The influential D.C. based Ukraine Foundation (USUF) hosted a webinar on July 15 featuring a documentary about Vasyl Slipak, a famed Ukrainian opera singer who died in 2016 fighting alongside the ultranationalist Right Sector’s “Volunteer Ukrainian Corps” (DUK) in eastern Ukraine.
The webinar featured an appearance by Diana Vynohradova (Kamlyuk), a Nazi decorated with white supremacist tattoos. Vynohradova was convicted of participating in a notorious racist murder and has incited hatred against Jews, denigrating them as “kikes.”
With her presence in the webinar, Vynohradova provided a shocking example of the mainstreaming of neo-Nazism in Ukrainian politics, and the tolerance for pro-NATO fascists in Washington. The USUF which provided her with the stamp of approval is a leading think tank of the Ukrainian diaspora with ties to the US State Department and anti-Russian foreign policy advisors in both parties.
Through its Friends Of Ukraine Network (FOUN), the USUF has recruited some of the most hardline anti-Russia foreign policy hands in the Beltway. The Canary UK reported last year that the USUF and FOUN are “pushing a frightening escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine” through their annual policy recommendations to the US government, and that the FOUN has described itself as “the largest, highest level and most politically diverse group of Americans to call for arming Ukraine with American weapons.”
Though it describes itself as a “do tank,” the USUF did not respond to a request for comment on its hosting of a Ukrainian neo-Nazi involved in racist violence.
Zaborona reported that Vynohradova was convicted in the early 2000s for her participation in the racist murder of a Nigerian citizen. “I don’t like Negroes,” her friend replied when asked why he stabbed the Nigerian to death.
While in prison, Vynohradova wrote poems for the notorious neo-Nazi band Sokyra Peruna. During the 2013-14 “Revolution of Dignity,” she advised protesters from the main stage on Kyiv’s Independence Square “not to give in to supplications from the kikes.” In the past, Vynohradova wore a neo-Nazi “1488” tattoo on her right arm, but she has since covered it up.