By Tatiana Prophet

According to a report published last September by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, since 2018 a paramilitary group with ties to Azov Battalion has taken to social media to publicly congratulate its members who were graduates of officer training with American, Canadian and other NATO armed forces at Ukraine’s National Academy of the Army in Yavoriv, western Ukraine (the same base which was reportedly bombed on March 13 of this year by Russian forces).

It’s hard to imagine how U.S. army officers could be training recruits with ties to violent paramilitary gangs; but in Ukraine, the military and the street gangs are often one and the same (see the absorption of Azov Battalion into the Ukraine National Guard). Further, it is highly unlikely that American and NATO officials encouraged such membership; those who commented for an academic report on the subject said they had expected Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence to screen recruits.

But ever since the Revolution of Dignity installed a pro-NATO government in Kyiv in 2014, the underlying problems with public safety and economic security have made Kyiv and the entire country a breeding ground for morally superior vigilante squads to multiply. (See sidebar, What is fascism?)

In 2015, Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent predicted the instability we are now seeing:

“The profound civic impetus for dignity and good governance at the heart of the Maidan revolution was hijacked by the radicals who followed the monist path to its logical conclusion while allowing oligarch power to be reconstituted.”

In Ukraine, the ongoing atmosphere of corruption and empty spectacle; the meddling by both Western and Russian governments and NGOs in its internal affairs; an extremely poor health-care infrastructure and lack of Covid-related assistance from the Kyiv government; a lack of economic opportunity; and rapid net outmigration have all been fertile ground for the misplaced self-pity and corresponding militancy of Centuria, an order of Ukrainian military squads, some of whom reportedly have been receiving training from American, Canadian and other NATO military forces for the past several years.

The report states: “The group has strong ties to Ukraine’s far-right Azov movement, has promoted Azov to NAA cadets, and credibly claimed that its members lectured in the Azov Regiment of the National Guard, the military wing of the Azov movement. The image of strong ties between the former and Centuria’ is further reinforced by the fact that an Azov-linked magazine contemporaneously reported the group’s presence within the NAA in 2018; by supportive statements from Azov figures; by photos of the group’s apparent leaders and members with Azov leaders; and by Centuria’s participation in a political rally with the Azov movement.”

For the last 7 years, the U.S. Army’s 7th Army Training Command has been “training the trainers” as part of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine at the Hetman Sahaidachny National Academy of Land Forces, part of the Ukraine ministry of defense. Every year they have held a Rapid Trident exercise at the base in the Yavoriv district of the Lviv region in Western Ukraine, with rotating Army divisions leading the effort — recently Task Force Gator, the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Florida Army National Guard. Task Force Gator this year has relocated to Grafenwoehr, Germany, according to an army web site.

And on March 13, Interfax-Ukraine reported that Russian missiles attacked the Yavoriv base, killing 35 and wounding 134.

The growth in Ukrainian paramilitary squads has accelerated since the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014, when the United States sponsored the overthrow of a Russia-friendly president and installed one with close ties to NATO and the U.S., including as part of his cabinet an American-born diplomat who renounced her U.S. citizenship to become the country’s finance minister in 2015.

After Russia subsequently invaded Crimea, to the consternation of Western allies, the Azov Battalion quickly formed with young men who honed their skills in the street warfare in the Eastern part of the country.

According to the Guardian, a major reason Centuria was formed in 2018 was as an answer to the ineffectual local police and officials throughout the country, especially in Kyiv.

From an article in March 2018 that followed a nighttime anti-poaching mission:

“ ‘The police in our country are ineffective, corrupt or drunk,’ says Zhenya, one of the men. ‘That’s why we have to deal with this problem ourselves.’

“These woodland vigilantes, all in their early to mid-twenties, are not your typical environmental activists. They are members of the National Militia, an ultranationalist organisation closely linked to Ukraine’s Azov movement, a far-right group with a military wing that contains openly neo-Nazi members, and its political spin-off, the National Corpus party.”

The goal of Centuria members is not secret. They “reserve the right” to use “any methods and means” to defeat the “internal enemy.”

From the Centuria website:
“For us, these are open separatists, the fifth column and politicians who work for the benefit of the Russian Federation. The goal of the Centurion is to make their activities impossible and their lives unbearable. We reserve the right to use any methods and means for this, because it is a question of the very existence of the Ukrainian Nation and State.

Human rights organizations have been calling for an end to violent attacks by Ukrainian paramilitaries for the last several years.

American corporate media ignored the publication of the George Washington University study, while the Ottawa Citizen did report on the scandal.

What does this all mean for Ukraine and NATO? Without fixing the corruption in Ukraine, the populace will continue to feel unprotected while the government receives billions from the U.S. taxpayer, clearly not passing on that assistance to the people of Ukraine, who are the second poorest in Europe.

That means more paramilitary forces marching the streets meting out their own brand of justice against minorities in the country, extrajudicial killings and torture by both pro-Russian and paramilitary Ukrainian squads, continued jockeying by oligarchs, and endless suffering for the Ukrainian and Russian people – while the war machine drones on.

Without addressing the virtual proxy war between NATO countries and Russia; the corruption behind the foundation of institutions in Ukraine, barbaric violence and widespread human suffering appear to be the only reality, with no end in sight.