A Question of Incitement?

Alexander Motyl, a little known Ukrainian nationalist teaching in Newark, first came across my radar about a decade ago when he filed a bigoted attack on the people of the Donbas (who, at the time, were being targeted by a Western-funded “anti-terrorist operation” launched by Kiev) as “the most reactionary, intolerant and illiberal population within Ukraine.” They also—and this is the real sin from the standpoint of Ukrainian nationalists—speak and read and teach in their native language.

As the journalist and author Lev Golinkin pointed out in response,

…That is correct: eastern Ukraine — a land where the vast majority of the population speaks Russian as its native and primary tongue — has an overabundance of Russian schools and newspapers. A similar situation can be found in Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec, whose reactionary, intolerant and illiberal French-speaking population has the gall to inundate their French-speaking region with the French language that nearly everyone there speaks. It can also be found in most Chinatowns, or Little Koreas, or pretty much most linguistic enclaves in America.

Over the past month, Motyl has published a number of pieces in The Hill which might fairly be, given the two assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 campaign, characterized as incitement.

On February 25th, Motyl envisioned a “palace coup” that “could rid the country of an illegitimate leader [Trump] and usher in a transition to moderation and democracy — call it a Thermidor — that Vance would be unlikely to survive politically.”

“There will be chaos,” he concludes, “but America will have the opportunity to save itself from the revolutionaries and terrorists.”

The following day, Motyl once again appeared in The Hill to answer the question: “Was 40-year-old Trump recruited by the KGB?” Well, according to Moytl, could well be…

The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

The allegation would, if true, be a bombshell. Mussayev provides no documentary evidence —but then how could he? He alleged that Trump’s file is in Vladimir Putin’s hands.

…the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first Trump administration and from the initial weeks of the second, it is that everything, including what appears to be impossible, is possible.

March 3rd found Motyl once again in the pages of The Hill warning readers that “Trump’s second administration resembles totalitarian political systems.”

This was followed up (does he sleep?) with a hysterical screed in which he charged that Trump has “effectively endorsed Vladimir Putin’s genocidal war” and that “Trump and his sycophantic subordinates” might one day be tried before the the International Criminal Court. To sum up: Trump, according to Motyl is a criminal, a totalitarian, and, possibly an agent of the Kremlin.

Galician nationalists specialize in these incitements to violence—as some of us who have been repeatedly placed on their enemies lists know only too well. Starting well before Putin’s February 2022 invasion, Galician nationalists and other far-Right extremists began publishing enemies lists such as the notorious Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) which doxxed hundreds of American and European journalists who were credentialed by the governing authorities in the breakaway People’s Republic of Donetsk.

As Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute has written,

…The Ukrainians seemingly love to make lists of their “enemies.” One of their most notorious of these is the infamous “kill list” put out by the Mirotvorets Center in Kiev. From that list several have already been murdered by Ukraine, including prominent Russian journalist Daria Dugina.

Last year, a Ukrainian NGO called TEXTY released a list of its own which included scores of American politicians, journalists and analysts. At the time, Dr. Sumantra Maitra, senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, told The Spectator that in his view,

…It’s clarifying to see the State Department-funded Ukrainian NGOs showing their true colors and creating blacklists, demonstrating how utterly Soviet they still are.”

This week comes news of a Ukrainian “intelligence gathering” service called MOLFAR with an “enemies list” that includes, among other notables, the current vice president, JD Vance.

What makes this all the more galling is that it was ( is?) being funded by the US government though USAID. Whatever sympathy we may (and do) feel for people who have lost their jobs at USAID and at USAID-linked contractors, the Trump administration was absolutely right in pulling the plug on this kind of nonsense.

Worryingly, Trump’s determination to force Zelensky to the negotiating table could well put him in the crosshairs of Ukrainian nationalists—like those in the diaspora such as Motyl and those the Biden administration spent the last 3 years arming to the teeth.

Col. Douglas Macgregor was exactly right when, in a new interview with Tucker Carlson, said, with regard to Ukrainian ultras,

…I would be very worried about our president. I think the president is very much at risk, these people seem to have no sense of limitation—they’re capable of anything, I hope the Secret Service is on its toes.”