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Ever since the new Ukrainian interim government was ushered into power on the 27th February,
Western governments have been very keen to offer it their support.
This is the United States' Secretary of State John Kerry visiting Kiev on the 4th March.
During that visit he announced an economic package and technical assistance for the new
government, with the potential for $1 billion worth of help in the form of loan guarantees.
And then last Friday, the 21st March, European Union leaders signed a deal with the new Ukrainian
prime minister Arseny Yatsenuk, committing to closer political and economic co-operation
with Ukraine. "Europe and America are united in our support
of the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people."
But so far there's been very little mention from western leaders of the far-right politicians
who make up a sizeable proportion of the new, 21-strong Ukrainian cabinet.
So we thought we'd give them a mention instead. For starters, several members of the new government,
including one of the new deputy prime ministers Oleksandr Sych, hail from the far-right nationalist
party Svoboda, meaning "freedom". The party's leader Oleh Tyahnybok has denied
claims that Svoboda is anti-Semitic, xenophobic, racist, or anti-Russian but the evidence would
appear to suggest otherwise. In the past Tyahnybok has called for Ukrainians
to fight against a "muscovite-Jewish mafia", and called on the government to halt the "criminal
activities" of "organised Jewry", while the party's stated aims include a requirement
for passports to specify the holder's nationality based on their birthplace, or the birthplace
of their parents, and for government positions to be distributed proportionally to ethnic
groups, based on their representation in the population at large.
Tyahnybok was one of the three most high-profile leaders of the Euromaiden opposition protests,
along with Vitali Klitschko and Arseny Yatsenuk, and all three can be seen here having dinner
with the US Senator John McCain back in December 2013.
And then there's this footage from the 18th March, which shows a group of men breaking
into the office of the chief executive of Ukraine's state television company, Oleksandr
Panteleymonov, and forcing him to sign a resignation letter.
The men, who are all members of Svoboda, accused Panteleymonov of broadcasting "pro-Russian"
images. And the man with the ponytail who can be seen
assaulting Panteleymonov in this footage is actually a Svoboda MP named Igor Miroshnichenko.
The same man, coincidentally, who sparked international outrage back in December 2012
after calling the actress Mila Kunis a "zhydovka" a term referring to a Jewish woman that is
considered anti-Semitic by many people. Miroshnichenko might not be a member of the
new government himself, but he is a member of the new parliamentary committee on freedom
of speech. And given that he belongs to the same party as several members of the new government,
not to mention the new acting prosecutor-general, whose office is now reportedly investigating
Miroshnichenko's assault on Panteleymonov, the incident is throwing up lots of questions
about who it is that Europe and the US are supporting.
First up, as we've already mentioned, is Oleksandr Sych, one of two deputy prime ministers to
the cabinet's first deputy prime minister Vitaly Yarema.
Sych is an anti-abortion activist and once publicly suggested that women should "lead
the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of ***, including one from drinking alcohol
and being in controversial company". Ahem.
Also in there is Ihor Shvaika, the new agriculture minister, and Andriy Mokhnyk, the deputy head
of Svoboda, who's running ecology. And until yesterday, the 25th March, the position
of acting defence minister was also held by a Svoboda member, Ihor Tenyukh. Tenyukh has
since been dismissed by the Ukrainian parliament however, after coming under fire for the military's
slow response to the Russian invasion of Crimea. But it's not just Svoboda that's giving the
new Ukrainian government an undeniably far-right dimension.
There's also Andriy Parubiy, the new national security chief. Although Parubiy is now a
member of the Fatherland party, to which the prime minister Arseny Yatsenuk also belongs
to, he was once the co-founder of Svoboda's predecessor, the Social National Party of
Ukraine. This was essentially a fascist party, styled
on Hitler's Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.
And then there's Dmitry Yarosh, the country's new deputy national security leader.
Yarosh heads a militant ultra-right-wing group named Pravivy Sektor, or "Right Sector", that
was blamed for much of the violence during the recent anti-government protests that led
to the ousting of former President Viktor Yanukovich. Including the throwing of molotov
cocktails and rocks at police. You might remember that Yarosh is also the
man who recently threatened to destroy the Russian Trans-Siberian gas pipeline that travels
through Ukraine - and supplies Europe with the majority of its gas imports.
And, adding to the controversy surrounding Yarosh's government position, was the news
yesterday that a senior figure within his Right Sector party, Aleksandr Muzychko, had
been shot dead during a special forces operation. According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry,
Muzychko had been involved in a shoot-out with police who had come to arrest him and
fellow ultra-nationalists. These photos being circulated online are alleged
to show his corpse. But it's not just the right-wing elements
of Ukraine's interim government that have been causing controversy at the moment.
Prime Minister Yatsenuk's Fatherland party was having a pretty bad PR day of it yesterday
following a leaked phone recording that is alleged to show the party's former leader
and the former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko saying, among other things, "One
has to take up arms and go wipe out these damn 'katsaps' together with their leader,"
referring to the Russian people, and that she would get "the whole world to rise up
so that not even scorched earth would be left of Russia".
And discussing the fate of Ukraine's 8 million ethnic Russians, Tymoshenko is also alleged
to say that they should be "nuked". Tymoshenko, who was only released from jail
last month after being imprisoned on what her supporters say were politically motivated
charges, has confirmed the authenticity of the phone call but claims that parts of it
have been edited. Well as always, you can let us know your thoughts
on all of this in the comments below, and we'll see you again next time.