Along with Russia, one of the groups responsible for the football fan violence in Marseilles is the Ukrainian Right Sector organization. The Ukrainian group instigated the massive violence in order to set up the Russian fans, several Russian sites claimed last week.
Allegedly hundreds of armed Right Sector members secretly arrived in Marseilles in a Cypriot boat in order to provoke a brawl on the eve of the Russia-England game on June 11.
The site Politicheskoye obozrenye writes that those involved in the fights were dressed completely in black, their faces covered with black balaclavas and they spoke Russian. Journalists, including those from the BBC, the site points out, were eager to make Russians the guilty party because western media are keen to demonize Russia.
Politekspert, Aftershock news and Bloknotru were some of the sites who republished this version of events.
This story first appeared in English on the Veterans today website. Written by Ian Greenhalgh the story’s headline screams “Ukrainian Pravy Sektor Nazis attack England fans in Marseille”. Greenhalgh is a prolific writer for this site, often posting several stories a day, for the most part, these stories are anti-American, conspiratorial and pro-Russian.
According to Greenhalgh the Right Sector members who came to Marseilles were also involved in the violence in Odesa on May 2, 2014. He further claims that among the Ukrainians onboard the Cypriot boa.t were two members of the Israeli intelligence network Mossad.
In a statement to StopFake Right Sector spokesman Artem Skoropadsky denied that members of his organization had anything to do with the violence that took place in Marseilles, no Right Sector members were even in France for the football championship.
Ian Greenhalgh never explains where he discovered this information, he never attributes his claims to any source. As proof of Ukrainians participating in the Marseilles violence, he postd two photographs one showing people in masks with the caption ”Ukrainian ultras brought for a special purpose”. The photograph however was taken in April 2014 in Kharkiv during a demonstration.
The other photograph Greenhalgh uses in this story is of a ship purporting to be the Cypriot trawler that carried the Ukrainians to France. The picture however is of a Russian Emergency Ministry boat that took place in a search operation in the Okhotsk sea in 2015 looking for a sunken Russian trawler.
Veterans Today is a well-produced website that runs an editorial line that is strongly against Israel and Saudi Arabia but very pro Iran, and Russia. The site describes itself as “The True Voice of the World’s Clandestine Community. Its articles are widely reposted on the Internet, primarily on pro-Palestine and right-wing extremist websiteson topics such as – conspiracy theories, zionism and the “Jewish question.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have criticized it for promoting anti-semitic and extremist viewpoints and conspiracy theories.
