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Written by Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
Moscow is currently investigating the possibility that Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings could be involved in financing terrorism networks. The company is well known for its ties to Hunter Biden, the son of the incumbent American president. Western media has mostly ridiculed the claim as a priori ludicrous.
Larry C. Johnson, a former analyst at the US Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) turned political commentator, has highlighted the fact that Joseph Cofer Black, a former top CIA official and ex-Blackwater vice chairman also happens to have served on Burisma’s board.
Burisma Holdings Limited was a Kyiv based holding company for a group of energy companies, having operated in Ukraine’s natural gas market from 2002 until being dissolved last year. It was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a Ukrainian oligarch wanted for attempting to bribe prosecutors and under investigation for shady deals involving Burisma. The intricate story has been haunting the Bidens (a 2019 Reuters story is titled “Ukraine agency says allegations against Burisma cover period before Biden joined”).
It is a well-known fact that the US-led West has amply employed terrorist groups as proxies for geopolitical purposes – the CIA has often played a major role in this. No one disputes that. We are not just talking about Cold War era facts. Such was precisely the case in Syria as well as in Libya where the Americans have time and time again funded and aided the most violent and radicalized rebel groups. Already in 1991, Graham H. Stuart, who was a Stanford University Professor of Political Science Emeritus, wrote that the terrorism of American enemies actually paled in comparison to Western sponsored terror – which remains true to this day.
So much as talked about “state sponsors of terrorism”, but the truth is that there is no global terrorism without money laundering and Western banks as well as private corporations. Let us keep that in mind.
When it comes to Ukraine, I recently wrote on how its connections to terror and extremism would inevitably invite further scrutiny amid today’s information war, after all the West has supported violent extremism in that country for a decade.
Back in 2015, no less than Andrew E. Kramer (the New York Times Kyiv bureau chief) was reporting on the presence of a radicalized Islamic volunteer battalion, “stocked with Chechens”, collaborating with the Ukrainian far-right militias in Mariupol and in the disputed border regions: “the Ukrainians welcome backing even from Islamic militants from Chechnya”, he wrote. In his words, “the city [Mariupol] has come to rely on an assortment of right-wing and Islamic militias for its defense… The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia.”
The aforementioned report casually noted, in 2015, that the Azov groups is “openly neo-Nazi, using the ‘Wolf’s Hook’ symbol associated with the SS” and, mentioning a source, added that “[the Chechen] said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they love their homeland and hate the Russians.”
As recently as April 2022, Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSAI) own handbook on international terrorism labeled the aforementioned Ukrainian Azov Brigade (originally the Azov Battalion) as a far-right neo-Nazi organization. This radical volunteer militia was formally incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard on 11 November 2014. Such labeling was removed by Japan on April 9, 2022, presumably after much political pressure for obvious reasons. Similarly, in March 2022, a CNN report on the Azov group was titled: “A far-right battalion has a key role in Ukraine’s resistance. Its neo-Nazi history has been exploited by Putin.”
A Time Magazine 2021 story on the same organization in turn was titled “Like, Share, Recruit: How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members.” It described Ukraine as a new hub for far-right activity, noting that “It might seem ironic for this hub of white nationalists to be situated in Ukraine. At one point in 2019, it was the only nation in the world, apart from Israel, to have a Jewish President and a Jewish… But in the context of the white-supremacist movement globally, Azov has no rivals on two important fronts: its access to weapons and its recruiting power.” The story quotes Isaac Kfir, a Charles Sturt University Professor and part of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law advisory board, who warned that the Eastern European country had the potential to become “the Syria of the extreme right.” His analogy refers, of course, to the fact that during its civil war Syria became a hub for international terrorists – many of them, by the way, funded and armed by Washington and Western great powers, which is much the case with the infamous ISIS terror group.
Ukraine (which has the third highest criminality score of 33 countries in Europe) is not just “a longtime hub of arms trafficking”, as Washington Post reporter John Hudson described the country in May 2022. It is also a global hotspot for extremism and terrorism, which in itself is hardly surprising: the two things often come together – often with the aid of private companies and banks. Of course, each concrete case entails proper investigation, but in this overall context, is it really preposterous to imagine that holding companies involved in shady deals with Western powerful families and former CIA officials could play a role in aiding terror groups somehow? Honestly, I would be surprised if they didn’t. Anything else is naivety.
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stop talking and hit wef and their “global leader” terrorists. unless russian government are race traitors like mostly every other government on planet earth.
i agree.
every facts says their prestandards are very low. they only a bit better then the fatal errors in ukraine
temping to ukraine is 36 mio and crime in russia hit some 140 mio. usa is extrimely low and need reforms.
its not terrorism when we do it! besides, who cares, president biden is the best man for the job!
he will drive those eurotard nazis in their ruin, and then we americans will reap all the benefits with “rebuilding europe”! oh the cashflow will be magnificent, and those eurotard sheeple do it willingly to themself!
🤡 😆😆😆
thats no news but thinner and thinner suop for the russia people.
pathetic to bring potus at number one at the picture.
as western am gratefull the courtsystem is in action and for/against presidents children. focus should be on systems often works even its slow.
the rest is non sober in the same way. it not mentioned that zelinsky has fired handfull of crimemakers in his top and war with needs make illegal activity itselv. the that there is no time for cleaning the the high rank systematic ussr structures by corruption, oligarc power and mafia semilar.
the socalled article as ususal dont mention mention the demands from fx eu about it but always mention us hostile to russian and people there are a nato thing crowded with nazis.
and cleaning at home. russia is 112 best of 148 mentioned real countries.🙈👩🦽🙉🦽🐵🧑🦽
reading the excuses you danish nazi produces daily is hillarious! no wonder we have such an easy time puppeteering you eurotards around!
guillable clowns! 🤡 😆😆😆
you need glasses or more.
there is not single excuse in those 3(4) comments.
you are retarded your is it just a miserable english?
and the lame duck are you 🦆🦆🦆 – a spelling control program only
both. just read him for a week and you’ll see it. that’s why i stopped wasting my time reading his crap. sarcastic answers to him about his lgbt habits have more common sense.
it seemes to be your level only able to spell using lawers and doctors english.
o iq wrote it.
“-my son hunter is the most intelligent man i know”.
yeah, we call him “smartass” too, but not for high iq.