You're reading: Radical Right Sector activist killed in police raid; investigators raise possibility of self-inflicted wounds

Militant Ukrainian activist Oleksandr Muzychko, known as Sashko Biliy (Sashko the White), was shot dead in a standoff with the police officers late on March 24 in western Ukraine's Rivne Oblast.

Police said Muzychko was killed during a special operation to destroy a criminal group that investigators say Muzychko took part in. 

Muzychko, 51, was an active member of the Right Sector, the politicized militarist organization that played a strong role in the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22.

After initial reports that  police officers shot him twice in his heart, police later on March 25 said that Muzychko shot himself before any shots came from police officers.

The finding was scorned by Rights Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh. 

Yarosh, a candidate for Ukraine’s presidency in the early May 25 election, demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and the arrest of officers who participated in operation on Muzychko.

Now, with the protests over and a new government in charge, there is uncertainty about the role that the militant Right Sector will play. Right Sector representatives didn’t get any representation in the government. Thhe organization’s leader, Dmytro Yarosh, declared that he will run for president.

Right Sector members ignored the newly-founded National Guard that recruits activists from the recent protests. In an interview to the Korrespondent magazine Yarosh said he has been “negotiating” with law enforcement institutions about the possibility of the Right Sector’s fighters joining them.

The exact number of Right Sector members is kept in secret, but Yarosh revealed that 10,000 people have joined the organization since the beginning of Russia’s intervention in late February. 

The secretiveness and the uncertainty about the Right Sector’s place in the post-revolutionary Ukraine helped to the organization’s bad image among the east Ukraine people, especially those supporting Russia. Russian TV stations picture Yarosh and his people as aggressive fascists. 

The murdered Muzychko was a controversial figure and a gift to Kremlin anti-Ukrainian, anti-West propaganda.

On Feb. 24, two days after the protesters’ triumph, Muzychko showed up in the regional council of the western Ukrainian city of Rivne, where he resided, holding a machine gun and refusing to give it back to the government, which had called for activists to surrender illegal weapons this month. The request has been widely ignored.

“Who of you wants to take my gun, come and try,” he said in the recorded speech, putting the machine gun on the table to pull out a polished knife from his belt.

Muzychko said Right Sector will keep the arms to ensure that the new government works honestly and doesn’t become corrupt. He called the new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk a bastard. He was also unhappy with Avakov and threatened “to hang him like a dog.” Avakov countered by saying that Muzychko’s actions were “sabotage against attempts to set an order (in Ukraine), a betrayal of EuroMaidan.”

Roman Koval, coordinator of the Right Sector in Rivne, was quoted by TSN website saying that the Right Sector will seek revenge on Avakov for the murder of Muzychko.

 “I take this dare,” said Avakov when asked about the Right Sector’s revenge. “My position about the bandits who carry guns and violate the order will remain harsh.”

Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]