The real problem is actually the administration's over-engagement in this case -- as in meddling in the affairs of another state and trying to rearrange its domestic political machinery to suit Washington's agenda.
The Obama administration has vehemently denied charges that Ukraine's nascent regime is stock full of neo-fascists despite clear evidence suggesting otherwise. Such categorical repudiations lend credence to the notion the U.S. facilitated the anti-Russian cabal's rise to power as part of a broader strategy to draw Ukraine into the West's sphere of influence. Even more disturbing are apologists, from the American left and right, who seem willing accomplices in this obfuscation of reality, when just a cursory glance at the profiles of Ukraine's new leaders should give pause to the most zealous of Russophobes.
In a State Department "fact sheet" released last week the U.S. accused Putin of lying about the Ukrainian government being under the sway of extremist elements. The report stated that right wing ultranationalist groups "are not represented in the Rada (Ukraine's parliament)," and that "there is no indication the government would pursue discriminatory policies."
It isn't too surprising that conservative outlets like FOX News would downplay Russian allegations but the so-called "liberal" press has also contributed to the American disinformation campaign. Celestine Bohlen from The New York Times considers harsh epithets, like the word "neo-Nazi," which Putin has hurled at the demonstrators in Kiev as part of a Russian propaganda effort to tarnish Ukraine's revolutionary struggle against authoritarianism.
Yet after simply Googling the terms "Ukraine" and "Neo-Nazi," the official position of the United States government along with the stance taken by many in the American media both now seem quite dubious, if not downright ridiculous, especially considering that one would be hard-pressed to machinate the lineup that now dominates Ukraine's ministry posts.
For starters, Andriy Parubiy, the new secretary of Ukraine's security council, was a co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), otherwise known as Svoboda. And his deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of a party called the Right Sector which, according to historian Timothy Stanley, "flies the old flag of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators at its rallies."
The highest-ranking right-wing extremist is Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, also a member of Svoboda, who believes that women should "lead the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of rape, including refraining from drinking alcohol and being in controversial company." This is the philosophy underlying one of his "legal initiatives," according to the Kyiv Post, "to ban all abortions, even for pregnancies that occurred during rape."
The Svoboda party has tapped into Nazi symbolism including the "wolf's angel" rune, which resembles a swastika and was worn by members of the Waffen-SS, a panzer division that was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg. A report from Tel-Aviv University describes the Svoboda party as "an extremist, right-wing, nationalist organization which emphasizes its identification with the ideology of German National Socialism."
According to this BBC news clip two Svoboda parliamentarians in recent weeks posed for photos while "brandishing well-known far right numerology," including the numbers 88 -- the eighth letter of the alphabet -- signifying "HH," as in "Heil Hitler." This all makes Hillary Clinton's recent comments comparing Putin to Hitler appear patently absurd, as Stanley adeptly points out: "After all, in the eyes of many ethnic Russians, it is the Ukrainian nationalists -- not Putin -- who are the Nazis."
Last week Per Anders Rudling from Lund University in Sweden, an expert on Ukrainian extremists, told Britain's Channel 4 News: "A neo-fascist party like Svoboda getting the deputy prime minister position is news in its own right." Well, except in the U.S.
Even more disconcerting has been the emergence of phone intercepts between high-ranking U.S. and Ukrainian officials which make it look as if the U.S. was basically, in the words of Princeton's Stephen Cohen, "plotting a coup d'état against the elected president of Ukraine." In other words, the U.S., in addition to providing moral support, may have paved the way for extremists to seize power in Kiev. Such a development would counter the American right's condemnation of Obama for not "engaging" in the world. The real problem is actually the administration's over-engagement in this case -- as in meddling in the affairs of another state and trying to rearrange its domestic political machinery to suit Washington's agenda.
This gambit has backfired in a number of ways. Not only has a neo-fascist-laden regime secured power in Kiev but it may have played the U.S. and its allies for fools by insinuating it would become part of the Western sphere when it really had no such designs. As Svoboda political council member Yury Noyevy baldly admitted: "The participation of Ukrainian nationalism and Svoboda in the process of EU [European Union] integration is a means to break our ties with Russia."
Be they radical mujahideen or neo-fascists, Washington certainly has a penchant for bolstering shadowy forces, usually labeling them with risible euphemisms like "freedom fighters," in order to satiate short-term geopolitical needs, despite said factions being inimical to America's true long-term interests.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-neo-nazi-question-in_b_4938747
How real are Putin’s nuclear threats to Ukraine?
World Sep 28, 2022 6:49 PM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that he won’t hesitate to use nuclear weapons to ward off Ukraine’s attempt to reclaim control of Moscow-occupied areas that the Kremlin is about to annex.
While the West dismisses that as a scare tactic, a top Putin lieutenant upped the ante by boldly saying the U.S. and its NATO allies wouldn’t dare strike Russia, even if it used nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
A look at the nuclear threats over Ukraine:
What drove Putin to make the threats?
A Ukrainian counteroffensive forced Russian troops to retreat rapidly from broad swaths of the northeastern Kharkiv region this month and handed Moscow its most humiliating defeat since the opening weeks of the war.
The Kremlin then speeded up its orchestrated “referendums” in occupied areas, asking if they want to come under Moscow’s rule. The voting, denounced as illegal and rigged by Kyiv and the West even before it began, predictably gave Russia the result it wanted.
Moscow says that after incorporating the regions, it will view a Ukrainian attack on them as an act of aggression and will respond accordingly.
WATCH: UN investigator outlines evidence of Russian war crimes in liberated areas of Ukraine
Putin raised the stakes further by mobilization of reservists for the war, aiming to call up at least 300,000. But the effort is proving widely unpopular, with tens of thousands fleeing Russia and fueling protests and violence that threaten to destabilize the country.
The mobilization won’t provide a quick fix for the military, however. Running out of conventional options, Putin appears to be increasingly erratic and tempted to reach for nuclear weapons to avoid a defeat that could threaten his 22-year rule.
He has repeatedly talked about using them with a terrifying ease. He chillingly has said Moscow’s enemies would die before even having time to repent their sins, and once acknowledged that nuclear war would be catastrophic, “but why would we need a world without Russia?”
What’s in the nuclear arsenals?
Since the Cold War era. Russia and the United States have maintained a nuclear parity, together accounting for about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals.
According to data exchanged earlier this year under the New START arms reduction treaty between Moscow and Washington, Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads for its strategic forces and the U.S. has 5,428. Each warhead is much more powerful than the bombs dropped by the U.S. on two Japanese cities at the end of World War II, the only time atomic weapons were used.
READ MORE: U.S. announces an additional $1.1 billion in military aid for Ukraine
The New START pact limits the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals that include the nuclear-tipped land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.
In addition, however, Moscow and Washington have large, undisclosed numbers of what are known as tactical nuclear weapons.
These are designed for battlefield use and have a lower yield, compared with the strategic warheads designed to destroy entire cities. These tactical weapons include bombs, artillery ordnance or warheads for short-range missiles and are intended to strike a crushing blow to troops on one designated section of the front line.
What about using a tactical nuclear weapon?
A tactical nuclear weapon strike against Ukraine would not have catastrophic consequences on the same scale as an attack with strategic warhead.
But even a low-yield nuclear weapon used on the battlefield, aside from killing troops in the immediate vicinity, would still contaminate a broad area and expose large numbers of civilians in densely-populated Ukraine and neighboring countries to radiation risks. In fact, Russia and its ally Belarus would face the highest contamination risk because of prevailing winds.
Employing even just one one low-yield nuclear weapon would also have a devastating political impact, marking the first atomic attack since August 1945. That could set the stage for a rapid escalation and perhaps lead to an all-out nuclear conflict.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded to Putin by saying Russia would pay a high, if unspecified, price if it used nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Is this just brinkmanship
Putin has said his nuclear threat isn’t a bluff. His top associate, Dmitry Medvedev, said Tuesday that Russia has the right to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Kyiv threatens Russian statehood.
Medvedev declared NATO would stand back if Moscow launched a nuclear strike on Ukraine. “American and European demagogues aren’t going to die in a nuclear apocalypse, and so they will swallow the use of any weapons in the current conflict,” he said.
Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, tweeted that by dangling the nuclear threat, “Putin is not bluffing, he is deterring.”
“He is trying to prevent the West from providing more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine,” McFaul said.
Sergei Karaganov, a Moscow political analyst who advised the Kremlin on foreign policy, said Russia “can’t afford to lose in Ukraine,” adding: ”Our enemies should realize that they have put themselves and the entire world on hell’s brink.”
READ MORE: Jewish pilgrims gather at holy site in Ukraine despite the perils of war
Karaganov hinted that Moscow could even ponder an escalatory option of striking a NATO ally.
“I’m 99 percent sure that if a nuclear strike is launched on one of the European countries supporting Ukraine, the U.S. won’t use nuclear weapons,” he said. “It would take a madman in the White House to respond to a limited use of nuclear weapons by Russia with a nuclear strike. Or a person who hates America and ready to sacrifice, say, Boston for Poznan.”
The Pentagon said last week the U.S. has seen no Russian moves that would trigger any change in America’s nuclear posture. Spotting such preparations could be difficult, however, even for U.S. spy planes, satellites and cyberintelligence.
Unlike the U.S., which relies on submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles for a large part of its arsenal, most of Russian nuclear forces consists of land-based missiles. Some are mounted on mobile launchers that can be tracked, but many are in silos, making launch preparations more difficult to discern.
More compact battlefield nuclear weapons are even harder to track down, their small size allowing them to be deployed secretly long ahead of their possible use.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that Putin’s threats should be taken seriously, arguing: “It’s not a sign of weakness but of political wisdom.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-real-are-putins-nuclear-threats-to-ukraine
Given that Obama has never been shy about murdering people, it is quite possible that the Kokhovka Dam will be destroyed in the next ten days, killing thousands of Russians. The Western media is already writing about it as if it already occurred. And, of course, Russia is being blamed for it. Once the dam is bombed and Russia is (of course) blamed, that will allow Obama's CIA and other NGO's to rush in and attempt to overthrow Putin. What a great present for Democratic voters & what an opportune time for it to happen.