This time, some members of Congress finished the Nationalist call and response: “Heroyam Slava!” But who were the special guests?

For starters, there was Andrew Mac, a lawyer in Washington and unpaid advisor to Zelensky that Politico has identified as “one of the biggest Washington power players for Ukraine.” A significant portion of the “representatives of diaspora” consisted of Ukrainians that work for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, or the Embassy of Ukraine. Perhaps an invitation went out to the World Bank Group-IMF Ukrainian Staff Association, or just its chairman, who sat in the front row of the gallery.

Also in the front row was Natalie Jaresko, the Ukrainian American former Finance Minister of Ukraine (2014–16), in which capacity she proudly negotiated “the largest IMF program in the institution’s history.” Her presence seemed like a bad omen. In 2016, Jaresko was considered a “top candidate for prime minister.” Earlier this year, Jaresko stepped down as the executive director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, also known as “La Junta,” which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has described as “the Wall Street-connected fiscal control board that the US gave power to over the island.” Now with Ukraine facing a debt trap after the war, Jaresko appears to be part of a financial clique that has taken the reins of the “Ukraine lobby” in Washington since Joe Biden took office.

[…]

Of course, the “representatives of diaspora” included at least a few veterans of the Ukraine lobby, which Nationalists led during the Cold War. Orest Deychakiwsky, a policy advisor for the U.S. Helsinki Commission, isn’t a “Banderite,” or follower of [Axis] collaborator Stepan Bandera (1909–59), but his father was a member of Bandera’s fascistic Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In 1980, the OUN-B, or clandestine Banderite faction of the Organization, staged a controversial takeover of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA). Newer organizations like USUA, UHU, and Razom haven’t joined the allegedly corrupt, Banderite-led Congress Committee, which has struggled to keep up with the all pro-Ukraine activism in 2022.

[…]

Although the “Bandera Lobby” is falling behind the “Ukraine Lobby,” it was the Banderites who started the call and response “Slava Ukraini — Heroyam Slava,” originally accompanied by a fascist salute. Numerous “Ukraine experts” in Washington, and in particular at the Atlantic Council, are on a first name basis with Walter “Waz” Zaryckyj as the longtime executive director of the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR), which is an OUN-B “façade structure.” In Bloomingdale, the Banderites installed CUSUR’s Washington bureau chief as the new ODFFU president. The UCCA and CUSUR can still bend ears in the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and Senate Ukraine Caucus. And their days may be numbered, but the OUN-B still looms large over the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC). “Waz” is the last known chairman of its International Scholarly Council. Banderites have held the UWC presidency throughout the 21st century, including a plotter of the “extraordinary convention” in Bloomingdale who later advised “Ukrainian Americans for Biden.”