19 May 2013

More on academic fraudster Taras Kuzio

In the same article in The Ukrainian Weekly, Kuzio writes:


Why would Kuzio call Chayka "a patriot"? He was clearly a clearly self-confessed neo-Nazi, member of the extreme right Sich ("Слава і честь", Glory and Honour) group. (See also this interersting post.)

Chayka was killed on 17 April 2009, when he and his 14 neo-Nazi friends attacked a group of 5 anti-fascists in Odessa. The anti-fascists had to defend themselves and one of them stabbed Chayka. This information is confirmed by Vyacheslav Likhachev, one of the best specialists on the Ukrainian extreme right and a leading expert at the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress. In particular, Likhachev writes (scroll down for the translation in English):

Погибший, Максим Чайка, быстро стал героически-жертвенным символом не только для неонацистской среды, но и в довольно широких национал-демократических кругах – благодаря не соответствующему действительности, но обнародованному довольно оперативно одесской «Просвитой» (руководитель которой, Александр Иванченко [на самом деле Степанченко], является также председателем одесской городской организации Всеукраинского объединения «Свобода») информационному сообщению, что молодой активист украинской патриотической организации был убит в результате нападения вооруженных боевиков одной из пророссийских организаций.

Deceased Maksym Chayka swiftly became a heroic sacrificial symbol not only for the whole neo-Nazi scene, but also for the wide national-democratic circles, thanks to the incorrect, but promptly disseminated notice that the young activist of the Ukrainian patriotic organisation had been killed in the attack of armed fighters from one of the pro-Russian organisations. The notice was disseminated by the Odessa "Prosvita" organisation, whose head, Aleksandr Ivachenko [in fact, Stepanchenko], is also a head of the Odessa city organisation of the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" (Svoboda).
So Kuzio is echoing the far right propaganda of the Svoboda party. The anti-fascist (without the quotation marks!), who had killed Chayka, was neither a Russian nationalist nor member of the Rodina (Motherland) party. This is far right propaganda, which Kuzio decided - for some particular reason - to circulate.

The extreme right groups still stage marches to commemorate Chayka, under the flags of the Svoboda party:

Is Kuzio aligned with the Ukrainian extreme right?


  1. I do not know exactly the background of Kuzio, he might have been raised in an nationalist environment of the North American Ukrainian diaspora, and therefore might harbour some sympathies towards nationalists. Also do not forget how influenced the diaspora is by events happening in Galicia. Svoboda has quite a following in North America. Kuzio might just be a victim of this environment.

  2. Kuzio is not a victim, but one of the architects of this environment. Born into a Ukrainian émigré family in the UK, he became closely affiliated with the CIA-funded, Banderite-staffed Prolog Research and Publishing Corporation and the Prolog's offspring, the Ukrainian Press Agency in Great Britain. He is characterized as a"veteran of CIA-backed Banderite organizations in exile" in the EIR Research Team report. and draws on his personal experience of collaboration with the Ukrainian ultranationalist organisations in several of his publications. The citation is taken from http://goo.gl/2j7q7D

    1. "The EIR Research Team" is an arm of Lyndon LaRouche's fascist movement and cannot be trusted/seriously taken.

  3. The CIA sponsorship of Prolog is well known and acknowledged by the Ukrainian diaspora scholars, including Kuzio himself. See his US support for Ukraine’s liberation during the Cold War: a study of Prolog Research and Publishing Corporation, in Communist and Post-Communist Studies, no. 45, 2012. Cf. also http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/assessing-the-prolog-legacy/
    The wsws site, admittedly a radical left, carries this material: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/06/10/fasc-j10.html?view=article_mobile
    I guess when both the radical right/allegedly fascist LaRouche and the radical left WSWS agree on the same thing, there must be something to it.

    1. One thing is an academic study, the other - references to far left or far right loonies.

