The curious case of a Banderite think tank
In the spring of 2021, after the initial buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine’s borders, a small group of Ukrainian nationalists established a think tank that started to work with the Ukrainian armed forces. Since then, the “Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center” (USCC) has partnered with the European Congress of Ukrainians, an important structure in the Toronto-based Ukrainian World Congress, and the National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine, which is more or less the equivalent of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
According to the website of the Security and Cooperation Center, its core team took shape in 2014, during the so-called “Revolution of Dignity.” But the leadership of this “independent analytical center” actually originated in the OUN-B—the “Banderite” faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which still exists—and its “Turn off Russian” campaign that advocated for the elimination of Russian influence in Ukrainian media. Zelensky’s crackdown in early 2021, that aimed to accomplish this, reportedly triggered Putin’s decision to amass troops in the coming weeks.
That’s roughly when the “Turn off Russian” team established the USCC, which now claims, “We helped to shut down the TV channels owned by Medvedchuk.” They might have parted ways with the Banderites since 2019, but they could also be laying the groundwork for regime change in the OUN-B. Whatever the case may be, it’s worth keeping an eye on this group. A representative of the USCC even appears to coordinate the fundraising arm of an elite neo-Nazi unit directed by the Ukrainian military intelligence agency.
The USCC got started with a video that it made with the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine to support draft law 5557 “On the Fundamentals of National Resistance.” Soon the Center interviewed the commanders of the Special Operations Forces (Hryhoriy Halahan) and the Territorial Defense Forces (Anatoliy Barhylevych) about this important legislation. “We are talking about the historical past,” said Halahan, whom Zelensky dismissed a year later. “How can we do what we did in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army,” he asked, referring to the 1940s paramilitary arm of OUN-B. (more...)
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