Igor Lopatonok

Shut Down the Nazi Kill List: It Is Not Just in Ukraine

This is the edited transcript of the presentation by Igor Lopatonok to Panel 2, “Defend the Right to Deliberate! Speak Out Against Blacklists and the Suppression of the Search for Truth,” of the Schiller Institute’s Sept. 10–11 Conference, “Inspiring Humanity To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History.” Mr. Lopatonok is a film maker, director, and producer. He directed the 2016 documentary film Ukraine on Fire.

The full video of Panel 2 is available here.

Hello, I’m Igor Lopatonok. I am a filmmaker, director, and producer. You probably have seen my films Ukraine on Fire and Revealing Ukraine. Overall, I did four movies dedicated to the Ukrainian crisis from 2014. The latest was released in 2021.

I want to talk today about the policy of the death list website Myrotvorets—“Peacekeeper” in English—which was created in 2014 in Ukraine. As a proud member of that death list, or kill list website, I want to touch base and explain what is going on in Ukraine with freedom of speech, what kind of regime Ukraine is now, how they threaten and try to scare independent journalists, and how they try to make the narrative be located only in one field.

First of all, when the coup d’état happened in Ukraine February 18–20, 2014, that was already a big help to moderate the narrative. Three TV channels were set up before that coup—Espreso, Hromadske, and of course UkrStream—and they were jumping on the wagon of the so-called revolution, and immediately spreading the narrative to Ukrainian audiences. They were financed from abroad. For example, we have records of the George Soros Foundation in the world, and the Embassy of the Netherlands, and others.

This media attempt to moderate the narrative was, from the beginning of when the coup succeeded, when they tried to go after all independent voices in the field. That was initially 2014, with support of Anton Gerashchenko, at this time the man who was a famous leader of protests in Ukraine; and Arsen Avakov, who later proceeded to be the chief of police in Ukraine, or Minister of Internal Affairs. Avakov’s the guy, I want to point out, very famous for different subjects of what he did, for different policy. He was the godfather of the Azov Battalion. He did not form the Azov Battalion by himself, but he supported and legitimized the Azov Battalion, giving them the status of National Guard in Ukraine. This paramilitary formation of ruthless, neo-Nazi-ideology-line people was given complete legitimacy to be part of the Ukrainian military.

Avakov was a godfather of that famous Myrotvorets website. What they actually do is gather all data about independent journalists, writers, filmmakers, speakers. Initially, it was everybody who was in the eastern part of Ukraine, in the area we know as the Donbas. But after that, they went after all Ukraine, and after all of Ukraine they went abroad, they started targeting foreign journalists. They were famous for publishing the personal data of more than 5,000 foreign journalists, who were working in the Donbas covering that conflict, which actually I believe has all the signs of civil war in Ukraine, more than the foreign intervention.

Myrotvorets, or Peacekeeper, was criticized for doxing people, for publishing their personal data, and geo-targeting, geo-locating people—journalists and others—and making that information very public. Second after the first victim was killed, the famous Ukrainian writer Oles Buzina—he was killed because of that website, and another was killed, a parliament member of Ukraine. That led to consequences. First of all, Facebook banned the profile of Myrotvorets or Peacekeeper website on Facebook. After that, they went after Azov, and they were ready to announce them as a terrorist organization.

But suddenly, everything changed. What changed was the Mr. Biden team came back into power, and after that we know that that kill list website was famous for bragging about people who were killed, publishing their pictures [overmarked] with big red letters saying “Liquidated,” or “Terminated.” They went after Darya Dugina, who was assassinated by a suspected Ukrainian military woman named Natalia Vovk. There were a lot of footprints in the snow left behind this. And after that, publishing on their website the data on Roger Waters and others—there were, overall, like 600,000 names gathered on this website—a lot of people from Russia, a lot of people from the media business in Russia or celebrities. They’re using the technique, where they want to publish somebody very well-known, in order to bring attention to them.

Who is advising them? This is a very good question, because it is known that Anton Gerashchenko has no intellectual capacity to do something like that. But after a careful investigation of these things, we see the real professionals—so-called self-proclaimed, informational influence operator, ex-U.S. military Brig. Gen. Joel Harding, and other activists who are abroad and who are sharing with the Ukrainians technique and knowledge, technology, and templates—how to go after people and how to organize a campaign to eliminate from the field voices they don’t want to hear.

Because those voices are very dangerous for their policies. They want to brainwash and manipulate Ukrainian society; also, they want to brainwash and manipulate the entire world society—especially the Western world. They are quite successful in that. And everybody who is raising their voice against this mainstream narrative, they are practically all “agents of Putin,” or “Putin apologists,” or working for the Kremlin one way or another.

I have been on that website from 2019 for my film Revealing Ukraine. Also, my executive producer and my interviewer, who gave a lot of help to make that movie happen, is my dear friend Oliver Stone, here. Also, a lot of other people. I can include some very unique names, like Henry Kissinger or Mikheil Saakashvili. It’s very strange to see dead people here, because they do totally opposite on the other side of the barricade. But, as I mentioned before, they’re putting in celebrities on the list, they’re putting very well-known politicians on the list, because they want attention to them.

I think this is a very dangerous example that can lead to more consequences than we’re experiencing right now. I believe that it can lead to establishing such a kill list in the United States, and targeting, not now for just a Ukrainian crisis and Ukrainian narrative, but for a United States domestic narrative. This is why we need to raise our voices, and we need to do everything to shut down that Myrotvorets website, to expose everybody who is helping them, to expose all their wrongdoing, understanding that it is our freedom of speech that is under ruthless attack from people who we need to call by their names: The first name we need to use is, we need to call them Nazis. Because this is a tactic that Nazi Germany used during World War II and before. We are facing this rebirth of the Nazi Fourth Reich, and now it’s called Ukraine.

This is actually everything that I want to share. More you can find out in my films: Ukraine on Fire, Revealing Ukraine, The Everlasting Present, and Maidan Massacre. Thank you very much.