Western countries may have been providing training to far-right extremists in the Ukrainian armed forces
Canada, the United States, France, Britain and other Western countries helped train far-right extremists in Ukraine, according to a report by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University published last month.
The report said members of a far-right organisation that seeks to rebuild Ukraine’s armed forces in line with its ideology, Centuria, received training in Western countries while studying at the NGFA (National Ground Forces Academy named after Petro Sahaydachny).
“The Centuria” describes itself as a military order of “European traditionalists” whose aim is to “defend” the “cultural and ethnic identity” of European peoples against “Brussels politicians and bureaucrats”, according to the report. The group is led by people with links to the far-right Ukrainian movement Azov. Members of the group have pictures with Nazi salute and are also noted to have made extremist statements online.
One of the leaders of Centuria wrote on VK in 2016 that Jews are the “destruction of humanity” and shared a post about Jews trying to “exclude Ukraine from world history and from the world map”. It’s funny, because current Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish.
The group claimed that its members took part in joint military exercises with France, the UK, Canada, the US, Germany and Poland. One member of the group, then – NGFA cadet Cyril Dubrovsky, completed an 11-month officer training course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK in 2020.
NGFA receives and has access to funding and training from a number of Western countries.
Canada’s defence attaché in Ukraine, Colonel Robert Foster, told IERES that Canada trusts Ukraine to vet recipients of Canadian training and that Canada will not train extremists.
“I think we’re at the point where if we find a Ukrainian who expresses or shows signs of that type of attitude, they will be suspended from any training that the Canadians will provide”, – Foster said.
One NGFA cadet was apparently recruited as a firearms instructor for an Azov-affiliated far-right group, which the United Jewish Community of Ukraine accused of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda in 2021. Academy cadets were also photographed saluting Nazis, despite the NGFA’s insistence on zero tolerance for extremism.
The IERES denied IERES information that Centuria operates on academy premises and stated that an investigation into the group’s alleged activities found no evidence of such activity. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has told IERES that it does not vet recruits and cadets for extremist views and affiliations, while several Western governments that train and arm Ukrainian troops have said Ukraine is responsible for vetting soldiers.
According to the report, about 20 people are involved in Centuria. Video and photos collected by the IERES show NGFA cadets posing with Centuria banners and wearing Centuria patches, as well as members of the organisation at political events.
A Centuria member told Ukrainian media outlet KP.ua in 2020 that the NGFA and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces “are aware of the existence of the Order and have not spoken out against efforts to form an elite core of officers”. He added that the Centuria had collaborated with a number of other military training institutions and units of the armed forces.
Centuria members have also apparently held events at the academy, including a lecture in 2018 at which a nationalist text written before World War II was recited.
“Centuria” encourages its members to move to specific units where members serve, and attracts new members through its Telegram channel, which has more than 1,200 subscribers. The organisation has become more secretive since IERES began monitoring its online presence in early 2019, switching through several Telegram channels and deactivating Facebook, Instagram and VK accounts.
The US Congress has banned the use of US funding to “provide weapons, training or other assistance to the Azov battalion”, meaning that Centuria, which has obvious links to the Azov movement, probably should not have received training subsidies that were allegedly received from the US.
“The failure of the Ukrainian military to verify Centuria’s activities speaks to the level of tolerance on their part for the apparent spread of far-right ideology and influence within the Ukrainian Armed Forces”, – warns the IERES report.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre (FSWC) called on Canada’s Ministry of National Defence to investigate in response to the report, saying:
“It is unacceptable that our armed forces are encouraging neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine or any other country by providing CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) training.”
“This is an issue of fundamental importance to the goals of the Canadian Armed Forces and to the respect we owe to our veterans who sacrificed so much to defeat fascism in Europe”, – the FSWC said. – “We call on the Department of National Defence to immediately launch an investigation into the evidence uncovered by the George Washington University study and develop new policies and procedures to ensure that all foreign trainees undergo some type of background check to rule out the possibility of neo-Nazi or other extremist affiliation before training with the Canadian Forces.”
The Jerusalem Post