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“Ukrainians in Ohio are raising their children in the spirit of Ukrainian nationalism! Way to go!” recently declared the leader of OUN-B, or the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, after seeing a video by 18-year-old Yuriy Kmiotek from Parma, Ohio.
But Kmiotek, a self-described “paleoconservative” whose hobbies include dressing up as a perpetrator of the “Holocaust by Bullets,” is no typical Ukrainian American teenager, even if he grew up in the adopted hometown of Ukrainian Nazi death camp guard Ivan Demjanjuk.
Sitting in front of a scarf with the face of Stepan Bandera, Kmiotek once explained in a Youtube video that one of his political inspirations is neo-Nazi incel Nick Fuentes. Kmiotek is obviously gunning to be the OUN-B point person in the Cleveland area, where the Banderite network has mostly died off. Presumably that explains why he is being encouraged to go for it.
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The history of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in the United States is older than most would guess. In 1934, the Young Ukrainian Nationalists of Cleveland took pledges from Omelian Senyk, a Ukrainian terrorist leader, to “do their duty toward Ukraine according to the principles of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists,” which was then just five years old. A month earlier, the OUN had killed the Interior Minister of Poland, and Senyk was allegedly involved in ordering the assassination that coincided with his fundraising campaign in North America.
Omelian Senyk was a member of the OUN leadership and former “homeland commander” of the terrorist Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) in Poland that spearheaded the OUN. Earlier that decade, according to a sympathetic historian, he “renewed the UVO’s terrorist activity and… organized an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Polish President.” Senyk oversaw the rapid expansion of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine (ODWU), the principal OUN front group in the United States of the 1930s.
In 1936, the ODWU held its national convention in Cleveland. The following year, so did the Ukrainian Youth League of North America (UYLNA), whose outgoing president, John Panchuk, an assistant attorney general of Michigan, denounced the Nationalists at the UYLNA congress. According to a Ukrainian American newspaper, the “main theme” of Panchuk’s speech “was that Ukrainian nationalism as exemplified by the ODWU was Fascistic and therefore a menace to the Ukrainian-American movement.”
Panchuk also distributed a pamphlet that he wrote, titled “Nationalism or Fascism,” which quoted Omelian Senyk: “It is our duty to find among foreign governments allies whose interest would coincide with Ukrainian interests. A conflict between two viewpoints is approaching. Nationalism vs. Communism. Two war camps are being formed…” Panchuk commented, “Here we have a deliberate, dogmatic statement in which the word Nationalism is used synonymously with Fascism and proclaiming that… our allies must be sought among fascist governments.”
In September1940, a Ukrainian American salesman visited the Cleveland office of the FBI, hoping to explain that “the Nationalists were often confused with another Ukrainian group … which are very pro-Nazi, working for Ukrainian independence under German protection.” Three days later, Stepan Bandera wrote a letter to OUN leader Andrii Melnyk, and accused him of being puppeteered by traitorous deputies, in particular Omelian Senyk.
The Banderites are believed to have assassinated Senyk and another “Melnykite” leader almost a year later. It was after this, and not the Banderites’ unauthorized attempt to form a pro-Nazi government in western Ukraine earlier that summer, that Bandera was sent to a concentration camp, albeit as a special political prisoner (released by the Germans in 1944). Around that time, the FBI heard that “General Secretary Kotowych of ODWU has twenty-two rifles and a store of ammunition in the basement of the Ukrainian House at 2253 West 40th Street, Cleveland, Ohio.”
The “M vs. B” feud reached the United States after World War II. The ODWU remained loyal to the Melnykite OUN leadership, so the Banderites created the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms of Ukraine (ODFFU) in 1946. The ODFFU spearheaded the OUN-B’s “Ukrainian Liberation Front” in the United States, and formed its third branch in Cleveland, which no longer exists. Apparently the last local ODFFU leader was Ihor Olijar, who died in 2021.
Ivan Olijar, his father, was a veteran of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the monstrous 1940s paramilitary arm of OUN-B, who owned a tavern in Cleveland, and reportedly “shot and killed an alleged robber” in the 1970s. It was on his initiative in the early 1980s that the United States got its first UPA monument in Parma while the US Department of Justice tried to deport a member of its Ukrainian community, thought to be “Ivan the Terrible” of Treblinka.
In 2008, the Parma City Council designated a two-mile corridor of the Cleveland suburb as “Ukrainian Village.” By then the local OUN-B network was practically on its last legs. One of its leaders, Ihor Diaczun, became the president of the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio (UUOO) in 2010, and then moved to Chicago to lead the Illinois Division of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. But the Bandera cult was never extinguished in the Cleveland area, which still has a branch of the OUN-B’s Ukrainian American Youth Association (UAYA).
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Yuriy Kmiotek, a member of the UAYA, created his own “military-historical club” in 2020, obviously inspired by the “Greywolves Company,” the first Banderite military reenactment group in the United States, which was established a dozen years ago in Chicago. Whereas the “Greywolves” exclusively dress up as UPA fighters, Kmiotek’s small club is also dedicated to “preserving and presenting the history” of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in Nazi-occupied Ukraine, the Ukrainian division of the Waffen-SS, and the “Legion of Ukrainian Nationalists” in the Wehrmacht.
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In the spring of 2021, Kmiotek made a Twitter account, where he calls himself the “Paleoconservative Head of ‘Ukrainians for Trump’” in Ohio. “Socialism becomes more and more of [a] threat, but not in the way Ukraine has fought the last century,” he started tweeting on May 8. “Socialism in America, the American neo-Socialism, that of destruction of churches, small house and homesteads, the killing of patriotism and manliness. #diaspora #GOP #AmericaFirst.”
Meanwhile, MAGA Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene kicked off an “America First” revival tour. “America First will CONQUER in #2024,” he tweeted the next day. “What is an American? It is hard to say, the idea has been bastardized to the point of some strange lovecraftian horror. But it is able to take points from our core immigrants. Irish, Germans, Anglos and Italians for example.”
The Bandera Lobby Blog has already established that “Ukrainians for Trump” was tied to the hip of the “Suburban Council of Ukrainian Voters,” which is more or less synonymous with the Palatine, Illinois branch of ODFFU, an active part of the OUN-B network. “Our values are hard working, Christian and Conservative,” Kmiotek also tweeted. “There is not a Ukrainian in this nation or world who doesn’t fit that definition. If he doesn’t, he’s not a Ukrainian.”
On June 30, 2021, the 80th anniversary of the OUN-B’s pro-Nazi “restoration of Ukrainian statehood” in German-occupied western Ukraine, Kmiotek made a Youtube channel called “The Cleveland Conservative.” In his first and only video, Kmiotek bemoaned his “shite city,” and the sad state of affairs “due to the blindness of the average American Marxist voter.” He urged conservatives, “for their own survival and conquest,” to “let the GOP be destroyed by [the] America First movement.”
Distinguishing himself from the white nationalist “Groypers” led by Nick Fuentes, Kmiotek explained (with a Stepan Bandera scarf hanging behind him) that he “believes in a greater umbrella” of “American reactionaries,” and “together we can create a nice community of rightists.” At the end of the day, “most of my politics are taken from our friends John Doyle and Nicholas Fuentes.”
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Kmiotek’s Youtube profile says “America First is inevitable,” a Nick Fuentes slogan. “We continue to support czar Putin in the war effort,” however, according to Fuentes. “We want to keep our brave soldiers in the white, blue, and red in our prayers and in our thoughts as they continue to liberate Ukraine from the Great Satan and from the evil empire in the world, which is the United States.”
Less than two weeks after Russia attacked Ukraine last year, a 17-year-old Yuriy Kmiotek shared an image from the ultranationalist Right Sector outlining a Greater Ukraine, and announced a fictitious “Ukrainian Unity Party” (or “UNO”) on Instagram—going public with his Nationalist fantasy about “Appalachian Ukraine.”
Kmiotek thinks that “Appalachian Ukrainians” are a “distinct ethnic group,” who “have already formed such a root into the Ohio soil,” that the time has come for them “to be able to say, ‘I have the right to rule in my own own. I have the right to decide how my home will look, how my home will speak.’” This is not a wanna-be separatist movement, he claimed, but a “cultural project… to distinguish the Ukrainian people of Ohio” and “the power that Ukrainian klyns like that can have.”
Then he created a small scouting club, the “Appalachian Sich” named after OUN founder Yevhen Konovalets, which has adopted symbols from the OUN, the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, and the far-right Carpathian Sich battalion. Incidentally, the latter is linked to the Svoboda party, which at least used to have an “American cell” that led nationalist marches in Chicago’s “Ukrainian Village” with the “Greywolves.”
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Yuri Kmiotek dressed in historical costume for the Appalachian Sich’s first meeting that spring. “Sich — to the assault! UNO — to the power!” he declared on Instagram, appropriating a slogan from yet another far-right group in Ukraine with a paramilitary and political wing (UNA-UNSO).
Joining them was another costumed individual, the chairman of the “Order of the Silver Star” (OSS). This “independent fraternal order” for U.S. veterans was established by a recent graduate of Liberty University, an ultraconservative Baptist school founded by Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. Kmiotek seemed to join forces with this bizarre group as soon as the war began.
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Last October, the UAYA hosted the Appalachian Sich’s first camp, dedicated to the fake 80th anniversary of the UPA. Later that weekend, on Sunday, a pro-Russian protester picketed the entrance of Saint Andrew’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Parma, which has the UPA monument in its cemetery.
“No Nazi Monuments! UPA murdered 100,000+ Jews and Poles!” said one side of his protest sign in English. “Shame on you Banderites,” it said on the other side in Russian, claiming that Azov has killed 4000 civilians.
Eventually an agitated crowd formed, including Kmiotek, who came back after everyone else went into the church. “This isn’t the right place to do it… Come to our reenactments, man… Come take a look.” Another crowd assembled as the church service ended. Did you know, another young man asked, about the Holodomor, “and you know that every Ukrainian was suppressed during the Soviet era? By Soviets, by the Jewish landlords, who were Polish.”
“The Germans were the only ones to send relief to Ukraine during Holodomor,” Kmiotek chimed in. “You’re justifying it right now,” said the protester, presumably referring to the pro-Nazi orientation of OUN-UPA and/or its role in the Holocaust. “No, I’m just saying…”
Later on, the crowd started singing “Our Father is Bandera” and the protester, knowing some Russian, began to chant “Glory to Russia!” and “Akhmad is strong!” Then an older man spotted the pro-Russian ribbon of Saint George on his chest. “You are Juden! You are Judah!” the man began to jeer. “You have some money and you do your job… Go to the synagogue and you can show them.”
This past spring, Oleh Medunytsia toured the United States for the first time since he was “elected” as OUN-B leader in December. Yuriy Kmiotek made it to Chicago for Medunytsia’s meet and greet with the local Banderites, and wore an OUN-B emblem on his sleeve. Perhaps he helped convince Medunytsia to visit Ohio. Several days later, the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland hosted a lecture and meeting. For Kmiotek, this meant another chance to meet the new Providnyk.
Over the following month, Kmiotek participated in a Banderite summer camp in New York, made a video about it that Medunytsia shared on Facebook, and announced a merger between his “Appalachian Sich” and the Ukrainian American Youth Association of Cleveland. Days later, Kmiotek’s group appealed for donations on behalf of the neo-Nazi “Freikorps” militia in Ukraine. Earlier this year, they sent a care package to the extremist Right Sector.
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The “Appalachian Sich of Cuyahoga ‘Yevhen Konovalets’” is now the UAYA branch’s “Kurin of Druzhynyky-Ratniki ‘Yevhen Konovalets’.” Apparently this translates as a “unit of legionnaire-warriors” named after the OUN founder, but what it really means is that the “Konovalets unit,” an 18+ group (Druzhynyky in UAYA lingo) led by Kmiotek, will take “the role of ‘Ratniki’ teaching athletics, scouting and sporting.” The OUN-B’s “Defense of Ukraine Fund” now follows Kmiotek’s “Kurin_Konovalets” account on Instagram (which links to the official OUN-B website), and its antisemitic coordinator in Ukraine likes many of his social media posts.
Last weekend, representatives of the neo-Nazi Azov Movement visited Cleveland. Kmiotek and his UAYA friends of course got their pictures taken with the group. After all, the “Appalachian Sich” had a customized flag modeled after the Azov Brigade sergeant school named for Yevhen Konovalets. One of its leaders visited the United States last October, around the time that Kmiotek and at least one other friend started sporting Azov clothing and patches. This weekend, the “Kurin Konovalets” is holding a sports tournament for UAYA members in Cleveland, and the winner will get an Azov shirt and chevron.
Yuriy Kmiotek recently visited the University Club in Washington to attend the latest conference of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations, an OUN-B “facade structure” led by Walter Zaryckyj in New York. Kmiotek and Zaryckyj stood one foot apart in the group photo taken at Oleh Medunytsia’s meeting with the Banderites in Chicago.
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The latest crypto-Banderite conference in Washington (“US-US Working Group Summit XI: Providing Ukraine with an Annual Report Card Amidst War — Year Two”) was co-sponsored by the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and the Open World Leadership Center, all of which are funded by the U.S. government. Speakers included the usual cast of Banderite-friendly “experts” from influential Washington think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council (John Herbst, Melinda Haring, Daniel Fried, Adrian Karatnycky). I wonder how many of them met Kmiotek, and noticed the OUN-B pin on his jacket?
Speaking of Karatnycky, I’m reminded of an exchange that he had several years ago with Walter Zaryckyj’s first wife, who played dumb about the continued existence of OUN-B. “You don’t know there is still a clandestine orhanizatsiya? C’mon,” he said. Karatnyckyj, a frequent participant in Zaryckyj’s conferences and former part-time employee of the CIA, recommended that the contemporary leaders of OUN-B should repudiate its pro-Nazi history, because “they are all smart, modern and democratic people.” As I was writing this, the up and coming OUN-B youth leader in Cleveland published the lyrics of a Ukrainian Waffen-SS song on his Facebook.
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