It’s Not Ukraine that Needs DeNazifaction: US Far-Right Operatives in Kyiv

Jack Posobeic, a US far-right operative known for his ties with white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and extremist outlets in the US and pro-Russian views, was a part of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s delegation in Kyiv on February 12, 2025, and reported the details of Secretary Bessent’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The message was clear: Ukraine’s security was conditional on economic concessions, and Zelenskyy was put under pressure.

Posobeic quoted the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who spoke at the NATO conference in Brussels the same day, suggesting that Hegseth’s “blistering” statement about the impossibility of pre-2014 borders and NATO membership for Ukraine, and the US troops in Ukraine led  Zelenskyy “potentially to not sign the deal.” 

According to Posobeic, Secretary Bessent handed a copy of the mineral deal to President Zelenskyy who said that “he wanted a security guarantee, a de facto NATO membership” which was not a part of the deal. Zelenskyy insisted on meeting with President Trump while Secretary Bessent “urged him to sign the deal.” 

“President Zelenskyy did not [sign the deal] but said that he would revisit it potentially when he meets with Vice President JD Vance in Munich on Friday,” said Posobeic. “This is a very critical point… because then, just as we were walking out of the presidential complex, the Presidential Palace there in Kyiv that’s when President Trump almost to the very minute posted on his True Social, saying [that] while we had been inside and the Secretary was there meeting with Zelenskyy and holding a press conference, President Trump had spent the entire same hour on the phone with Vladimir Putin.

“So he gave Zelenskyy the opportunity to sign the deal first. Zelenskyy didn’t sign the deal right away. That’s when President Trump posted on Truth Social… Then, Zelenskyy immediately hopped on the phone and said, ‘Let me call Trump, let me call Trump, let me call the President.” 

By speaking at the NATO meeting in Brussels before Bessent’s visit, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth increased pressure on Ukraine, while Trump’s phone call with Putin signalled that key decisions were made without Ukraine, further isolating Zelenskyy. Trump’s mid-meeting post on Truth Social turned the negotiation into a public spectacle, intensifying pressure on Ukraine’s leadership to sign the rare mineral deal. The U.S. security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum were not mentioned.

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Posobiec’s Kremlin Inspired Narratives

Jack Posobiec’s involvement in “peace” negotiations could also be seen as an attempt to pressure Ukraine. He has gained notoriety for his open collaboration with white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and far-right extremists and by amplifying Russian disinformation. Posobeic, who served as a U.S. Naval Reserve intelligence officer from 2012 to 2018 but lost his security clearance in 2017 for allegedly sharing classified information, worked with many far-right media including Rebel News, OANN, and Steve Bannon’s War Room.

On his social media, he had long promoted the work of Russian neofascist Aleksandr Dugin, tweeting about Dugin’s 1997 book, The Foundations of Geopolitics. Excerpts include advocating for Russia to introduce “geopolitical disorder” in the U.S. by fueling sectarian and racial tensions. One of Posobiec’s tweets from April 23, 2017, directly quoted Dugin’s call for Ukraine’s annexation by Russia.

Posobeic promoted Kremlin-backed narratives, including #StopTheSteal, #Pizzagate and #MacronLeaks, linked to Russian intelligence operations. In autumn 2016, he gained prominence as an operative for Citizens for Trump, a group linked to Roger Stone, a convicted felon later pardoned by US President Donald Trump. Posobeic pushed the #StoptheSteal campaign to undermine confidence in the 2016 election and later revived it in 2018 and 2020, contributing to the narratives that fueled the January 6 Capitol attack. Researchers suggest that bots connected with Russian military intelligence helped his Twitter posts trend. After the January 6 attack, he deleted his tweets related to #StoptheSteal. In 2020, he also pushed the false claim that leftists were planning a “colour revolution” in the U.S.

Also in 2016, Posobiec played a key role in amplifying the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory, falsely alleging that Democratic politicians were involved in a child sex ring—a claim originating from a Russian intelligence-led hack targeting Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. His promotion of this conspiracy contributed to an armed man storming a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. 

Posobiec also popularized the false narrative that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich leaked emails to Wikileaks, a claim later tied to Russian intelligence. He amplified fabricated evidence from Guccifer 2.0, which the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed was linked to Russian military intelligence.

In May 2017, Posobiec, along with neo-Nazi Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, helped amplify the Russian military intelligence-backed #MacronLeaks operation to support far-right French politician Marine Le Pen. 

He appeared at events with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, groups later linked to the January 6 Capitol attack. In August 2017, Trump retweeted his post equating the Charlottesville rally violence to murders in Chicago, a comparison critics called racist.

Posobeic’s ties to Holocaust deniers and Hitler supporters, while hard to align with Russia’s false claim of “denazifying” Ukraine, can also be seen as psychological pressure on Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose Jewish ancestors were murdered by Nazis during WWII. In 2017, Posobeic gave interviews to Infowars, livestreamed with white nationalist Timothy “Baked Alaska” Gionet, attended events hosted by white supremacists Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor, and tweeted white supremacist symbols and neo-Nazi  dog whistles such as “14” and “88.”

Posobiec has also targeted Jewish reporters with antisemitic hate. In 2017, he joined The Rebel, a far-right Canadian outlet, and collaborated with neo-Nazi brothers Jeffrey and Edward Clark, who were connected to the perpetrator of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack.

In light of Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, the selection of negotiation group members—including pro-Putin and pro-Assad Tulsi Gabbard in Munich—raises serious questions about which governments actually need de-Nazification.