Up to 2,500 people, according to the police estimates, marched through Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's main street, on Jan. 1 celebrating the 106th birthday of Stepan Bandera, a leader of Ukraine's nationalist movement during the World War II. Rally organizers say 5,000 activists participated.
Carrying torches and flags, many represented Svoboda and Right Sector, local nationalist parties, while some were combatants of volunteer battalions, who fought pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine’s east, and football fans.
“Current government came to power using Bandera’s slogans, so it has to follow his ideas,” said Oleh Tyanhybok, Svoboda’s leader, during a news briefing before the march began.
“Bandera was a man who protected this country, who fought for it and stood for its rights,” said Oleksiy Kabanera, 28-year-old engineer from Kyiv, holding a torch. “But he was proclaimed the enemy of the nation who helped fascists.”
“He wanted Ukraine to be independent the same as we want it to be,” he continued. “Therefore we pay tribute to this man today.”
A Russian speaker and an active supporter of Dynamo Kyiv football club, Kabanera said he did not belong to any political parties and is driven by patriotic feelings that pushed him to join Aydar battalion involved in the war against the separatists.
“Russia is a prison of nations!” chanted the march participants, carrying portraits of Bandera and nationalist flags as well as symbols of Ukrainian Insurgent Army, an independent side in the World War II that fought both, Soviets and German Nazis. “One will, one nation, one motherland – Ukraine!”
The Jan. 1 Stepan Bandera march in Kyiv © Unlike News YouTube channel
Ivan Kralinskiy, a 30-year-old Kyivan, watched the rally as it was moving from the Taras Shevchenko Park to Independence Square, accompanied by the drum beat. Joined by his family including a 1.5-year-old daughter Veronika, Kralinskiy believes “such actions are needed to raise popularity of Svoboda party.”
“Many people like these events, but my attitude is neutral. They already toppled (Russian communist leader Vladimir) Lenin statue. What else can they do?” he added referring to the Dec. 8, 2013 accident that led to hundreds of Lenin statues being ruined throughout the country.
No accidents happened this time as police watched the rally closely. Last year, Bandera march participants threw torches into the lobby of Premier Palace, a luxurious hotel in downtown Kyiv. Svoboda, known for having little control over its most extremist-minded members, called it a provocation.
“Ukrainians didn’t show support for the radical ethnic nationalism that the Russian media were actively scaring the whole world with,” an activist and a blogger Ostap Kryvdyk wrote on Ukrayinska Pravda, a news an opinion website, on Oct. 29. “Ethnic nationalism didn’t pass the Maidan test. First victims who died on Hrushevsky street were Armenian Sergey Nigoyan and Belorussian Mykhaylo Zhyznevskiy.”
“Russian language was used (during the EuroMaidan Revolution) not less than Ukrainian,” Kryvdyk adds. However, he concludes that during the war with Russia, Ukraine did start leaning towards nationalism.
Kryvdyk’s skepticism comes from Svoboda’s and Right Sector’s poor political results this year. Tyahnybok of Svoboda finished tenth during the May 25 presidential election winning only 1.16 percent of the votes. Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector, got only 0.7 percent.
Oct. 26 parliamentary election didn’t go much better for the nationalists. Receiving only 4.71 percent of the votes after winning 10 percent in 2012, Svoboda didn’t pass the election threshold. However, its 7 members still got into parliament through single mandate constituencies in western and central regions of the country. Its leader, Tyahnybok, didn’t get a job as a lawmaker in a new parliament, where Svoboda deputies didn’t join the pro-government coalition.
The Right Sector got even less – only 1.8 percent. But its head Yarosh won a seat, as well as two other party members.
Verkhovna Rada’s nationalist group also includes several battalion commanders who fought in the east.
“I am nationalist and nationalism means certain level of radicalism,” said Andriy Biletskiy, an independent member of parliament and commander of the Azov battalion who used to head the Patriot of Ukraine and the Social-National Assembly, two far-right political movements.
Biletskiy denies all the allegations on being a neo-Nazi, racist and anti-Semitist.
“I don’t see a critical majority of nationalists in the Ukrainian parliament,” said Serhiy Taruta, former governor of Donetsk Oblast and a minority shareholder of the Industrion Union of Donbas, a steel making holding. He emphasizes, the problem of perception of far-right parties exists only on the occupied territories whose residents are brainwashed with the Russian propaganda.
Even representatives of the Rada’s Opposition Bloc, a reincarnation of the former ruling pro-Russian Party of Regions, do not believe in ‘fascist junta’, as Russia media calls the government of President Petro Poroshenko.
“The 8th parliament is much more democratic than the previous one,” said Tetiana Bakhteyeva, a member of the Opposition Bloc. “There is more flexibility and understanding of the situation now.”
Her copartisan Nestor Shufrych shares this opinion.
“The number of representatives of the political forces that I consider nationalist is limited,” he said. “And I would ask everyone to give a balanced assessment of the situation in the Ukrainian parliament.”
Meanwhile, Svoboda, the biggest nationalist political force so far, is analyzing its mistakes now.
Yuriy Levchenko, a graduate of London School of Economics and member of Svoboda, says there was a campaign planned by the mainstream political forces to block his party from coming into the parliament. He believes, falsification during the elections led to party’s poor results this year.
Levchenko does not agree that the nationalist ideology became less popular among Ukrainians. It’s directly the opposite, he thinks. Even more parties began using nationalist slogans and were successful.
At the same time, he recognizes that Svoboda members did not provide the results that people expected of them as they took seats in the first post-EuroMaidan Cabinet of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Neither Agriculture Minister Igor Shvayka, nor Ecology Minister Andriy Mokhnyk or Prosecutor General Oleg Makhnitsky did a good job. All became targets of excessive criticism in the local media.
Poor election results led to 1,500 people expelled from Svoboda for the “violation of party discipline.” Changes in the party continue.
Svoboda, however, is not going to change its nationalist ideology for a more moderate one. Levchenko said his party won’t give up the march of torches as it is a common thing in the developed countries like the U.K. and there’s nothing fascist about it.
“Our plan is to gain power in Ukraine in order to establish social and national justice in the country,” Levchenko said. “Ukrainian nation should feel itself a majority on its land, not a disadvantaged minority as it is now.”
“National minorities should have the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens,” Levchenko added. “But they should respect history, culture, and language of the nation, in whose country they live.”
Editor’s Note: The story has been updated on Jan. 2 to provide a range of estimates on the amount of the torch march participants.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Lyachynska can be reached at [email protected].
