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A photograph from the ‘Material Evidence’ exhibition partially cleaned up after being defaced earlier today (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)

Three individuals were involved in an attack on an exhibition in Chelsea this morning in which photographs were defaced, neo-Nazi leaflets dispersed, and a curator assaulted with pepper spray, Hyperallergic has learned. The assailants objected to the Ukraine-focused section of a photojournalistic show on recent unrest in that country and Syria called Material Evidence held at 540 West 21st Street (formerly home of the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center).

A little after 10am, two older individuals, a man and a woman, entered the gallery and headed to the Ukrainian section, where security guards and exhibition staff told Hyperallergic they are suspected to have distributed leaflets containing anti-Putin and neo-Nazi slogans and emblems along the ground. They did not interact with gallery staff or security beyond asking the curator, Benjamin Hiller, if he spoke Russian (he does not). The exhibition’s labyrinthine layout covers two countries — Syria and Ukraine — with visitors instructed to begin in the Syria section, though after the brief exchange with Hiller the duo headed directly for the Ukraine section.

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Photo of vandalism in the gallery (photo provided to Hyperallergic)

Shortly thereafter, a younger male between 25 and 30 entered into the gallery space, heading directly for the table near the entrance where Hiller was seated.

“He asked me if I am the guy responsible for the exhibition, that we have brought shame on the Ukraine people. I tried to explain that we show also the killed [Euromaidan] protesters, but then he pulled out pepper spray, sprayed it in my face and kicked against the table and my laptop fell on the ground,” Hiller told Hyperallergic.

The female member of the original duo left around the same time the younger man entered, according to security guards at the gallery who spoke to Hyperallergic on condition of anonymity, while the older gentleman allegedly defaced one photograph with what appears to be black ink and wrote “LIE” on a gallery wall. Pamphlets containing anti-Putin and neo-Nazi slogans were also distributed throughout the Ukraine-focused section. Hiller notes that angry messages had been posted on a Facebook group for the exhibition, but he has no clues beyond that as to the individual identities of the perpetrators.

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Some of the neo-Nazi pamphlets left by the vandals (photo courtesy Benjamin Hiller)

The exhibition was organized by and contains work from a group of Russian, Ukrainian, French, and Spanish photojournalists alongside physical artifacts from those conflict zones. A collaborative effort, it was, according to Hiller, backed by crowdfunding and private fundraising. Hiller, a freelance photojournalist and writer, was appointed curator by the group due to his prior involvement with the Browse Fotofestival in Berlin. The Chelsea exhibition will continue, with increased security, through October 11.

Mostafa Heddaya

Mostafa Heddaya is the former managing editor of Hyperallergic.

138 replies on “NYC Photo Exhibition Vandalized, Curator Attacked”

  1. i dont think these were ukrainian people. Even though leaflets were pro-ukrainian, the people that did it are russians. pro-Putin pro-fascist russians. The pamphlets are a diversion.

    1. why would it be russians? battalion azow really exists and they really carry nazi symbols, they also praise UPA (just like ukrainian president and PM) that killed 100 000 of civilians in most brutal ways history has ever seen… today these battalions do the same with russian-speaking civilians of the eastern ukraine, kills them so they can take over the land, they did the same with Poles in 1943/44, “each dead Pole is 1 more meter of land for ukraine”, people who supported hitler and said these words are now praised in ukraine and today the true victims are civilians from the eastern ukrainian cities – ukraine kills more of them than it kills separatists, that’s the plan – to get rid of both at once… otherwise, why would they bomb whole cities full of civilians to kill 100 separatists inside?

      2. Your interpretation of the Ukrainian Conflict is so skewed i highly doubt you’ll ever be able to grasp the true scope of it. These separatists operate their GRADs, mortars, and artillery units INSIDE residential areas & cities, thereby using civilians as a shield for the retalliatory fire which comes minutes later. Not only this, but their origins are also completely illegitamate.

        Once Russia invaded Crimea by sending over 20,000 troops across the border & siezed all Ukrainian bases, that sent a message to the minority rebels in the East (thoss who wanted their land returned to Russia as well) and before you knew it, they began siezing their local federal offices in the East. And this all began under the pretext of protecting “ethnic Russians,” when they were only in danger after Russia annexed Crimea and began supporting & supplying disenfranchized locals, causing them to believe their cause is worth fighting for, and then going out and killing & dying as a result.

        This was all Putin’s game that the separatists got caught up in. Putin really has no interest in actually absolving more land from Ukraine, rather, he’s more than fine with having local Ukrainians attempt to do it for him and get killed in the process. The only men Russia cares for are its own such as Girkin, Bordai, and all the other former and current heads of the DPR that all have ties in Russia. The longer they can keep this conflict hot, the more it drains Ukraines economy & population so that thousands of more Ukrainians may die in the coming winter.

        And yet here it couldn’t be clearer; people have fallen for Putin’s fascad, trying to paint Ukraine as a fascist state which is inherently evil, while Russia’s kremlin oppresses dissenting opinion and controls their state’s media. They have fooled you, and anyone else who operates under the narritive that Ukraine is evil. Ukraine only wants the best for their country, and they had made their decision that Russia isn’t in it for the interest of Ukraine. And if this entire conflict doesn’t make that clear, then you’re clearly blind.

        1. I’m sorry but everything you wrote here is absolutely wrong and twisted, as if its an opinion of one of Azov thugs fed on drugs. I’m from Crimea and Russia didn’t invade us. We asked Russia for military support to protect from ukraine and help disable Ukrainian army in Crimea that twice outnumbered the Soviet army in the region during the Cold War! I bet your news don’t tell you these things… Crimean government on behalf of 90% of Crimeans begged the Russian president. We’ve been trying to split from Ukraine since when it was formed in 1991, as a geographical element that never belonged to that country. Whatever is happening in Donbass was to happen to us to even a greater extent- over past 20 years you could hear too many threats coming both from Ukrainian radicals and the majority of people I personally met from western Ukraine. Now that there’s no government left that could protect the Eastern-Southern regions and Crimea (a bunch of nazies among ministers and opposition in cruelly eliminated, criminal gangs style that nobody could ever imagine of in their worst nightmares and no way to bring in the justice- people just diasppear on the streets… and their hanged corpses found), good luck with living in that shithole! Thanks to Putin for saving us and our houses, btw!

          1. And what of the hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars who have had their entire federal identity and voice stripped from them? I’m sure you’re just willfully ignorant of that though since you aren’t affected. And for the record, there was literally no vote taken BEFORE Russia annexed Crimea. The vote only came after the fact.

          2. Wow! Hundreds of thousands… Where do you get this propaganda from?! There are barely 2 hundred thousand of Crimean Tatars in Crimea and the ones I know are mostly pro-Russian or undecided. However, overall there’s a great sense of relief, of course there are those that do not like these changes, just like some Russians that are also not happy about the changes. I personally, do not support the actions of the Crimean government that has banned the Tatar leaders either. This is not a good start. But I am glad the Crimean “revolution” has ended peacefully and without Ukrainian problems.

            Wow, federal identity?! We all had our Federal identity as the citizens of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea– AUTONOMY RIGHTS, Constitution, language rights that the scam that currently runs the purges in Ukraine targeted the 1st hand once it got to power. Ukraine, btw, never recognized the Tatars (until the Crimea became a part of Russia), always wary of the Turkish rout. Except a few leaders (Tatar oligarchs/ great grandsons of Khans on the pay roll from Ukr nationalists groups) of the Tatars, Crimean Tatars were as sick of Ukraine as much as of their own Medzhelis government. Imagine, this whole Tatar Mezhdelis works just like mafia: you have to give a portion of your income to the Tatar leaders all the time and never getting anything in return. None of the mosques projects reached their final stages- there was large scale of corruption in Medzhelis. Bc when Ukraine funded mosques projects, the resources all went to Medzhelis directly. Nobody knows where that money went to.

          3. Finally ethnic Russian Ukranians will be free from the Nazis and they can start murdering gays with impunity!

          5. So you don’t believe there is anti-gay violence in eastern Europe? Are you perhaps some kind of idiot?

          7. Really, there are deaths going on in an active war zone?!?! HAS THE MEDIA BEEN MADE AWARE OF THIS?!?!?!?!?!?!?

            Also, no one criticise anyone about anything until we get this whole war thing figured out.

          8. These particular pictures are not from war but from Odessa
            massacre, conducted by the Ukrainian nationalists together with Ukrainian police in a “peaceful” city of Odessa. It was before the war started but also bc of this the war started, but Odessa is very far from Donetsk. These are the ways of the new government to silence opposition and the goal has been achieved.

            Unfortunately, the media here is silent and biased, as much as they can afford it. There were some journalists at CNN with moral values but I’m afraid they are not doing so well anymore as this is more than just Ukrainian civil war or neo-nazi dictatorship and there are forces here that do not want the public to know anything. E.i. Joe Bidden’s son is employed at Burisma Holdings LTD, a company based in Cyprus that is planning to be extracting shale gas from shelled regions of Slavyansk, Donbass where thousands of people died this summer and continue dying. The Ukr army is shelling schools, hospitals, houses, apartment complexes, buses with children have been shot, etc. Not like the separatists are angels but Ukraine sent tanks against them when they were on a political strike, demanding attention to themselves. A human life is worth nothing there now and there are plenty of stories about wounded being killed for organs. Also, as people were running away from war with nothing but documents, their pets are mostly abandoned. Plenty of pictures of animals eating human flesh now– this is how some mass graves have been discovered.

          9. Here is the problem: I don’t care whatsoever. There is no heroic protagonist in this struggle. There is a neoliberal state whose regime has ties to fascist monsters fighting its neofascist former imperialist power over interstitial territory.

            Any claims about the righteousness of either side is frankly repellent. Any suggestion that Russia’s irredentist foreign policy isn’t a factor in accelerating violence is either mistaken or engaged in a form of deception (including self-deception).

            I believe that you are a propagandist and I’m unwilling to treat your claims as meaningful. Russia’s regime can make no appeals to human rights after its actions in Chechnya. Putin is a war criminal. The likelihood that the current Ukranian regime also contains war criminals does not change this. The fact that the United States has or is continuing to commit war crimes does not change this.

          10. Odessa on May 2nd was an operation by russian FSB forces, made with local pro-russian forces…
            Why don’t you mention that FIRST 4 CASUALTIES were PRO-UKRAINIAN supporters??? After killing those young soccer fanatics, and using provocateurs in their midst, this atrocious burning of civilians in Odessa is the result of Russia’s trying to subvert and destroy free Ukraine.
            there is a reason that Dmitry Fuchedji, Odessa’s head poloceman, is hiding in Russia now… he was responsible for Odessa, he and his Russian employers…
            only sick russian fascists would post pictures like these… you dont even get that this proves your culpability.

          11. Are you from Odessa?! Have you ever lived in Ukraine for more than a year?! Did you grow up in that country to understand what was happening there before and now?! No, than you have no right to shut me up with the BS propaganda that only a cretin (or a blinded patriot) could believe.
            Of course, the separatists wanted to burn themselves… I don’t mention because nobody believes this in Odessa.This was a planned setup- a convenient way to end every weekend-happening anti-nazi and pro-Russian protests that swept over half of Ukraine after Maidan got to power. Russia is a popular country for the Eastern Ukrainians and millions of Russian speaking Ukrainians has always wanted closer ties with Russia (as it is also a most rational wish, considering the economy). There was not a single Russian citizen in Odessa- these were all local Odessa activists- poets and politicians among those died- that wanted to stand up for their rights against the neo-nazism and had zero ties with Russia, other than screaming for help occasionally.

            A bunch of ukronazies from different parts of Ukraine all of a sudden show up in Odessa and all of them forget about the soccer game… This is the most convenient Ukrainian lie- that incompetent trash-ukrobydlo- that has been running the play since Maidan, has always been trying to find the scapegoats this way for decades. This is their signature. This is exactly why Ukraine has always had separatism… for their NKVD style of running things in the country by secretly ordering politicians, journalists, ordering commotions… Apter, Safontsev, Chernovil, Gongadze, Kushnarev, .. the list of murders is long and people will not learn anytime soon…

            Millions of Ukrainians are hiding in Russia now, seeking assylum. Not only war refugees… Fuchedji’s hiding because he says it was Paruby and Ukrainian Secret Services’ order and provocation planned and now they want to get rid of the witnesses. There’s been plenty of proof that the police was not only helping the pro-Russians, but also assisting the nazi gang. The provocator-killer shooting at people is a famous Maidanite figure, the police saw him, didn’t arrest him and he’s still free. While they tried to arrest the barely alive victims… and only due to Odessites storming the police headquarters the whole night, the victims (that were the victims) were released. This is just by the book ” how to get a bloody regime in a country”.

          12. lol u r a troll… writing so much to prove nonexistent point. “millions of ukrainians hide in russia” – why not “tens of millions”… if you are in business of lying propaganda, then lie like your Kremlin bosses tell you – the more absurd the lies is, the more believable it will be…
            Your stories dont add up. You trying to obscure truth by presenting many separate facts, that upon close scrutiny can’t even closely pass for truth… which famous “maidanite figure”? Bozman? All police on Odessa is pro-russian, that is why they did not arrest any pro-russian provocateurs. Odessa was a planned FSB action.
            Russia kills its own citizens all the time. Like in 1999 in Moscow suburbs, when FSB agents were blowing up sleeping russian women and children, just to blame Chechen and make another war… sad, really.

          14. I am an ethnic Russian Ukrainian. This user accounts marinagp and denise are just Kremlin propaganda bots. Putin regime spend hundred million dollar budgets on their propaganda machine both for their Russian market and internationally. It’s all anti-Ukrainian and anti- American BS that has nothing to do with reality

          15. Hmm, and what are you? Who pays you?! Men on the streets?! Oh, Ukraine, that’s why you are spending your Sat night provoking other people and writing some nonesence, wasting my personal time?! I am saying I am from Crimea and definitely not Ukraine anymore (I have never said to anyone in my life that I’m Ukrainian, I always said I was Crimean to the bone, just like most of my classmates did of those who managed to leave to escape poverty, imposed by Ukraine). I am a statistician and live in US but was home, in Crimea recently. People are happy there, do not like to be forced to speak Ukrainian, have no regrets about loosing Ukrainian culture and they really like Putin- this is not my personal opinion but a fact. Not like they liked Ukraine 1st place- they liked how their living standards improved during Yanukovich, that’s about it.

          16. Very interesting. Would you care to specify just HOW you managed to get into Crimea after it’s been annexed by Russia?
            Ukraine closed the border a while ago, airlines don’t fly there, and the only way in is by taking a ferry from Russia. People have been standing there at the border for days and weeks, waiting in line.
            Is that how you spent your summer holidays, waiting in line for the ferry? Or did you forget to mention that you are a professional marathon swimmer, and you swam to Crimea from Turkey?

            Nobody pays Marina. Unlike you, she has a real Facebook profile with a real name, photo, etc.. She lives in NYC, and I have met her before at a protest here. She is very passionate about the tragedy currently happening in Ukraine, which is why she is spending this time trying to get this message to the Western reader who might be reading this conversation, that we are dealing with Putin-paid trolls like you and xzuma, with fake accounts, hundreds of comments, and unrealistic fairytales taken practically word for word from Russian state propaganda. Unfortunately, occasional onlookers believe your guys’ testimonies. You try to sound like a regular person, you try to use informal language, you even make occasional grammatical errors, as if to sound more foreign, (but they are not the kind of errors that a Ukrainian or a Russian would make speaking English); however, none of this disguising is working out very well, because (unfortunately for you), you are not a statistician but a professional writer, trying to make a living in our increasingly technological world.

            If I were religious, I would say you have sold your soul to the Devil, like Judas, for 12 silver coins. You might see yourself as a victom of the American system: with hundreds of thousands of loans on your name and no solid job prospects for a humanities major. But you have to keep in mind that your actions are helping light a keg on fire, and an entire country, Ukraine, is already burning, and people are dying, precisely because Putin knows whom to buy. Keep that in mind when you write your next post and when you accept your next paycheck. Spreading lies and Russian propaganda is not save the lives of Donbass people.

          17. Trols are in your head. You are trolling me with this nonesence
            out of this world. The problem is- you dont need any other opinion different from your own and by “stopping war” obviously mean killing all of the separatists local populace and accusing anyone else but yourself in your miseries.

            You must have a brain of a chicken to even think there won’t be any planes in Crimea. You should have also pointed out to me that we have no water! There were water shut offs and electricity shut downs in Ukrainian Crimea all the time. NOT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!
            THE PLANE TRAFFIK IN SIM HAS INCREASED BY 7-10 TIMES!!!! You are probably some community college student with gpa 2.6 in IR?
            Should I provide a link on the Russian and Turkish airlines flying back and forth to Simferopol or Krasnodar or Greek ferry going every hour? It’s only 7 hours from Krasnodar airport, bus and ferry- much faster than flying to Kiev and taking a bus (24 HOURS +lots of nasty people on the way in Kiev). The Greek ferry takes~ 30 mins, even during most congested times no more than an hour and a half total. There is no line for passengers, troll. It’s only if you drive in by car (with half of your house behind), you have to wait.
            You know, people in Crimea continue living and enjoy their lives, make babies, etc and do not even suspect there are so many people talking about them, esp so worried about them (now that they are safe). We have a free healthcare system now until the health insurance starts acting (like in US)- everything is free if it’s in a state-run hospital. In Ukraine if you had to do blood tests, surgery, etc, you had to bring your alcohol, cotton and reagents, EVERYTHING… Now, if someone is trying to charge you for anything, this person can get fired under “corruptioner” or corruption scheme allegations. They also have all reagents now, rubbing alcohol, etc- free. It’s free for refugees too. Oh, every other doctor has a portrait of Putin in their office. There is another side of this coin,the doctors cannot do under the table procedures anymore or state employed doctors cannot advertise private procedures. But all medical workers have better salaries now.

          18. You are hilarious… you have clearly never lived in Russia.
            I was wrong about airplanes: Russian planes are flying to Crimea.
            However, the rest of your fairytales are hardly believable.

            Unlike you, I have lived in Russia and still have many friends there. People try to avoid by all means using Russian “free” healthcare, and do their best to use alternative commercial clinics, as free healthcare is predominantly incompetent.
            As for “corruptioner” charges, again, you and I know different Russias. In nowadays Russia, everything is done through bribing. Portraits of Putin have nothing to do with genuine love, sycophancy towards the authority has always been merely a means of career advancement in Russia. It’s a part of its traditional values, the ones Putin is defending like a galley slave.
            Of course, because I am aware of the harsh realities of Russian life, and harshly critical of the Russian authorities as a Russian citizen, I must be a belligerent warmonger wishing to slaughter peaceful population. Great logic, didn’t expect anything less of you.
            Anyway, the annexation of Crimea is already taking a terrible toll on the rest of Russia’s economy, as it is a huge investment. Some regions are decreasing salaries for school teachers, others for doctors, or pensions for the elderly… Soon enough trolls like you will be laid off too, I hope.

          19. Listen, western paid troll from Russia, who never lived in Ukraine… Crimea is Russia already and it’s getting more and more adapted into it every week. And people of Crimea are adjusting at a steady pace, and they are simply grateful for a better deal than civil war.

          21. Nothing is better than life, lack of ukrainization, lack of unjust
            vilification of your ancestors and hopefully a revived economy.

          22. civil war is bad, but covert attack on neighboring country just to stay in power, using false reasons to kill people, hiding murders – that is what USSR was, and now DNR is. People are getting tortured just for speaking the truth. While Russia is cracking down on anyone who has a different view from state propaganda. And average russians are getting poorer, because Putin and his junta are openly stealing everyone’s 401K and taxes and whatever else… Poor Russian people…. shame on Russia..

          23. You can’t keep calling a blunt russian military invasion of Ukraine a civil war. It’s a chose between occupation, followed by economic blockade, impoverishment, terror and violence towards pro- Ukrainian population and the entire ethnic group of Crimean Tatars, and outright war is all Russia has to offer to Crimea.

          24. 18 civilians Crimean Tatars have been abducted since the beginning of Russian occupation of Crimea in March 2014 to date. Most of them have been found dead with signs if inhuman tortures on their bodies . I don’t know if that’s a great environment for “making babies”

          25. One man I heard of myself. He was an old Tatar man working as a cleaner at the house of Dzhamilev. He was murdered by the son of a Tatar leader Dzhamilev (a drug addict and a Tatar nouvoriche). The son was hoping to get away with family-applied pressure, yet now that Crimea became a part of Russia, his father cannot help him anymore. This was all over the news a year ago, and is still ongoing. And some western leaders are trying to call this “political” now, although the 1st hearing happened over a year ago.

            I didn’t hear of anything else and If anyone was killed in Crimea due to political reasons or even imprisoned, it would have been all over the news. We still have all of the “liberal” press, criticizing this and that. Your events didn’t touch us, the Crimean society hasn’t anyhow lost its civility, there’s law and order there.

          26. Oh, please, add my name to your list of “Kremlin trolls”! I’ve been reading this for a while, and see how the pro- Ukrainian Hazbara is working. The moment they notice that readers’ opinion is turning against the Neo Nazis of Ukraine, they notify their friends and strat working in teams. They imply that only “paid Kremlin agents” can have opinion different than theirs, that so and so is not even on the Facebook (oh, what a proof!)
            Here is the Kharkiv news agency item, “Ukraine will mark the UPA birthday with parade and ban on the Communist Party”. They continue, “In Ukraine there is no Fascism, therefore the country will celebrate… the UPA heroes”…
            You see, I am Russian and I am interested in the developments in Ukraine. To be fair I read Kyiv Post, Ukraine Pravda, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Odessa papers, plus ua-reporter.com. Strangely enough, most of them are critical of the new government, and only the trolls like you “toe the party line’. Are you the descendant of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators?! There are plenty of them in the US. I’ve met some, still, to this day, living off the Jewish gold. Most of them were camp guards, and two I knew claimed that Jews were “giving them gold in exchange for food”.
            You, probably, don’t need to be paid if this is the case, you just one to restore the UPA and other groups in Ukraine. As the Spanish Communars claimed, “NO PASARAN!”.
            http://nahnews.com.ua/91503-ukraina-otmetit-den-rozhdeniya-upa-zapretom-kompartii/

          27. Ukraine has no nazi’s – their “nazi” party are just nationalistic youth who want to live in normal, non-corrupt country… what happened with UPA 70 years ago – russian bolshevik revolutionaries killed 10x more people in the most brutal way. At least Ukrainian nationalists from 1940’s were fighting Poles and Soviet occupation. Soviet bolsheviks were killing their own people by millions.
            In contrast, Russia has multiple openly fascist groups and parties, like ”
            “Slavic Union”, RNPM, NOD, “Rassvet”, RNU, “black hundred”, Russian Unity – just to name a few… there are dozens, literally. The russian fascist parties recruit people, and send them to Ukraine to kill and torture civilians and soldiers alike. Russian nazis march in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the middle of the day, and police NEVER arrest them.
            Russian government supports russian fascist parties… because Kremlin is pro-fascist. They are themselves are nazis…
            As Churchill said – fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists… that is RUSSIA today.

          29. Not supposedly, Victoria Nuland reported it, when she was begging for more.
            “Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported
            Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they
            promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are
            preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We’ve
            invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that
            will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine”.

            Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2013/12/20131216289031.html#ixzz3FbIUZwnW

          30. Yes, but can we depend on anything people like Victoria Nuland say? No matter what it is. They’re just going to say whatever seems to be advantageous at the moment. Just as some banks are too big to fail, so some people are too big to worry about the truth or reality or any of that wet hippie stuff.

            Speaking of Russia, did you ever read McClintock’s paper ‘How Harvard Lost Russia’? It helps explain what influences people like Putin and the wretched past and present leaders of Ukraine. Don’t miss the appearance of the unsavory éminence grise, Larry Summers, Mr. O’s buddy. It reflects on our story here, right down to some poor shmuck thinking he’s doing heroic, transcendent good by vandalizing a photograph in a gallery.

            And now, back to the fun of tribal warfare.

          31. In addition to the US money, there were millions and millions spent by private and semi-private foundations. McFaul, ex-ambassador to Russia , claimed the following in 2004, “Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes. The
            American agents of influence would prefer different language to describe
            their activities — democratic assistance, democracy promotion, civil
            society support, etc. — but their work, however labeled, seeks to
            influence political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International
            Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and a few other
            foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom
            House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic
            Institute, the Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation, Internews and
            several others to provide small grants and technical assistance to
            Ukrainian civil society. The European Union, individual European
            countries and the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation did
            the same.”
            http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15131-2004Dec20.html

          32. They are real bots. Real professional liers. Their job is to throw in lies and decoys, confusing average reader, causing anyone to doubt anything and everything.
            that is how they hide the truth… dont believe their lies.

          34. Barely 100k Tatars in Crimea? Sorry, their population is probably like 300,000.

            Second, remember why their population is low: Russians killed most of them

          35. Mat, I am sorry but you got the history wrong! 1st, Crimea became Russian without a single bullet fired by Kuchuk-Kajnadzhir Treaty). Not a single Tatar was killed along the process (not until the Georgian native, Stalin forcefully exiled them). It was given by Turkey after the loss in the 100-years Russo-Turkish wars. And it has been a part of Russia as long as the United States exists! And how many Native Americans got exterminated along the way?! By 2010 census from Wiki: 2,932,248 only alive.

            I am not an expert on current population, you might be right about the numbers, it might be over 250,000 now. The problem is that Ukraine never had a planned demographic census, as it was supposed to have one in 2005. However, there was an Orange Revolution and one extra elections, so all of the census money went to re-elections. They are doing the census now. So, we’ll finally learn WHO lives in Crimea.

          36. Bullets were fired, at least one serviceman was killed and even by name I know the story of Reshat Ametov who was abducted and murdered by Russians. Let’s not pretend it was bloodless, or that that makes it better now that people live in terror.

            Also, “not a single Tatar was killed back in the days” is total nonsense, and if you knew your history you would know Ukrainian was the language in the region, not Russian, until “the Georgian native” came.

            So what if it was given to the Russian Empire? Does that make it part of today’s Russian Federation? No. Use some common sense.

            Also, Ukraine had a census in 2001, to say they never had one is just lying.

          37. I am talking about actual Crimean history and Tatars. Guess what, we don’t give a damn about Ukrainian soldiers- the Ukrainians were the occupants for Crimeans. They came to a foreign to them land to control the region and impose the demands of the Ukrainian government. In fact, Crimea had its own President (Yurij Meshkov) in 1993 and he had to be on the run for decades after Ukraine took over by force. We wanted to form our new country in the 90s- Russia’s Eltzin refused to help. The price was very expensive- most of then prospering industries went bankrupt in a year once Ukraine regained control. The Ukrainian army in Crimea has been about twice as big as the Soviet army in Crimea during the Cold War.

          39. I haven’t been following US media when it came to Crimea pre- or post referendum (I was literally living on our Crimean sites, trying to get new info every other second, to see if anything has happened yet) but REALLY, WAS IT THAT BS?! You are absolutely brainwashed to that LOL point that could only anger people. I suggest you to educate yourself than with BBC, at least about the Crimean President: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26681653

          40. This is Crimea 4 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIXhefVR3dc

            The people got angry over Ukrainian officials installing some BS “Ukrainian” memorial in the heart of Russian city of Glory- Sevastopol. A sacriligeous and humiliating act, Ukrainian style. People are screaming: “OUT OF CRIMEA, UKRAINIAN OCCUPANTS”- “Okkupanty, von iz Kryma”.

            This has been happening all the time, every year as I was growing up, everyone in my high school class wanted out of Ukraine, thanks to all that humiliation we went through. Normal people cannot even imagine the extent of how much Ukrainians are a nation of liars. Anything a Ukrainian says is not to be trusted. Like what they did to a Crimean Constitution 1992…

            2. This is a neutral video focusing on what was happening in Ukraine and Crimea last winter-spring. They are only showing Simferopol ans Sevastopol but the 1st and most separatist act was happening in Kerch where the emotions ran wild over Euromaidan.

            YouTube video

          41. a) why do you show me some video of crazy ultra nationalists attacking sailors? Sevastopol does not speak for all of Crimea, either.

            b) Your quote just proves the xenophobic nature of many Russians, even those with Ukrainian citizenship (I presume, otherwise they are the occupants).

            c) That’s not a neutral video, it’s a blatant propaganda video. Even the title is “anti-maidan”. Who do you think you’re kidding here? lol

          42. a) These are not crazy people, these are angry people, activists. Ukr government set up a BS monument to 150 years of Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet (it’s a Russian BSF) and set up metal fences to prevent locals to remove the monument, in a popular public place. People become angry when they are provoked with something continuously, on every front [Ukrainian nationalism, ukrainization and continuos political repressions, attacks on the Russian language, culture, human rights]. This was just a response. In fact, Sevastopol is a cultural center, famed for being a “St Petersburg” equivalent. You see, when Yuschenko (ukr nationalist) became president, he organized repressions in every branch of industry, field, etc in the East. The competent leaders/ managers were fired/ stood down and he personally appointed his “friends” to every region and city. IE, fishering industry was discontinued as “unnecessary” and an agrarian minister from western ukraine who has never propably fished in his lifetime was appointed in charge. Rectors of universities were removed, at one university one impostor whose only competence was to be a “Ukrainian sycophant” in a Russian-mostly speaking region, was placed. There were cases when huge factories went on strike against Kiev oppression to keep their popular bosses. Also, a lot of corruption rumors about Yuschenko’s golden family and scandals over pressure applied by Kiev. It is a real dictatorship system- ‘unitary’.

            b) Ukraine was indeed an occupant. It’s not up to you to decide based on a few videos or talks of a few Ukrainians you met or whatever propaganda ou have been exposed to. You really need to live somewhere for at least a month to understand what and how. Just use your brain and think: half of the country doesn’t speak and never spoke historically the only state language of that country, foreign to that region! Don’t you see there’s something OFF here, which concerns basic human rights?! Crimea was not part of Ukraine for real but a country in a country, why would you even compare oranges and tomatoes?! My great grand, grandparents and parents were never asked if they wanted to be transfered to Ukraine- it was a very unpopular act for locals.

            c) This is ANTIMAIDAN- 2nd part of the movie Euromaidan. One gives the opinion of the western ukraine (with western and local video press combined)- 2nd part is showing what was happening in the East. There was a lot more but it’s rare to find a footage with some of the East Ukrainian protests combined in one, although there were hundreds of them with tens/ hundreds of thousands of people and nothing was covered in the Western Press. It’s indeed neutral by how it depicts people in Crimea– they were really trying to find the least intelligent looking ones in the crowd. You really have to be *NOT SMART* to rebuff this as propaganda. This is the other side that has been silent, yet has no less reasons to be unhappy about Maidan and this is a conflict that turned into war. If you ever strive to become a professional in future- you really have to learn that you need to understand both sides, before you ever could have a right for an opinion to voice. Bc you are saying that you absolutely do not respect 2 mils of people based of your ignorance.

          43. Ukrainians are part of Crimea, not occupants… wow, you are so messed up… at least follow russian propaganda like you are paid to, dont make stupid stuff up.

          44. What?! We have always spoke ONLY RUSSIAN. Even in Eastern Ukraine, very few people spoke Ukrainian! But NOBODY ever spoke a word of Ukrainian in Crimea. Some still don’t. It’s a deeply Russian land by its glorious history, more Russian than Russia itself!

          45. Crimea used to speak Ukrainian and Tatar before the genocides happened. Know your history. You look at things from only the colonial Russian point of view, which is to say, revisionist.

          46. I don’t know what nonesence you are reading to get this info. People were always angry in Crimea that they ended up in Ukraine and not Russia. Now there’s a positive festive spirit everywhere. Ie Sevastopol : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTb-6xgQGpY&list=LLOuTC3ojU6opLDbg3D-bsPA&index=29

            People live in terror in Ukraine right now. Just few days ago, a corpse of a man was found hanging on the fence of a church. The person got lynched by Ukrainian nazies. Or please, reseach something about Odessa.
            I won 2nd place in city Crimean “kraevedcheskaya” Olympiad (hitory, geography, geology of the Crimea) in high school and know better than anyone my history. I suggest you to learn about it. What you wrote here is a sacrilege to a Crimean ear.

          47. Really, Mat, just watch the videos I posted. These emotions ran so deep, when Crimea reunited with Russia… This was the most unforgettable moment, like a dream. Everyone was crying so much with tears of joy… probably the prisoners from labor camps cried as much in May 1945.

          48. Reshat Ametov was abducted on March 3rd, but found dead on March 15th. He was absolutely innocent bystander, chosen by people who wanted to prevent the referendum by inciting the Tatar population. He was abducted in the daylight on the major city square by several people, pushed into a car, with as much exposure as possible. The fundamental question, “Who benefit?” (Cui bono?) is not answered. But it is definitely not the pro-Russian forces.
            http://pikabu.ru/story/kak_i_kto_uvozil_reshata_ametova_v_simferopole_2116257

          49. He was abducted by Russian forces, it’s all on video and everyone knows what happened now. Please stop peddling lies.

          51. No you’re not, and based on your comment history, you’re a typical Russian troll putting out all the buzzwords for your shift (coup, fascism, junta, etc.)

          54. This site is infested with all kinds of insects, like a Brooklyn apartment and the moderator is nowhere to be seen. If it wakes up and shows up for a job, I’ll leave a manual how to classify these creatures: google how to disagree by paul graham. This comment for example is DH0, but everything that is below DH3 must be cleaned out.

          55. Katsap kolorado feces kan knott type-a da Engrizh too good can you. Lenin had syphilis & obviously you are an advanced case yourself, Huilo.

          56. Strangely, the Facebook page linked to your account, with the very realistic-sounding name Bo Ba, says you are from Moscow, live in Manhattan, and studied in Sofia. Your experiences about going to Maidan and warning them in December (!) that they are bringing about the Syrian scenario, also do not sound very realistic.
            How much do you get paid per comment, Mr. Bo Ba with 90 friends on Facebook?

          57. Yeah, I get these questions from vatniks as yourself all the time, because of my unorthodox views and the past. I just checked my profile –– I have 1461 upvotes. Do you want to discuss that?

          59. So you do want to discuss that. Alas, that was just a lacmus test. I am only engaged in discussing the theme at hand per se.

          62. Russia is removing and destroying Ukrainian and Tatar books from Crimea library, that is happening today, October 8th, 2014.
            Remember how germans did that in 1930?

          63. Such obviously misconstrued and ignorant statements could only come from a hive mind of kremlin apologists. It’s a public record easily found on Google that Crimean Tatars population is quarter of a million. That’s not counting the 180,000 that were purged to Asia in the 1940s by Stalin and his NKVD/KGB/FSB hinchmen.
            The history in russia always repeats itself, apparent to those who take notice. The same repeating cycle of violence, mass repressions, censorship, exaggerated North Korea styled propaganda, some of the authentic elements of russian autocratic sovereignty.
            There was no conflict in Ukraine until Putin and his FSB apparatus created one. Militarized gangs are now roaming Crimea, the territory temporarily cutoff from the russian mainland, around 2,500,000 people held hostage to a lack of basic logistics- one of the true testaments to Putin’s reckless “care standards” towards allegedly his own people…winter logistics to and from the water locked peninsula is air only.
            Same “intentional recklessness” that allowed for thousand of armed kozak, ossetian, chechen militias and russian military personnel, hundreds of tanks, multiple rocket lunch vehicles, artillery guns, BUK surface to air systems pour across russian border into Ukraine. Crimea is clearly Ukrainian – to anyone familiar with basic geography, it’s exactly like claiming Florida is not a part of North American continent and is apparently a part of Honduras.

          67. No, crazy. My Dad is a professor, an inventor in Crimea. Thank God for Putin, he is no longer pressured to start teaching СОПРОМАТ in Ukrainian (a language that has none of the relevant technical terminology)!!!

          68. СОПРОМАТ in Ukrainian would be hilarious. You are right about Ukrainian being inadequate as a technical language, but it is a beautiful language otherwise, and I would refrain from calling it “shitty” in a larger context.

          69. Sorry, my response is a perfect example how one radical (nationalist) creates another (separatist). I actually like Ukrainian music and language when it’s not imposed on me. I noticed even my father misses Ukrainian, as he turned on Ukrainian channels a few times now and then when I was home. But Ukraine really f*cked up Crimea with its western-ukr oriented national idea, radicals, … and chooses to stay in denial.

          70. Understood. I myself switched to Ukrainian when talking to my Kiev friends and relatives lately… Because I want to emphasize that there is “other” Ukraine.

          71. You are so fake, it’s hilarious!! I would accuse you of being some sort of a machine the russians invented if they weren’t so behind on pretty much everything that doesn’t have something to do with war, invading countries and assassinating people.

          72. Why can’t they just adopt words from languages where they already exist, for example, Russian, German, French, or English? It’s not that big of a deal.

          73. What did your Soviet daddy invent? Lying? The Telephone? LMAO at ruski troll-bots. Putin-Huilo.

          74. Random Cook, welcome to the forum, Ukr nazi troll! You need to switch your meds, psycho, since your current ones are obviously not helping.

          75. Can’t spell English very well can you Duh-knees…which is a position you must often take, when you suck on Huilos.

        2. Neil, don’t waist you energy on Kremlin bots. They keep an an army of trolls on payroll in Scolkovo near Moscow. they get paid 11 rubles or so for every response the filthy stuff they post
          is receiving online.

      3. Battalion Azov doesn’t carry nazzi symbols: those are ancient Slavic symbols, not nazzi. UPA are the Ukrainian Insurgence Army that fought with brutal Russian Communist occupants until Russians massacred them all after the WW2. I am a Russian speaking Ukrainian myself, who can confirm that you, Brian Dmyszewicz, are a Kremlin bot posting Russian propaganda here and making you allowance paid to you by the Kremlin.

        1. Very brutal… just for you to discuss this on some forum. While my Ukrainian American friends were remembering recently how their aunt was brutally murdered in Ternopyl by the UPA back in those days for teaching math in a high school in 1930s. Bc the UPA called everyone a traitor for working, living, breathing.

        2. They are Nazi symbols, let’s be honest here. Azov is run by the SNA, which is a neo-Nazi group with ties to Yanukovych. Wouldn’t be surprised if Russia funded them indirectly.

          1. Mat, I agree with you that anything in Ukraine sounding or looking Nazi has been organized, funded and maintained by Russia so they could illustrate their lies about the existence of Nazi ideology in post- Yanukovich Ukraine. I have trouble believing that politicians with radically nationalist sounding rhetoric such as Tyagnibok, Farion and a couple of their fellows are just retardant morons and not paid by Kremlin provocateurs.
            Regarding Azov battalion , I personally know a couple and am following on FB a few more fighters from Azov battalion. I see them all as educated, cultured well-balanced personalities of different ethnic origins, that have nothing to do with Nazi ideology. I can’t believe that any of those guys would like to do anything with Nazi. They are just fighting to keep the Russian armed horde of Orcs from advancing further I to the territory of Ukraine and are heroically defending the city of Mariupol. They do so together with Ukraine’s regular army forces and the later testify that the former are externally helpful and effective.

          2. Their leadership is entirely Nazi, there’s no denying that – that’s what the SNA is, and is fully open about it. But the SNA is a fringe group, and Russia is trying to inflate their importance and size to create a boogey man.

            (side note: Farion is a moron but Tiahnybok isn’t bad, and is a moderate. I think the party got support from Russia to steal votes from the social-democrats, but he seems to be your standard “Tea Party” type, nothing wild)

            As for members of Azov, I’m sure it’s a bit mixed, and some of those are just misguided individuals carrying the torch of those around them because…hey, why not. I’ve talked to one of their spokespeople and while denying being “Nazi”, as is typical, she went in a circle talking about the benefits of Nazism and the parts of National Socialism that are good. Tongue twisting double speak. She even told me that the symbol 88 (known to mean “Heil Hitler”) has “idealistic and romantic meaning.”

            Another guy I’ve known (some have seen him in the news as the Italian fighting with them) is for sure a fascist. I’ve yet to talk to a “regular” member but I’ve heard they exist second hand.

            Another member of a group I’m in (Euromaidan Press) did an interview with many of them and she found them to be 100% Nazi, and like you she was unconvinced to begin with (which is why she wanted to do the interviews, to get to the bottom of this). You can’t go to one of their bases without seeing swastika tattoos and finding white nationalists or the like. It’s an eclectic mix at best.

            When they split from Right Sector, it seems the moderate nationalists stayed with RS and the “ideologically inclined” went to Right Sector East, which became Azov. If you talk to their officers, they do say that they screen to make sure recruits are “ideologically inclined”

          3. Thank you Mat for sharing your vision of the subject . I’ll definitely continue to explore it on my own , as I want to be better informed before I continue the argument. Still, have hard times imagining Ukrainian Nazies: they are naturally such a highly tolerant nation and so non- aggressive in general, unlike those ethnically russian radically inclined Ukrainian nationalists I know from east Ukrainian cities, myself including.

          4. Absolutely, Ukraine is tolerant and in terms of far-right inclination is incredibly low – less than Europe (as we saw with the EU elections) and infinitely less than Russia, a close political and cultural neighbor. Which is just astounding.

            When we go by the Ukraine parliament elections normally it’s “only 2% voted for the far right” but even that – Svoboda is not really “far right” and IMO is just conservative right (I’ve seen one political science professor compare them to Republicans). Right Sector while wild at first has also moderated and one expert on the far-right I know has said they aren’t even far-right anymore. So that means….0% of votes went to the far right. Sounds about right.

            Every country has Nazis and skinheads and otherwise crazy headcases. Ukraine is like that too, and there is this small group who took up arms and recruited international volunteers and such. They are like 400 strong, we can guess what % are truly Nazis….in comparison to 50,000 soldiers and 3 dozen other volunteer units like them, they are irrelevant.

            (2008 stats say about 2,000 skinheads/nazis are in Ukraine as a whole, versus like 70,000 in Russia, for the record)

    2. You can’t think, “david”, cause you are one of the ukro-vandals. Or you simply got bodily waste for brains. Which is the same as being an ukro-vandal.
      You, ukro-nazis are going to be finished soon.

    3. Thank you for accepting Donbass and Southern Eastern part of so-called ukraine as a part of Russia! We need an official recognition from US and UN now to at least recognize that we are should be a separate entity from ukraine. Most of the Russians I know do not understand anything( how woul d they know if they didnt live there) and have a zero opinion on the situation in Ukraine.

    4. New Pro-Kiev strategy: Apologize at all cost. Finger point always. They must be putting a lot of fluoride in your water.

    1. You’re the real Nazi. That’s the irony of it all, there are people like you on both sides of the conflict, blaming the jewish culture for being the root of evil, when its you. You’re the root of ethnic hatred.

      Poroshenko isn’t even zionist or jewish. Infact the jewish have nothing to do with any of this. you’re just a bigotted shrude who can’t see reality even if it was right in your face.

      1. Agree, Jews are all different and deadly Ukroradicals are only targeting the Russian speaking/ pro-Russian population. And you don’t need to tell me how much they want to eliminate us. I have one degree of separation from Butkevich, a west-supported journalist and activist that openly suggested to ethnic cleanse 1.5 millions of people in Donbass, as RT has stated and later he personally confirmed his views during a skype interview with my acquaintance.IImagine, there are some democratic governments in the westmthat sponsor these activists!

        1. News flash: Practically all ethnic Ukrainians are ethnically Russian. And that “journalist” you are mentioning is on the friges of western journalism, because I highly doubt he even works for a major news network in America (go ahead and cite your evidence for such a crazy claim).

          Whats even better is this was reported by RT, and a “friend of a friend” of yours told you they talked to this person who “revealed his position’. And you think you’re the one who isn’t fed lies? Lol

          And even if this were true, it still says absolutely nothing about the position of our government. I know your used to your media projecting only what the government wants, but in “the west,” any media is free to publish whatever they’d like having to with international policy, even if that view doesn’t allign with reality in any way.

          1. This “friend” is used as a one degree of separation example. And btw, he’s an American citizen with Ukrainian roots (a ukrainian nationalist), a founder of a Ukrainian organization abroad (he excercised his small political power to get a Skype interview with Butkevich). He sometimes writes articles himself and he is the one who pointed out that the RT falsely assigned the “ethnic cleansing” remark but later on this is exactly what he heard from Butkevich during the skype interview “redundant 1.5 millions that would have to be killed” for the future of ukraine. And yes, this is what he was trying to explain to the radical about the West, whose position btw has been long cited by Western press in support of ukraine. I hope not as much anymore, since RT covered him. But his opinion and persona is very popular in the new ukrainian society, with strongly pro-war sentiments.
            Yes, Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians are supposedly the same peoples, yet research “Khatyn massacre”. In fact, you would be labelled as a separatist for such opinion in nowadays Ukraine, and your life would be in danger.

          2. Can you cite evidence of this person’s popularity? I’ve never heard of him or his views and I have been following the conflict since Euromaidan.

          3. Yes, Bogdan Butkevich is doing well in Ukraine, hes also a singera. He has the euromaidan background. Btw, for the person above: Israelis (Russian, Ukrainian, Adzerbazhani and even Israeli Jews) are mostly siding with people of Eastern Ukraine, esp the ones who came from Ukraine. People like Poroshenko, timoshenko, yatzenyuk or Kolomoysky have no nationality, only interests. They fund the chaos and destruction to keep themselves afloat in it.

      2. I honestly don’t know any anti-Semites among Ukrainian patriots. In fact, a lot of us are Jews, ethnic Russians, Georgians, muslim Tatars, you name it.. We all respect each other’s culture and religion. When Russian occupied Crimea, Ukrainian Crimean Tatars were offering protection for Synagogs, as those were a target for Russian aggression.

        1. Oh, darling, are you sure you are from Ukraine?! I can name plenty: Tyagnibok, and his best friends (the one who looks like a crazy witch especially), etc.. Just say on a street that you are Jewish or Russian and see for yourself. The reason why it’s not yet that obvious is bc the ethnic background option has been abolished but now that Svoboda ministers are in charge, just wait for the changes… This is one of the things on their party agenda.

          1. Svoboda got less than 1% on the latest election, but they got almost as much coverage as United Russia party on Russian state propaganda channels 😉

            I personally know Russian Jews who travelled to Maidan and experienced no racism. Your claim is quite ridiculous, as Kiev is a primarily Russian-speaking city. Finally, have you not heard of the Jewish battalion at Maidan? http://maidantranslations.com/2014/07/13/jewish-ukrainian-volunteer-battalion-matilan/

            I am sure you have, but you get paid per comment so you don’t care much.

          2. Honey, you don’t have to retell me the Ukrainian-US propaganda spread for those wo don’t know. I’ve been following Ukrainian politics since high school, my history teacher happened to be a politician himself and he told us of all of the rumors in those circles last year of high school.

            You are absolutely forgetting Lyashko, or he i not a radical nationalist anymore and leader of the Radical party?! He scored many votes, purposefully stealing them from Tyagnibok.

            Poroshenko also does fit in that spectrum a lot, since he has been fitting the radicals lately and waging a full scale war. He has been going the “pro-war” direction. Please, do me a favor: find yourself some friend in Donbass who has relatives controlled by Ukr army
            and inquire if relatives ae still alive or the national guard have taken them somewhere…

          4. Unfortunately, I also have friends/ acquaintances in US whose relatives in Donbass were abducted by the national guards and the right sector (Kramatorsk recently) but they are so afraid to speak out, because they think the FBI is reading/ listening to everything and you cannot voice any opinion in this society anymore. Also, almost everyone I know in Mariupol is a federalization-supporter and or against Ukraine. They are afraid to speak up or organize their own protests, afraid that Ukrainians will start threatening them over their opinion and will target/ lynch them in US. Just like with this exhibition…. Eastern Ukrainians are very scared.

            In terms of your friend.. She clearly represents the minority in her region- I feel very sorry for her, just like I feel sorry for pro-Russians in Western Ukraine. That’s why federalization is the only solution for Ukraine, so that the differences are not increased but relieved and people could have equal rights.

          5. In Toronto, a bunch of pro-Russia supporters came out and had a rally that all the papers in Russia wrote about. At a peace march recently in NYC, two guys showed up with a Donetsk People’s Republic flag and a Soviet flag, trying to start a fight, and to my knowledge the FBI hasn’t gotten them either.
            Although I do think Donetsk People’s Republic should be included in the list of terrorist organizations, given their methods.

          6. I don’t think you have a right to any opinion, considering that you are not on the ground, not involved in the conflict and Ukrainian media is the one sreading lies and propaganda and you are obviously following it in a biased pattern. The info they are providing is 80% false, starting with Crimea. My whole city has been watching and still angry at the obnoxious lies (when the local journalists have been only uncovering the fake news about our city in Ukr media over the Crimean events). Also, in terms of the bombings and etc… CNN has often been covering based on their analysis of evidence on the ground that most of the bombings were done by the Ukrainian army. Amnesty International has been posting similar stuff. To my modest opinion of an outsider from Crimea, all recent Ukrainian leaders will be on trial for war crimes in future, both for killing the civilians and Ukrainian soldiers.
            http://amnesty.org/en/news/ukraine-must-stop-ongoing-abuses-and-war-crimes-pro-ukrainian-volunteer-forces-2014-09-08

    2. Ukrainians have the right to be free from Soviet-Russian oppression. they revolted and want new government. Putin is so against it, he is willing to take Russia back to stone age just to stay in power to keep on stealing for himself and Tichenko, Rottenberg and other his friends…
      Russia has attacked Ukraine, like they did in 1992 with Pridnestrovie in Moldova and Ossetia Abkhazia in Georgia in 2008. covert war, where russian soldiers change uniforms, take off insignia and shoot civilians.
      Russia and Kremlin spend A LOT of money on propaganda, instilling lies and their visions in other people’s minds.
      The reality is – Ukraine threw off russian oppresive regime, and Putin got scared that this can happen to him (and it will). So he is prolonging his reign by killing ukrainians that just want to be free.
      Russia – state sponsor of terrorist organizations DNR-LNR- Novorossia…
      It is only natural for russian president to be a mass murdere. He is walking in Stalin’s shoes… even Brezhnev attacked Afghanistan and was hiding the death toll until too many russians died… Putin is also hiding his involvement in ukraine crisis by dressing his soldiers as “green men”, but the world knows better… Can’t lie to everybody all the time.

  4. Mostafa, I just checked the show out today and now I’m even more confused. You’re the journalist, any idea who is actually paying to rent the old Eyebeam space for this sort of exhibition? Curator Benjamin Hiller appears to be a Berlin-based Corbis photographer, so not sure what organizations are even behind any of this?

    The Ukraine portion of the exhibit did read like Russian propaganda. Images of the square in Kiev pre- and post- Maidan had wall text saying how much trash there was going to be clean up. Wall texts also detailed how well trained the Maidan protesters were, with images of molotov cocktails, but no images of injured protesters. For a second, I wondered if this was some sort of Walid Ra’ad piece playing with the presentation of violence, but I left just more confused!

    It seems you post is getting comments from the well documented pro-Russian internet comment force:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/pro-russia-trolls-ukraine-guardian-online

    All of this does make me question and wonder about who were the attackers? Seeing the framing of the exhibit makes me think there might be something to David Lanceburg’s comment that they might not have even been Ukrainians. I can barely find any reference to the show before the vandalism, so who knows?!

    1. Your observations about the content of the show are not surprising. Some people in the Ukrainian and Russian community here have noticed earlier that there is evidence this exhibition might be sponsored by the Russian government: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=717915308295883&id=707043659383048

      Knowing the Ukrainian activist community here, I am not aware of any rightist, and especially neo-Nazi tendencies in New York city in the Ukrainian activism scene. However, provocations happen at every rally, with shady and often anti-Semitic (they always press that Poroshenko is a Zionist) individuals trying to disturb every rally against Putin’s aggression that I’ve been to. Most recently, at the Peace march on September 21 (near the Russian consulate), there were men wearing a Donetsk People’s Republic flag trying to get in a fight with the ralliers, until they were asked by the police to cross the street to the other side. They were also carrying a Soviet flag and a Confederacy flag.
      https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/10382036_10202776060337877_7471007629815023601_o.jpg
      https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10603369_10202776062617934_5391091381226044551_n.jpg?oh=1ec9cb6cef402b8e113c628d2c73cb93&oe=54841844
      https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/s960x960/10608219_10202776064897991_4245927503858598873_o.jpg

      I will not be surprised if RT is in on this tomorrow (they like to portray Western Ukrainians as neo-nazis), and if the gallery never reports to the police to start an investigation. It will be funny if the perpetrators turn out to be the same people who come to disturb our protests.

      But of course, it will be very sad if the perpetrators were actually followers of the Azov battalion that unfortunately flirts with neo-nazi symbolism. Their coat of arms is the only “neo-nazi” thing about the pamphlets that the article claims to be neo-nazi, by the way. The left pamphlet says “Azov battalion. Freedom or death.” And the right pamphlet says “The Heavenly Hundred. Glory to Heroes.” (The Heavenly Hundred refers to the protesters shot during the Maidan protests in Kiev in early 2014). However, most Ukrainians I know are ashamed of the fact that Azov battalion flirts with neo-nazi symbolism, as millions of Ukrainans, alongside with Russians, died fighting against the Nazi Germany, and because the 2013-2014 protests and the Ukrainian revolution were not anti-Russian or anti-minorities, but anti-corruption and hence anti-Putin. Those people, mostly inhabitants of Kiev, a predominantly Russian-speaking city, were protesting to defend progressive ideals, such as government transparency and freedom of expression, while the ultra-nationalistic groups have always been and stayed a marginal minority. But Russian state-owned media and other outlets sponsored by the Russian government do their best to portray the Ukrainian society as ultra-nationalistic, which is a shame and a lie.

      1. I was on the maidan in December 2013, and spoke to many people there, including the Berkut. Although their intentions seemed noble on the surface, I left puzzled by the fact that nobody could answer a simple question: what is your goal — that is a goal in practical terms. OK, I said, you don’t like Yanuckovich, but the elections are within one year. You don’t like the changes he introduced into the constitution, but nobody even talks about starting a referendum about new constitution? You have hundreds of thousands of people who would be enough to start a petition for a referendum –-– why you are not doing it? Any conversation about a positive program would be met with a blank stare. I told them you are being played out according to a Syrian scenario, you will destroy our country, and you will be ashamed at what you did. Half year later, we have lost Crimea, Donbass, Lugansk, the country is about to explode further, everybody is afraid to speak their minds, armed thugs on the streets.

  5. The exhibit is obstensibly anti-Ukrainian propaganda and borderline hate speech. It should have been banned in the first place.

    Read their site, it’s full of pejoratives for Ukrainians and disinfo / pro-Russian nonsense.

    1. “borderline hate speech”

      I have seen your various handles (fb, twitter, etc.) People who live in glass houses…

  6. Bravo, Kremlin propaganda team! You must be so proud of yourself now, as you’ve planned and executed this staged / fake Uki-neo-nazzie attack on your own employee – the curator of the show. There are no neo-nazies in Ukraine, and everyone even remotely familiar with the subject can confirm that. You’ve invented that neo-nazie bullshit a couple years ago and have been riding it ever since.

  8. The author shows a printed picture commemorating the “Heavenly hundred” victims in Kyiv who were killed by police in cold blood, and calls them “neo Nazi pamphlets”

    Seriously, who wrote this? Do some due diligence

  9. Those Putin’s friends, who’d put together this joke of a show as a Kremlin propaganda act, should watch out: the next attack on you may be coming from real ninja turtles, not your imaginary Ukrainian neo-nazzies..

  12. A funny fact: I am a Ukrainian from Kiev, and I am more than happy that Crimea is now part of Russia. When I tell that to my fellow americans they just go like “what?!!”. So I am not expecting much of understanding from these remote people. Carrying on… I am ashamed that my own city became a facsist stronghold. I am very disappointed the the US and EU are supportive of the coup that happened in february. It seems that some things never change, and history teaches us nothing.

    BUT! I am glad these Chelsey vandals started some discussion that remotely reminds of intelligent discussion on this board.

  16. Voltaire said “Though I disagree with what you say and yet I will defend to the death your right to say it”.Clearly this art exhibition is free speech and should and must be protected as such. Hopefully the crimes of battery, assault, vandalism and destruction of property will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no place for thuggish and unlawful behavior such as what occurred at this art exhibit. Who did or did not finance it is irrelevant and in no way mitigates or justifies these reprehensible actions. What your personal thoughts and feelings are concerning the civil war in Ukraine ought not to alter your perception of condemning these crimes. If you don’t like the exhibition go make your own and I would defend your right to do so.

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