Smear and Loathing: A Close Look at Accusations of Ukrainian Anti-Semitism

The Russia-Ukraine crisis has revived the charge that the new Ukraine, far from being an embattled pro-Western seeker of liberal democracy, is a haven for fascists and Nazis.

Once upon a time, the “Ukrainian Nazis” narrative was pushed mainly by the far left. In 2014, after the Euromaidan revolution in Kyiv ousted a pro-Moscow government and Russia responded by annexing Crimea and sponsoring separatist enclaves in Eastern Ukraine, it was old-school tankie Seumas Milne in the Guardian, historian Stephen Cohen in the Nation, Max Blumenthal in Salon, and their ilk who made these charges. Fast-forward to today, and the most vocal peddler of this canard is (quelle surprise!) anti-hawk theocon Sohrab Ahmari. Ahmari’s February 15 column in the American Conservative is ominously titled, “The Nazis Globalist Liberals Prefer To Ignore.”

Ahmari’s charge of a coverup of Nazis in Ukraine focuses on a minor facepalm moment: After several news reports hyping the tale of a brave Ukrainian grandma training to join the resistance against Russian invaders, it turned out that the training was being provided by the Azov Regiment, a Ukrainian National Guard unit which started out as a volunteer militia with neo-Nazi ties. The regiment’s insignia, which look creepily like the SS lightning-bolt logo, were visible on members’ uniforms in some television segments about the heroic granny. There is, however, no indication that the woman, 79-year-old Valentina Konstantinovskaya, has any neo-Nazi sympathies; she was simply responding, like many other Ukrainians, to a call to train as a resistance volunteer.