They Have No Decency Left

Stalinist-like denunciation of my book “The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins” and me

Andreas Umland, who backed a call for total mobilization in Ukraine by a neo-Nazi admirer of Hitler, Anton Shekhovtsov, who headed the Dugin’s organization in Crimea, and their ilk resort to a Stalinist-like denunciation of my open access book “The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins.”

They and their ilk want not only to censor my book but also to go after my university job and subject me to criminal persecution and sanctions by the Zelensky regime because they are incapable of challenging my evidence-based analysis. Instead of following standard academic norms and practices, they resort to such collective denunciation of a book and a scholar, which is typical of Soviet practices. And their denunciation is based on primitive fraud, fakes, and slander.

Umland’s first draft, which was formulated with Skekhovtsov involvement, was sent to his handpicked recipients on January 1, 2026, but the absolute majority of them did not sign. He spent 4 months on collecting signatures by adding denunciation of Elon Musk, whose Starlink has been critical for communication of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the Russia-Ukraine war. They also smear David Sacks for his GoFundMe contribution. Ukrainska Pravda, propagates defamation, denunciations, and fake news concerning me. I helped to publicize in the US media kidnapping and killing of its founder, but it now turned into an equivalent of Soviet Pravda. It’s revealing who joined such Stalinist-like denunciation by means of false claims. For them, politics trumps merit, evidence, and scientific research.

Open-access publication of my book was funded by open access publication grant from the University of Ottawa and over 350 GoFundMe contributors. Contrary to the denunciation, Elon Musk did not fund my book but helped on Twitter/X to stop an attempt to block my GoFundMe. I publicly thanked Elon Musk and all contributors, whom Umland, Shekhovtsov and their ilk slander.

They also propagate primitive fakes about popularity of my book, because it reached 249,000 views and downloads on the publisher website 6 months since its official publication. They falsely claim that Musk and Sacks covertly promote its views and downloads on X. Like their Soviet counterparts denouncing books, which they did not read, they did not even read the book’s preface or read it but propagated deliberate fraud, nevertheless. My preface clearly states:

My academic publications, which primarily concern conflicts and politics in Ukraine, have reached over 2,000,000 reads and downloads just on my academic websites and the publisher sites. My research-based Twitter and Facebook posts and YouTube videos reached over 125,000,000 views. I am one of the most cited political scientists who specialize primarily in politics and conflicts in Ukraine. My research-based publications, interviews, and comments appeared in more than 4,000 media reports in more than 80 countries. They include such major Western media as ABC News, BBC Ukrainian, Associated Press, Canadian Press, CBC News, CTV News, France 24, France Télévisions, Daily Beast, Euronews, Global TV, Globe and Mail, Guardian, Hill TV, La Presse, Le Figaro, La Razón, La Stampa, National Post, Reuters, Sky News Australia, Times Higher Education, Vice, and Washington Post.

My paper, “The “Snipers’ Massacre” on the Maidan in Ukraine,” is the most downloaded paper among almost 20,000 papers on subject of ‘Ukraine’ in Academia.edu, a major registered-based research depository and site for scholars. I published its greatly expanded and updated versions and parts in peer-reviewed journals and books. These open access studies have over 1,000,000 views and downloads. Four my papers are among the top dozen most downloaded papers on subject of ‘Ukraine’ on Academia.edu. Umland, Shekhovtsov, and their ilk are well aware about impact of my previous studies, but they deliberately propagate fakes.

My book was published by a major Western academic press following very positive peer-review by two experts. It was endorsed by four leading American, British, and Ukrainian scholars. In her review of my open access book, a noted British journalist wrote that “The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins is not just another study of the conflict. It is a tour de force of advocacy—for truth—a feat of evidence gathering and probably the closest that anyone has come to disentangling the host of conflicting narratives that have so characterised this war.” The book is based on primary evidence and not on narratives propagated by Russian, Ukrainian, and Western governments. But Umland and co in their denunciation deliberately misrepresented findings of my book which clearly states:

The analysis shows that the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, represented the extreme escalation by Russia of the conflicts with Ukraine and the West, the civil war in Donbas, the annexation of Crimea, and the Western-backed violent and illegal overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine by the oligarchic and far-right alliance by means of the Maidan massacre and assassination attempts during Euromaidan. NATO accession of Ukraine was a major factor, but it, like the role of the far right, was inflated by Russia. Russian imperialism was also significant but secondary factor. Ukraine is not a democracy.

Umland, Shekhovtsov, and their ilk try to force scholars to parrot the Zelensky government propaganda and propagate fake narratives that they propagate themselves, such, as false flag Nord Stream bombing by Russia, genocide in Ukraine, Ukraine as democracy, and no neo-Nazis in Ukraine. They falsely claim that the blocking of the nearly finalized Istanbul peace deal by the Western governments is Russian propaganda and denounce my book for this even though this was stated or de facto admitted by the head and members of the Ukrainian delegation, ex-prime minister of Israel, president and foreign minister of Turkey, Victoria Nuland and several other such top officials. They falsely link me and my book to the Russian media because a noted US-educated German professor specializing in Ukrainian history was one of those who congratulated me on X with its publication.

They falsely equate the Zelensky regime with Ukraine and Ukrainians and their support for the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government, mutual killings of Ukrainians in civil war in Donbas, and the proxy war to the last Ukrainian with supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians. They choose to attack and defame one of a few Ukrainian political scientists in the Western academy specializing primarily in conflicts in Ukraine.

Umland and Shekhovtsov resorted to such denunciation in retaliation of references in my book to their partisan whitewashing of neo-Nazis in Ukraine:

Some researchers, especially from partisan think tanks, regarded the role of the far-right organizations and formations in Ukraine in Euromaidan, and the war in Donbas as insignificant or marginal. They focused on numerical strength of far-right organizations and electoral support for the far-right parties and ignored or denied the far-right involvement in political violence, such as the Odesa massacre and the civil war in Donbas. They claimed that the presence of Russian-speakers in the Azov regiment and other neo-Nazi-led armed formations is evidence of their relative tolerance and asserted that the Azov regiment moderated by abandoning its far-right roots (see, for example, Umland, 2019, 2020)...

Anton Shekhovtsov compared the mass killing of people by a fire in the Trade Union building in Odesa to his killing of Colorado potato beetles by collecting them in a box and then burning them” (Anton, 2014). He was earlier a leader of the Crimean branch of the pro-Russian far-right Eurasian Youth Union led by Aleksandr Dugin (AntiNATOvskii, 2006).

The denunciation of me and my scholarly book by Umland, Shekhovtsov, and their ilk is not only an open attack on academic freedom but also an attempt to censor my book and subject me to criminal prosecution or sanctions by the undemocratic Zelensky regime for my academic research. They falsely link my book to Russian propaganda, Russian media, and “apologetics” of the Russian invasion, which are all criminal offensives in Ukraine. There were many such cases of political persecution in Ukraine.

My house, land, and all other property in my native Western Ukraine were illegally seized in retaliation of my scholarly studies of the Maidan massacre in Ukraine. I was blacklisted on the Ukrainian government-linked Myrotvorets hit list for “crimes” of showing involvement of radical nationalists and neo-Nazis in this massacre of the Maidan protesters and the police and for exposing the SS Galicia division veteran, who was given standing ovations in the Canadian parliament by the Canadian government, parliament, Zelensky, and his delegation. The Ukrainian government agency, headed by the leader of the OUN, which collaborated with Nazi Germany and was involved in organizing the SS Galicia Division, threatened me with criminal prosecution for exposing involvement of neo-Nazis in the Maidan massacre.

Their Stalinist-era predecessors published in a Ukrainian newspaper a similar denunciation of Mykhailo Krawtchouk, my distant relative, and his mathematical book, during the Stalin’s Great Terror. Two volumes of this mathematical book were translated and used by the American inventor of the electronic digital computer in inventing his computer to speed up solutions of mathematical equations by methods that this noted Ukrainian mathematician developed. He was then arrested on false charges and perished in Stalin’s GULAG. Now, their contemporary successors use this invention for similar political denunciation of me and my academic book. They have no decency left.