Russian officials retorted at Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian president put an end to the martial law in the country. Moscow claims that Poroshenko is a strong supporter of far-right groups, and that the United States is overlooking the gravity of the situation.
“Leaders of ultra-rightist groups from the U.S. have been training for months together with radical organizations in Ukraine.”
“Feeling such support, Poroshenko confidently resorts to provocative steps, including on the Ukrainian-Russian border…In the light of upcoming [Ukrainian presidential] elections, it can be predicted that new such actions with U.S. support could be expected in the near future,” Patrushev said, echoing the accusations that other Russian officials have been making for days that claim that Ukraine is preparing to attack Russian troops.
“Nazi symbols, the rhetoric of ethnic superiority, Russophobe ideas, all of this has become an integral part of Kiev’s state policy,” said Nikolai Patrushev the head of Russia’s Security Council and former head of the FSB, speaking in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Meanwhile, reports have revealed that ties exist between far-right, white supremacist groups in the U.S. and right-wing nationalist groups in Ukraine.
But Patrushev’s comments appear to connect these two disparate issues and conflate Washington’s official support for Kiev with transnational links between far-right groups.
“Poroshenko gets no benefit from far-right activities in Ukraine, which are minimal. Far-right parties are not represented in the Rada [Ukrainian parliament]. Kremlin disinformation plays up the notion of Ukrainian ‘fascism,’ but compared to most countries in Europe, right-wing extremism is quite weak in Ukraine,” ambassador John Herbst, who was U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006, told Newsweek.
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