Front Burner - How Putin is weaponizing Ukraine's far-right fringe

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

As he declared his war on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an odd promise to a country with a Jewish president and an annual Pride parade: He said he was doing this to "de-Nazify" the country. Sam Sokol, a reporter with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was taken back to a time moments eight years ago — when Russian media advanced fictitious stories about Jewish communities targeted in Ukraine, around the time that Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. Sokol is the author of Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry. He has covered Ukrainian far-right movements in depth — and explained how those groups have been weaponized by Russian propaganda to legitimize the mass violence we are seeing today. He's joining us to separate Putin's rhetoric from Ukraine's reality, and to break down what all this means for Ukrainian Jewish communities.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Before Russia's brutal campaign against Ukraine, before the cluster bombs, before the strikes on children's hospitals, back when Vladimir Putin announced his special military operation, he made a statement that made my ears perk way up. He said Russia was going to, quote, denazify Ukraine.

It was an obvious smear to try to legitimize this invasion. But it also happened over and over again. He called Ukrainians drug-addicted neo-Nazis. His UN ambassador said Russia was only acting against the country's fascist junta. Where exactly did this claim come from and why does it figure in Putin's selling of this war? To understand this, you have to understand that before Ukrainians were fighting for their lives, the country was grappling with a small far-right fringe and having some really tough conversations about how to think about its own history around World War II. Of course, those kinds of conversations are a lot harder to have when you're saying prayers in a bunker. Sam Sokol is a reporter for Haaretz with a focus on the Jewish diaspora in Ukraine,

and he's the author of Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews, Anti-Semitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry. He's covered Ukrainian far-right movements in depth and how those issues have been weaponized by Russia, leaving Jews and other minorities even more vulnerable. Hi, Sam. Thank you so much for making the time today. Thank you for having me. So before we jump in, you've been on the phone, I know, for weeks talking to members of the Jewish community on the ground most impacted by this war in Ukraine. And can you tell me a bit about the stories that you've been hearing? Well, it's been honestly, it's been heartbreaking. One of the stories that

really stood out to me was the story of the Jewish community of Donetsk, which is the center of the pro-Russian insurgency since 2014, there was shelling on the city itself. The separatists really ruled with sort of an iron hand, pulling people off the streets. So when Ukrainians fled the city, the Jewish community joined. And the rabbi of the community, Pinchas Vyshedsky, had led an exodus to Kiev, where members of the organized Jewish community from Donetsk rebuilt their lives. They built a new three-story synagogue and cultural center and really tried to reestablish themselves. And the last time I spoke to Vyshedsky was on Saturday

evening when I spoke to him by phone, and he was in a refugee center in Romania saying that everything that they had rebuilt was gone. Everyone in his community, they were all refugees again for the second time in less than a decade. And what I've been hearing over and over again is just these stories about people losing everything everything and communities you know disappearing as everyone flees so it's not that jews are being in any way targeted but this war to denazify quote-unquote uh ukraine has really had the opposite effect it's destroying the organized Jewish community in just a horrific way. Let's talk about these claims that Putin is making, that he wants to denazify Ukraine. And regardless of what's actually true here,

what the facts on the ground actually are, when Putin says Ukraine is led by Nazis, what is he actually accusing them of here? It's not that they're referring to actual Nazis. It's a trope. You have to understand that in the Soviet period, and even after the fall of the Soviet Union, under Putin, the legacy of the Great Patriotic War, as they call the Second World War in Russia, has been an integral part of nation-building efforts, part of the effort to create a national identity. themselves as the nation that defeated the fascists. So Putin is trying to do everything that he can to tap into that feeling, to sort of pull on the heartstrings of Russians, to, you know, to mobilize them in support of what he's doing. And this isn't new. In 2014, as Russian, unmarked Russian troops were spreading out throughout the Crimean Peninsula, Putin gave a speech in which he decried the rampage of reactionary and anti-Semitic forces throughout Ukraine. Nationalists and radical extremists made a rampant on the streets of Kiev. And what we saw in 2014 through 2016 was this deluge of misinformation and disinformation and I don't really like using this term, but fake concerned about anti-Semitism per se, but rather that if

you can tar your opponents as Nazi, as anti-Semites, that goes a long way to selling the narrative that you're fighting Nazis. And it helps justify you. It puts you on the right side of history. This time around, is he doing anything, is Putin doing anything differently than he did in 2014 when it comes to the rhetoric around anti-Semitism and declarations of Nazism? I think so, yes. As I said, in 2014 and 2016, a lot of the rhetoric, though far from all, had to do with Jews, with anti-Semitism. There were false reports about pogroms in Odessa. They had segments on state TV with forged letters from rabbis claiming that Jewish schools and newspapers were being shut down by the authorities. This time around, the focus has largely been on

a claimed genocide of Russian speakers in the East, a claim, I should add, that there is no substantiation for that I've been able to see. Russia is now saying it has opened an investigation into claims of alleged mass graves of civilians supposedly killed by Ukrainian forces. But according to our reporters there on the ground, these claims are almost certainly false and appear to be a part of a broader false narrative to justify an invasion. But thematically, it's very similar because it's the idea that you have to go in to defend some beleaguered minority group from, you know, the big bad fascists. Why do you think we're seeing that shift? It's not precisely new. He's used similar rhetoric in the past. And I'm not 100% sure why the rhetoric is different this time, except he needs to up the stakes. He's used that rhetoric

of anti-Semitism and attacks on minorities in the past. And I think the world, for the large part, has sort of seen through it, has seen this as false. And he really wants to make it look like it's an existential struggle. That's why he's gone from claims of genocide to claims that the Ukrainians are trying to create nuclear weapons. He has to make the stakes higher and higher in order to sell this to his own people. When you speak to Ukrainian Jews, how do they react when they see this kind of messaging, this idea that they're being used essentially by Russia? Well, on the first day of the war, several hours after Putin's address calling for the denazification of Ukraine, I spoke to a number of Jewish community leaders there, one of whom

told me, one, that in his mind, it was absolutely ridiculous. And two, he's less concerned with allegations of Nazism and anything having to do specifically with the Jews and with the fact that the Jews, along with all Ukrainians, are being bombarded. It's just a totally, to the Jewish community, it's just a totally transparent excuse. President Zelensky, who himself is Jewish, even addressed the night before Putin sent his troops into Ukraine, and he addressed some of those similar claims. And he said, how can I be a Nazi with my grandfather fought the Nazis and died on the territory of a free Ukraine? How can we be Nazis if millions of Ukrainians

fought against and were killed by Nazis? And the truth is, it's very hard to imagine such a badly run Nazi state that it would allow a Jew to be in charge. I'm going to go. Powering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

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important to shed light on right now because Russian propaganda is capitalizing on it. So let's bring some context to this. Can you give us an accurate picture of what Ukraine's far right actually looks like? Look, the truth is there, in Ukraine, as in many countries across Europe, there are problems with anti-Semitism and there are issues with the way that the history of the Second World War is taught and with the glorification of far-right groups that collaborated with the Nazis. But in many ways, Ukraine isn't particularly unique in that regard, meaning their sins are the sins of Poland and Lithuania and Hungary. They're not particularly unique in that way. And I think that's one of the big ironies here. But what we saw after the Russian invasion, the first one in 2014, was a huge surge in patriotic thought in Ukraine.

And in 2015, they passed a bundle of laws known as the decommunization laws. And one of those bills enshrined the heroization, you could say, of certain far right movements from the period of the Second World War, like the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. And these groups together during the war killed thousands of Jews, and depending on which historians you ask, up to 100,000 ethnic Poles. So these were, you know, war criminals and terrorists of the worst sort. And the new Ukrainian narrative, they were looking for heroes as they were fighting the Russians, was to minimize or outright deny war crimes by these groups, to claim these groups actually saved Jews, and they were democratic, liberal movements. And the issue of Russian

aggression made it difficult to call them out. Because if you would criticize what's happening, people would dismiss it immediately as Russian propaganda, because these issues are used in Russian propaganda. The Russians have really doubled down on pointing out these issues. So it made it very difficult to have an honest conversation. And I think that's something we're gonna see in the future. The more you have a conflict with the Russians who abuse these issues, the harder it is to have an honest discussion. At the same time, what was very interesting when you're talking about claims of the Ukrainians being Nazis is that prior to 2014, you had, I don't remember the exact number of time you had, I think it was around 7%

of their parliament was comprised of members of the far-right Svoboda movement. His party Svoboda did far better than expected. It won more than 10% of the vote nationwide. Which could be charitably called extreme right, and if you're uncharitable, neo-Nazi. The rally was organized by the far-right Svoboda Party. Protesters marched amidst a river of torches and signs saying, Ukraine above all else. And what's interesting is that after the Russians attacked and patriotic anti-Russian sentiment became mainstream,

the appeal of the far-right actually diminished. And I think they have maybe one member out of more than 400 in the Rakov Novrata in the parliament now. So these claims that they're run by Nazis, that the far right has lost political power, a lot of it. That's really interesting. I wonder if you could elaborate for me a little bit more on why you think we saw the diminishment of these groups. I think that a lot of the appeal of these groups was that they were hard and left-wing parties, really the main appeal of the far right dissipated. There was no real reason to support a group that might hold unsavory opinions if, you know, the parts that you like about it

have been taken up by groups that are more mainstream. At the same time, ironically, that the power, political power of the far right was diminished. The, you know, Russian aggression also led to an increase in the power of the far right on the street, meaning that after the Russian invasion of Crimea and the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine and the Donbass against Russian proxy forces, what you saw was a Ukrainian army with very little combat power, corrupt and badly run, that was dependent on volunteer regiments that were being raised across the country to fight. And one of these groups was the Azov Battalion, a far-right movement that used a neo-Nazi symbol on its flag and its patches, which fought and helped liberate Mariupol and held the

line against the Russians. And there was sort of a view to downplay or ignore the less than appealing aspects of their character because they needed heroes and they couldn't afford to alienate groups that were fighting the Russians. At their public events, one thing that surprised me was how many Ukrainians tend to see Azov not as militants or extremists, but as war heroes. In Kiev, the capital, I watched an Independence Day parade where veterans of the Azov battalion marched alongside other volunteer militias, surrounded by cheering crowds, who thanked them for defending Ukraine against Russia. And so what happened is the Azov battalion, which eventually became a regiment, also morphed into a political movement and a street militia.

And under Arsen Avakov, who until recently was the quite powerful interior minister, the group was protected and was able to engage in activity and has been linked to attacks on members of the LGBT and Roma community. But what's actually interesting is that since Zelensky took power, sort of the power of these, you know, right-wing groups has been broken to a certain extent. Zelensky got rid of Avakov, who was their main patron in government. Zelensky also replaced the head of the government's Institute for National Memory, which helped push Kiev's controversial memory policy. And in the place of the avowed ultra-nationalist that had been in that seat before, he picked an educator who had previously been working at a Holocaust memorial. So while the Ukraine's problematic historical policies weren't necessarily disavowed, they were severely cut back and downplayed.

So when the Russians are saying, OK, we have to denazify Ukraine, I think Zelensky's been doing a pretty good job of that himself. the Azov battalion, for example, I know you just said that their power has been curtailed, but are they playing a role right now in the war? Where are these groups like today? Well, presumably members of Azov are fighting now because they've been integrated into the National Guard. What we did see in the weeks leading up to the invasion was the Azov movement holding training sessions across Ukraine, training civilians to handle weapons and to fight. And that's something that really did get picked up on both in the Western media and in Russian state media.

There was a famous image of a 78-year-old grandmother being trained by a member of the Azov battalion in how to use a Kalashnikov assault rifle. They say they want to be ready, just in case. And that very much includes Valentina, who is 78, a granny with a gun. a granny with a gun. I am a very peaceful person and I can forgive a lot of things. I can give away everything. But when something is taken against my will,

when an invader comes, I will resist and I will be furious. And that really did open up a large discussion of the role of the far right in Ukraine. Although, for the sake of balance, I would note that Russia obviously always takes this anti-fascist approach. We're the ones who stand up against the far right, against fascists. But we've also seen that Russia has worked very hard to try to politically destabilize Western Europe and the United States. Observers say Russia seeks to expand its influence in Europe by supporting right-wing populist leaders,

as well as their extremist voter base. The idea is to fan the flames constantly with gasoline and to set people who are already stirred up against each other. It's pyromaniac propaganda, a propaganda aimed at fracturing our societies. As a tool in that effort, they've never shied away from working with far-right parties, far-right movements. Russia has hosted meetings of far-right representatives in St. Petersburg in recent years. Vladimir Putin's latest attempt to manipulate another country's levers of power.

He meets in Moscow with France's far-right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, a woman who, if she wins, could turn a key U.S. ally upside down. Le Pen says she'd like to lift sanctions on Russia to recognize Putin's annexation of Crimea. Over the past eight years, the pro-Russian side of the war in eastern Ukraine has attracted its own share of far-right and anti-Semitic figures.

I think that it's during times of conflict that groups like this are able to sort of build themselves. And I was speaking the other day to Michael Colburn from Bellingcat, who is pretty much the top expert on the Ukrainian far right. And he was telling me that he thinks that these far right groups see conflict with Russia, while not necessarily desirable, as a good opportunity for bolstering their popularity. So I don't know what's going to happen, but it's definitely something to watch with concern. Right. I mean, so you're saying, you know, not only is there this incredible hypocrisy here on the side of Russia, also it's possible that the conflict

itself raises the power of these groups that Zelensky and others in Ukraine have been working to curtail in the country. Exactly. And as always, during a time of crisis, it becomes very hard to deal with these issues because with the Ukrainians fighting for their lives against Russian bombardments and Russian tanks and Russian planes, it's very hard to go, by the way, what about this far right group? It becomes much lower on the priority list. So as I said, ironically, Russia is making it harder to deal with the far right.

Sam, before we go today, I wonder, how has this war shaped how Jews see themselves within Ukraine? A lot of us Ashkenazi Jews who come from Central and Eastern Europe, my father's family lived in the Russian Empire before leaving in the early 19th century. My mother's family is from Poland. They never saw themselves as Polish or Russian Jews in the sense of having an ethnicity. They saw themselves as coming from these countries and belonging to a Polish Jewish community or Ukrainian Jewish community, but they didn't see themselves as Poles or Ukrainians or Russians because there was a long history of anti-Semitism, of discrimination, of pogrom and genocide. And something very interesting that we've seen over the past eight years, since 2014, is the creation of a new Ukrainian Jewish identity. We see that in New York. We see that in Israel. We nation building in Ukraine in response to the Russian attacks that has not only helped, you know, bolster certain right-wing identities, but also a more liberal, multi-ethnic Ukrainian identity. The fact that Zelensky was elected with more than 73% of the vote and that his Jewish identity was barely an issue, I think, shows that in many ways Ukraine is becoming a multi-ethnic liberal state. see themselves as part of a wider Ukrainian nation rather than having this sort of old

fashioned Jews versus Ukrainians approach to identity. Thank you so much for this. So interesting and an important conversation to have right now. So we're very appreciative. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.