A screenshot from The Canada Files’ interview with Dr. Ivan Katchanovski.

Editor’s note: This article is based on The Canada Files’ interview with Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, conducted by TCF Editor-in-Chief, Aidan Jonah.

Written by: Marthad Umucyaba

Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, found himself enduring ten years of political persecution after exposing the Maidan massacre false flag committed by the far-right forces that seized the government of Ukraine in 2013-2014. The persecution began with the arbitrary seizure of his assets in Ukraine. It continued with regular academic censorship of any material related to the conditions that led to Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) beginning in 2022, which he would describe as “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”, eight years into the Ukrainian civil war that occurred post-Maidan coup.

The Canada Files reached out to Dr. Katchanovski to discuss the seizure of assets by the Nazi Ukrainian government and the censorship campaign against his research. The interview will be available on YouTube soon after this article is released.

One of the most egregious examples is the ongoing censorship against his open-access book, which illuminated the false flag operation of the Ukrainian far-right in the Maidan Massacre, and was supposed to be published by Routledge. The censorship was obvious and blatant, and demonstrated a clear attempt by the state to restrict any opposition to the NATO party line and narrative.

The arbitrary seizure and destruction of Katchanovski’s Ukrainian assets

Dr. Katchanovski documented the Maidan Massacre false flag that occurred on November 30, 2013. Snipers were installed at the rooftops during the protests at the express instructions of the leadership of Right Sector, Svoboda, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, all parties with reverence for ‘National Socialism’ (Nazism) anti-Communism, and the extremist Stephen Bandera wing of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, OUN-B.

It’s clear that the massacres were conducted with the intention of making it look like the Yanukovych government was responsible for the killings. The criminal false flag operation was single-handedly coordinated by then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was infamous for a leaked phone call where she explicitly said ‘F*** the EU’ in contempt for the EU’s concerns about the prospects of instability that would result from the fascist overthrow of the Yanukovych government.

Dr. Katchanovski says the immediate aftermath of his research and publishing on the false flag was the seizure of his assets in Ukraine. His home in Ukraine, including his plot of land, and other particulars, were seized arbitrarily by the court of Ukraine in 2014 with no evidence and was subsequently destroyed. This was after Dr. Katchanovski’s social media posts on the false flag operation that triggered the court reaction.

NATO’s academic censorship: The false flag cover-up

The cover up of the false flag has been so extensive in academic circles and in the media, that Dr. Katchanovski has only been able to publish his findings at Palgrave Macmillan in the current year of 2024, under the open access book called “The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine”. It was an open access publication that needed a GoFundMe campaign (and a University of Ottawa grant) after Dr. Katchanovski says he was deliberately prevented from receiving the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant needed to pay for the publication, due to the political censorship of Banderites within the committee. According to him, one infamous University of Victoria professor of Public Administration even blurted out on social media that his work was Russian propaganda.

“From Maidan to the Ukraine War”, yet another book that suffered a censorship campaign, was recently blocked from publishing, under the guise of needing further changes.

Dr. Katchanovski explained on X:

“Routledge states that my book cannot be published unless I would revise the entire manuscript, including chapters based on my peer-reviewed publications, and would use other perspectives and alternative sources concerning the Russia-Ukraine war, the peace deal, the Nord Stream bombing, and all other issues and conflicts that I examine in my book, including the EuroMaidan, the Maidan massacre, the war in Donbas, and the far-right. They specifically state that ‘significant differences of opinion need to be reflected’ on the Nord Stream bombing. This essentially means the conspiracy theory of Russian false flag bombing of its own pipeline…

I am now given a choice by Routledge to delay significantly my book publication and to do a full revision of my book using ‘alternative sources’ or to cancel my book contract.”

This denial occurred despite the fact that the GoFundMe Campaign for this book was successful in collecting all of the publishing fees. This book also documented not only the false flag operation of the Ukrainian far-right in the Maidan Massacre, but also documented Ukrainian war crimes against the people of the Donbass that led to Russia’s SMO. One of the pretexts for the censorship was that Elon Musk voiced support for the GoFundMe campaign.

Dr. Katchanovski told The Canada Files that if he must take his open-access book to another book publisher, it would take around a year to get published with the necessary review process. If he published it alone, the book would reach significantly fewer people. He continues to oppose Routledge’s censorship and is considering his options.

Before the censorship of his book, his papers were also censored as well, according to Dr. Katchanovski. A major university, deemed “top tier” in Social Sciences according to him, refused to publish the article despite being approved by the editor in January 2023, solely due to “geopolitical considerations”. He declined to release the name of the university to The Grayzone due to privacy and litigation concerns. Renowned academic Jeffrey Sachs opposed the article censorship, but this occurred to no avail.

Canada’s Academic Decline

TCF Editor-in-Chief, Aidan Jonah: “How did your feelings about the mainstream media shift over the years as you did this research and it simply did not get attention or coverage…?”

Dr. Katchanovski: “Well, this was also quite revealing, and I was not surprised, personally, because I was also researching the politics of media coverage of Ukraine and other post-communist countries by the western media including the United States and Canada. And what I found is that…Indeed [it’s] very biased and often inaccurate…coverage of these countries in very major conflicts.”

It was always intellectually dishonest to claim that Canada was a democracy. Even from a purely legal standpoint, the head of the state is an unelected monarch. Moreover, the political system does not even allow democratic elections of the Prime Minister (PM). Canada’s PM is elected through a first-past-the-post system where the plurality, not the majority of party votes by district, determine how many seats a political party gets in parliament, and the PM is essentially chosen by the party with the plurality, not the majority of seats, although a ‘majority’ of seats can be won without a party even necessarily winning the majority of the votes.

The system as it’s currently set up necessitates the acquisition of ‘campaign donations’, or corporate bribes, in order for any party to have a nationwide presence. The most emblematic example of this is the thorough and complete purchase of all major parties by the Canadian Real Estate Association through donations, which cements Canada’s status as an overpriced and internationally ridiculed housing market, despite being the second largest country geographically on Earth. It is as fake of a ‘democracy’ as they come. The decline in academia in Canada began when this myth of a democracy and of ‘universal free speech’ was accepted uncritically in every university, citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a pretext.

This led many academics to be unprepared for the coming fallout when they decided to speak on matters of principle, feeling ‘betrayed’ by Canada ‘failing to live up’ to its supposed, non-existent values. Dr. Katchanovski, fortunately, was well prepared for the political backlash and his past experiences made him less likely to succumb to the ‘Canadian democracy’ illusion. He has found other ways to get his research revealed, despite the censorship, and is fighting to get his upcoming open-access book published as soon as possible.

Canadian academics traditionally rely on government grants for research and publication purposes. They then often shape public discourse about policy. The real question, especially for Canadian academics, is why so many have remained silent on this ‘Canadian democracy’ myth until recently, and how complicit they really are in Canada’s ongoing crimes.

Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.

He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.

Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support.

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