You're reading: Right Sector and interior minister make up after publicly trading threats, accusations

The Right Sector ultranationalist party on Aug. 18 resolved its disagreements with the Interior Ministry after the group’s leader Dmytro Yarosh backed down on his threat to march on Kyiv on the previous day.

The Right Sector, a major group behind the uprising that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych in February, threatened on Aug. 16 to withdraw its fighters from the war zone in eastern Ukraine. The party said it would bring them to Kyiv to attack the Interior Ministry after members of the group were arrested for illegal possession of arms.

The statement highlighted the Right Sector’s long-running conflict with Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and its unhappiness with what it deems as a lack of progress on lustration and anti-corruption efforts – key demands of last winter’s EuroMaidan revolution.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to Avakov, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 18 that Avakov and Borislav Beryoza, head of the Right Sector’s information department, had held a meeting and discussed “illegal arms traffic” from the war zone and cooperation between the Interior Ministry and the nationalist group.

“Avakov respects Right Sector activists’ contribution to the war on terrorism,” Gerashchenko wrote.

But Avakov also said that the Right Sector should legalize its military arm as a unit within the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry or State Security Service. Until now, the unit has operated in the war zone illegally, and without any formal coordination with the official Anti-Terrorist Operation run by the government.

The Right Sector set up the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, headed by Andrei Stempitsky, in July. 

Yarosh said in a YouTube video published on Aug. 17 that all Right Sector detainees had been released, and that First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov would be fired – a key demand by the right-wing party. Yarosh called this a “small victory” of the Right Sector.

He said that 15 members of the party had been detained in Kyiv, and some activists had also been arrested in Dnipropetrovsk. Yarosh claimed that some of them had been tortured.

Yarosh also wrote on Facebook that Right Sector fighters had been prohibited from bringing weapons, ammunition and explosives from the war zone.

Avakov confirmed on the same day that a request for Yevdokimov’s resignation had been sent to the Cabinet for approval two weeks ago but denied that it was his concession to the Right Sector’s demands.

The Right Sector has also demanded Avakov’s resignation since Oleksandr Muzychko, a prominent activist of the group, was killed in March. The Interior Ministry has stated that Muzychko committed suicide when he was chased by police officers, while the Right Sector says he was shot by police.

Earlier this month police also clashed with the group near the city of Stryi in the Lviv region, where police officers shot at the wheels of a vehicle carrying Right Sector activists. Six members of the party were arrested, and grenade launchers, machine guns and assault rifles were confiscated from the vehicle.

Yarosh has been very outspoken in his criticism of the government.

“Currently, in addition to Russia’s open aggression, internal counterrevolution has also been stepped up,” the Right Sector said on Aug. 16, before threatening to march into Kyiv. “Its avant-garde is the revanchist forces in the Interior Ministry, including high-ranking officials.”

Kyiv Post+ is a special project covering Russia’s war against Ukraine and the aftermath of the EuroMaidan Revolution.

The party pointed the finger at Police Colonel General Yevdokimov.

“This group of policemen and bandits is headed by General Yevdokimov, an accomplice of separatists and a puppet of Moscow,” the party said. “It is he and his henchmen who are doing everything to destroy the achievements of our revolution and pave the way to Kyiv for separatist and terrorist groups.”

The group said that “those who stood against us on Hrushevsky and Institutska streets” during the revolution had started a counterattack against the Right Sector, using the fact that its fighters were on the frontline.

“If our demands are not met, within 48 hours we will have to withdraw all our units from the frontline, announce total mobilization of our reserve battalions and start a march on Kyiv in order to carry out “speedy reforms” at the Interior Ministry,” the Right Sector said. “The Right Sector’s columns will be fully armed during the march.”

The Right Sector’s announcement echoes a statement by Valentin Likholit, chief of staff of the Aidar volunteer battalion, made in early August. He said then that the Aidar, Azov and Donbass volunteer battalions, which comprise mostly Euromaidan supporters, would come back to Kyiv with arms and help President Petro Poroshenko fight corruption.

Oleksiy Haran, head of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s Political Analysis School, dismissed the Right Sector’s statement as “unrealistic.”

“This looks like a PR stunt,” he said by phone. “But it heightens tensions in society.”

Advertently or inadvertently, the Right Sector’s statement plays into Russia’s hands and helps its efforts to destabilize the situation in Ukraine, Haran said.

Reacting to the group’s statement, Avakov harshly criticized Yarosh in a Facebook post dated Aug. 17.

“His PR is larger than life, his pose is even bigger,” he said. “Yarosh, your problem is that, thanks to your buffoonery of a brutal patriot, you deceive many people who have joined your effectively illegal armed groups – without any rules or principles, without law and order,” he said.

He also blamed Yarosh for the 32 people who were either killed or taken prisoner near Donetsk on Aug. 12, saying that this happened because of his “incompetent command.”

Avakov also said he doubted that the Right Sector had actually participated in any military operations.

“Maybe (Yarosh) should say where his ‘units on the frontline’ are and by what logic and plan they operate in the war?” he wrote, adding that “nobody had really seen them, other than on photos and videos.”

The Right Sector’s spokesman Artyom Skoropadsky dismissed Avakov’s claims as “nonsense” and said by phone that the minister would be “held responsible for each word.” He said that the government was to blame for the death of the Right Sector activists because they were traveling by bus and were not provided by the army with necessary protection.  

“Let Avakov remember that we have not hidden our revolutionary red and black flag,” he said. “And if (ex-President Viktor) Yanukovych-style corruption remains, the Right Sector might come back to Kyiv.” 

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached a [email protected].