We end today’s show with the first — we are going to talk today about what’s happening in Ukraine. We’re joined right now by two people, by a journalist who’s written extensively in The Intercept, a reporter who’s looked at the role of neo-Nazis in the war. The Ukrainian-born journalist Lev Golinkin is also with us. He recently wrote a piece for The Nation headlined “The Western Media Is Whitewashing the Azov Battalion.” The piece looks at the neo-Nazi roots of one of Ukraine’s most heralded paramilitary forces. Earlier this month, Turkey released five former Azov commanders who were being held in Turkey. They flew back on a plane with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, The Intercept recently detailed how an anti-Putin Russian militia that carried out attacks inside Russia in May is led by a neo-Nazi who’s maintained links with American neo-Nazis. That piece was written by Ben Makuch, a national security reporter who used to work as a correspondent for Vice News Tonight. Ben has also just written a new piece for The Intercept about an American Army vet, wanted for murder in the United States, who escaped to Ukraine to fight with the Right Sector, an ultranationalist Ukrainian militia. We’re going to get to that in a moment.
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But so what? Does that make it true? Why do you believe it? Ukraine was governed by a pro-Russia Putin stooge less than a decade ago. Do you think it’s possible there are people still in Russia (and outside it) that would push this angle as hard as possible even if it might not be factual? How would you determine what’s true and not? Why are you using Twitter videos to do it? You accuse me of naiveté but there is simply not very good evidence for this, and extremely good reasons to be skeptical of it.
What I describe is the only workable method of doing this. “Oh, just remove them” is magical thinking. How are you supposed to even find them? What do you do if some of them claim they’re not? Obviously they’re not civilians, but you still don’t want to get it wrong because you’ll alienate large swathes of your own (well-armed and well-trained) armed forces… and, again, for what? Why do it now when you can just do it after the war? Since if Ukraine loses, this debate won’t matter at all anyway since everyone involved will be dead.
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You keep saying I don’t have military experience, but how is any of what I’ve said wrong? How do you propose to find and filter out neo-Nazis? Do you truly believe all (or even most) of them are wearing their affiliations literally on their sleeves? Even if they are, how do you then suggest removing them? How will those actions help Ukraine rather than hurt it?
If you truly want Ukraine to succeed in the long run, why not tackle this after the war is over? As I’ve said, if you truly believe this is a problem then it certainly isn’t going anywhere. And if Ukraine loses the problem is solved since the neo-Nazis will be dead regardless, having died in the fight against Putin’s army.
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This is the kind of magical thinking I called out earlier. What happens if a member of the military accuses someone else of being a neo-Nazi because they simply don’t like them? What recourse does that person have? Why wouldn’t Russian agents inside the Ukrainian military simply accuse high-ranking members of the military of being neo-Nazis? You asserting that it’s easy does not actually make this problem easy, and saying “just do it” ignores huge amounts of complications.
Okay, except they’re probably armed and well-trained. What happens if they resist, or, even worse, band together and resist?
I just don’t understand how these problems can’t be tackled after the war. Again, the problem solves itself if Ukraine fails to win. If Ukraine does win, this can all be tackled then and it won’t impact Ukraine’s ability to resist Russia’s aggression.
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