What the European Union said in 2012 about its current fascist allies in Ukraine

By Alex Lantier

12 March 2014

Since last month’s putsch in Kiev, the US and European media have denounced reports from Russia and internationally of fascist involvement in the new, Western-backed Ukrainian regime.

The media has attacked such reports as “empty” (New York Times), “a fancy” (Guardian), “Putin plays the Nazi card” (Fox News), and “the supreme lie” (Le Monde). One source that inspires total confidence, Russian oligarch and convicted felon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, speaking on Monday to a right-wing crowd in Kiev, summed up the line of the corporate media. He called reports of fascist influence over the new regime “lying Russian propaganda.”

To evaluate this torrent of pro-fascist apologetics, it is worth recalling what the European Union itself said only two years ago about its current partners in Kiev. Today, the far-right Svoboda party holds top ministerial positions (deputy prime minister, education, ecology, and agriculture) and advisory posts in a regime that enjoys the economic and military backing of the EU and Washington.

Svoboda was condemned in an official resolution voted and adopted by the European Parliament. The document, titled “European Parliament of 13 December, 2012 on the Situation in Ukraine,” is available online.

In section 8 of the resolution, the EU’s legislative body declares itself “concerned about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada,” the Ukrainian parliament.

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

When the imperialist powers embarked on a critical foreign policy operation, however—the installation of a pro-Western regime in Kiev—they easily overcame whatever scruples EU legislators may have had about Svoboda’s racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. It fell to a corrupt media, academic and cultural elite to package the resulting collaboration with fascists as a struggle for democracy, misleading the public through a combination of complicit silence and active falsification.

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