DISINFO: Washington is sick with clientitis: The US is supporting SS Nazis and their allies in Ukraine
SUMMARY
Washington is suffering from a dangerous psychosis dubbed “Clientitis” by American conservative media - it is sidelining American interests in favour of those of its client, Ukraine. This is a sign of the insanity of the neoliberal party of war. The Obama administration shamelessly interfered in Ukraine’s internal affairs to install a client regime. Subsequent US administrations have continually supplied Ukraine with weapons and helped train Ukraine’s armed forces. A recent incident was most shocking – the US military attaché in Kyiv was seen visiting a Ukrainian military unit on the frontlines in the Donbas region wearing a “deaths head” insignia, an infamous symbol of the Nazi party's SS organization during World War Two.
RESPONSE
The article repeats the prominent pro-Kremlin disinformation claim that the US supports Nazi elements in Ukraine. It also employs the recurrent disinformation narrative that the US was behind the 2014 Euromaidan and installed a puppet government in Ukraine, as well as the false accusation that the US military attaché was wearing a “death’s head” insignia while on a visit to a Ukrainian military unit in Donbas in April 2021. This News Front article is a translation of an article published in the American magazine The American Conservative titled Time to Cure America’s ‘Clientitis’ Over Ukraine, which itself is based on a (now deleted) post by Martin Sieff citing Sputnik.
There is no evidence to suggest that the US caused the Euromaidan or that it installed a client regime in Ukraine. The Euromaidan, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, started with a mass protest in Kyiv against then-President Yanukovych’s decision in November 2013 to abandon the association agreement with the EU in favour of trade ties with Russia.
The US has legally and transparently supplied Ukraine with arms on the condition that Ukraine’s armed forces use them only in defence of Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. In support of Ukraine’s opposition to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its direct and indirect participation in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the US and numerous other countries engage in international training cooperation with Ukraine’s armed forces.
The false accusation that the US military attaché in Ukraine, Colonel Brittany Stewart, was seen wearing a “death’s head” insignia in April 2021 originates from the Kremlin-controlled media Sputnik. The insignia the military attaché is seen wearing on the photo is that of Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the military unit on the frontline in Donbas which the attaché visited as a sign of support to Ukraine. The history of the patch goes back to the Black Zaporozhians, a cavalry regiment from the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (1917-1921) whom the 72nd Mechanized Brigade was honorarily named after in 2017 by presidential decree.
Similar disinformation cases in the database claim that Obama staged a coup in Ukraine and allowed Nazis to assume power, that Americans and Canadians are training Nazi battalions in Ukraine, that pro-Nazi Ukrainian battalions may carry out a purge in Donbas, and that Ukraine intends to commit genocide in Donbas.