Responses to Ukraine’s Nazi Hit List from Around the World—Part 4

Aug. 28—This is the fourth installment of EIR’s roundup of responses from around the world to the posting by the U.S.-funded and State Department sponsored Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) of a Black List—essentially a “hit list”—of 72 prominent individuals from many nations, accusing them of being Russian propaganda agents, “information terrorists,” and “war criminals,” due to their failure to submit to the U.S./UK/NATO “narrative” about the military operations in Ukraine. The first 30 people listed were members and friends of the Schiller Institute who had spoken at a Schiller Institute conference during this year. You can find Part 1 of this series here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

In addition to mounting responses from around the world denouncing the Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation hit list, two major, relevant developments took place this week.

First, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to an official DHS press release on Aug. 24 announced that their own “Ministry of Truth”—the Disinformation Governance Board established in April of this year—has been “terminated,” and the Secretary has “rescinded its charter, effective today, August 24, 2022.” While this was not directly the result of the outcry against the deadly Ukrainian hit list, the outrage against this threat to the right to free speech and to physical safety certainly contributed to the opposition to the DHS attempt to have an American branch of this fascistic body. Of course, the DHS statement went on to say that “the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work.

Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), interviewed by the Schiller Institute (see the transcript in this issue of EIR) on Aug. 23, just one day before the DHS shut down its Disinformation Governance Board, said that such censorship boards—

show the darkness and the challenge that the American Disinformation Board, and the Ukrainian Disinformation Board, the threat that they pose to freedom. These are not instruments of the people. They’re not instruments of liberty and freedom. They are instruments of tyranny. These are the kinds of things that the Gestapo, that the Bolsheviks, that the great tyrannies of the world imposed, some sort of preclearance on what you can say and what you can’t. I think it’s a very, very bad sign.

Col. Black is on the CCD hit list.

The second major development was the exposure of the operation of the Myrotvorets institution in Ukraine, a supposedly “non-government” organization in Ukraine which is not new, but has since the 2014 Maidan coup been publishing thousands of names of Ukrainians, Russians, and foreigners, labeling them “enemies of the state,” and taking great pride when people on its list are assassinated. (See further documentation on Myrotvorets in this issue of EIR).

The recent, expanded exposure of this overtly fascist institution was one result of the Aug. 20 assassination of Daria Dugina in Moscow, mafia style, by a bomb placed under her car. Dugina was a prominent journalist who had written about the actual conditions in the Donbas region of Ukraine and the fascist policies of the Azov Regiment and other Ukrainian institutions.

Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia, speaking to the press on Aug. 24 at the UN, said, “The killing of Daria Dugina in Moscow was made on a clear terrorist basis, I would say.” Handing a picture to the press, he added: “This is the infamous Ukrainian website Myrotvorets which shows [her] picture with the inscription ‘liquidated,’ ‘eliminated’.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Harley Schlanger of the Schiller Institute are on the Myrotvorets hit list, among others.

Sergey Glazyev, a former leading advisor to President Putin who now leads economic planning for the Eurasian Economic Union (and for decades a close friend of the Schiller Institute), quoted Andrii Yermak, the head of Volodymyr Zelensky’s presidential office in Kiev: “Our task is to make sure that not only the current generation of Russians, but their children and grandchildren will pay.”

Glazyev added:

Eight hours later, Alexander Dugin’s daughter Daria was killed…. Considering that the SBU and the Zelenskiy administration are, in fact, sub-branches of the CIA and MI6, this heinous assassination by their agents has the obvious aim of raising [the scale of] the war…. This assassination made impossible the negotiations that [Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is seeking and the Israeli prime minister is proposing. With their provocative crimes against humanity and the Russian world, the American and British intelligence agencies are exacerbating, expanding, and deepening the conflict with the help of the SBU [Ukraine’s Security Service] in order to escalate hostilities, with numerous victims.

On Aug. 19, the Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod was called to appear in an open consultation in the Danish parliament for an hour on the question of the hit list by Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation. The list included three prominent people from Denmark, all of whom had addressed the May 25 Schiller Institute conference. This was the first time the Ukraine hit list has been discussed in a national legislature, and the first time a foreign minister has been summoned to respond.

MP Marie Krarup, an independent, had issued the call which required the Foreign Minister to respond. Krarup began by asking the Foreign Minister if he believed the list “is an expression of respect for freedom of expression, democracy and other values which the minister believes Denmark should promote in the world,” and whether he believed that Denmark “can continue to justify its support for Ukraine with arms and money, by saying that Denmark is thus helping to support democratic values outside Denmark?”

The foreign minister, who was flanked by three advisors from his ministry, instead of answering the questions, gave long speeches about the importance of Ukraine’s struggle for freedom against the Russian invaders and the importance of fighting Russian disinformation. He said that it was important for Denmark to help Ukraine counter Russian disinformation, but that it should be done in a way that strengthens, rather than undermines freedom of speech. He said he had asked the Danish embassy in Ukraine to investigate the matter, and that the foreign ministry was still waiting for a Ukrainian response. He agreed to appear in front of the committee again when it received a response.

MP Christian Juhl of the Unity Party was the chairman of the meeting. He asserted that he had worked to help Ukraine, but they still have to abide by certain rules. He asked the foreign minister if he would insist that there has to be freedom of speech in Ukraine despite there being a war, and if not just Russia but also Ukraine should be held accountable for war crimes, and if the foreign ministry had investigated. The Foreign Minister dodged the question.

The open consultation was transmitted live on the parliament website and has been shown on the parliament’s TV station. It can be viewed, in Danish, here.

Diane Sare, the independent LaRouche Candidate for the U.S. Senate from the State of New York, the position now held by Chuck Schumer, issued a public letter Aug. 9 to Sen. Schumer regarding the hit list, which read in part:

I am requesting that you repudiate the blacklist and publicly defend my right to express my opinion about the situation with regard to Ukraine, and all other matters, as is appropriate for a candidate for Federal Office. U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund foreign agencies which are threatening the reputation and physical security of American citizens, much less candidates for public office. Is it not absurd that your fellow Senator Rand Paul has been called an “information terrorist” by this agency merely for requesting accountability on the tens of billions of dollars being sent to the Ukrainian regime? Have you no shame? I believe that as a member of the United States Senate you have sworn to uphold the Constitution of our Republic. Will you honor that commitment? The voters of New York have the right to know. If not, you have no place in the U.S. Senate.

Candidate Sare is on the CCD hit list.

On Aug. 26, José Vega, a member of the LaRouche Organization in the Bronx, New York, attended a Town Hall meeting sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in his home town. When he was called on to ask his question, Vega said: “You said that it requires citizens to stand up and speak about what’s right. I want to talk about Ukraine.”

He told her about the hit list from the Center for Countering Disinformation, targeting “American citizens that are critical of American foreign policy.” He explained that she and all other members of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate had received a letter signed by 16 American citizens who appeared on the hit list, demanding that they answer to the fact that she, Sen. Schumer, and other senators, had voted to fund the Center that was targeting Americans, calling them terrorists for opposing the war. Vega underscored:

There are people, right now, who are critical of U.S. foreign policy, who are at risk of dying because they disagree with this war, they disagree with the funding of this Ukrainian-Russian war, and they disagree with the provocation of the United States funding Ukrainian Nazis since 2014.

He added that one of those critics is Diane Sare, the LaRouche independent candidate on the ballot running against Chuck Schumer in the Nov. 8 election—“and she’s on this list!”

After some back and forth, Sen. Gillibrand said:

I’m very concerned. If you can give me that document, I will take it to the Intelligence Committee. I don’t think the Ukrainian Nazi thing—I think that was actually something Putin put out there to create a reason to invade Ukraine. I think that’s false information, but I will look at it.