Debunking tankies on Ukraine (Part II)
As it turns out, Ukraine is not in fact run by Nazis contrary to what the apologists for Russian fascism would like you to think.
In the second part of this three-part series, I will continue debunking some of the most common talking points that are spread by the ‘anti-war’ left and the populist right regarding the war in Ukraine. If you haven’t done so, I recommend you read the first part of this series first as I am addressing these points in rough chronological order starting with the final days of the Cold War.
“Ukraine has killed 14,000 Russian-speakers in the Donbas”
This is one is probably the most infuriating of all the tankie talking points I repeatedly encounter because it displays a deliberate misinterpretation of culpability in the events that led up to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and the Donbas. According to this talking point, Russia’s eventual full-scale invasion in 2022 came as a result of years of conflict in the Donbas during which Ukraine engaged in the indiscriminate killing of its Russian-speaking population. The more hyperbolic of the bunch go so far as to call this a genocide of Russian-speakers in Ukraine.
So firstly, where does the 14,000 figure come from? This figure is the widely accepted total casualty count of the war in the Donbas between 2014-22, as given by numerous independent sources as well as the UN. According to the last published estimate (in January 2022) of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), the total number of conflict-related casualties were 14,200-14,000. However, what the tankies fail to mention is that the grand majority of these casualties were military casualties, which the OHCHR estimated to be around 4,000 for the Ukrainian armed forces and 6,500 for the separatist armies of the DPR and LPR, as well as Russian regulars which separate studies have estimated to number around 500. The OHCHR gives a rather precise figure of 3,404 total civilian deaths of which the bulk (3,039) occurred during 2014-15 when the combat phase of the conflict was at its most acute. And nearly one-tenth of these are the 298 killed on Malaysian Flight MH17 after it was shot down by separatists.
It should go without saying that assigning blame to Ukraine for the totality of these deaths is ludicrous, considering it was fighting legitimately against a foreign-sponsored separatist movement in its own territory. And even in the case of civilian casualties, it is impossible to say that Ukraine is to blame for all of them given that both sides counted on an ample stock of heavy weaponry and artillery all of which could lead to collateral damage and civilian casualties. Moreover, given the high levels of urbanization in the Donbas area, much of the combat occurred in areas where civilian deaths would have been nearly unavoidable. So ultimately did Ukraine “kill Russian-speakers in the Donbas”? Undoubtedly yes. But so did the DPR, LPR, and Russian regular forces that fought in that phase of the conflict. And given the complete disregard for civilian casualties displayed by Russia after its 2022 invasion, particularly in Russian-speaking cities like Mariupol, to argue Ukraine is the biggest threat to its Russian-speaking population is absurd.
Even if the casualty figures were conceded, the tankies will likely resort to another argument: the Ukrainian armed forces as well as the militias that supported them were guilty of documented war crimes including illegal detention, torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. This argument also tends to focus on one group in particular besides the Ukrainian military: the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia which was created in the early days of the outbreak of separatist violence in 2014 and eventually grew into a full-fledged unit of the Ukrainian National Guard. I will deal with the Azov Battalion in the next section but in the meantime, the question that needs to be answered is whether these groups were indeed guilty of the human rights abuses they are constantly accused of. According to the OHCHR as well as other independent organizations like Amnesty International, there is considerable evidence that many of these abuses indeed took place and it was made worse by the lack of accountability surrounding all the militias (estimated at around thirty volunteer battalions) that were fighting alongside the Ukrainian armed forces without being formally integrated into the Ukrainian military structure.
What is conveniently ignored, however, is that these abuses were also committed by the Russian-supported separatists and if anything, were significantly worse. The OHCHR report mentioned above made it clear that the lack of documentation on the separatist and Russian side is because there was a complete lack of access to UN investigators. The report stated in paragraph 36:
Despite repeated requests to the ‘authorities’ of the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ to grant OHCHR access to places of deprivation of liberty on the territories they control, such access was not provided. All these factors considerably limit OHCHR’s ability to report on human rights abuses perpetrated on the territories controlled by the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’. Due to the absence of due process, redress mechanisms, and denial of access to external observers, OHCHR remains particularly concerned about the situation of individuals deprived of their liberty by armed groups. The information that has been obtained by OHCHR indicates poor conditions of detention, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment.
The small number of abuses that were documented were nevertheless horrific, such as this one committed to a captured member of the Ukrainian military and which is scarily reminiscent of the inhuman treatment of Ukrainians (both military and civilian) by Russian troops after the 2022 invasion:
A serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was captured on 10 August 2015 by four members of the so-called ‘Vostok’ battalion of the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, near the village of Verkhnioteretske (Donetsk region). They put a plastic bag on his head, handcuffed him, and drove him to a private house. He was then tied to a tree with wristbands, severely beaten, threatened, and tortured with electrical shocks at 220 volts. He lost consciousness on several occasions. After three hours of torture inflicted by some 10 men wearing masks and camouflage with the insignia of the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, he was interrogated. No medical aid was provided to him. He was then transferred to a military base in the centre of Makiivka.
The annex of an earlier OHCHR report on the accountability of killings also featured an overwhelming number of case studies of abuses perpetrated by the separatists compared to those committed by the Ukrainian side. Given what the OHCHR stated about the lack of access to investigators, it becomes clear that these case studies were merely the tip of the iceberg with regards to the totality separatist abuses. Overall, it is simply impossible to conclude that Ukraine’s conduct of the war was in any way worse than that of the Russian-supported separatists, which essentially transformed the DPR and LPR into warlord states with no interest in providing transparency or accountability for their human rights abuses and war crimes. Ukraine, while falling short on many standards itself, came nowhere close to this level of barbarism.
Ukraine is full of Nazis
The association of Ukraine with neo-Nazism is by far the most commonly cited reason by “anti-war” leftists (as well as populist right-wingers who are clearly projecting their own far right sympathies) on why they have refused to support it despite this being an obvious example of the type of wars of aggression and settler-colonialism that leftists passionately oppose. As the narrative goes, Ukraine is a country that is worryingly comfortable with the influence of far-right groups in its government and whose military is also infiltrated by neo-Nazi militias, such as the infamous Azov Battalion which is even integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. Further evidence is the popularity of Stepan Bandera, a controversial Ukrainian ultranationalist and independence fighter who was one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which collaborated with Nazi Germany and was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Poles and Jews during World War II.
The Ukrainian Nazis talking point emerged during the Euromaidan protests and was pushed early by Russian media. This came about as a result of the involvement of far-right organizations such as Svoboda (a political party which at the time held 37 seats out of the 450-seat parliament) and Right Sector in the protests, as well as football ultras and street thugs linked to these groups. Protesters carrying Bandera flags were also recurrently seen. While it is certainly true that Svoboda mobilized considerable resources and organizational power in favor of the protests, this has to be taken in context that Euromaidan was overwhelmingly an organic, grassroots movement with barely 7.7% of protesters having any political party affiliation at its peak. At best, far right groups may well have had an outsized participation in incidences of confrontation or violence but this hardly constituted any sort of moral or practical leadership in the protests which. If anything, Euromaidan severely reduced Svoboda’s popularity: it’s representation in parliament fell to just 6 seats in the 2014 election that took place after Yanukovych self-removal from office.
It is somewhat ironic that Ukraine’s far right largely threw their support for Euromaidan, which contrasts to the Euroscepticism that is characteristic of most European far right parties and organizations. However, this is largely explained by the desire to be free from Russian influence, which would make any Ukrainian nationalist agenda impossible. While certainly poor from an optics perspective (particularly to outsiders), this also explains why a figure like Bandera remains popular; not so much for his racism and the atrocities committed under his watch but by his struggle to achieve an independent Ukraine. The obvious analogy to this is that admiration for the US’s slave-owning Founding Fathers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson does not make someone a supporter of slavery. Strangely for the tankie crowd, the atrocities of people like Stalin or Mao – which are far in excess of anything Bandera did – does not preclude their idolization and worship.
The most obvious explanation for the Ukrainian far right’s ardent participation in the EuroMaidan may be found in the primary goal shared by all Ukrainian nationalists, radical and moderate alike: to liberate Kyiv from the Kremlin’s hegemony… Getting out from under Kremlin tutelage is a crucial precondition for an independent evolution of the Ukrainian nation—in whatever direction that development may go. (Shekhovtsov, Anton; Umland, Andreas (2014). “Ukraine’s Radical Right”)
Then there’s the issue of the Azov Battalion (later referred to as Regiment). Azov’s neo-Nazi origins are indisputable, and I have often locked horns with Ukraine supporters who have appeared to whitewash this. The group’s logo features a variant of the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol with a Black Sun (Sonnenrad) in the background. Many Azov members have been pictured with these symbols as tattoos or patches, and earlier in the war were frequently seen carrying swastikas as well. During the Donbas conflict, the existence of Azov and other similar groups was a serious concern to many Western observers, to the point which the US suspended arms transfers and training to the Azov Battalion in 2018. There have been numerous claims that the Azov Battalion had gone to great lengths to move away from its far-right origins, and also to decouple itself from the broader Azov Movement. There is some truth to this, in the sense that a large number (possibly the majority) of Azov members by 2022 were not neo-Nazis and likely joined the unit due to its reputation on the battlefield rather than its ideology. However, I am skeptical of these arguments as there is also considerable evidence that many of Azov’s leaders and former leaders with far-right links retained influence in the unit even up to the 2022 Russian invasion.
As for Azov’s integration into Ukraine’s National Guard, there is likely no military organization on the planet that does not have some far-right elements. The “anti-war” left frequently attempts to counter this claim by arguing that the existence of the Azov Battalion as a state-sanctioned organization makes Ukraine’s relationship neo-Nazism unique. Yet this argument is rather selective with regards to why this uniqueness is necessarily worse. Take Russia’s Wagner Group, a self-described private military contractor which is widely believed to be Putin’s private army tasked with fulfilling the Russian state’s foreign policy objectives. It was founded by Dmitri Utkin who has been photographed with neo-Nazi tattoos. A segment of the Wagner Group known as the Rusich unit is also openly neo-Nazi; its logo also features the infamous Sonnenrad which is also part of the Azov logo. Unlike Azov which has never operated out of Ukrainian territory, Wagner has been heavily involved in Syria as well as numerous African countries essentially making itself a tool of Russian imperialism. Does the uniqueness of the Wagner Group as well as its documented role in numerous atrocities abroad (such as the gruesome torture and execution of a Syrian associate) not make Russia’s neo-Nazi problem considerably worse than Ukraine’s? Apparently not since it is consistently ignored by the “anti-imperialist” left.
So we have it that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem is certainly no worse than Russia’s, and while likely worse than many Western countries in terms of popular acceptance of certain neo-Nazi groups or historical figures, is practically non-existent at a political level. It is hard to imagine that a country that has zero far right representation in parliament (the far-right coalition led by Svoboda won just 2.15% of the vote in 2019 which was below the 5% threshold to have a seat) represents a significant enough threat to the stability of the region that it would justify being invaded. Moreover, this comes after nearly a decade in which the circumstances of the conflict with Russia would have seemed to promote rather than dissuade support of the far right. Instead, the opposite happened, and the fearmongering over the impact of these groups on Ukrainian politics turned out to be overexaggerated, even if they admittedly have an outsized role in society relative to their political power. As a 2020 report by the Swedish Institute of International Affairs noted:
Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist parties remain far less relevant politically than has been alleged in Russian propaganda and was feared by some international experts on generic right-wing extremism following the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014. Nonetheless, in early 2020, the radical right’s role in Ukrainian public life is still characterized by a high level of activity in realms such as civil society, the mass media and cultural affairs. The various permutations of contemporary Ukrainian ultra-nationalism therefore require careful monitoring and continuing analysis by independent researchers and law enforcement agencies.
The overt or implicit support of leftist “anti-fascists” to the separatist movements in the Donbas also seems to be oblivious to the fact that there were significant far right elements in them too, and in fact, were likely to be far more commonplace than among the militias on the Ukrainian side. A 2016 report by the Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) on Ukraine’s far right stated that “Russia’s use of right-wing radicals on the side of the ‘separatists’ in Donetsk and Lugansk provinces was more important militarily and politically than the involvement of Ukrainian far-right activists in the anti-terrorist operation.”, a conclusion that was echoed by Derek Averre and Kataryna Wolczuk in The Ukraine Conflict: Security, Identity and Politics in the Wider Europe (2019) who noted “there are arguably more real fascists on the rebel side than the Ukrainian side” (pg. 91). I have yet to see a single “anti-fascist” on the left ever mention the presence of fascists on the Russian side.
Lastly, even if it were true that Ukraine was under control of the far right, would this legitime Russia’s motives for “denazifying” it? The answer, of course, would be no unless Ukraine genuinely represented an existential threat to its neighbors or the region which it never has, and certainly does not represent even a fraction of the threat that Russia (which has its own serious problem with state-sponsored neo-Nazism that the “anti-war” left conveniently chooses to ignore) does. One need only replace Ukraine with any other country under threat of invasion to realize this. For example, would a Greece ruled by Golden Dawn (its now-banned far right party) deserve support if it suffered an unprovoked invasion by Turkey? An invasion with the purpose of “denazifying” it and turning it into another Turkish province as it historically was during the hundreds of years of Ottoman rule? The answer, of course, would be yes: one can easily support Greece as a nation without necessarily supporting the government in turn. Suffice to say a Greek “anti-fascist” I knew, who spent much of the early period of the war regurgitating Ukraine Nazi hysterics, consistently dodged this question when pressed.
It is ironic that “anti-war” leftists failed at this simple test when there are no shortage of examples of them picking the lesser evil. The obvious case that comes to mind is the support of Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian regime during the 2003 invasion, which was easily the more principled position than supporting an illegal US invasion. Supporting the Stalin’s murderous Soviet regime against Hitler’s invasion is also a no-brainer. As it turns out, these moral quandaries are remarkably easy to reconcile which makes it all the more stupefying why the “anti-war” left finds it so difficult to support Ukraine in a similar existential struggle. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether Ukraine is full of Nazis or not (it isn’t) but that Russia is doing exactly what real Nazis did back in 1939-45: invade its neighbors with the intention of eliminating them as a sovereign entity and as a culture distinct from their own.
A true anti-fascist sides with Ukraine.
Thanks for reading! In order to avoid a super-long post, I will continue the debunking in Part III which will focus on the role of NATO in the conflict and whether it was responsible for provoking Russia as many tankies believe.
Did you like this article? Follow me on Twitter at @raguileramx and on YouTube at ProgressumTV. You might also like my book, The Glass-Half Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century (Repeater Books, 2020). My security-related work has appeared in The Military Balance, Armed Conflict Survey, and Strategic Survey from the International Institute of Strategic Studies.