Before Russia entered Ukraine in 2022, it was widely known that Ukraine’s Azov Battalion held neo-Nazi, white nationalist principles. Media organizations around the world — including some funded by the U.S. — denounced them and their influence in Ukraine’s military.

The ubiquity of neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine may sound random at first, but it makes sense once you learn about the long history of Nazi-ism in Ukraine.

According to “Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists” (authored by CIA history staff member Kevin Ruffner), the CIA began coordinating with Ukrainian Nazis in 1946, just a year after World War II. Although redacted, the paper details how the CIA recruited Ukrainian nationalists, despite the fact that many of them “despised Poles and Jews as well as Soviet Communists,” and even though they “served in the German army and had been linked to Nazi atrocities.”

For the entire story on the CIA’s collusion with Ukrainian Nazis since World War II, watch Episode 10 of “Zelenskyy Unmasked” now.