Boutique Ukrainian law firm T&M has launched an appalling new service allowing residents of Western European countries to “cleanse Europe of rashists,” a reference to the derogatory neologism used by officials in Kiev, which combines the words “Russian” and “fascist.”

Titled “give in charge rashist” (apparently a bad translation of the Ukrainian title “turn in a rashist”), the webportal invites visitors who are “tired of potential invaders living near you” to “let us know and we will try to solve this issue in the legal field.”

“We are a team of lawyers who decided to use legal methods to cleanse Europe of potential invaders,” the site explains. “No one will know who surrendered the rashist. It's completely free. You pay nothing, but you get a bonus to karma. You are making a personal contribution to a peaceful future.”

Reporting a “possible aggressor” is said to be “easy.” Concerned citizens can easily use a form to anonymously submit the names and social media accounts of Russian citizens living in any European country, who may be “potentially dangerous” and a “carrier of propaganda and violence.”

In return, the Lviv-based T&M “do everything to ensure that the relevant European authorities check the legality of such a person's stay in Europe,” and ”send a corresponding statement to the state authorities of the country in which the presence of a potentially dangerous rashist was reported.” The obvious desired end result is that the Russian in question will be arrested and deported, or perhaps even worse.

A disclaimer at the bottom of the page states the service “is not intended to incite ethnic, racial, religious or other enmity,” and only serves to bring its stated targets “to justice.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/30/ukrainian-law-firm-runs-a-campaign-targeting-and-hunting-ordinary-russians-in-western-europe/

The head of the country’s radiation protection office says the Ukraine conflict could cause a wide range of catastrophes

Residents in Germany must make preparations for nuclear emergencies, the President of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Inge Paulini, warned on Wednesday.

In an interview with Funke media group newspapers, Paulini pointed out that “radiation does not stop at the borders,” and claimed that the ongoing military conflict between Moscow and Kiev has “made it clear to the general public that we have to be and remain prepared for a wide variety of nuclear emergencies.”

Russia has repeatedly insisted that it does not intend to use atomic weapons in Ukraine and has referred to its nuclear doctrine which only allows the use of such munitions in a retaliatory fashion or in the case the country is faced with an existential threat from conventional warfare.

Paulini also criticized Germany’s neighbors who have not phased out nuclear energy from their power grid. “On the contrary, many of our neighboring countries are planning new power plants,” she said, warning of the risks of accidents at these facilities, which could affect all of Europe.

Germany in recent years has launched an initiative to wean itself off of nuclear energy, with the country’s Green Party pointing to the potentially catastrophic risks associated with producing it. The nation only has three operational nuclear power plants remaining after MPs voted in November to extend their operations until April 2023 in light of the ongoing energy crisis in Europe.

Meanwhile, vice president of the Bundestag and FDP member Wolfgang Kubicki has blasted the government’s refusal to revise its overall approach to nuclear power plants and has warned of a potential default unless something is done to address the energy crisis.

“We don’t want gas and oil supplies from Russia any more, at the same time our ‘green’ friends are restarting coal-fired power plants, while preventing a reasonable extension of the life of nuclear power plants,” Kubicki said earlier this week.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/30/germany-tell-residents-to-prepare-for-nuclear-emergencies/

Ukraine’s corrupt oligarchs have diverted much of the financial support sent to Kiev

Since the beginning of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, the US, EU, and their allies have provided Kiev with $126 billion worth of aid, a number almost equal to the country’s entire GDP. Moreover, millions of Ukrainians have found refuge in the EU, where they were given housing, food, work permits, and emotional support. The scope is huge, even by Western standards. Considering that the bloc has been funding Kiev while coping with an economic and energy crisis of its own, the assistance is perhaps especially notable.

Kiev bases its endless funding requests on the collapse of its economy, due to the war, and its need to “resist Russian aggression.” But is the aid reaching its intended destination?

While Ukraine has undergone a general mobilization affecting all men under the age of 60, many former and current high-ranking officials, politicians, businessmen, and oligarchs have moved to safety abroad – mainly to the EU.

The mass flight of Ukrainian elites started even prior to the armed conflict. On February 14, 2022, 37 deputies from the Ukrainian president’s parliamentary faction (Servant of the People) suddenly went missing. Had MPs not been banned from leaving the country the very next day, others would have definitely joined them. Meanwhile, former officials and oligarchs enjoyed more freedom to move around. According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, 20 business jets took off from Kiev’s Boryspol airport on the 14th as well.

Tycoons were at the front of the line. Entrepreneur and MP Vadim Novinsky, businessmen Vasily Khmelnitsky and Vadim Stolar, Vadim Nesterenko, and Andrey Stavnitzer all left the country on charter flights. Millionaire politician Igor Abramovich booked a private flight to Austria for 50 people – taking relatives, business partners, and fellow party members aboard. Oligarchs flew from Kiev to Nice, Munich, Vienna,  Cyprus, and other EU destinations. Another group of businessmen took off from Odessa on private planes. The owner of Vostok Bank departed for Israel, while the head of the Transship group flew to Limassol. An ex-governor of the Odessa region, Stalkanat’s Vladimir Nemirovsky, also left the country.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/25/war-for-some-bentleys-for-others-as-americans-send-aid-ukraines-corrupt-elites-are-profiting-from-the-conflict/

The news cycle has been dominated by coverage of the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, the arrest of its 30 year old founder Sam Bankman Fried and his unexplainable release on a 250 million dollar bond.

The crash of FTX has shaken the crypto market, lost institutional investors billions – and individual customers millions – led to official investigations of FTX in several countries, and made some question whether the Bitcoin sphere might crash and burn outright, and perhaps cause wider problems for the financial system.

Some take the view that FTX was a fraud all along, ever since its launch in April 2019. If that’s the case, it has grave implications for the US Democratic Party and Ukrainian government, as the company’s corrupt activity may have been used to fund both, openly and secretly.

Where’s the money, Zelensky?

On March 14, FTX launched a new online portal for cryptocurrency donations, Aid for Ukraine, in partnership with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. Through this, crypto traders, both large and small, could donate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which FTX would convert into cash for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to spend on weapons and other war-related expenses.

Very rapidly, the fund claimed to have amassed “over” $60 million in donations. By April 14, it was reported that just over $45.15 million of that sum had been splurged on digital rifle scopes, thermal imagers, monoculars, rations, armor, helmets, military clothing, tactical backpacks, fuel, communication devices, laptops, drones, medical supplies, and a “worldwide anti-war media campaign.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/25/is-there-a-link-between-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-aid-to-ukraine-and-the-democratic-party/

Kiev’s demand for weapons and ammunition has outstripped the available supply The fighting in Ukraine has “exposed flaws in US strategic planning” and “revealed significant gaps” in the US and NATO military industrial base, the Washington Post reported on Friday. As Kiev’s forces consume more ammunition than the West can produce, the Pentagon seeks to cope by training them to fight more like Americans. “Stocks of many key weapons and munitions are near exhaustion, and wait times for new production of missiles stretches for months and, in some cases, years,” the Post noted, as part of a narrative about how the US has funneled some $20 billion in military aid to Kiev just this year. Only $6 billion of that has been in new weapons contracts, while the rest came from the Pentagon stockpiles. The US military-industrial complex can make about 14,000 rounds of ammunition for the 155-mm howitzers, the Post quoted US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, while Ukrainian forces go through about 6,000 a day during heavy fighting. The US military-industrial complex is “in pretty poor shape right now,” Seth Jones of the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told the Post. “We are really low… and we’re not even fighting,” Jones said, adding that in scenarios where the US is facing China or Russia in a conventional conflict, “we don’t make it past four or five days in a war game before we run out of precision missiles.” Washington’s allies in Europe are in similar shape, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Michal Strnad, owner of a Czech ammunition conglomerate, said Ukraine chews through 40,000 rounds a month, while all of the European NATO members put together can produce 300,000 a year. “European production capacity is grossly inadequate,” Strnad said, adding that it would take up to 15 years to restock at current production rates, if the conflict were to somehow end tomorrow. Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and its allies that shipments of increasingly modern and long-range weapons could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, and accused the West of prolonging the conflict and causing civilian deaths in Ukraine. While Western officials have demanded a ramp-up of production for months, recent EU legislation blocked many investments into weapons manufacturing by designating it “not sustainable,” according to the Journal. Germany is now in the process of funding a factory in Romania that could produce both NATO and Soviet-caliber ammunition for Ukraine. The Pentagon is trying to deal with the problem by training Ukrainian troops to “fight more like Americans” and use different tactics, according to the Post. “I think if we can train larger formations — companies, battalions — on how to employ fires, create conditions for maneuver, and then be able to maneuver like you’ve seen [the US military] maneuver on the battlefield, then I think we’re in a different place.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/24/nato-armies-drained-by-ukraine-conflict-media/

Members of Congress who declined to stand and applaud on cue for Ukraine’s leader have been branded as traitors, Matt Gaetz says

Vladimir Zelensky’s speech to Congress on Wednesday night was a “North Korea-style act” in which US lawmakers were expected to stand and clap for the Ukrainian president or be branded as traitors, Representative Matt Gaetz has claimed.

Gaetz (Florida) was among several Republicans, including Representatives Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Lauren Boebert (Colorado), who were called out by Newsweek and other media outlets for remaining seated while other lawmakers gave Zelensky multiple standing ovations. GOP Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and others who didn’t attend the Ukrainian leader’s latest appeal for additional aid to fight Russia were also criticized.

“When we say you shouldn’t send endless amounts of money to this place where we’re exacerbating death and conflict, it’s like we’re traitors to the movement because Lauren Boebert and I didn’t stand up in some sort of North Korea-style performance,” Gaetz said on Thursday night in a Fox News interview.

Historian and NBC News contributor Michael Beschloss was among the media figures who condemned those who weren’t sufficiently enthusiastic about Zelensky’s visit to Washington. He demanded to know “exactly why” some members of Congress refused to clap. “I’d like to know why that was for two reasons,” he said on MSNBC. “Number one: You’re a public servant, we’re allowed to know those things. You’re supposed to tell us if you’re serving in Congress what the reason was. Do you love Putin, or are you just opposed to democracy, or is there something else?”

On Thursday, the Senate passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that included nearly $45 billion in new funding for Ukraine. Congress has now approved about $100 billion for US assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its military offensive against Kiev in February.

Gaetz speculated that congressional leaders saw Zelensky’s visit to Washington as “air cover” for an “indefensible” spending bill. “I feel no compunction to go out and applaud some foreign leader from a historically corrupt country who is begging for more than the $100 billion that the Congress has already set to send them.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/24/us-lawmaker-calls-zelenskys-speech-a-north-korea-style-act/

A cursory look at the documents regarding the foundation of the Ukrainian state would make it appear quite European and democratic, which is exactly the reason why many might have dismissed Vladimir Putin’s talk about neo-Nazis in Ukraine as rhetoric and propaganda. The truth, however, is much more complicated and cannot be summarized by saying "Ukrainian president is Jewish, and thus all allegations are untrue".

Tell me who your heroes are, and I will tell you who you are

One historical figure who has emerged as a hero in post-Maidan Ukraine is Stepan Bandera, a leader and ideologist of the militant wing of the far-right Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Today, there are streets named after him, people sing songs in his honor and carry his portrait.

Born in Galicia (at the time part of Austria-Hungary) on January 1, 1909, Stepan Bandera was tried on terrorism charges in Poland on multiple occasions. In 1934, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He served his sentence until 1939, when he was released following the German invasion of Poland.

Bandera spent his younger years building a career in nationalist organizations. In 1928, he joined the Ukrainian Military Organization, and in 1929, he became a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists where he quickly gained influence. He was instrumental in the split of the organization into two factions in February 1940. Bandera became the leader of the more radical OUN-B, while more moderate members supported Andriy Melnyk's OUN-M.

Both factions supported Hitler’s Third Reich and collaborated with the Germans during WWII. Bandera personally negotiated the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command that was finally organized as two units. One, commanded by Roman Shukhevych became known as Nachtigall Battalion, and the other, commanded by Richard Yary, was the Roland Battalion. Both were the subunits under command of the Abwehr (the German military-intelligence service) special operation unit Brandenburgers.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/25/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-nazi-influence-in-modern-day-ukraine/

Juan Sinmiedo, who runs a popular Telegram channel documenting human rights abuses in Ukraine, published an explosive interview with ‘Boneface’ – real name Kent McLellan – a 32-year-old Neo-Nazi from Florida who joined the fascist volunteer Right Sector group during the Donbass war, and returned to fight alongside the Azov Battalion in January 2022.

The discussion with McLellan shatters many myths and lies that have been circulated about the Maidan coup, the current conflict in Ukraine, and the disturbingly strong influence of nationalist movements within the country.

McLellan, the son of the front man of Neo-Nazi rock band Brutal Attack, got involved with far-right activism while just a teenager, and had numerous run-ins with the law for subversive, racially-charged activities. He and other members of the racist organization American Front were detained by the FBI in May 2012, for preparing terrorist acts against ethnic minorities in Florida.

It was this background that led him to travel to Ukraine in 2014. The American fascist circles he moved in had direct links and regular contact with nationalist groups at the forefront of the Maidan, which at the time were hosting large public events “nearly daily in every Oblast that wasn't seeing war.” As did far-right movements in many other nearby countries, including Finland, Georgia, and Latvia.

It seems the US government approved of the presence of McLellan and others in Ukraine at that time. He says he got caught – it’s not clear by whom or what – teaching Ukrainians DNS poisoning, and the Americans “wanted to sit in and help.”

“They didn't want names or anything, but they wanted to monitor the situation. Without this backing I would've been charged with violation of [the] American neutrality act,” McLellan claims.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://freedomreportage.com/2022/12/25/all-the-real-skinheads-went-to-ukraine-an-american-neo-nazi-outlines-the-crimes-of-his-ukrainian-colleagues/

The Ukrainian leader promised to handle American taxpayer dollars “in the most responsible way” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky arrived in Washington in what US media described as a secretly arranged visit, though word of it was leaked to select outlets on Tuesday. He is expected to address Congress in the evening, urging the passage of a $1.7 trillion spending bill that includes $45 billion earmarked for Ukraine in 2023. In a video released on Tuesday, he said Ukraine was grateful for all the aid from the West but it was “not enough.” A battery of Patriot air defense missiles is among the $1.85 billion in military aid for Ukraine the Pentagon announced earlier in the day, though Biden pointed out that training Ukrainian troops to operate them, which is to take place at a US base in Germany, is “going to take some time.” Zelensky said that once the Patriots arrive, he will ask Biden for more of them. Zelensky addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, urging US lawmakers to drop all their disagreements and unite behind Ukraine, while advocating for the passage of a $1.7 trillion spending bill that includes $45 billion in military and other aid earmarked for Kiev in 2023. The Pentagon has disclosed that the US has sent $20 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine just this year. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu noted earlier on Wednesday that Kiev has already received more than $97 billion worth of weapons and ammunition, and that Russia was already fighting the entire West. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asked all members to attend in person to hear the “historic” speech, which Zelensky delivered in English, repeatedly interrupted by standing ovations. After several minutes of applause, the former actor opened his speech by thanking “all those who value freedom and justice.” “It gives me great pleasure to share our first joint victory: We defeated Russia in the minds of the world,” the Ukrainian leader claimed. He thanked US lawmakers for supporting Kiev financially and militarily against Moscow, but reiterated that more arms are needed to defeat Russia on the battlefield. “We have artillery, yes, thank you… Is it enough? Honestly, not really,” he said interrupted by a burst of laughter. “More cannons and shells are needed.” Zelensky called for unity ahead of a power transition that will put Republicans in charge of the House next year. US congressional support for Ukraine aid has been largely bipartisan, but Republicans have been increasingly critical of the scale of the spending and the lack of oversight to prevent fraud. “Your money is not charity. It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” Zelensky told the audience, to another standing ovation. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives narrowly rejected a bill that called for an audit of Washington’s economic and military assistance to Kiev. The massive scale of US military aid to Ukraine even reportedly put the Pentagon’s own law enforcement agency on high alert for black market sales of weaponry and other potential fraud. Welcoming Zelensky to the Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Pelosi said the mammoth $1.7 trillion spending bill, which contains $45 billion in new aid for Kiev, will “hopefully” be passed within the next 48 hours. Earlier in the day, Zelensky met with President Joe Biden, who promised him that the American people will continue to support Kiev “as long as it takes.” However, when pressed by a reporter at a joint press conference on why the US cannot simply give Ukraine “all capabilities it needs” right away, Biden said the West wants to avoid a direct war with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and its allies that shipments of increasingly modern and long-range weapons could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, and accused the West of prolonging the conflict and causing needless deaths in Ukraine.