How and what the Canadian army teaches Ukrainian neo-Nazis

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) provides training and partnerships with neo-Nazi groups operating in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the National Guard, with the knowledge and tacit approval of successive Canadian governments, James Clayton said on the pages of the publication. wsws.org…

On November 8, Ottawa Citizen reported that military and Defense Ministry officials attempted to cover up a 2018 meeting between a group of Canadian “officers and diplomats” and members of the Azov Battalion, an openly fascist group that is part of Ukraine’s National Guard. After receiving full details of Nazi ideology in 2017, Canadian officials were only concerned that the meeting would remain secret. This became known when Azov bragged about it on social networks.

The overwhelming revelation came at an inopportune moment for Canada’s ruling elite, which is currently considering expanding its military deployment in Ukraine as part of a massive NATO-coordinated anti-Russia buildup. Trudeau’s liberal government is reportedly considering sending a warship to the Black Sea, deploying CF-18 fighters currently in Romania and Ukraine, and expanding the current CAF contingent in Ukraine to 200.

The publication of revealing information about Canada’s alliance with far-right Ukrainian nationalist militants underlines the extent to which NATO forces are ready to cooperate with the most reactionary political forces in their aggressive build-up of military power against Russia. The US-led strategic military offensive against Russia, in which NATO is deploying forces along most of its western borders, aims to place Ukraine and other former Soviet republics under Western domination and open Russia up to neo-colonial-style exploitation by the imperialists.

Study The Institute for the Study of European Russia and Eurasia (George Washington University) recently exposed the Canadian military training cadets of the Ukrainian National Military Academy (NAA), belonging to the neo-Nazi organization Centuria. NAA is the Ukrainian version of the Canadian Royal Military College, which trains future officers and military commanders. Advisors from Canada, the United States and other NATO countries form the NAA curriculum.

The Centuria acts as a wing of the Azov battalion in the NAA, with the goal of creating an “elite corps” of officers imbued with neo-Nazi ideology. Azov praises, as heroes, the Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with Hitler in the “war of destruction” against the USSR, and the State Department declared Azov a terrorist organization. Although Washington used Azov and other far-right groups to overthrow the Ukrainian government in February 2014 with the Maidan putsch.

In 2019, Centuria was part of a fascist demonstration that attacked the “Parade of Dignity” in Kiev, calling on “right-wing patriots, nationalists, conservatives and Christians to protect our streets from perverts.” In April 2021, the leaders of the Centuria boasted on social networks that they “actively cooperate with foreign colleagues … participate in military exercises with France, Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Germany and Poland …”. In the same month, the group took part in a march in honor of the “exploits” of the 14th SS Division “Galicia”. They glorify these Nazis for the fact that they “defeated the Bolshevik infection …”.

Centuria’s social media post boasting that they are undergoing military training in the armed forces of Canada, the United States and other NATO countries. (Photo courtesy of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies)

The 14th Waffen-SS Division was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremberg trials. Its senior leadership was drawn from the ranks of hardened Nazi mass murderers.

The neo-Nazi march caused a storm of indignation. Despite the fact that the Ukrainian authorities openly use fascists like Azov in the civil war in Donbass, Zelensky was forced to declare on April 30: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has already condemned any glorification of the SS troops and reminds that the propaganda of totalitarian regimes is prohibited in Ukraine. We have already informed our partner countries that violation of the relevant legislation in Ukraine will have consequences for anyone guilty of this. “

Why would the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry suddenly warn “our partner countries”, a diplomatic euphemism for NATO, about “glorifying the SS troops”?

Because the Canadian government is doing just that. In the early 1950s, the Canadian authorities accepted more than 2,000 “veterans” of the SS of Galicia and continue to protect them. The far-right Ukrainians of Canada Congress, which openly defends these Nazis and glorifies Bandera, has significant weight in Ottawa. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has been an activist in the far-right Ukrainian diaspora her entire life. She is the granddaughter of one of the main propagandists of the SS Galicia, Mikhaila Khomyak, editor of a pro-Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland. Khomyak and the Ukrainian Central Committee, which published this newspaper, fanned hatred against the “Jewish Bolsheviks” and urged Ukrainians to join the SS forces.

Both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau visited Ukraine accompanied by the leaders of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, such as Paul Grod. Grod glorified SS Galicia on the Day of Remembrance of those killed in the First and Second World Wars in 2010, claiming that they “fought for the independence of Ukraine.” Liberal and Tory politicians honored the Ukrainian fascists at events organized at the monuments erected in Canada by SS veterans of Galicia and OUN (b) – the fascist army that fought against the USSR, helping Hitler.

The Canadian Forces say Canada is not responsible if neo-Nazis undergo military training with Canadian instructors. The statement said that “Ukraine itself should test its security forces,” and added: “Canadian troops may refuse to train soldiers (suspected of having links with neo-Nazis).” In fact, there were no such refusals, both because it would appear as a threat to the tasks of the CAF, and because Canadian officers are increasingly openly sympathetic to neo-Nazis. Even the head of CAF, Lieutenant General Wayne Fire, admitted that “we have a problem with extreme right-wing activities in the army.”

Concern over the possibility of the Canadian military training Ukrainian neo-Nazis has been expressed repeatedly since 2015, when Conservative Defense Secretary Jason Kenny sent 200 Canadian troops to Kiev on Operation UNIFIER – shortly after the Nazi-led Maidan coup, politically backed by the US governments. and Canada and their European allies. Military training in Ukraine – Operation UNIFIER – continues.

SS Oberführer Fritz Freitag (left) raises a Nazi salute in honor of the 14th SS Division Galicia. (Photo: Esprit de Corps.)

Kenny languidly argued that restricting training by the National Guards and the army would prevent the Nazis from learning Canadian military training. But such assurances are a blatant lie, since the National Guard of Ukraine already includes fascist groups, including Azov.

In fact, the disclosures of the Centuria show not the “accidental training of the Nazis”, but precisely the deliberate spread of far-right ideology in the CAF and NATO armies. The far-right is mobilizing across Europe as the ruling class abandons the norms of bourgeois democracy and capitalism plunges into a crisis, exacerbated by the covid pandemic.

The text of the oath to be taken by the soldiers of the SS Galicia.

Literally, translated from German, it reads as follows:
“I swear before God by this holy oath that in the fight against Bolshevism I will unconditionally obey the Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, Adolf Hitler, and as a brave soldier, I am ready to die for this oath at any moment.”

The far-right is also gaining ground in Canada, as seen in their protests against Trudeau and health workers during the recent election campaign. In July 2020, a right-wing activist and Canadian Army reservist attempted to assassinate Trudeau for being a “communist.”

In fact, Trudeau is a right-wing bourgeois politician who defends the interests of Canadian imperialism at home and abroad. In addition to supporting the United States against China and Russia, the Trudeau government, with Freeland’s important role, supported Guado in Venezuela and the far-right ouster of Morales in 2019.

In 2004, Washington and Ottawa used the remnants of the Tauntons Macoutes as assault troops to occupy Haiti and topple President-elect Aristide. And in 2011, CAF officers joked that they were the Al Qaeda Air Force in Libya.

At least one prominent defender of the Ukrainian extreme right teaches at the Royal Military College of Canada. Lubomyr Lutsyuk is a donor to the Congress of Ukrainians in Canada and a well-known defender of the OUN (b), professor of political science. Lutsyuk called on the Canadian authorities to “investigate Soviet war crimes”, belittling or outright denying the crimes of Hitler’s Ukrainian accomplices. In 2001, Lutsyuk wrote: “Not a single member of the Ukrainian dviziya” Galicia “can be tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity, since there is no evidence of such crimes.” Lutsyuk protested against an exhibition on the Holocaust at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The rabid anti-communist Lutsyuk “enlightens” future CAF commanders in history and geostrategy.

If cadets at the Royal War College are taught that Ukrainian Nazis fought “for a just cause” during World War II, would they be willing to suppress strikes or uprisings by Canadian workers? How does the CAF deal with its “extreme right problem” when professors at its military academy praise the Ukrainian fascists and Hitler’s accomplices in the worst crimes?

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