Sunday, 17 November 2024

State Department-Tied Ukraine Site Includes Trump, Vance, Vivek, Breitbart and More on 'Enemies List'

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State Department-Tied Ukraine Site Includes Trump, Vance, Vivek, Breitbart and More on 'Enemies List'
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 25: A man with a Ukrainian flag stands on Pennsylvania Avenue inSamuel Corum/Getty Images

A U.S. State Department-tied Ukrainian online outlet has published an “enemies list” of American activists, media personalities, news outlets, and politicians who oppose providing more taxpayer money for the war, listing among them former President Donald Trump and Breitbart News.

A report published by the Ukraine-based DATA Journalism Agency (TEXTY), titled: “Roller Coaster: From Trumpists to Communists. The forces in the U.S. impeding aid to Ukraine and how they do it” has accused numerous figures on the populist right and anti-war left in the United States of echoing “key messages of Russian propaganda aimed at depriving Ukrainians of the ability to defend themselves with Western weapons and funds.”

The website claims to be “independent” and that its project into supposed anti-Ukrainian sentiment in America was funded “exclusively by the readers”. However, TEXTY is listed as a partner of the Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services (TAPAS) Project in Ukraine, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UK International Development (UK Dev).

TEXTY's co-founder and current deputy editor, Anatoly Bondarenko, is also listed as a trainer for the American State Department’s “TechCamp” program, which claims to provide “hands-on, participant-driven workshops that connect private sector technology experts with key populations — journalists, non-governmental organisations, civil society advocates, and more — to explore and apply innovative tech solutions to global issues.”

While the report admits that most mentioned in the study “do not have direct, proven ties to the Russian government or propagandists” it continues to paint a conspiratorial and supposedly interconnected web of 390 individuals and 76 organisations, with a heavy focus on those “affiliated with the Trump wing of the Republican Party.”

Prominent American conservative political figures mentioned by the report as having demonstrated an alleged anti-Ukraine bias include former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Congressmen Bob Good (R-VA), Jim Banks (R-IN), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and more.

The TEXTY paper also highlights some Republicans who initially supported funding Ukraine but later opposed more taxpayer cash flowing to Kyiv, such as Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

Commenting on his inclusion in the report, Congressman Jim Banks wrote: “I've just been notified that I am listed on an 'enemies list' compiled by the Ukrainian government, alongside other U.S. congress members and a select few Americans.

“To make matters worse, this list was published on a database that received funding from the US government. My office will be reaching out to the other Americans who are being targeted by the Ukrainian government.”

The study goes on to assert that former President Donald Trump's approach towards “foreign and domestic policy attracts many neoconservatives and far-right supporters,” which they claimed are “endorsed” by news and media outlets such as Breitbart News, the American Conservative, the Daily Wire, One America News Network, and Real America's Voice. Pressure groups such as The Heritage Foundation, the Stand Together Foundation, the CATO Institute, the Concerned Veterans for America movement, and Turning Point USA were also listed.

Some leading media figures mentioned in the report included Tucker Carlson and Canadian professor Jordan Peterson, who was described as a fan of 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The U.S. government-funded website described Breitbart News as being “far-right” and being “aligned with the alt-right, the European populist right, and the pan-European nationalist identitarian movement.”

Among the listed examples of alleged “anti-Ukraine statements” from Breitbart, TEXTY cited two tweets, one of which criticised the Biden administration for sending billions to Ukraine rather than spending money on a wall to protect the Southern border and another critical of Biden for focusing on Russia while overlooking the threat of Communist China.

“In the articles, the authors emphasize that the 'West has done nothing to bring peace but continues to spend taxpayer money to arm Ukrainians',” the report adds, citing a seemingly invented quote which does not appear on the Breitbart website.

While the authors admit that most of the focus is on the right, the report lists some left-wing groups, such as the Stop the War Coalition and CODEPINK, which TEXTY claims “uses every Russian propaganda thesis to support its beliefs” against the war in Ukraine. Despite voting for more Ukraine aid, the leftist Democrat congressional group known as “The Squad” was criticised for supporting peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow and reducing sanctions on Russia.

TEXTY said that the left-wing anti-war movement was being ideologically led by public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey David Sachs, whom they describe as “well-known Russophiles and critics of the United States”.

Ukraine has previously been accused of having public “kill lists”, with the infamous Myrotvorets list reportedly being tied to hundreds of arrests and allegedly linked to the murder of several individuals in Ukraine, according to The Times of London. Myrotvorets — established by former Ukraine government minister George Tuka in 2014 — also claims to operate independently.

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