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The Bell, 3/8/24

Russia launches new campaign to bring business back home

It emerged this week that the government has begun drawing up a list of “economically significant organizations” as part of its campaign to bring big companies fully under Russian jurisdiction. Those on the list will have the right to ditch any foreign holdings through which they hold assets. After a decade of trying, it looks like the Ukraine war and Western sanctions mean that the Kremlin will finally achieve its long sought-after “deoffshorization.”

What’s going on?

On March 1, the government approved a list of economically significant organizations (ESO). After a legal process in Moscow, the companies on the list will be given a whole series of exceptional powers, including the ability to restrict the rights of foreigners, and withhold certain information.

To be on the list, companies must meet two criteria: they must be large (defined as having annual revenue over 75 billion rubles ($820 million), assets of more than 150 billion rubles, or more than 4,000 employees); and they must be more than 50% owned by Russian beneficiaries via holding companies registered in so-called “unfriendly” countries (these are nations – mostly in the West – that have been deemed hostile by the Kremlin). There are estimated to be more than 100 companies in Russia that meet these criteria. 

So far, there are six companies on the list. Three of them – Alfa Bank, insurance company Alfastrakhovaniye, and retailer X5 Group – own or manage assets on behalf of investment conglomerate Alfa Group. Billionaire Mikhail Fridman, one of Alfa Group’s main shareholders, spent years gradually transferring his Russian assets to the West. However, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he was hit with Western sanctions.

The other three companies are high-end supermarket chain Azbuka Vkusa (41.1% owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich and his partners), fertilizer manufacturer Akron (owned by billionaire Vyacheslav Kantor) and mining company Razrez Arshanovsky. 

This is likely just the start. According to state-owned news agency TASS, Tinkoff Bank, owned by Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s wealthiest man, has applied to join the list. And newspaper Kommersant claims two dozen more companies are interested in being included. These include agricultural company Rusagro, real estate company Cian, online marketplace Ozon, and online job portal HeadHunter. Cian, Ozon and HeadHunter are all companies that are – or were – listed on foreign stock exchanges.

For a more detailed understanding of how the law will work, see here.

What does being on the list mean?

Being designated an ESO means that, under a law passed in August, the Russian government can bring a case to the Moscow Arbitration Court to suspend the rights of the foreign owners in that company. Officially, these restrictions can be kept in force until Dec. 31, 2024. In reality, it’s clear that they will continue to operate until the end of the war in Ukraine, and the lifting of Western sanctions.

When the Moscow Arbitration Court suspends the rights of a foreign owner, all shares of the Russian company in question are transferred to the Russian entity. Then, they are redistributed among the existing beneficiaries in proportion to their stake – but, crucially, only under Russian jurisdiction. Russian beneficiaries are obliged to take direct ownership of their shares. And the rights of foreign beneficiaries will be limited: for example, their dividends will be paid into Type-C (escrow) accounts from which it is almost impossible to withdraw cash. 

If foreign shareholders do not take up their shares in Russia, their shares will be transferred to the Russian company’s balance as a treasury stake. Technically, this is a temporary measure, and, unlike ordinary treasury shares, the company is not required to redeem them.

Foreign owners will be faced with a choice. If they decide they don’t want to move their ownership to Russian jurisdiction, they also have the option of applying for compensation based on the market value of their shares. However, once again, the compensation will be paid into Type-C (escrow) accounts, where it is very difficult to access.

Less transparency

Companies on the list are also able to greatly reduce the amount of information about themselves they make public. This means less transparency, which complicates life for investors – but also for Western officials looking to apply sanctions.

Less transparency is a growing trend in Russian business. The Central Bank recently called on banks not to publicize information about interactions with foreign partners, and international payment mechanisms. Apparently, the regulator is seeking to minimize the risk of sanctions. Banks were also advised to warn their clients engaged in foreign economic activity “not to allow public dissemination of information” about their foreign counterparts.

While a lack of transparency might make it harder for the West to impose sanctions, it will cause problems in Russia. For example, President Vladimir Putin has promised to double the capitalization of the Russian stock exchange over the coming six years – but less corporate transparency will make this a much harder goal to achieve.

What is the goal?

The main aim of the law and the ESO list appear to be to ensure that major Russian businesses are brought entirely under Russian jurisdiction. At the same time, they enable companies to resume dividend payments to Russian shareholders that were interrupted by sanctions. It also reduces the sanctions risks for Russian shareholders, and protects Russian assets from being seized by Western countries.

Prior to the war, registering an offshore holding was necessary for Russian companies to increase their capitalization, and protect owners and shareholders from political pressure. But the war has turned everything on its head. For years, the Kremlin tried unsuccessfully to achieve “de-offshorization” – thanks to the war, it now appears on the brink of doing so.

Why the world should care

This attempt to bring Russian companies fully under Russian jurisdiction is the latest development in the economic battle with the West: as Western countries seek to enforce sanctions, Russia tries to circumvent them. It’s no surprise Russian owners are keen to take part – they want their dividends. But the significance of all this is even greater: it puts Russian business firmly, and comprehensively, in the Kremlin’s pocket.

Data suggests 90% of Western companies remain in Russia

According to calculations published Thursday by the Kyiv School of Economics, of the 3,756 foreign companies working in Russia before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, only 372 have fully exited the Russian market. This is partly because companies that leave lose half the market value of their assets. Despite the opportunity to distribute assets among loyal businessmen, the Kremlin shows no sign of reducing the obstacles for foreign companies.

As someone who publicly condemned my own government for flouting due process and justifying torture in the aftermath of 9/11 when many Americans were understandably angry and scared, I’m not applying double standards when I condemn the behavior displayed by Russian authorities toward the Crocus City Hall terror suspects. Although these men are likely the right guys associated with the heinous crime in question, they have not had a trial with due process. This kind of behavior is unethical and counterproductive as a practice or policy, regardless of how repugnant the alleged crime is. No police department in the world in infallible and there’s always the possibility of having the wrong person in custody. When subjected to torture, the recipient will tell you what you want to hear to make the pain stop, so obtaining accurate and useful information was clearly not the priority in this situation. as I’ve seen some people whose analysis I’ve respected in the past try to argue

Putin is a lawyer and, though he gets no credit for it in the west, his government made a lot of progress in his earlier terms in laying the foundation of the rule of law in Russia, including improving due process rights. He knows better. Apparently, he’s letting emotion supersede reason on this issue when it comes to individuals accused of terrorism. – Natylie

Moscow Times, 3/26/24

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova has criticized the alleged violent detention of the four suspected gunmen in last week’s deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall, state media reported Tuesday.

“Despite the drastic nature of detaining criminals and no criminal punishment stipulated for actions that inflict harm during detention, it’s absolutely inadmissible to use torture against detainees and accused persons,” Moskalkova told reporters.

“Any procedural operational actions must be carried out in accordance with the law,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted her as saying.

Russian authorities detained 11 people in connection with Friday’s attack, which saw four camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire indiscriminately and set the building ablaze, killing at least 139 people.

Unverified graphic footage of the suspects’ interrogations published on social media led some observers to conclude that the men were tortured by law enforcement.

Footage of the four main suspects’ detention appeared to show one getting his ear cut off and forced into his mouth, while another was shown with an electric device attached to his genitals. A third suspect appeared in court with cuts and bruises on his face and a fourth was brought into the courtroom unconscious on a medical gurney.

Reuters said it was able to verify that the four men in the detention footage were the same as those who appeared in court on Sunday.

The Kremlin on Monday declined to comment on the alleged torture of the suspected shooters.

Moscow’s Basmanny District Court has ordered seven suspects to be placed in custody until May 22 to await trial on terrorism charges. An eighth suspect is expected in court as soon as Tuesday, according to TASS.

Islamic State jihadists have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic bodycam footage from the gunmen inside the venue.

President Vladimir Putin for the first time on Monday acknowledged the role of “radical Islamists” in the attack but still linked them to Ukraine, which denied the accusations as absurd.

Moskalkova previously expressed disapproval of the recorded beating of a Russian teenager under arrest for burning the Quran by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s son.

The teenager, Nikita Zhuravel, was this year sentenced to 3.5 years in jail.

No investigation was conducted into Zhuravel’s beating in detention by Adam Kadyrov.

Not sure how I missed this article from December 2022 at Consortium News. It provides a good summation – with links to underlying sources – of the historical and contemporary influence of Nazism/Neo-Nazism in Ukraine. Someone should point Tucker Carlson to this information. I was a bit surprised that he seemed to be completely ignorant of these facts regarding Ukraine as expressed in his interview with Lex Fridman. – Natylie

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 12/29/22

The U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles.  Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives. 

The government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said: ““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile role of the Jews, who are helping Moscow to enslave Ukraine…. I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine….”

The study says: “At a July 6, 1941, meeting in Lwów, Bandera loyalists determined that Jews ‘have to be treated harshly…. We must finish them off…. Regarding the Jews, we will adopt any methods that lead to their destruction.’”

Lebed himself proposed to “’cleanse the entire revolutionary territory of the Polish population,’ so that a resurgent Polish state would not claim the region as in 1918.” Lebed was the “foreign minister” of a Banderite government in exile, but he later broke with Bandera for acting as a dictator. The U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps termed Bandera “extremely dangerous” yet said he was “looked upon as the spiritual and national hero of all Ukrainians….”

The C.I.A. was not interested in working with Bandera, pages 81-82 of the report say, but the British MI6 was. “MI6 argued, Bandera’s group was ‘the strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy organization….’”  An early 1954 MI6 summary noted that, “the operational aspect of this [British] collaboration [with Bandera] was developing satisfactorily. Gradually a more complete control was obtained over infiltration operations … “

C.I.A.’s Allen Dulles asks U.S. Immigration to allow Lebed re-entry to U.S. despite murder conviction. (From Hitler’s Shadow. Click to enlarge.)

Britain ended its collaboration with Bandera in 1954. West German intelligence, under former Nazi intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen, then worked with Bandera, who was eventually assassinated with cyanide dust by the KGB in Munich in 1959.

Instead of Bandera, the C.I.A. was interested in Lebed, despite his fascist background. They set him up in an office in New York City from which he directed sabotage and propaganda operations on the agency’s behalf inside Ukraine against the Soviet Union.  The U.S. government study says:

“CIA operations with these Ukrainians began in 1948 under the cryptonym CARTEL, soon changed to AERODYNAMIC. … Lebed relocated to New York and acquired permanent resident status, then U.S. citizenship. It kept him safe from assassination, allowed him to speak to Ukrainian émigré groups, and permitted him to return to the United States after operational trips to Europe. Once in the United States, Lebed was the CIA’s chief contact for AERODYNAMIC. CIA handlers pointed to his ‘cunning character,’ his ‘relations with the Gestapo and … Gestapo training,’ [and] the fact that he was ‘a very ruthless operator.’”

The C.I.A. worked with Lebed on sabotage and pro-Ukrainian nationalist propaganda operations inside Ukraine until Ukraine’s independence in 1991. “Mykola Lebed’s relationship with the CIA lasted the entire length of the Cold War,” the study says. “While most CIA operations involving wartime perpetrators backfired, Lebed’s operations augmented the fundamental instability of the Soviet Union.” 

Bandera Revival

Bandera monument in Lvov. (wikimapia.org)

The U.S. thus covertly kept Ukrainian fascist ideas alive inside Ukraine until at least Ukrainian independence was achieved. “Mykola Lebed, Bandera’s wartime chief in Ukraine, died in 1998. He is buried in New Jersey, and his papers are located at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University,” the U.S. National Archives study says.  

The successor organization to the OUN-B in the United States did not die with him, however.  It had been renamed the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), according to IBT.

“By the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members. Reagan personally welcomed [Yaroslav] Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7,000 Jews in Lviv, in the White House in 1983,” IBT reported.  “Following the demise of Yanukovich’s regime, the UCCA helped organise rallies in cities across the US in support of the EuroMaidan protests,” it reported.

That is a direct link between Maidan and WWII-era Ukrainian fascism.

Despite the U.S. favoring the less extreme Lebed over Bandera, the latter has remained the more inspiring figure in Ukraine.

In 1991, the first year of Ukraine’s independence, the neo-fascist Social National Party, later Svoboda Party, was formed, tracing its provenance directly to Bandera. It had a street named after Bandera in Liviv, and tried to name the city’s airport after him. (Svoboda won 10 percent of the Rada’s seats in 2012 before the coup and before McCain and Nuland appeared with its leader the following year.)

In 2010, pro-Western Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared Bandera a Hero of Ukraine, a status reversed by Yanukovych, who was overthrown. 

More than 50 monuments, busts and museums commemorating Bandera have been erected in Ukraine, two-thirds of which have been built since 2005, the year the pro-American Yuschenko was elected. A Swiss academic study says:

“On January 13, 2011, the L’vivs’ka Oblast’ Council, meeting at an extraordinary session next to the Bandera monument in L’viv, reacted to the abrogation [skasuvannya] of Viktor Yushchenko’s order about naming Stepan Bandera a ‘Hero of Ukraine’ by affirming that ‘for millions of Ukrainians Bandera was and remains a Ukrainian Hero notwithstanding pitiable and worthless decisions of the courts’ and declaring its intention to rename ‘Stepan Bandera Street’ as ‘Hero of Ukraine Stepan Bandera Street.’”

Torchlit parades behind Bandera’s portrait are common in Ukrainian cities, particularly on Jan. 1, his birthday, including this year. 

Mainstream on Neo-Nazis

From the start of the 2013-2014 events in Ukraine, Consortium News founder Robert Parry and other writers began providing the evidence NewsGuard says doesn’t exist, reporting extensively on the coup and the influential role of Ukraine’s neo-Nazis. At the time, corporate media also reported on the essential part neo-Nazis played in the coup. 

As The New York Times reported, the neo-Nazi group, Right Sector, had the key role in the violent ouster of Yanukovych. The role of neo-fascist groups in the uprising and its influence on Ukrainian society was well reported by mainstream media outlets at the time.  

The BBC, the NYT, the Daily Telegraph and CNN all reported on Right Sector, C14 and other extremists’ role in the overthrow of Yanukovych. The BBC ran this report a week after his ouster:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY%3Ffeature%3Doembed

And this one in July 2015:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s%3Ffeature%3Doembed

After the coup a number of ministers in the new government came from neo-fascist parties.  NBC News (green check) reported in March 2014: “Svoboda, which means ‘Freedom,’ was given almost a quarter of the Cabinet positions in the interim government formed after the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in February.”

Svoboda’s leader, Tyahnybok, whom McCain and Nuland stood on stage with, once called for the liberation of Ukraine from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” The International Business Times (green check) reported:

“In 2005 Tyahnybok signed an open letter to then Ukrainain president Viktor Yushchenko urging him to ban all Jewish organisations, including the Anti-Defamation League, which he claimed carried out ‘criminal activities [of] organised Jewry’, ultimately aimed at the genocide of the Ukrainian people.”

Before McCain and Nuland embraced Tyahnybok and his social national party, it was condemned by the European Parliament, which said in 2012:

“[Parliament] recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s legislature] not to associate with, endorse, or form coalitions with this party.”

Such mainstream reports on Banderism have stopped as the neo-fascist role in Ukraine was suppressed in Western media once Putin made “de-nazification” a goal of the invasion.  

The Azov Battalion, which arose during the coup, became a significant force in the war against the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass, who resisted the coup. Its commander, Andriy Biletsky, infamously said Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival … against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

In 2014 the now Azov Regiment was officially incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is further integrated into the state by working closely with the SBU intelligence service. Azov is the only known neo-fascist component in a nation’s military anywhere in the world.  

As part of the Ukraine military, Azov members have still sported yellow arm bands (until this week) with the Wolfsangel once worn by German SS troops in World War II. Including the atrocities it has continued to commit, Azov shows the world that integration into the state has not denazified them. On the contrary, it may have increased its influence on the state.

The U.S. and NATO have also trained and armed Azov since Barack Obama had denied lethal aid to Ukraine. One reason Obama declined sending arms to Ukraine was because he was afraid they may fall into these right-wing extremists’ hands. According to the green-checked New York Times,

“Mr. Obama continues to pose questions indicating his doubts. ‘O.K., what happens if we send in equipment — do we have to send in trainers?’ said one person paraphrasing the discussion on the condition of anonymity. ‘What if it ends up in the hands of thugs? What if Putin escalates?”   

NewsGuard’s Objections

Collage of Neo-fascist leader Oleh Tyahnybok. meeting with McCain, Biden and Nuland. (Facebook image by Red, White and You of clip from film Ukraine on Fire)

NewsGuard’s argument against the major influence of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine rests on neo-fascist political parties faring poorly at the polls. This ignores the stark fact that these groups engage instead in extra-parliamentary extremism.

In its charge against Consortium News for publishing “false content” about neo-fascism in Ukraine, NewsGuard’s Zack Fishman wrote:

“There isn’t evidence that Nazism has a substantial influence in Ukraine. Radical far-right groups in Ukraine do represent a ‘threat to the democratic development of Ukraine,’ according to 2018 Freedom House report. But it also stated that far-right extremists have poor political representation in Ukraine and no plausible path to power — for example, in the 2019 parliamentary elections, the far-right nationalist party Svoboda won 2.2 percent of the vote, while the Svoboda candidate, Ruslan Koshulynskyy, won just 1.6 percent of the vote in the presidential election.”

But this argument of focusing on elections results has been dismissed by a number of mainstream sources, not least of which is the Atlantic Council, probably the most anti-Russian think tank in the world.  In a 2019 article, a writer for the Atlantic Council said:

“To be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in Ukraine’s polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of ‘red herring.’ It’s not extremists’ electoral prospects that should concern Ukraine’s friends, but rather the state’s unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity. Whether this is due to a continuing sense of indebtedness to some of these groups for fighting the Russians or fear they might turn on the state itself, it’s a real problem and we do no service to Ukraine by sweeping it under the rug.” [Emphasis added.]

“Fear that they might turn on the state itself,” acknowledges the powerful leverage these groups have over the government. The Atlantic Council piece then underscores how influential these groups are:

“It sounds like the stuff of Kremlin propaganda, but it’s not. Last week Hromadske Radio revealed that Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports is funding the neo-Nazi group C14 to promote ‘national patriotic education projects’ in the country. On June 8, the Ministry announced that it will award C14 a little less than $17,000 for a children’s camp. It also awarded funds to Holosiyiv Hideout and Educational Assembly, both of which have links to the far-right. The revelation represents a dangerous example of law enforcement tacitly accepting or even encouraging the increasing lawlessness of far-right groups willing to use violence against those they don’t like.

Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women’s Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they even arrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators.”

The Atlantic Council is not the only anti-Russian outfit that recognizes the dangerous power of the neo-fascist groups in Ukraine.  Bellingcat published an alarming 2018 article headlined, “Ukrainian Far-Right Fighters, White Supremacists Trained by Major European Security Firm.”

NATO has also trained the Azov Regiment, directly linking the U.S. with far-right Ukrainian extremists.  

The Hill reported in 2017 in an article headlined, “The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda,” that:

“Some Western observers claim that there are no neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine, chalking the assertion up to propaganda from Moscow. Unfortunately, they are sadly mistaken.

There are indeed neo-Nazi formations in Ukraine. This has been overwhelmingly confirmed by nearly every major Western outlet. The fact that analysts are able to dismiss it as propaganda disseminated by Moscow is profoundly disturbing.

Azov’s logo is composed of two emblems — the wolfsangel and the Sonnenrad — identified as neo-Nazi symbols by the Anti-Defamation League. The wolfsangel is used by the U.S. hate group Aryan Nations, while the Sonnenrad was among the neo-Nazi symbols at this summer’s deadly march in Charlottesville.

Azov’s neo-Nazi character has been covered by the New York Times, the Guardian, the BBC, the Telegraph and Reuters, among others. On-the-ground journalists from established Western media outlets have written of witnessing SS runes, swastikas, torchlight marches, and Nazi salutes. They interviewed Azov soldiers who readily acknowledged being neo-Nazis. They filed these reports under unambiguous headlines such as “How many neo-Nazis is the U.S. backing in Ukraine?” and “Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis.”

How is this Russian propaganda?

The U.N. and Human Rights Watch have accused Azov, as well as other Kiev battalions, of a litany of human rights abuses.”

Neo-facism has infected Ukrainian popular culture as well. A half-dozen neo-Nazi music groups held a concert in 2019 commemorating  the day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Amnesty International in 2019 warned that “Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions.” 

Zelensky & Neo-Nazis

Zelensky with an Azov member (right) addressing the Greek Parliament in April. (Greek Parliament TV)

One of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarchs from the early 1990s, Ihor Kolomoisky, was an early financial backer of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. According to a 2015 Reuters (green-checked) report:

“Many of these paramilitary groups are accused of abusing the citizens they are charged with protecting. Amnesty International has reported that the Aidar battalion — also partially funded by Kolomoisky — committed war crimes, including illegal abductions, unlawful detention, robbery, extortion and even possible executions.

Other pro-Kiev private battalions have starved civilians as a form of warfare, preventing aid convoys from reaching separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, according to the Amnesty report.

Some of Ukraine’s private battalions have blackened the country’s international reputation with their extremist views. The Azov battalion, partially funded by Taruta and Kolomoisky, uses the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol as its logo, and many of its members openly espouse neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic views. The battalion members have spoken about ‘bringing the war to Kiev,’ and said that Ukraine needs ‘a strong dictator to come to power who could shed plenty of blood but unite the nation in the process.’”

In April 2019, the F.B.I. began investigating Kolomoisky for alleged financial crimes in connection with his steel holdings in West Virginia and northern Ohio. In August 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice filed civil forfeiture complaints against him and a partner:

“The complaints allege that Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholiubov, who owned PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine, embezzled and defrauded the bank of billions of dollars.  The two obtained fraudulent loans and lines of credit from approximately 2008 through 2016, when the scheme was uncovered, and the bank was nationalized by the National Bank of Ukraine.  The complaints allege that they laundered a portion of the criminal proceeds using an array of shell companies’ bank accounts, primarily at PrivatBank’s Cyprus branch, before they transferred the funds to the United States.  As alleged in the complaint, the loans were rarely repaid except with more fraudulently obtained loan proceeds.”

Meanwhile, the Azov backer’s television channel had by this time aired the hit TV show Servant of the People (2015-2019), which catapulted Volodymyr Zelensky to fame and ultimately into the presidency under the new Servant of the People Party. The former actor and comedian’s presidential campaign was bankrolled by Kolomoisky, according to multiple reports, including this one by Radio Free Europe (not rated).  

During the presidential campaign, Politico reported:

“Kolomoisky’s media outlet also provides security and logistical backup for the comedian’s campaign, and it has recently emerged that Zelenskiy’s legal counsel, Andrii Bohdan, was the oligarch’s personal lawyer. Investigative journalists have also reported that Zelenskiy traveled 14 times in the past two years to Geneva and Tel Aviv, where Kolomoisky is based in exile.”

Before their run-off election, Petro Poroshenko called Zelensky “Kolomoisky’s puppet.” According to the Pandora Papers, Zelensky stashed funds he received from Kolomoisky off shore.

During the campaign Zelensky was asked about Bandera. He said it was “cool” that many Ukrainians consider Bandera a hero. 

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Zelensky was elected president on the promise of ending the Donbass war. About seven months into his term he traveled to the front line in Donbass to tell Ukrainian troops, where Azov is well-represented, to lay down their arms. Instead he was sent packing. The Kyiv Post (green check) reported:

“When one veteran, Denys Yantar, said they had no arms and wanted instead to discuss protests against the planned disengagement that had taken place across Ukraine, Zelensky became furious.

‘Listen, Denys, I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons. Don’t shift the conversation to some protests,’ Zelensky said, videos of the exchange show. As he said this, Zelensky aggressively approached Yantar, who heads the National Corps, a political offshoot of the far-right Azov volunteer battalion, in Mykolaiv city.

‘But we’ve discussed that,’ Yantar said.

‘I wanted to see understanding in your eyes. But, instead, I saw a guy who’s decided that this is some loser standing in front of him,’ Zelensky said.”

It was a demonstration of the power of the military, including the Azov Regiment, over the civilian president.  

After the Russian invasion, Zelensky was asked in April by Fox News about Azov, which was later defeated in Mariupol. “They are what they are,” he responded. “They were defending our country.” He then tries to say because they are part of the military they are somehow no longer neo-Nazis, though they still wear Nazi insignia (until Tuesday). (Fox’s YouTube post removed that question from the interview, but it is preserved here:)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=bltsSD8QtU4%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Outrages Greek Officials

Also in April, Zelensky infuriated two former Greek prime ministers and other officials by inviting a member of the Azov Regiment to address the Greek Parliament. Alexis Tsipras, a former premier and leader of the main opposition party, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, blasted the appearance of the Azov fighters before parliament.

 “Solidarity with the Ukrainian people is a given. But nazis cannot be allowed to speak in parliament,” Tsipras said on social media. “The speech was a provocation.” He said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis “bears full responsibility. … He talked about a historic day but it is a historical shame.”  

Former Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called the Azov video being played in parliament a “big mistake.” Former Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Kotzias said: “The Greek government irresponsibly undermined the struggle of the Ukrainian people, by giving the floor to a Nazi. The responsibilities are heavy. The government should publish a detailed report of preparation and contacts for the event.”

Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ MeRA25 party said  Zelenky’s appearance turned into a “Nazi fiesta.”

Zelensky has also not rebuked his ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, for visiting Bandera’s grave in Munich, which provoked this reaction from a German MP: “Anyone like Melnik who describes the Nazi collaborator Bandera as ‘our hero’ and makes a pilgrimage to his grave or defends the right-wing Azov Battalion as ‘brave’ is actually still benevolently described as a ‘Nazi sympathizer.’”

Zelensky has closed media outlets and outlawed 11 political parties, including the largest one, Eurosceptic Opposition Platform for Life (OPZZh) and arrested its leader. None of the 11 shut down  are far-right parties.

Donald Trump was rightly castigated for remarks he made about white supremacists in Charlottesville. But Zelensky, whose oligarch backer funded Azov, and who brought a neo-Nazi to address a European Parliament, is given a pass by a Democratic administration and the U.S. media though he condones the far worse problem of neo-fascism in Ukraine.