He focuses strictly on the Azov battalion--one of several private militias currently operating in Ukraine independently of the command of Ukraine's army and national guard. And indeed there does seem to be a strong neo-Nazi ideology amongst members of this group. It is undoubtedly disturbing.

However, Parry being Parry, he makes several mistakes fatal to whatever he wants his ultimate point to be. First, he conflates the actions of private militias with those of the Ukrainian government. These are not Ukrainian government troops, period. That they may be conducting their own operations in the same theater does not mean they should be considered one and the same. Secondly, he seems to assume all the private militias are comprised with people with the same neo-Nazi type sentiments as you might find in Azov. You can't just assume--as Parry does--that all these militias are fighting under this mindset. And Azov's a relatively small force--only a few hundred fighters or so, many of whom aren't trained or equipped nearly as well as the regular army, so whatever ultimate impact they may have on the battlefield isn't exactly very clear.

Essentially, Asov's taken the bogeyman role on the pro-Russian side that Right Sector and Svoboda used to have before the presidential election revealed them to have very little public support amongst Ukrainians. The pro-Russian side (and Parry is, without a doubt, very pro-Russian) needs someone to point to so they can mark the Ukrainians and their government as neo-Nazi, or fascist, so to give a clear narrative that the people fighting them are fighting against fascism.

And that's where Parry's gross hypocrisy in this piece comes into play. He criticizes the "western media" for creating a "white hat vs. black hat" narrative with the Ukrainians and their government as the good guys and the separatists and the Russian government as the bad guys.

But that's exactly what he's been doing all along, since February, except in reverse. He's always painted the Ukrainian government in the most unflattering of tones. See how he's insisted--without any evidence whatsoever--that what happened in February was a "coup", and a U.S. backed one at that. He framed the May 2nd mob violence in Odessa as some sort of modern day pogrom massacre of pro-Russian "anti-fascists" by Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" even though even a cursory look at the days events reveal it to be a much more complicated situation than that with both sides at fault.

He's never said a good thing about the Ukrainian government, and hasn't seemed to say anything bad about the separatists or the Russian government, which makes his agenda very questionable.

The truth is, yes, there are neo-Nazis living in Ukraine. There are also neo-Nazis and fascists living in Russia (see Aleksandr Dugin) and neo-Nazis and fascists fighting amongst the seperatists, but Parry won't have any of that. The sad thing is, neo-Nazis are just an unfortunate fact of life just about everywhere.

Parry's supporters insist he is still the principled "investigative journalist" of decades back, but the cold, hard truth is he researches little and reports nothing beyond what his agenda supports. For example, someone so seemingly obsessed with neo-Nazis and fascists in Ukraine would probably take note of the fact that Pavel Gubarev, the "people's governor" of Donetsk, was a proud member of Russian National Unity, a fascist/neo-Nazi paramilitary organization, and Gubarev to this date appears to be very proud of the association. But that runs contrary to Parry's own narrative. So the only mention Parry has ever made of Gubarev merely makes him out to have been some sort of political prisoner of the Ukrainian government:

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/04/the-age-of-the-oligarchs/

For the people who just looooove to quote Robert Parry because of what he did 30 years ago:

Robert Parry is not being honest with you. Robert Parry is a disingenuous, hypocritical hack. Still.

The Ukrainian official troops do the shelling; the Nazis do the personal down and dirty stuff. If Svoboda has no support, how come they got four ministries?

What do you call it when an incumbent president agrees to step down after elections are held, and the Nazi street action forces him out before that? I'd say a coup, and the government is still a corrupt oligarchy.

Yes, Parry is as onesided as the western media, but it's useful corrective.

Merkel on her visit pushed a federal system with more autonomy for the east. Why are you opposed to that?

The private militia will do what the private militia will do. But it's disingenuous to claim they are one and the same with the government.

Svoboda has three seats in the 20 seat Cabinet. Right Sector has none. Azov Batallion has none. If the results of the presidential election are any indicator, it's doubtful Svoboda can hold onto those after parliamentary elections take place.

Your narrative of what happened in February is so inaccurate, it's not even funny. The EU deal, brokered the evening of February 21st, did not have Yanukovych stepping down but it would have sped up the previously scheduled elections. Here's the thing, though. By that point, Yanukovych had already been packing up his house for nearly three days at that point. Several hours after the deal was announced, Yanukovych flew away in his personal fleet of helicopters. Bottom line is he had no intention to abide by the EU deal. He had already decided to leave. Nothing in that scenario remotely fits the category of coup. Do you even know the definition of the word coup?

For the record, I'm not opposed to decentralization measures that have long been suggested as it relates to eastern Ukraine. I support the direct election of local officials by the people. What I don't support, however, is turning Donetsk and Luhansk into autonomous vassal states for Russia.