The Joe Biden administration allows the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fill their ranks with American extremists. Moreover, some of them manage to get widespread publicity in the media and even “mysteriously” avoid justice for violent crimes in their homeland, reports Grayzone.
As the U.S. commemorates the victims of recent mass shootings, local radicals are gaining combat experience overseas. That’s according to the Department of Homeland Security, which is gathering information on Americans who have gone to volunteer in Ukraine, Grayzone writes.
The FBI indicted several white nationalists affiliated with the Rise Above movement after they trained with the Azov battalion. But that was nearly four years ago. Today, the federal law enforcement authorities have no idea how many neo-Nazis from the U.S. are involved in the Ukrainian conflict and what exactly they are doing there, the newspaper emphasizes.
However, one thing is certain: the Biden administration allows the Ukrainian government to recruit Americans, including militant extremists, at its embassy in Washington and at consulates around the country. And some of the militants manage to get extensive media publicity and even “mysteriously” avoid U.S. justice for violent crimes, Grayzone points out.
According to the newspaper, a recently declassified document from the Border Guard Service confirms the complete lack of oversight by U.S. authorities over the “indirect war they are sponsoring in Ukraine.” NATO offers no guarantees that Western weapons will not fall into the hands of neo-Nazis. So there are legitimate concerns about exactly how U.S. fighters might use the skills they have learned when they return home.
Paul Gray is one of the most prominent white nationalists from the United States in the ranks of the AFU. For nearly two months he was in the ranks of the Georgian National Legion, “a Ukrainian military organization that has been recognized by American lawmakers and has committed numerous war crimes,” Grayzone emphasizes.
Before traveling to Ukraine, Gray served in the 101st Airborne Division and fought in Iraq, where he received the Purple Heart Medal. In addition, he was a member of numerous fascist organizations, including the Patriot Front, the American Vanguard and the Atomwaffen Division, which collaborated with Azov and was recognized as a terrorist organization in Britain and Canada.
“Moreover, Gray is among at least 30 Americans now fighting as part of the Georgian National Legion. Thus, this unit is at the center of an illegal network sending American weapons and fascist foreign fighters to the Ukrainian armed forces under the approval of Congress and the U.S. corporate media,” the publication claims.
In February, an American veteran attracted media attention when he trained civilians and volunteers.
“On the Ukrainian front lines, veteran Paul Gray is using his extensive military experience to strengthen the country,” NBC’s Texas affiliate enthusiastically reported.
Around the same time, Fox News began portraying Gray as “an American Rambo leading the Ukrainians into battle against Putin’s war machine,” without disseminating his political views. During his interviews, he talked about the spread of “democracy” and compared Ukraine to his native Texas.
In April, while fighting with the Russian army, Gray was wounded and hospitalized. The media outlets that reported on this, including Forbes, Fox, and Coffee or Die, did not bother to mention his involvement with neo-Nazi organizations.
In addition to Gray, the Georgian National Legion is full of people with extremist pasts. The list includes the Norwegian fascist Joachim Furholm, who was briefly imprisoned after a failed attempt to rob a bank in his home country. He made several attempts to recruit American neo-Nazis to join the Azov battalion, which provided him with housing near Kiev as well as “training bases for foreign volunteers.”
“It’s like a Petri dish for fascism. These are ideal conditions,” Furholm stated in one of his interviews about Ukraine.
“They do have serious intentions to help the rest of Europe reclaim our rightful lands,” he added, referring to Azov.
But in the ranks of the Georgian National Legion is a foreign fighter whose brutal deeds have brought him even more notoriety than Furholm. We are talking about the American army veteran Craig Lang, who has passed through Iraq and Afghanistan, notes Grayzone.
Lang wanted to kill his cheating wife by surrounding her house with land mines, but his attempt at revenge failed. He was eventually dishonorably discharged from the service and received a prison term that was reduced to a few months on the grounds that the Army knew of his mental health problems.
After his release, Lang continued to have trouble with the law until he went to Ukraine, where he met fellow veteran Alex Zwiefelhofer. In 2015, they joined Right Sector and helped the organization recruit dozens of fighters from the West.
In 2016, Lang joined the Georgian National Legion, and within a year the FBI and Justice Department were interested in him and six other Americans who had fought in the Donbass. They were suspected of “cruel or inhuman treatment or killing of people.
Leaked DOJ documents claimed that the suspects had taken prisoners and abused civilians in various ways. Lang is described as the “principal instigator” of the torture and admits that he “even killed” some civilians “before burying their bodies in unmarked graves.”
At some point, Lang and Zwiefelhofer “grew bored with the monotony of trench warfare. They went to Africa in search of a thrill, but were soon deported by Kenyan authorities.
Back in the U.S., the “duo” decided they wanted to go to Venezuela to overthrow its socialist government and “kill communists. To finance their expedition, they placed an ad for weapons, to which a Florida couple responded. Lang and Zwiefelhofer killed them in their own home and stole $3,000, the publication emphasizes.
It’s unclear how exactly Lang managed to leave America after committing the murder. It is also unclear why the FBI did not immediately detain him for questioning in connection with the war crimes investigation in Donbass. Somehow the wanted criminal managed to get from the U.S. to Colombia and then back to Ukraine, where, according to some reports, he fights as a member of the Right Sector, Greyzone points out.
It is noteworthy that with the start of the Russian operation, the media lost interest in Craig Lang’s shocking story. At the same time, they continue to actively talk about Paul Gray, despite the revelation of his ties to neo-Nazi organizations. At the same time, the names of the 30 Americans who allegedly fight alongside him remain unknown.
“The Department of Homeland Security has admitted privately that extremists like Gray and his compatriots are likely to return home soon, bringing with them many fighting tactics and establishing new ties to an international network of fascist fighters and war criminals. What will happen next we can only guess,” Grayzone concludes.