A recent BBC article on the “far right” in Ukraine by David Stern is a perfect example of the mainstream media’s effort to obfuscate and distort events in Ukraine to make the neo-nazis that dominated the anti-Yanukovych forces seem legitimate.  This is first seen in the title of the article itself (“Ukraine’s Revolution and the Far Right”) and in the constant references to the thugs of Svoboda as “far right”.  The trick is obvious: by referring to the neo-nazi mutineers as “far right”, the Beeb is putting them on the same level as Le Pen’s FN, Griffin’s BNP, and De Winter’s Vlaams Belang. This, on the one hand, makes the minions of Tyahnybok and Yarosh seem respectable, and on the other, is a subtle dig at the real European “far right” (by implying that the BNP and FN are comparable to the west Ukrainian thugs).

The article follows with outright lies. Consider these gems of the BBC’s reporting:

Euromaidan officials are not fascists, nor do fascists dominate the movement . . . Euromaidan has been a movement supported by just under half of Ukrainians according to a recent poll – representing a broad swathe of Ukrainian society: Russian and Ukrainian speakers; east and west; gay and straight; Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Actually, Oleh Tyahnybok – one of the main Euromaidan “officials” is a neo-nazi (how else to call a politician who worships the bloodthirsty deeds of Hitler’s Ukrainian collaborators and makes a stiff arm salute at a political rally?). Stern even admits, in an offhand fashion towards at the end of the article, that Tyahnybok “has never disowned an earlier open letter he signed, saying world Jewry was taking over Ukraine and would commit genocide against Ukrainians”. But that does not matter to the BBC. Because you see, since both “gays and straights” support the mutiny, it must be legitimate.

Here are more of the Beeb’s bald-faced lies:

Contrary to some claims, ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers are not being attacked or   under threat of violence. And anti-Semitism has played absolutely no role in the demonstrations and government.

Now, this is a bit much even for the BBC. With regards to the former sentence: how about the Russians and Russian-speakers that are intimidated and attacked by armed thugs in west and central Ukraine? And what about the ethnic Russian engineer who was beaten to death with bats and metal pipes when the Maidan thugs stormed and torched the offices of Yanukovych’s political party? 

The utter ridiculousness of the second sentence is demonstrated by the ugly spectacle that Svoboda deputy Bohdan Beniuk put on the Maidan. Beniuk dressed in a black, wide-brimmed hat with fake sidelocks and played a character charmingly named “Zhyd” (“Kike” in Ukrainian) in a skit put on by the demonstrators. “Yesterday I was a kike, today, I am a Jew! There is no braver warrior than a scared Jew!”, were some of the things Beniuk yelled from the stage to the approving laughter of the Maidan crowd. Now this is the true face of the anti-Yanukovych forces, not the fantasy constructed by the BBC and other mainstream media.