Some observers have attributed attacks on Russian bank offices and ultranationalist protests in Kyiv and Lviv over the weekend to Kremlin-orchestrated provocations aimed at further destabilizing Ukraine's political situation.
However, evidence
for their links to the Kremlin appears to be scant so far. But the leaders of
far-right protesters have controversial backgrounds and are accused of various
crimes.
Overnight on Feb.
21, unknown people threw Molotov cocktails at two offices of Russia’s Sberbank
and one office of Russia’s VTB Bank in Lviv. One Sberbank office was completely
burned, and the two other bank offices were damaged.
Before that – on
Feb. 20 – members of Mykola Kokhanyvsky’s OUN volunteer battalion threw rocks at
offices of Russia’s Alfa Bank and Sberbank in Kyiv and at an office of SCM – a
group controlled by tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, an ex-ally of disgraced former
President Viktor Yanukovych.
The OUN battalion
used to be part of OUN (the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists), a
nationalist group set up in 1929. However, the battalion split from OUN last
year, and the nationalist organization has denied any links to Kokhanyvsky and
the attacks on Russian banks.
Meanwhile,
another nationalist group – the Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces – took over
part of Kozatsky Hotel, set up tents on Maidan Nezalezhnosti and engaged in
scuffles with the National Guard over the weekend.
The Revolutionary
Right-Wing Forces called for impeaching the president, dissolving the Cabinet
and annulling the Feb. 12, 2015 Minsk ceasefire agreement. The group split from
the Right Sector last November due to its disagreements with its former leader
Dmytro Yarosh.
The protest
appeared to have fizzled out on Feb. 22 when municipal workers removed most of
the tents, and only one of them remained.
Roman Lypynsky, a
spokesman for the Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces, told the Kyiv Post that
protesters would remain on Maidan Nezalezhnosti but would avoid any
confrontation with the authorities.
“We are against
escalating the situation and intend to engage in constructive dialogue,” he
said.
The group also
withdrew from Kozatsky Hotel on Feb. 21, and some of its activists moved to the
headquarters of the Azov volunteer regiment nearby.
The move caused a
split in the group because other activists distrust Azov leader Andriy Biletsky
and accuse him of being a puppet of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, Oleg
Gromov, another spokesman for the Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces, told the
Kyiv Post.
Some observers
have speculated that the ultranationalist protests could have been infiltrated
or organized by the Kremlin.
Pro-Kremlin media
have been providing extensive coverage of the protests, often casting them in a
positive light.
A top member of
the Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces with the nom-de-guerre Faust has been
accused of links to the Kremlin because he used to be a member of the Ukrainian
branch of Soprotivlenie (Resistance), a Russian nationalist group. Photos of
him with pro-Russian members of Soprotivlenie have been published on social
networks, though their authenticity could not be independently verified.
The group seems
to have no official position on the Kremlin or the Russian-Ukrainian war,
according to its Web site. Some of its members are supporters of the Kremlin
and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
“Like all
(Russian nationalist) movements, it has split,” Oleg Zhdanov, a Russian
nationalist and human rights activist who has moved to Ukraine and is a
volunteer for the Karpatska Sich unit, told the Kyiv Post. “Some of them
supported separatists, and others were going around with Ukrainian flags.”
Faust admitted
being a member of the group in the past but denied having had any pro-Kremlin
leanings.
“In 2011
(Soprotivlenie) didn’t have anything to do with the ideas of the ‘Russian
world’,” he wrote on Facebook on Feb. 21. “I joined it because Soprotivlenie
positioned itself as a right-wing organization promoting sports and a healthy
lifestyle.”
Faust’s wife,
Tina Kormilitsyna, has also been accused of pro-Russian tendencies, while
another member of the group, Tanya Frigg, is from the Russian city of
Kaliningrad, according to her Facebook profile.
Other activists
of the Revolutionary Right-Wing Forces are also controversial.
These include
Anton Bondarenko, a member of the Bily Molot (White Hammer) group who has been
accused of spreading neo-Nazi propaganda and anti-Semitism; Vladyslav Horanin, a Bily
Molot activist who was suspected of attacking a traffic police station in Kyiv
Oblast in 2014, and Yury Karmazin, an ex-lawmaker from former President Viktor
Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine party.
The group also
includes Serhiy Melnychuk, who used to be head of the Aidar volunteer unit and is a lawmaker
from the People’s Will, an offshoot of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and a
suspect in an organized crime and banditry case, as well as Dmytro Pavlychenko, who
was convicted of killing a judge in 2011 and was subsequently recognized as a
political prisoner and released in 2014.
The Revolutionary
Right-Wing Forces’ leader is Roman Stoiko, a former Right Sector member
suspected of taking part in clashes with the police in the city of Mukacheve
last year, Andriy Faflei, commander of the Zakhid-4 unit – which used to be part of the
Right Sector’s military arm – told Ukrainian television channel 1+1.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
