Kiev lets loose Men in Black
On Sunday 11th May, the day of the Donetsk referendum, an extraordinary report appeared in the Sunday Times, part of the Murdoch media empire and normally rigidly Neo-Con in its foreign policy agenda.
The report can be found here:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world_news/Ukraine/article1409316.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2014_05_10
Unfortunately, the full item is only available to subscribers
The journalist encountered a paramilitary group near Mariupol, and introduces the encounter as follows:
When the men in black uniforms cocked their guns and pointed them at us, I realised it was a bad idea to make a cold call on Ukrainian paramilitary forces at their secret hide-out in the woods.
“How did you find us? Are you Russian spies?” yelled one, his face twisted with tension as he aimed his 9mm-calibre pistol at my stomach.
Our terrifying encounter came after a drive down a meandering dirt road deep into a forest near the port city of Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The men’s improvised headquarters lies on a small island surrounded by a pond. It is a hunting lodge that belongs to a local oligarch sympathetic to their cause.
I have summarised the key points the journalist goes on to make in the course of his report, and included supporting quotations
1. The Ukrainian junta is arming, training and deploying a paramilitary force with the specific goal of using it to crush opposition to the regime. The paramilitary force has a name and specific battalions. It has a black uniform.
This is the Azov battalion – known as the ‘Men in Black’ – a secretive special unit of 70 volunteers, one of a number of paramilitary groups set up by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry as part of increasingly desperate attempts by the government in Kiev to fight the Russian backed armed rebellion in the east of the country.
The paramilitaries’ activities risk fuelling an escalation in tit-for-tat violence that has claimed nearly 100 lives in just under a month, propelling Ukraine towards civil war. A number of such groups are trained and armed by the government, partly with backing from financial oligarchs loyal to Kiev. They include the Donbas and the Dnieper battalions, active in the Donetsk area, and the Kievl and Sturm units, which have been deployed in and around the Odessa region.
2. The junta has been forced to do this because it does not trust its regular army. The writer states that the Kiev regime views its army as ‘heavily infiltrated by Russian sympathisers’. This is sophistry – clearly, ‘Russian sympathisers’ have not ‘infiltrated’ the army since the Kiev putsch. The simple fact is that large numbers of regular soldiers do not recognise the regime and are not prepared to do its dirty work.
They are being deployed by Kiev because of fears that its regular forces, heavily infiltrated by Russian sympathisers, are losing the battle with the separatists
3. The paramilitary force consists of former armed services personnel, policemen, and ‘veterans of the Maidan uprising’. Personnel are overwhelmingly from west and central Ukraine.
A motley crew of volunteers mainly from west and central Ukraine, the majority were former soldiers, policemen and veterans of the Maidan uprising that brought down the pro-Russian government of Victor Yanukovych in February.
4. Personnel with non-military backgrounds receive as little as 2 weeks training, and include far-right sympathisers. The ‘wolfs hook’ is a well known modern Nazi symbol and was the official logo of the Nazi Social National Party, co-founded by Andriy Parubiy, who is currently the head of National Security – and now you know why.
One of them, a sturdy but soft-spoken fighter with a shaved head, had a tattoo on his hand of the Nazi wolf-hook symbol. “We are behind enemy lines here; everyone is against us: the police, the army, the people.” he said, explaining their jumpiness. “We trust no one”.
His group is part of the forces referred to as the ‘internal army’; many of its fighters have a military or police background, but others are being deployed after only two weeks of training.
5. The force is partly funded by big business interests loyal to the junta.
The men’s improvised headquarters lies on a small island surrounded by a pond. It is a hunting lodge that belongs to a local oligarch sympathetic to their cause.
and later in the article
A number of such groups are trained and armed by the government, partly with backing from financial oligarchs loyal to Kiev
6. The ‘Men in Black’ are fully aware that the people of the Donbas – civilians, military and police – are opposed to the regime.
One of them, a sturdy but soft-spoken fighter with a shaved head, had a tattoo on his hand of the Nazi wolf-hook symbol. “We are behind enemy lines here; everyone is against us: the police, the army, the people.” he said, explaining their jumpiness. “We trust no one”.
7. The group have been involved in killing civilians in Mariupol
It did not take long to see what the Azov battalion was capable of. On Friday, they were deployed to help defend a police station in Mariupol that had come under attack from armed separatist militia. It ended in a bloodbath that claimed at least 21 lives.
8. The group see their mission as to either expel or kill the Donbas rebels
At a hotel in Donetsk, a former senior air force officer, by day a security adviser to the local government, revealed he donned a black uniform to become one of the leaders of a government-sponsored paramilitary group.
“The separatists see Russia as their homeland” he said. “They have now shown their true face, and for us Ukrainians the only question is how to remove them from our territory without allowing them to take chunks of it with them. We cannot live together with them after this war; they will either be killed or pushed out”
The USA, EU and NATO are directly supporting a regime that is recruiting, arming and deploying far-right irregulars to do its dirty work.
You know that it’s true, because it said it in the Sunday papers.
Mr. Lionel Reynolds(@DispFromEmpire) who is one of the frequent contributors for The 4th Media writes the http://www.dispatchesfromempire.com blog