Kiev’s Top Officials Are Shamelessly Spewing Ethno-Nationalist Hate Speech

Andrew Korybko

Those who claim to #StandWithUkraine aren’t “defending the free world from authoritarian terror”, “safeguarding the rules-based order”, or “protecting everyone’s human rights”, but “normalizing” anti-minority hate speech that’ll inevitably widen to include Black & Brown folks, homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, and other minorities residing within the US-led West’s Golden Billion.

Those who claim to #StandWithUkraine insist that they’re supposedly “defending the free world from authoritarian terror”, thus “safeguarding the rules-based order” and “protecting everyone’s human rights”. The reality, however, is that this crumbling former Soviet Republic’s top officials are shamelessly spewing ethno-nationalist hate speech without being challenged by these selfsame supporters who never stop preaching about “democracy”, “equality”, and “human rights”.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk suggested on Twitter that Russophobia be replaced with the terms “Russo-contempt” and “Russo-odiousness”. Head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Alexey Danilov, meanwhile, openly called for the Russian language to beexterminatedin his country despite at least a third of its people speaking it. Both still enjoy the full support of those who claim to #StandWithUkraine despite their words undeniably constituting hate speech.

For instance, Stefanchuk opened Pandora’s box for other bigots to exploit by setting the precedent for them to artificially manufacture disgusting terms such as “Judeo-contempt” and “Islamo-odiousness” for expressing their hatred of Jews and Muslims, among others. As for Danilov, he just established the standard for “normalizing” public discussion about the complete extermination of minority languages, which could take the form of White Supremacists calling for Arabic, Hebrew, and Spanish being banned.

The very fact that the SBU-backed global troll network known as “NAFO”, which investigative journalist Moss Robesonrecently exposed as fascist, hasn’t come out against these two prominent Ukrainian officials’ hateful proposals proves that his findings were accurate. Those who claim to #StandWithUkraine aren’t “defending the free world from authoritarian terror”, “safeguarding the rules-based order”, or “protecting everyone’s human rights” but “normalizing” anti-minority hate speech.

This objectively existing and easily verifiable example goes to show that Russia was right all along in condemning Kiev and its supporters as fascists. After all, that’s precisely what the West’s own society would call those who employ hateful terms such as “Judeo-contempt” and “Islamo-odiousness”, not to mention calling for the extermination of Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, and other minority languages for example. Because this fascist hatred is directed against Russians, however, they look the other way.

For the time being, it’s “politically convenient” for the US-led Western elite to direct society’s hatred solely against Russians, but EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently suggested that Africans might be next. This prediction is predicated on theracist dog whistlethat he recently blew by very strongly implying that Africans are “invading” Europe in order to change its “identity”, the latter of which he described as “the real battlefield” nowadays.

As could have been expected, the same folks who #StandWithUkraine for the reasons that were earlier described rushed to make excuses for him and whitewash his racist fearmongering. Their reaction suggests that they too harbor hatred for Africans and probably all Black & Brown Folks more broadly, but aren’t expressing it as openly as they do their anti-Russian hatred because it’s not yet “publicly acceptable” to do so, even though those dark times might not be too far away.

It’s unlikely that the US-led West’s Golden Billion will ever stop spewing fascist hate speech since it plays a pivotal role in manipulating their society’s perceptions by conveniently distracting the masses from directing their anger at the elite by instead diverting it towards the so-called “other”. For this reason, those who truly stand against bigotry should focus their efforts on informing the majority non-White masses of the Global South of this latest trend that’s taken thatNewColdWarbloc by storm.

They must urgently come to know that the West still fiercely hates them and is preparing to unleash a racist tidal wave against all minorities in the coming future as strongly suggested by Borrell’s anti-African fearmongering earlier this month. Global South governments can still pragmatically cooperate with their counterparts in the Golden Billion in pursuit of mutually beneficial outcomes, to say nothing of retaining their principled neutrality towards the Ukrainian Conflict, but their societies mustn’t forget this fact.

That’s not at all to say that everyone in the West is racist since that would be bigoted in and of itself, but just to point out that their elites are once again weaponizing ethno-nationalist bigotry for “politically convenient” ends. The Pandora’s Box that they opened by “normalizing” this against Russians won’t be closed when it comes to their emerging attitudes at large against Black & Brown folks, homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, and other minorities residing within their bloc.

All of them credibly remain at risk as the Golden Billion inevitably widens its ethno-nationalist and religious bigotry to include them as well whenever their elites come to regard it as “politically convenient” to do so. By contrast, this bigotry is unthinkable in Global South societies, which further reinforces the moral bifurcation between these New Cold War blocs. The Golden Billion weaponizes bigotry while the Global South stands in full solidarity against all forms of hate speech.