The Banderization of the Kyiv Post
'Now is the time for us to win the memory war.'
Yesterday’s post about Istorychna Pravda, or “Historical Truth,” an affiliate of Ukraine’s top online news source, reminded me that it’s not the only Banderite-friendly media outlet that has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, NATO, and so on and so forth. Of course, there is always “Radio Svoboda,” the Ukrainian service of the U.S. government-funded broadcaster RFE/RL, which was set up by the CIA, but today let’s talk about the Kyiv Post. It is in a rather shabby state these days, but continues to parade itself as the premier English-language Ukrainian online newspaper.
In 2019-20, when I began to investigate the present-day OUN-B network, I marveled at the fact that Askold Krushelnycky was the Washington, DC correspondent for the Kyiv Post. He briefly led the publication in 1998. Now he writes for The Independent, the British online newspaper. I recognized the name Krushelnycky from my research into the OUN-B during the Cold War period, and sure enough, Askold comes from a family of British Banderites. Although the KGB assassinated Stepan Bandera before his birth, the Ukrainian fascist leader visited the Krushelnycky home during trips to England, perhaps in the days when Bandera worked for British intelligence.
Askold Krushelnycky likely met his wife, Irena Chalupa, in the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), said to be the “largest and most important umbrella for former Nazi collaborators in the world.” Bandera’s deputy and successor, Yaroslav Stetsko, another friend of the Krushelnycky family, chaired the ABN for life. “StopFake” producer Irena Chalupa worked for Stetsko at the OUN-B headquarters in Munich, read poetry at his 1986 funeral, and in the years to come joined Radio Svoboda, which she even directed (2007-11). They live in Washington.
In 2020, Stefan Romaniw from Australia wrote an opinion piece for the Kyiv Post in which he suggested that the Waffen-SS Galicia Division was part of “Ukraine’s struggle against Russian imperialism.” The editors failed to identify him as the head of the OUN-B, although this was never a secret. He also made a speech at Stetsko’s funeral. I felt like I was taking crazy pills. But after Romaniw died, the Kyiv Post announced the loss of a “Towering Figure” in the Ukrainian diaspora, and finally acknowledged that he chaired the OUN-B from 2009 to 2023. Yesterday I noticed that since at least 2023, the year before Romaniw died, his Kyiv Post author page has been titled “Bereza” in the URL. That was his name in the OUN-B, which I revealed at the end of a random blog post in 2022, but it wasn’t confirmed until after he died.
Needless to say, I was just scratching the surface in 2019-20, and perhaps in 2029-30, I will say the same about now, but since a bunch of journalists left the Kyiv Post in 2021 to establish the Kyiv Independent, Banderites and other info-warriors have filled the void. Take for example Askold Lozynskyj, a prominent Banderite in the United States, perhaps the one who is mentioned the most on this newsletter. He’s written 67 articles for the Kyiv Post since October 2022, when Ukraine might have been able to negotiate with Russia from a position of strength. His most recent articles are headlined “The US and the Ukrainian Holodomor,” “Trump and Co. as Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ Revisited,” and “Is Trump a Russian Agent or an Asset?”
Bohdan Nahalyo, another British Banderite based in Barcelona, became the chief editor of the Kyiv Post in December 2021. Like Krushelnycky, Chalupa, Romaniw, and Lozynskyj, he was raised in the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM, Спілка української молод), an international OUN-B front group. This provides some context for his convictions that any talk of Nazis is just Russian propaganda, meanwhile “this is a Holocaust of Ukrainians” by “the Hitler of today, Putin,” but peace in Ukraine is apparently more dangerous than war with Russia.
Nahaylo was actually a member of the “June 30, 1941” branch of CYM in England, named for the date that Stetsko declared a pro-Nazi government in German-occupied western Ukraine. Chalupa wasn’t the only Banderite to go to work for Radio Svoboda in the 1980s. OUN-B leader Andriy Haidamakha (2000-2009), Romaniw’s predecessor, helped to establish Radio Svoboda in Ukraine and led its Kyiv bureau in the 1990s. Bohdan Nahaylo was actually the first person from RFE/RL allowed to visit Soviet Ukraine. At a 2023 conference in New York held by the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations, an OUN-B front group, Nahaylo recalled that “Soviet-American agents of influence” accused Radio Svoboda of “antisemitism, of course, or promotion of fascism, why? Because of our mentioning, recalling the restoration of Ukraine’s independence by Bandera’s followers in Lviv on June the 30th, 1941.”
Pete Shmigel, who is from New York but lives in Australia, has written 235 articles for the Kyiv Post since 2022. He might have grown too liberal for the OUN-B, but he was raised in CYM and a Banderite family. In his college days, Shmigel became the U.S. president of the international Ukrainian Student Association of Mykola Mikhnovsky. This was a very nationalist youth group dominated by Banderites, and produced many of the 21st century leaders of the OUN-B in the Ukrainian diaspora, such as Kyiv Post contributors Askold Lozynskyj and Walter Zaryckyj. For a while, at least in 2015, Shmigel worked as the PR manager for the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations, which was also dominated by Banderites with OUN-B leader Stefan Romaniw at the helm for so many years. Shmigel is close to the “Kuzan faction” of Banderites who apparently left the OUN-B in 2018-19.
Stash Luczkiw is another editor of the Kyiv Post, only since Nahaylo took over. Shmigel wrote this about Luczkiw last year: “We grew up together in CYM, the Kerhonkson/Ellenville area of New York, and the Ukrainian American diaspora. We were raised to strongly believe in the righteousness of Ukraine’s cause while also acquiring Western knowledge and perspective. As Stash said to me last night, which I’d never really considered, we are uniquely built for the humble work of telling Ukrainians’ stories in English to a world audience.” The CYM camp in Ellenville is the home of a quasi-religious “Heroes’ Monument” that the OUN-B erected after the KGB assassinated Bandera. It was a point of pilgrimage for the Banderites.
Walter Zaryckyj, the longtime executive director of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR), is an OUN-B leader in the United States, and New York City in particular. He’s contributed a handful of articles for the Kyiv Post since 2022, starting with a two-part series, “The Best Evidence of a Future Ukrainian Victory is the Country’s Valiant Past.” Several of the Kyiv Post’s columnists these days can be seen at CUSUR events: Steven Moore, Diane Francis, Andreas Umland, and Alexander Vindman, at least. In 2023, Bohdan Nahaylo and Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Jay Smart, a shameless propagandist, also spoke at CUSUR conferences. I checked Smart’s Twitter/X account while writing this, and just as I expected, his latest update on the war is that “Russia’s imploding.”
In 2023, I wrote about the Banderite brothers and defense contractors trying to reactivate the OUN-B network in the Pittsburgh area. Their father was a leading OUN-B member in the United States. The oldest brother, Yurij, is the Director of Research for the front group that owns the U.S. headquarters of OUN-B in New York. Almost a year ago, their family foundation helped to bring a Holocaust denier to the Banderite HQ in Manhattan for a Christmas OUN-B fundraiser. Yurij has said that the fascist ideologue Dmytro Dontsov “definitely solidified my beliefs and point of view as a teenager, young adult.” Last year, he co-authored an article for the Kyiv Post with its “special correspondent” Ivana Stradner, another unhinged “expert” on Russian propaganda. “Chinese and Russian Influence Operations Threaten Safety of Jewish and Ukrainian Students,” they said. Since then, Yurij has donated $1000 to the “American Ukraine PAC” created by Kyiv Post founder Jed Sunden.
For my Canadian readers, I haven’t forgotten Lubomyr Luciuk, your valiant mustachioed defender of Waffen-SS veterans, who has contributed over 20 articles to the Kyiv Post since 2023. He spoke at the same CUSUR conference as Bohdan Nahaylo, which I also tried to attend, but had to settle for standing outside with a poorly made sign that explained this event was organized by an OUN-B front group. That evening, Luciuk declared that Russia gifted them “the best chance ever to tell our story … so now is the time for us to win the memory war.” Six days later, the Ukrainian president and the Canadian government gave standing ovations to a Waffen-SS veteran. The Kyiv Post turned to Lubomyr Luciuk. “Are There Ukrainian War Criminals in Canada?” asked Dr. Smart. “The fear of ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ infiltrating Canada is not something new – but is there more to the story?”