Ukrainian neo-Nazis flock to the Hong Kong protest movement

17/12/2019

Ukrainian fascists who previously fought in a US-backed neo-Nazi militia joined the anti-China protests in Hong Kong, sharing their tactics and showing off their tattoos.

By Ben Norton
Dec.4, 2019

Neo-Nazis from Ukraine have flown to Hong Kong to participate in the anti-Chinese insurgency, which has been widely praised by Western corporate media and portrayed as a peaceful pro-democracy movement.

Since March 2019, Hong Kong has been the site of often-violent protests and riots that have run the city’s economy into the ground. The US government has funded many of the groups leading the pro-Western and anti-Beijing movement, and opposition leaders have coordinated closely with conservative political figures in Washington like Marco Rubio and Steve Bannon, lobbying for sanctions and other punitive measures against China.

Numerous delegations of far-right groups from across the world have traveled to Hong Kong to join the violent insurgency against Beijing, in which secessionists have attacked police with bows and arrows, shot gasoline bombs out of catapults, and burned numerous people alive.

With their flamboyant waving of US and British colonial flags and tendency to belt out the American national anthem on megaphones, anti-China separatists in Hong Kong have made themselves a magnet for the US far-right. Staff of the website InfoWars, right-wing social media personality Paul Joseph Watson, and the ultra-conservative group Patriot Prayer are among those who have made pilgrimages to the protests.

The latest collection of extreme-right activists to reinforce the ranks of the Hong Kong separatists are from Ukraine. They call themselves Gonor and have tattoos on their upper torsos with undeniable symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism.

These extremists previously fought in a notoriously brutal neo-Nazi militia called the Azov Battalion, in Ukraine’s war against pro-Russian militants.

The Azov Battalion is an explicitly fascist paramilitary group that organizes around neo-Nazi ideology. After a Western-backed 2014 coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected government, Azov was incorporated into the Ukrainian national guard. It has received support from the US government, which has armed and advised the neo-Nazis in their fight against Moscow.

Azov has also helped train American white supremacists, who have plotted terrorist attacks back at home in the United States.

While Western governments and corporate media outlets portray China as an authoritarian regime that treats Hong Kong like a colony, these violent Ukrainian fascists took advantage of the region’s autonomy to gain entry through its borders. It is unlikely they would have been admitted to mainland China, or to the Western European countries that routinely refuse visas to political extremists.

The presence of Ukrainian regime-change activists in the Hong Kong protests is further evidence of the alliances that anti-Chinese activists in Hong Kong are building with other right-wing, US-backed movements around the world, sharing tactics to weaken and destabilize countries targeted by NATO.

Ukrainian fascists join Hong Kong insurgency

On December 1, the far-right activist Serhii Filimonov posted photos on Facebook showing himself and three Ukrainian friends upon their arrival in Hong Kong. The images were accompanied by the anti-Beijing’s unofficial slogan: “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong!!”

Stand With Hong Kong is also the name of a Western-backed organization that has been lobbying the governments of the US, Britain, Germany, Canada, and Australia to impose sanctions and take punitive action against China.

In a video they posted on social media, the Ukrainian white supremacists revealed that they had obtained a press pass, misleadingly portraying themselves as journalists.

Joining Filimonov on the trip to Hong Kong was a notorious extreme-right Ukrainian activist who goes by the name Maliar. Maliar is popular on Instagram, under the name xgadzillax, where he has more than 23,000 followers. (Maliar has a distinctive scar on the left side of the neck, which makes him easy to recognize in photos.)

Besides the swastikas inked into his skull, Maliar had the Nazi symbols tattooed on his right leg, next to an algiz rune, another common white supremacist emblem.

Several photos show that at least two of the Ukrainian fascists in Hong Kong have tattoos reading “Victory or Valhalla,” the title of a compilation of writings by the notorious American white supremacist David Lane, whose neo-fascist terrorist group The Order murdered a liberal Jewish radio host and planned more assassinations of left-wing Jews.

Lane, who was convicted to 190 years in a US prison for numerous crimes, created the most famous white supremacist slogan, known as the 14 Words — which inspired the name of another Ukrainian neo-Nazi group called C14.

Filimonov, who also has a large following on Instagram, where he uses the name Sunperuna, published a photo showing the phrase “Victory or Valahalla” emblazoned on his chest.

The book “Victory or Valhalla” is dedicated to “Aryankind.” In its pages, its author says he is committed to preventing the “imminent extinction facing the White Race” and the “Judeo-American/Judeo-Christian murder of the White race.” The screed is replete with homages to Nazis, and the back cover shows a photo of Lane’s body in his coffin, wrapped in a Confederate flag.

These Ukrainian fascists were such fans of the book that they permanently tattooed its title on their bodies.

Maliar, the other member of Gonor who joined the Hong Kong protests, has “Victory or Valhalla” inscribed conspicuously on his neck.

Neo-Nazis take campus

On December 2, the Ukrainian fascist visitors posted photos of themselves on the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), a site of violent protests.

PolyU has been a crucial base of operation for the separatist uprising. A total of 3,989 petrol bombs, 1,339 pieces of explosives, and 601 bottles of corrosive liquid were recovered at the school, as of December 2, according to reports.

Serhii Filimonov (the first on the left in the photo above) has faced legal troubles in the past, appearing in court for allegedly brawling with police.

The photos Filimonov posts on social media make two things abundantly clear: He is a Nazi and wants as many people as possible to see him shirtless while bearing heavy weapons.

Other members of Gonor have published photos on Instagram holding guns.

A video posted on Instagram in 2015 shows Maliar and a friend in a “White Rebel” Confederate flag t-shirt surrounded by guns and tasers.

Gonor’s symbol draws on many of the same far-right ultra-nationalist themes, with three white knives centered on a black flag.

Gonor’s Telegram channel offers members a front row seat to an orgy of violence. It has published dozens of videos of Hong Kong insurgents, heroizing them for shooting arrows and carrying out brutal attacks on state security forces.

Both Filimonov and Maliar previously fought in the US-backed neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. Maliar has posted photos on Instagram showing the two armed and in military uniform, wearing Azov patches.

And Filimonov has published several photos showing him and his friends wearing Azov t-shirts.

Ukrainian regime-changers build networks with Hong Kong secessionists

Despite all of this publicly available evidence demonstrating the open fascism of the Ukrainian hooligans in Hong Kong, the Kiev-based Free Hong Kong Center published a statement on Facebook defending and whitewashing Gonor.

The organization confirmed that the extremists did indeed fight with Azov “during the first period of the war” against pro-Russian separatists, but claimed that they have been unaffiliated since 2015.

The Free Hong Kong Center described the neo-fascists as “activists of the Revolution of Dignity and as well as veterans of the defending war with Russia.” Absurdly, the center declared that they “assured us they are really against nazism and another kind of alt-right ideology.”