A Deliberately Forgotten Episode in Ukraine

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/05/04/how-bob-parry-covered-odessa-fire-that-sparked-a-war/

This is not only a mostly forgotten episode but one crucial to understand the complex of events and motives that led to Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This is not to justify Putin's actions. Rather the story in this case is the need for harsh condemnation of Western media which refused to seriously cover this event (and similar stories) and revisit them during the lead up to Putin's invasion. To this day, the statements of his government have never been taken seriously and when sound bytes are played or recounted out of context the purpose is to suggest he's either insane or simply absurd.

As I have argued, the real story goes back to the Bush years and the conflict and internal struggle over Ukraine and Russian security was already well underway in the early 2000's - and driven by the massive NATO expansion that took place during the years on either the side of the the century break. As I have also written, the NATO-sponsored break-up of Yugoslavia (events that I unfortunately was party to) during the1990's also must be factored in to Moscow's posture and response with regard to these questions - as well as its 2008 war with Georgia. The US-inspired and funded Maidan coup in 2014 prompted the Russian annexation of Crimea (a return to its historical position) as well as Moscow-backed insurrections in the Donbass. These events in turn cannot be viewed apart from the 2011 NATO regime change operation in Libya. Western audiences do not connect these events and this is deliberate on the part of the media and the corporate and political interests which dominate its reporting. But in other parts of the world these events are connected and factored into strategic thinking.

Western media has mocked the 'Nazi' labels applied to Moscow to the Kyiv government and to some extent they are an exaggeration - but they are not without warrant. Not only has the Ukrainian state worked with these paramilitary groups, after 2014 they began to integrate them into the formal military. This would be a scandal of such magnitude that it's hard to quantify if it took place in the US or Western Europe. The fact that Western media helped to obfuscate these events is itself telling an indicative of a deliberate policy to cover-up the nature of the Ukrainian government.

The video makes abundantly clear that Nazism does exist within these circles and the ultra-nationalism on display is nothing less than fascistic. The fact that figures associated with these groups were able to come to the United States and appear on television with celebrities sent a message to Moscow as did the appearance of a Ukrainian Waffen-SS veteran in the Canadian Parliament. He was lauded and celebrated - before it turned into a scandal. But apparently there's no scandal when the names of Nazi collaborators are shouted in the streets by fascist mobs and paraders - or the fact that there are monuments to these figures at Ukrainian summer camps in the United States.

The suppression of Russian culture by Kyiv has been largely omitted and/or justified by Western media as has (what would in other contexts be considered) Christian persecution. This is viewed as 'justified' by the West because the Orthodox members that want to go on meeting and worshipping as they have for generations are suddenly transformed into villains. They may not even support the Russian invasion but don't feel compelled to leave the Russian Orthodox Church. This is unacceptable and the Church has been effectively criminalized as has its congregants. One is reminded of groups in the West that haven't changed their position on homosexuality. Their views are in keeping with centuries of precedent. But then suddenly, they are labelled as hate groups merely because they refuse to embrace the revolutionary change.

Finally, Parry provides the context. While Western media and Establishment figures peremptorily dismiss the notion that the US could ever collaborate with and/or back fascists or war criminals, the record is long and well established. The US has long supported terrorists, death squads, and atrocity. The episode in Odessa and the US support for such groups (if not that actual event) is in keeping with established patterns of policy and strategy.

And this religious element even has precedent as the US in collaboration with the Vatican targeted religious dissidents in Central America during the 1970's and 1980's. Liberation Theology was excoriated (and still is) despite that fact that its syncretism was no less compromising than the boldly proclaimed and celebrated syncretism of Right-wing forms of political Christianity. While the foundation of Liberation Theology was flawed, they at least could point to New Testament Scripture as a basis for their ideology. It led to misguided political action but this pales in comparison to the pro-Capitalist, pro-Nationalist, and often pro-Authoritarian ideologies promoted by today's American-influenced Evangelicals in the Latin American region.

What a tragedy that an unbeliever like Parry is the one to call out the false narratives promoted and embraced by American Evangelicalism. The present situation with Ukraine is of course complicated by Trump's ambiguity but aside from that point, the policies Parry alludes to were overwhelmingly championed by Right-wing politicians in alliance with the Christian Right. The fact that unbelievers are exposing hypocrisy and so easily able to take the moral high ground is nothing less than judgment on the Church.