Top Biden officials address pro-war rally led by Ukrainian Nazi supporters
USAID’s Samantha Power joined EU and US officials at the Lincoln Memorial at a pro-war demonstration organized by a clique of Ukrainian activists that have described themselves as “true Banderites."
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High-ranking Biden foreign policy officials including USAID Administrator, Samantha Power, and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Karen Donfried, observed the first anniversary of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. There, on February 25, 2023, they rallied alongside a band of Beltway-based Ukrainian activists dedicated to honoring and fundraising for ultra-nationalists and war criminals. The demonstrators demanded that the US send F-16 fighter jets to Kiev and “punish Russia” by any means necessary.
Power’s USAID promoted the event with a media advisory that redirected visitors to the rally’s principal organizer, an NGO called US Ukrainian Activists. This was one of two Ukrainian diaspora groups that organized the rally, and both have openly supported far-right elements in Ukraine since the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014.
US Ukrainian Activists was founded by Nadiya Shaporynska, an avowed supporter of neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist militias like the Azov Battalion, whom she has described “heroic defenders of Ukraine.” Shaporynska’s fundraising efforts for extremists groups that were at one point blacklisted by the US Department of Defense have been prolific and very public.
In a video tweeted by Power the day before the rally, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, is seen giving the USAID Administrator a tour of a local Ukrainian government-funded cultural and business center in DC. Markarova points to a portrait of a woman on a wall and informs Power she is “Nadiya [Shaporynska], a tireless activist here in DC.”
Power and Shaporynska would become officially acquainted the following day, as pro-proxy war demonstrators descended on Washington DC’s National Mall.
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Still waiting to hear the logic behind the claims that Nazis chose (Jewish) Zelensky as their leader. Today's Americans overall might be ignorant, but Ukrainians remember what the Nazis did to the region in WWll. Zelensky and his forces are fascist, by definition, but not Nazi. I assume we avoid pointing out "fascism" because the US has long had a soft spot for fascists.