In Episode 152 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the relentless propaganda exploitation of the Azov Battalion to tar Ukraine as "Nazi" by the same pseudo-left hucksters (e.g. the inevitable Grayzone) who engage in shameless shilling for the fascist regime of Bashar Assad in Syria—which is beloved of the radical right and which employed fugitive Nazis to train its security forces. These hucksters also (of course) join with far-right figures such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and NickFuentes in openly rooting for Putin and opposing aid to Ukraine. And while hyperventilating about the Azov Battalion (which years ago purged its far-right leadership), they make no note of the Nazis fighting on the Russian side in Ukraine. This is both pseudo-pacifist war propaganda and fascist pseudo-anti-fascism.

The German Bundestag on Nov. 33 voted to formally recognize the Holodomor, a politically induced famine that decimated Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, as a genocide. The declaration found that Soviet authorities demanded inflated quantities of grain from Ukrainian farmers and punished those who fell short with additional demands. Affected regions were cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union so that Ukrainians could not receive aid. As a result, approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. Ukraine declared the Holodomor a genocide in 2006.

Supporters are warning that Italian anarchist militant Alfredo Cospito is in danger of dying in prison after more than a month on hunger strike. Cospito, being held at Bancali prison in Sassari, Sardinia, began his hunger strike Oct. 20 to protest the inhumane conditions he faces under Article 41-bis of the Italian legal code, with harsh restrictions on his mobility and communication with loved ones, and no prospects for a review of his life sentence. The European Court of Human Rights in 2019 ruled that Article 41-bis, designed for terrorist and Mafia-related cases, violates the European Convention on Human Rights. 

Italy's Division of General Investigation & Special Operations (DIGOS) on Nov. 15 announced that it had broken up the Naples-based cell of an armed neo-Nazi network called the Order of Hagal, arresting five suspected militants. The five are being held on terrorist association and other charges. Raids were also carried out in several other cities across the country, including Milan, Turin, Palermo, Ragusa, Verona, Salerno, Potenza, Cosenza and Crotone, turning up large caches of fascist regalia. (ANSA, L'Arena, Agenzia Nova, La Repubblica, Sky TG24)

In Episode 150 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the panelists at The People's Forum event on "The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine"—including the inevitable Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin—for actually spreading Russian war propaganda, in Orwellian manner. As Ukraine makes advances on the ground, liberating the city of Kherson (which Moscow had declared as "annexed"), Russia retaliates with massive missile strikes targeting civilian infrastructure such as heating plants as the bitter Ukrainian winter approaches—clearly war crimes, aimed at breaking the will of the populace. But rather than protesting the Russian bombardment, these pseudo-anti-war voices join with the Trumpian right in calling for an end to Western military aid to Ukraine. And rather than Russian mass atrocities and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, they point to imaginary pressure on Kyiv from the West not to negotiate as the obstacle to peace.

Russia's heretofore secretive private mercenary force, the Wagner Group, has opened its first official headquarters, in an office building in the city of Saint Petersburg—with a stylized W logo and the words "Wagner Center" in Russian emblazoned on the glass door facing the street. Putin-allied oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin last month also publicly confirmed for the first time that he is the founder of the mercenary outfit. (Al Jazeera) These are amusing developments after years of claims that the Wagner Group—which is accused in a string of horrific human rights abuses both in Ukraine and across Africa—doesn't actually exist. 

Russian forces have committed war crimes and likely crimes against humanity by unlawfully transferring or deporting civilians from occupied parts of in Ukraine to Russia or Russian-controlled territory, according to an Amnesty International report released Nov. 10. Russian and Russian-backed authorities have also forced civilians through an abusive screening process known as "filtration," during which some were arbitrarily detained, subject to torture or other ill-treatment, and separated from their children.

In Episode 148 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the ANSWER Coalition—a formation so "tankie" that it actually displays portraits of the genocidal Syrian dictator Bashar Assad at its Orwellian "anti-war" rallies—is holding a panel at The People's Forum in New York on "The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine." The headlining speaker is to be Jeremy Corbyn, who was bashed by Ukraine's government as a "useful idiot" of Vladimir Putin for joining a panel demanding a cut-off of military to aid to the besieged nation. Other panelists are even more subservient to Moscow's military aims, including Vijay Prashad, Medea Benjamin, Jill Stein and Brian Becker. Notably absent from the panel (of course) are any progressive Ukrainian voices—such as Anatoliy Dubovik and Sergiy Shevchenko of Ukraine's Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists; Yuliya Yurchenko or Vladislav Starodubtsev of the Ukrainian left-opposition group Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement); Taras Bilous, editor of the Ukrainian socialist journal Commons; or Artem Chapeye, Noam Chomsky's Ukrainian translator who called Chomsky out in an open letter for abetting Russian propaganda after the war began. All these Ukrainian voices, whatever strong criticism they may have of the neoliberal government of Volodymyr Zelensky, are unequivocal on the need to defend Ukraine against Russian imperialist assault. Whereas this hypocritical "anti-war" panel is an exercise in pseudo-pacifist war propaganda.