© Sputnik / Pavel BednyakovFILE PHOTO.
Nazi influence in the Ukrainian military is omnipresent, John McIntyre, a former US soldier who served as a mercenary in various Ukrainian military units for almost a year, has claimed in an interview with RT. He said that he defected to Russia after witnessing the actions of Ukrainian troops amid the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow.
McIntyre described how he escaped after crossing into Moldova, from Odessa.
"I had to leave," he told Murad Gazdiev.
"I thought I was going to be killed, my family got me $300 to get to Chisinău, then I went to Istanbul and then to Moscow." He didn't reveal at which exact point he made himself known to the Russian side.
The former American soldier recounted his experience in Ukraine, and explained why he grew disillusioned with Kiev's cause.
"When I came, I was really surprised. Everybody had tattoos and Nazi symbolism," he
told Gazdiev. McIntyre also admitted he did not believe ultra-right ideology was
"that big of a problem" for Ukraine until he saw things on the ground himself.
He added that
he had to conceal his own anti-fascist and communist views to fit in with the Ukrainian troops. Some other Western mercenaries also directly told him:
"The Russians aren't the Nazis, we are the Nazis," according to McIntyre.
The ex-US soldier served with the Ukrainian forces for a year, although now
he claims he had always planned to defect to Russia once he gathered enough intelligence. At a certain point, he was
"compromised" after talking to someone about the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces. According to McIntyre, whistleblowers are treated in Ukraine even more harshly than spies.
Comment: Macron shouldn't be too surprised if, despite his professed claims of a 'new era', that he receives a similar welcome elsewhere on his tour of Africa: