When I received an invitation from Elliot Resnick, former editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn, New York-based Jewish Press to record a podcast devoted to the Ukraine-Russia war, I was delighted to have an opportunity to address an audience that, until his untimely death eighteen months ago, my comrade-in-arms and fellow expert on Russia professor Stephen Cohen had been talking to in his weekly radio broadcasts. Of course, Cohen’s radio programs were listened to by a far wider audience than the core Orthodox community reached by The Jewish Press: they numbered in the millions. But getting a foothold in New York was desirable for me since most alternative media outlets in the U.S. reposting my essays seem to be on the West Coast.
Here is the link to the newly released podcast by Resnick:
Live interviews like this are always a challenge. Inevitably you do not get across every argument you prepared in advance. In my mental review of our chat, I have one regret. Though I had requested to be asked about how the Kiev regime can be fascist when its president, Zelensky, is a Jew, I did not give the most relevant answer to that question when we spoke: namely the celebration of the SS-collaborator Bandera by the ultra-nationalists running the show through Zelensky as their front man.
Bandera’s name is being given to streets throughout Ukraine and statues are raised to him. Tattoos bearing Bandera’s image were found to be worn by the Azovstal defenders when they surrendered to Russian forces.
The whole issue of Bandera and the present day heirs to Ukraine’s collaborationists during WWII was highlighted last week by the scandal over remarks to a German journalist made by the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, Andriy Melnyk: he denied that Bandera was anti-Semitic or was in any way responsible for the slaughter of Jews in Ukraine by his followers. Those remarks elicited a storm of criticism from the Israeli government who called it willful disinformation about the Holocaust. Official Poland also entered the fray and with good reason: Poles were slaughtered by Bandera’s warriors as well. From within Scholz’s government, Germans were incensed. Yesterday Melnyk was removed as ambassador and returned to Kiev, where he likely will be promoted to the position of deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. This whole ugly affair is a good demonstration of the fascist nature of a government nominally headed by Zelensky.
Gilbert Doctorow is a Brussels-based political analyst. His latest book is Does Russia Have a Future? Reprinted with permission from his blog.
© Gilbert Doctorow, 2022
I really miss Stephen Cohen’s weekly discussions with John Batchelor. They were better than anything in the video or print media.
I agree. Cohen was first rate.
Years ago he spoke about all of these issues, and how it would play out. It is sad that he passed away (he had a great radio presence, too !), and even more tragic the blindness of the leaders that he described
And it was not only Maidan, Nuland, etc., which one hears a lot about nowadays from antiwar writers (quite rightly of course). They ranged far afield, talking intelligently about the Kurds, Turkey, Assad, Iran, and his home state of Kentucky. Batchelor, though unlike me a conservative, added a lot of insight, including on such things as the Assyrian community in the region and their history, in which he had family roots. It was great stuff. And Stephen wasn’t grinding some theoretical axe (like realism), his background studying Bukharin inoculated him from falling into ideological traps. He was a true scholar.
The Ambassador repeatedly called Bandera a freedom fighter in the filmed interview even when confronted with some brutal questions. Worth catching a subtitled version
He‘s jaw dropping anti-Semitic (talk about bad taste)
Also note this suggests Kiev regime is packed with such people, his post is a high visibility senior posting