Post shares disinformation that Victoria Nuland’s spouse is Lazar Kaganovich’s relative

There is no evidence that Stalin’s righthand, Lazar Kaganovich, was related to Nuland’s spouse, Robert Kagan. The relatives of Kaganovich denied this claim, stressing that Lazar Kaganovich has no relatives in the USA. The demonstrations were initiated in Kyiv in November 2013 as a result of the frustrations of the Ukrainian citizens due to the last-minute decision of Viktor Yanukovych not to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU after 7 years of negotiating. And, contrary to the disinformation that Zelenskyy was a puppet installed in Kyiv with the help of the CIA, the Ukrainian president was elected on free and democratic elections 

 

We are fact-checking a post on the social network Facebook claiming the following: 

DESTINY’S IRONY OR ACCIDENTAL IRRESOLUTION?? 

13.03.2022 

Regarding the events in Ukraine in the last 10 years, I would like to add some facts that might shine a different light on the affairs. 

Namely, the man on the photo is Lazar Kaganovich (1893-1991), Stalin’s right hand and butcher. He was the ideological creator of the Ukrainian HOLODOMOR from the Thirties when 6 million Ukrainians starved to death as a result of the implementation of the brutal village collectivization in the USSR enforced by the Bolsheviks (Communists). It should be stressed that Kaganovich was a Khazarian Jew with inherent hatred for the Slavs – Russians and Ukrainians, most probably due to the persecution of the Jews that took place at the end of the 19th century in Imperial Russia. Apart from that, Kaganovich had grave hatred for the Ukrainians for their notable Ukrainian separatism and tendency to split from the USSR at the time. Ukraine, as the most agricultural republic felt the consequences of enforced collectivization most, hence the opposition there was the strongest. On the photograph next to him is Victoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State in 2014/15 who became popular during the anti-Russian protests and Maidan colourful revolutions distributing sandwiches. WHAT DO THESE TWO PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON?? Victoria Nuland’s spouse is Robert Kagan who descends from the broader family of Lazar Kaganovich. To put it differently, they are some distant relatives. These facts have been verified as truthful. It remains questionable, however, whether Victoria Nuland was selected by the American administration to act as US representative in Ukraine during these events. I don’t want to generalize and treat the entire Jewish people the same as the butcher Lazar Kaganovich. 

To further clarify, I would like to add that the Khazarian Jews are naturalized Jews, i.e., back in the 10th century, the Khazars were Turkic people who had a state in the Northern part of the Black Sea and who took up the Jewish religion – Judaism – assimilating with the actual Semitic Jews. Zelenskyy himself is a Khazarian Jew who is a mere puppet installed in Kyiv with the help of the CIA. 

The post describes Lazar Kaganovich as Stalin’s trusted right-hand man and assistant, as well as the political creator of the Ukrainian Holodomor (period in Ukraine when millions of people starved to death from a man-made famine and political decisions), which is true.

Lazar Kaganovich was born in 1983 in Russia at the time, in present-day Kyiv region of Ukraine. He died in 1991. He was assigned important state tasks by Stalin, including the enforcement of the collectivization process, regulating the operation of the Railways, restructuring the entire Moscow, and building Moscow’s metro. 

He was indeed a Jew, but what is not true, or is not substantiated, is that ”Kaganovich was a relative of Victoria Nuland’s spouse, Robert Kagan”. 

This disinformation, most probably, originates from the fact that both surnames (Kaganovich and Kagan) start with the same letters. From the few online sources on this subject, a conclusion can be drawn that their kinship is sheer speculation, information not supported by evidence, as the post fact-checked claims. 

Specifically, Robert Kagan is an American neoconservative, a critic of US foreign policy, and an advocate of liberal interventionism. He was born in Athens, Greece, while his father is the historian Donald Kagan, a professor of history at Yale University and an expert on the history of the Peloponnese War. Robert Kagan’s father, Donald, has a Lithuanian Jewish origin. Robert Kagan is married to the American diplomat Victoria Nuland who was executing several state posts in the past, including Assistant Secretary for European and Euro-Asian Affairs in Barack Obama’s administration. 

Although online information about the kinship of Kaganovich and Kagan is scarce, the information that does exist denies that.

In 1987, Morrow published a compelling book in the USA by the journalist Stuart Kahan, titled: 

The Wolf of the Kremlin, The First Biography of L. M. Kaganovich, the First Soviet Union’s Architect of Fear. 

In 1989, the book was published in the United Kingdom by the British Publishing House “Hale”. In 1991, the book was published in Russian under the title: ”Волкот од Кремљ” (The Wolf from the Kremlin), by the publishing house Прогрес во Москва (Progress Publishers Moscow). 

Since the publication of Stuart Kahan’s book, Lazar Kaganovich’s family has sent a rejection to the Russian company that published the translation, stressing that Lazar Kaganovich has no relatives in the USA, while the author of the book, Stuart Kahan, who has been presenting himself as a relative of Kaganovich, is not his relative. 

We, the close relatives of the late Lazar Kaganovich, are full of indignation due to the publication of the Russian translation of the book “The Wolf in the Kremlin” by the American journalist Stuart Kahan. The translation was published by Progress Publishers, and one chapter of the book also appeared in the weekly magazine “Nedyelya”No. 5, 1991. We insist that this book is full of lies and slander. The author of the book falsely claims to be LMK’s grand-nephew and makes an attempt to persuade the readers to trust his writings. In fact, he is an adventurer and neither LMK himself, nor we ever had any idea about his existence. On 31 May 1981, LMK sent a letter to A.A. Gromyko (who was at that time the USSR Foreign Minister) with a request to protect him against Stuart Kahan’s pressing attempts to visit him (through the USSR Embassy in Washington). LMK vigorously denied the existence of any nephew in the USA. He wrote that he had not and would not ever receive him, states the rejection letter of Lazar Kaganovich’s family, signed by his daughter Maya Kaganovich, cousin Boris Kaganovich, Oscar Lantsman (nephew from his sister’s side), Rachel Kaganovich (Lazar Kaganovich’s niece), Rosa Kaganovich (niece) and Leonid Laganovich (nephew). 

Some blogs suggest a kinship connection between Kaganovich Lazar and Robert Kagan based solely on their names, without any confirmation or relevant proof.

The statement that Victoria Nuland was selected by the American administration to act as a US representative in Ukraine during the Maidan Square demonstrations in Kyiv made in the post is also not true. Nuland is a diplomat with 33 years of experience and she was elected to be US Deputy Secretary of State for European and Euro-Asian Affairs in September 2013 (while the Euromaidan wave of demonstrations in Ukraine started on 21 November 2013). 

The demonstrations initiated in Kyiv in November 2013 resulted from the frustrations of the Ukrainian citizens due to the last-minute decision of Viktor Yanukovych to change the direction and refuse to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU after 7 years of negotiating. The Kremlin spread disinformation by claiming that the protests were organized by the USA, showing complete disrespect for the citizens’ right to express their political beliefs through protest.

A large number of global media and international institutions present the Euromaidan events as the biggest pro-European rebellion in the history of Ukraine. On the 30th of March 2012, the EU and Ukraine signed an Association Agreement. The Agreement, however, was not ratified because Ukraine received recommendations to improve democracy and rule of law in the country. 

On the 21 of November 2013, the Ukrainian Government adopted a decree to suspend the preparations for signing the Association Agreement. The official reason was that “Ukraine’s industrial output had decreased in previous months”. Ukraine’s Government claimed that it would proceed with the preparations for the Agreement once the fall in the industrial output would be compensated with the European market.  

President Yanukovych participated in the EU Summit that took place on 28th-29th of November 2013 in Vilnius, Lithuania, where the Association and Free Trade Agreement was to be signed, but that never happened. The Financial Times reported that the 2013 protests were “spontaneous, instigated by through the social networks and caught the Ukrainian opposition unprepared”, unlike their opponents. 

According to the historian from Lviv, Yaroslav Hrytsak, this was a: 

Revolution of the generation that we call the contemporaries of Ukraine’s independence, a revolution of young people who are very educated, people who are active in social media, who are mobile and 90 percent of whom have university degrees, but who don’t have futures. 

According to him, young Ukrainians resemble young Italians, Czechs, Poles, or Germans more than they resemble Ukrainians who are 50 and older. 

This generation has a strong desire for European integration and fewer regional divides than their seniors, deems Hrytsak. 

The USA did not organize the demonstrations in 2014 in Ukraine. The demonstrations were initiated in Kyiv in November 2013 as a result of the frustrations of the Ukrainian citizens due to the last-minute decision of former President Yanukovych not to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU after 7 years of negotiating. Due to Russian pressure, the rapprochement of Ukraine towards the EU was stalled. 

Yanukovych ended up leaving the transitional government to take things into its hands. Then soldiers without state insignia occupied Crimea and erected Russian flags. Following the referendum – which is not recognized by the international community – the Russian Federation annexed Crimea. 

The last disinformation in the post we are fact-checking is about Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, being a puppet installed in Kyiv with the help of the CIA. Zelenskyy was elected in free and democratic elections regardless of the various ways the pro-Russian propaganda was trying to dispute the right of the Ukrainians to vote and have their own government. 

Ukraine is a republic with a presidential-parliamentary political system, defined by the 1996 Constitution. 

The difference between him and the opposition candidate Poroshenko was big (73 versus 25 percent of the votes cast by the voters). 

Due to the above facts, the fact-checked post is assessed as untrue.

 

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