Ukraine’s inter­im gov­ern­ment, whose part the Admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en in the Crimea cri­sis, includes a promi­nent polit­i­cal leader who has in the past urged his coun­try­men to fight the “Mus­covite-Jew­ish mafia” and called on his gov­ern­ment to halt the “crim­i­nal activ­i­ties” of “orga­nized Jewry.”

The author of this calum­ny, Oleh Tyah­ny­bok, is a leader of Ukraine’s Svo­bo­da (“free­dom”) par­ty, who in Decem­ber 2012 was named Per­son of the Year by read­ers of the coun­try’s lead­ing news mag­a­zine, Kor­re­spon­dent.

Such are the com­plex­i­ties that lurk not far beneath the sur­face in the ongo­ing cri­sis over Russia’s incur­sion into Crimea. Con­tin­ue read­ing →