazi and anti-Semitic has failed. It didn't pick up much traction in world public opinion," the New York-based newspaper's story said.

"So now the Kremlin is spreading the line that the Ukrainian leaders are Jews. Or at the very least, servants and lackeys of Jews. The intended audience is no longer international; it is domestic."

The story's author is David Fishman, director of Jewish studies at Moscow's Russian State University for the Humanities and a Jewish history professor at the New York-based Jewish Theological Seminary.

Fishman cited a Russian TV documentary in late March that portrayed former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is now running for president, as a back-stabbing criminal and embezzler who had secretly ordered assaults and killings.

The documentary culminated with the "disclosure" that Tymoshenko has Jewish ancestry, which she "completely hides. But for many, it is no secret that the father of this woman with a hair-braid -- Viktor Abramovich Kapitelman -- has Jewish roots."

"This is a coup, a coup perpetrated 
by Zionists." 

- speaker at pro-Russia rally in Ukraine

"The implication," Fishman wrote, "was that now, in light of that fact, her pattern of lies, theft and murder all made sense."

The same news program aired a similar documentary a few days later on Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatseniuk. "He is a Jew on his mother's side and is one of the 50 most famous Zionists in Ukraine," the documentary said.

This line was echoed at a recent pro-Russian demonstration in Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Fishman said. One speaker spoke about the mass protests that drove pro-Moscow Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych from power in February.

"Let's see how many Ukrainians have come to power. Yatseniuk?" the speaker asked. The crowd called out: "He's a Jew!"

The speaker listed other Ukrainian politicians, adding their alleged Jewish names: "What about Klitchko-Ettinson, or Yulia Kapitelman?" Someone yelled, "She's a Jew!" The speaker continued, "This is a coup, a coup perpetrated by Zionists."

The crowd burst into applause.

Return of Czarist-Era Black Hundred

Especially disturbing, Fishman wrote, is the sudden appearance in eastern Ukraine of a virulently anti-Semitic far-right Russian group called the Black Hundred, the reincarnation of a czarist-era group that incited pogroms against Jewish people.

Logo of the Black Hundred (Chernaya Sotnya).
The virulently anti-Semitic far-right Russian
group is reportedly supported by the Kremlin
and active in pro-Russia protests in Ukraine.

In March, Ukrainian security detained a Black Hundred member, Anton Raevskii, after he set up a camp in Ukraine to train pro-Russia militants in hand-to-hand combat and called on trainees to attack the Ukrainian military and Jewish people, Fishman wrote.

Raevskii, whose arms are tattooed with Nazi symbols, was deported to Russia.

"Putin has decided to wage his war on Ukraine with the help of paid volunteers from the Black Hundreds," Fishman wrote.

Fishman doesn't provide sources for his claims that the Kremlin orchestrated the anti-Semitic media reports or pays Black Hundred members, but other accounts have said Russian media, increasingly under the Kremlin's tight grip, has cranked up jingoistic and anti-Semitic rhetoric in its Ukraine coverage.

This BBC story in March said Russian state TV host Dmitry Kiselov, who is known to be close to the Kremlin, and other pro-Kremlin Russian journalists have lately run several reports highlighting the purported Jewish roots of government critics or making otherwise anti-Semitic comments.

The trend reflects a "shift in Russian public national politics towards openly anti-Semitic rhetoric," the story quoted the website Jewish.ru saying.

Israel's Cursor Info news site said in this item Friday that the "Nazi" Black Hundred "acts openly in modern Russia and is supported by Russian authorities." The group is now active in pro-Russia protests in eastern Ukraine, the story said.

The news comes amid reports of violent attacks on Roma (Gypsy) people in Sloviansk, the rebel-held city where the anti-Semitic broadcast occurred, and mounting evidence that the Kremlin supports far-right groups in Ukraine and elsewhere.

See also
7 signs of Russia's far-right turn
4 myths about the Ukraine crisis, Crimea and NATO

Ukraine Crisis: Attacks on Minorities Reported in Areas Held by Pro-Russia Gunmen

The flag of Other Russia, an ultranationalist anti-
migrant Russian group, flew this week in front of a
barricaded building seized by pro-Russia gunmen
in Ukraine, according to this photo in Ukrainska 
Pravda. The flag features a hand grenade on a
red background. Far-right Russian militants are
reportedly active in pro-Russian protests
in eastern Ukraine.

Roma people (also known as Gypsies) are reportedly being attacked in their homes, beaten and robbed in Sloviansk, a city in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russia gunmen, says this item today in the Russian-language News of Donbass.

The news follows a report on Espreso.tv Friday that pro-Russia militia leader Vyacheslav Ponomaryov had asked Sloviansk residents to report suspicious people, "particularly those who speak Ukrainian."

Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk Friday condemned the attacks on the Roma and an anti-Semitic leaflet handed out in Donetsk calling on Jewish residents to register with pro-Russia militants and pay a $50 fee or be deported and have their property confiscated.

"The ideology and practice of pogroms, which is being exported from one of our neighbouring countries, will not succeed in Ukraine," he said.

Ukraine's SBU security agency has opened an investigation.

Far-Right Russian Activists

Pro-Russia militants of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic denied issuing the leaflet, but The Daily Beast reports some in the local Jewish community are still concerned.

Donetsk chief rabbi Pinhas Vyshedski said the spokesman of the pro-Russia gunmen, Aleksander Kriakov, is "the most famous anti-Semite in the region."

Vyshedski questioned how a group purporting to oppose "fascists" in Ukraine's new government could pick Kriakov as its spokesman.

"Until today, there were all sorts of thugs and confused men in this building."

- Dmitry Sinegorsky, pro-Russia gunman

Dmitry Sinegorsky, a "security supervisor" with the pro-Russia gunmen, said the leaflet may have been an attempt to discredit his group or a "pure provocation."

"See, until today, there were all sorts of thugs and confused men in this building," he told The Daily Beast. "But as from today we begin a self-cleansing process."

The developments follow growing evidence that Russian president Vladimir Putin has aligned himself with far-right and neo-Nazi groups at home and abroad to pursue his policies, including in Ukraine.

Far-right Russian activists have appeared at pro-Russia protests in eastern Ukraine, including from the ultranationalist anti-migrant group Other Russia, this Kyiv Post item said.

The group's flag, featuring a hand grenade on a red background, flew this week in front of a barricaded building seized by pro-Russia militants, according to a photo in this Ukrainska Pravda story yesterday.

Over 200 Ukrainian Jewish community leaders signed an open letter to Putin in March dismissing his claims that Ukraine's new government is anti-Semitic and saying anti-Semitism is worse in Russia than in Ukraine.

The letter said Russian neo-Nazis "are encouraged by your security services."

See also
4 myths about the Ukraine crisis, Crimea and NATO
7 reasons why the Crimea referendum results aren't credible

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