Fullofbias

The whole of Europe is  outraged by the mayhem caused by Russian and English football fans in France and rightly so. But in fact we could have had another Orlando, if not for the Ukrainian secret services. A couple of weeks earlier (the announcement came on June 6), they intercepted a terrorist suspect who tried to smuggle grenade launchers and explosives from from the war-torn Ukraine into France.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) that the suspect, identified by the French press as Gregoire Moutaux, planned to stage simultaneous bombing attacks targeting bridges, highways, a tax office, a mosque, a synagogue and Euro-2016 offices.

SBU press release suggests that the man is a far-right radical. In that case it’s no wonder that he was on SBU’s radar from the moment he stepped on the Ukrainian soil.

Ukraine has a problem with its own ultra-nationalists, who took an active part in the war effort after the Russian invasion in Crimea and Donbass. That made them firmly entrenched in various parts of the government, particularly law-enforcement bodies.

But so far it seems that it is the state that controls and steers them and not visa versa. One example is the gay parade that took place in Kiev last Sunday. There were calls by notable right-wingers to attack LGBT activists.

But major right-wing organisations, like Azov Civil Corps, refrained from doing so. That’s largely thanks to the effort by security services and political consultants who are steering these very real extremists towards relative mainstream.

The ones who actually tried to stage attacks (but were repelled and detained by the police) were mostly connected to Dmytro Korchynsky – a veteran political provocateur, who was formerly an ally of Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin and fought alongside Donbass rebel commander Igor Girkin (Strelkov) in Moldovan war in 1992. Curiously or not, he also happen to be Ukraine’s chief Russophobe who has been supplying Russian propaganda outlets with “fascist Ukraine” material for two decades.

I was curious to check out how Korchynsky reacted to Orlando. He used the tragedy to attack his arch-enemy – MP Mustafa Nayem, who took part in Kiev Pride. A Ukrainian journalist of Afghan origin, Nayem is also the man whose Facebook post triggered Maidan revolution in 2013.

This is what Korchysky wrote about Orlando:

“I am sorry for the unfortunate victims, but I lack the spirit to sympathise with the Americans. It’s them who should sympathise with us. America is a great country. But why is everyone better there, even the Afghans? While the Ukrainian Afghan was waving a rainbow flag at the gay parade, the American one was skilfully emptying his gun cases”.