You're reading: Ready To Fight: Right Sector fighters come from all parts of political spectrum, not just right wing

POKROVSKE, Ukraine - In Russian propaganda, the Right Sector has been portrayed as a fearsome far-right group with a rigid nationalist ideology.

But in reality the organization unites people with radically different backgrounds.

The Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, the Right Sector’s military arm, comprises people with political views ranging from the far right to liberalism to the far left, including anarchists. Right Sector fighters come from all parts of Ukraine, including Russian-speaking Donbas and Crimea, as well as from Russia itself, other former Soviet republics and Western countries.

Religious diversity is also stunning: there are Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, pagans and atheists at the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. All ages and both sexes are represented at the unit.

One fighter, whose nom-de-guerre is Yaska, is from France. He had no prior military training or experience and joined the volunteer corps two months ago.

He does not want to disclose his identity because “French law is very vague” regarding foreign fighters. Other fighters did not give their names for fear of reprisals.

Yaska says he had Ukrainian friends before he moved to Ukraine and learned a lot about the country. He praised what he calls Ukrainians’ “can-do spirit.”

Yaska believes there is “no other relevant war in the world” except for the Russian-Ukrainian one and sees a “dynamic for universal ideas” in the conflict.

“Freedom, dignity, not being ruled by corrupt leaders – this is a very and simple and very universal cause,” he told the Kyiv Post at a Right Sector rear base near the town of Pokrovske in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. “These people don’t wait for the government to protect their freedom and take responsibility for their liberty.”

This war is closely linked to Yaska’s personal beliefs. “I’m a minimalist. I don’t believe in the state,” he said. “I’m against socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism and the nanny state.”

He says that one of the enemies he has to face is French fighters linked to Marine le Pen’s National Front who support the Kremlin’s separatists.

Another foreigner, Nestor, is a nationalist from Russia who moved to Ukraine and joined the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps in February. “I couldn’t bear the greatness of my homeland and found a humbler country to live in,” he laughs at Right Sector barracks featuring the group’s black-and-red flags and trucks with pejoratives addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin on their license plates.

Right Sector fighter “Root” speaks to reporters at the base on May 17.

As he talks, pet cats and dogs are sneaking around the barracks, desperate for human attention. The barracks have some weapons on display, including a Maxim machine gun produced during the First World War that is still being used in battle.

Nestor used to work as a businessman in Rostov-on-Don close to the border with Ukraine and saw Russian military equipment and fighters passing through the city to Donbas with his own eyes.

“We want the Russian world to withdraw, to prevent it from spreading like cancer,” he says calmly.

“Empires tend to invade their neighbors and suck resources out of them.”

Nestor sees Russia with its authoritarian traditions as an heir to the Golden Horde, a nomadic empire that controlled Russia in the 13th to 15th centuries and influenced its political traditions. “We’re fighting against the Horde here,” he said.

He wants Russia to cease to be an empire and become a European nation state like Ukraine.

Another Russian fighter, Zakhar, moved to Ukraine in 2011 after he got acquainted with a Ukrainian woman. He enrolled at the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps in March.

“I wanted to show that not all people in Russia support its aggression,” he says. “Ukraine is a self-sufficient state.”

Zakhar, who is from Ivanovo, served in the army and fought against Islamist insurgents in North Caucasus in 2002-2008. “Nobody needs either that war or this one,” he said. “It’s a political game, and people are puppets.”

Engineer who hails from Crimea, also has personal reasons to oppose Russian aggression.

He moved to mainland Ukraine after Crimea was annexed by Russia last March and has ceased almost all contact with the peninsula since then.

Engineer was as an engineer at a construction firm in Crimea, and is of Buryat and Polish descent, which does not prevent him from being a Ukrainian nationalist.

He joined the corps a year ago and has fought at Savur Mohyla in Donetsk Oblast, as well as in Stepanivka, Karlivka, Pisky and at Donetsk Airport.

Like Engineer, Garik, a middle-aged photographer working for the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, also says that Russian aggression is something that affected him personally.

He is from Alchevsk in Russian-occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast and says that the war has even more relevance for him than for residents of Western Ukraine.

“It’s my war,” he said. “There is a chance that I’ll never see the grave of my grandfather in Alchevsk and my house.”

Another fighter, Mikhalych, is an elderly man from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast who used to serve in the Soviet army.

His rebellious spirit got him in trouble when a general was visiting his military base in Siberia and lording over the soldiers. He ridiculed the general by bowing and saying “hello milord,” for which he was fired.

Another bizarre incident happened during the 2004 presidential campaign, when both he and future President Petro Poroshenko were working for the Viktor Yushchenko campaign. Mikhalych and Poroshenko had a scuffle over campaign issues.

Politics and war are not his only interests. He writes poetry and is even a member of Ukraine’s Writers Union.

Odin from Vinnitsya Oblast is much younger than Mikhalych. He defines himself as a pagan, and his nom-de-guerre is derived from the name of a Nordic god. “Every warrior goes to Valhalla,” he says, referring to the paradise in Scandinavian mythology.

He says there are many other pagans at the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. Ironically, there is also a pagan battalion fighting for combined Russian-separatist forces, called Svarog.

Odin joined the Right Sector during the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution and then briefly worked for the National Guard before realizing that many of his colleagues were from police units that had previously clashed with protesters.

“They were the same guys who stood against us on Maidan,” he said. “Cops are our main internal enemy.”

Odin calls for a purge of Ukraine from what he believes to be a corrupt and irresponsible elite.

“Ukraine should be first freed (from occupiers) and then purged,” he said.

He has fought in Pisky, a strategic location west of Donetsk Airport, and feels nostalgia for the place. “I remember every second of being there.”

But Odin also feels a loss because one of his comrades was killed in Pisky.

Root, who comes from Lviv, is even younger than Odin – he is just 18.

Root joined the Right Sector in December 2013 and is simultaneously fighting and studying at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute.

He is frustrated with the authorities and believes they are betraying the country. “If this government is not changed democratically, it will have to be changed by force,” he said.

He defines his views as “social nationalism” but differentiates it from German national socialism, which he rejects.

“I believe the people must be in charge of the country,” he said. “And everything must be honest and transparent.”

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