It is an open secret that sacked former prime minister and Liberal MP for Warringah Tony Abbott would not be averse to taking over leadership of the Liberal Party again if it finds itself on the Opposition benches after the May 2019 federal election.
However, it is well to remember that his judgement is flawed and his influence, if it exists at all, is rarely positive.
Take his interaction with Ukraine.......
RT.com, 22 March 2016:
Former Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott has joined the list of ex-politicians invited by President
Petro Poroshenko to advise him on how to rule Ukraine as a member of the
so-called ‘international advisory council'.
Abbott unexpectedly
popped up in the Ukrainian capital on Monday.
Comprised mostly of
foreigners, the Kiev-based council was officially established last December.
Previously called the International Advisory Council on Reforms, it aims to “facilitate
the implementation of reforms in Ukraine on the basis of the best international
experience.”
While still in office,
the ex-PM had the third-lowest career-low approval rating of 24%, according to
a February 2015 Newspoll. After losing Liberal leadership challenge back home
last September and becoming vacant for political endeavors, Abbott was quickly
invited to visit Ukraine.
Abbott and Poroshenko
certainly have one thing in common – their dislike of Russian President
Vladimir Putin. The former Australian leader said he would “shirtfront” the
Russian head of state on the sidelines of 2014 G20 summit over the MH17
tragedy.
According to Poroshenko,
Abbott was one of the most popular foreign politicians in Ukraine back in 2014.
Abbott even joked about it saying that the “shirt-front must have translated
well.” However, Abbott’s threat never materialized and Putin ended up
cuddling a koala at the conference.
ABC
News, 23
March 2016:
Former prime minister
Tony Abbott has stepped up his support for Ukraine, joining a meeting of
international figures headed by the country's president, Petro Poroshenko.
Mr Abbott has travelled
to Kiev as part of a Ukrainian-led "international advisory council",
which includes the former prime ministers of Slovakia and Lithuania.
"It is an honour to
be in Kiev, Ukraine as a member of President Poroshenko's International
Advisory Council," Mr Abbott said in a Facebook post.
"Also great to see
the development of Kiev since I was last here 30 years ago."
The aim of the council
is to "help build a strong and prosperous Ukraine", according to a
statement on the Ukrainian President's website.
"Each of you were
an author of economic or democratic miracle in your countries. You are true
friends of Ukraine," the statement said.
"That's why I would
like to unite our efforts in order to achieve the results and bring positive
things to Ukraine.
"I am sure that
this Council will help us outlive the period of dramatic events and Ukraine
will become stronger."
The following years......
The following years......
Times
of Israel, 14 October 2017:
An activist against
fascism who sued a Ukrainian municipality for naming a street for a Nazi SS
officer has come under a campaign of intimidation, he said.
Mikhail Voroniak, a Red
Army veteran, in summer sued the western municipality of Kalush near Lviv for
deciding to name a street for Dmytro Paliiv, a commander of the 14th Waffen
Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the 1st Galician.
Voroniak told the
Russian news site Primechaniya that he has come under a “aggressive pressures
and threats of murder” since he sued. A local court last month dismissed his
motion against the honor to Paliiv but Voroniak appealed to the Lviv
Administrative Court of Appeals, which was scheduled to review the appeal last
week.....
The
Guardian, 2
March 2018:
Neo-Nazi groups involved
in the fighting in Ukraine are actively seeking to recruit British
far-right activists, a leading anti-fascist watchdog has warned.
At least two Britons are
thought to have travelled to the war-torn eastern European country in recent
months after encouragement by people linked to the
Azov battalion, a notorious Ukrainian fascist militia, according to Hope
Not Hate.
The warning comes only
four days after the outgoing head of UK counter-terrorism policing, Mark
Rowley, revealed that four
far-right terror plots had been foiled in 2017 and extreme right
groups were seeking to build international networks.
According to Hope Not
Hate, a group named the Misanthropic Division, which is linked to the Azov
battalion, is working with representatives of UK-based far-right groups,
including the proscribed terror organisation National Action and a London-based
Polish ultra-nationalist group, to recruit activists to travel to Ukraine.
Reuters, 20 March 2018:
As Ukraine’s struggle
against Russia and its proxies continues, Kiev must also contend with a growing
problem behind the front lines: far-right vigilantes who are willing to use
intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so
with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies….
A January 28
demonstration, in Kiev, by 600 members of the so-called “National Militia,” a
newly-formed ultranationalist group that vows “to use force to establish
order,” illustrates this threat. While the group’s Kiev launch was peaceful,
National Militia members in balaclavas stormed a city council meeting in the
central Ukrainian town of Cherkasy the following day, skirmishing with deputies
and forcing them to pass a new budget.
Many of the National
Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd
privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war,
helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's
separatist proxies.
Although Azov uses Nazi-era
symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its
ranks, a recent
article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose,
pointing out that, like other volunteer militias, Azov has been “reined in”
through its integration into Ukraine’s armed forces. While it’s true that
private militias no longer rule the battlefront, it’s the home front that Kiev
needs to worry about now.
When Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition
of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector
stepped into the breach, fending off
the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped.
Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with
gratitude and admiration,
the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal
ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term. Since the Crimean crisis,
the militias have been formally integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces, but
some have resisted full integration: Azov, for example, runs its own
children’s training camp, and the careers section
instructs recruits who wish to transfer to Azov from a regular military unit.
#Ukraine post office celebrates Waffen SS nazis.pic.twitter.com/p0HkS2dSZn— Alex Bukovsky (@BungeeWedgie) January 5, 2019
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