[Marguerite]

McCain schmoozing with the neo-nazi leader Oleg Tyanhybok in Kiev, 12/16/2013.

In 2004 Tyahnybok was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary group for a speech calling for Ukrainians to fight against a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia." His advisor Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn established a "‘Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" un 2005. Mykhalchyshyn referred to the Holocaust as a "period of Light in history". Andreas Umland, a political scientist at the National University of Kiev Academy, wrote: "Svoboda is a racist party promoting explicitly ethnocentric and anti-Semitic ideas. Inside, Svoboda is much more radical and xenophobic than what we see”.

[Marguerite]

After the 2010 conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok rushed to Germany to declare him a hero who was “fighting for truth.”

Svoboda’s openly pro-Nazi politics have not deterred Senator John McCain from addressing a EuroMaidan rally alongside Tyahnybok, nor did it prevent Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland from enjoying a friendly meeting with the Svoboda leader.

On Maidan Square 30% of the protesters were nationalists and neo-nazis, who mostly came to Kiev from Lvov and the West Ukraine. They destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol became a common sight in Maidan Square.