You're reading: Tough but kind: Right Sector waging war

Editor's note: This article was published in INSIDER, a Ukrainian news site. It is reprinted with permission.

The base of the 5th volunteer battalion (part of Right Sector’s Ukrainian volunteer corps) is located at an abandoned summer camp near the the Donetsk Oblast border. Locals have already gotten used to living near Right Sector members, but their reactions are mixed.

On our way to the base we met an old lady who was actively
gesticulating while trying to get a ride. She looked about seventy years
old. We stopped. Inside our car, there was a driver, a journalist and a
Right Sector fighter wearing the battalion’s insignia.

“Where are you going, ma’am?” We asked her.

When she saw the inscription on the insignia, the old lady seemed to become 20 years younger as she ran for the bushes.

“No, guys, I don’t want to go anywhere. Go. Please go,” she shouted at us, hiding behind a bush.

She did not explain why she was so afraid of the Right Sector, and kept saying that she did not need to go anywhere.

Further down the road there were two checkpoints – one near the
entrance to the base and one at the base itself.  After hearing where we
were heading, a soldier at the checkpoint wished us luck.

The place where the battalion is based and what goes on there
create a cognitive dissonance – swings that were once used by children
are now occupied by bearded camouflaged men, while pavilions where
people used to sing and play guitar are now used for unloading weapons.

An armored medical bus and buses with broken windows for use on
the front lines are now parked near the buildings where children used
to play at night.

The INSIDER reporter spent several days at the base of the Right Sector’s 5th volunteer battalion.

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

The way things are

The Right Sector’s Ukrainian volunteer corps is recognized as
an unofficial military unit, but it is not subordinated to any
government agencies. The corps’ leadership coordinates their work only
with the anti-terrorist operation’s headquarters.

Right Sector volunteers are an auxiliary for the Ukrainian army
and other volunteer battalions, but they are not entitled to weapons or medications. Volunteers supply them with medicine. As for weapons, the
situation is even worse.  Soldiers mainly fight with weapons seized from
separatists.

Trying to find a commander, I approached people in the smoking room.

“Hi. Where can I find a company or battalion commander?” I asked.

When they found out I was a journalist, they perked up and
suggested finding “Bohemia.” I initially thought they meant their
commanders. I found “Bohemia,” but it turned out to be the nickname of a
company commander, not a common term for top brass.

Andrei, the company commander, has degrees in acting and filmmaking.

“We are often sent to conscripts,” Bohemia said. “The morale
there is very bad – people there are not very motivated. They often fail
to understand why they, and not someone else, must wage war. So Right
Sector fighters are sent there to prevent them from slacking off and to
set an example. Sometimes it seems to me that it’s not us who are an
auxiliary to the army, but the other way around.”

The Right Sector’s 5th battalion is located at one of the
front’s sections. Dmytro Yarosh, the Right Sector’s leader, is based
with this battalion. He can often be seen at the base calmly sitting
near the barracks. But Right Sector fighters carefully protect their
leader – there is always a soldier with an assault rifle nearby.

In total, there are about two hundred volunteers at the base. Most of them are Right Sector members.

There is no permanent staff because the battalion comprises
people who can’t serve for a long time. Personnel is constantly rotated
but the battalion’s management is always the same. The rest are on the
frontline. At the base, it’s almost impossible to hear talk about
fighting. Fighters seldom discuss what’s happened to them in the smoking
room.

“(Andrei) Tarasenko (a deputy head of the Right Sector) has
been wounded,” said one of the fighters, surprisingly mentioning his
real name instead of his code name. “When we patrolled a Donetsk
suburb, we were shelled by mortars. One person was killed.”

The battalion’s youngest fighter is 18. The Bumblebee, as he is
known, is a law student from Kharkiv. Asked what he’s doing there, he
said: “My parents are in Kharkiv. Every day I saw ambulances from the
frontline driving around my city, and every day I was afraid of (the
war) reaching Kharkiv. And what next? Then I decided not to be afraid
and to go to the front.”

The oldest volunteer is 60. Most fighters are from western
Ukraine, but there also quite a few soldiers from Donetsk,
Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk and other eastern regions.

The fighters’ living conditions are spartan. The summer camp’s
rooms have been turned into barracks thanks to the war.  Only scribbles
left by children on the walls remind one of those quiet times.

“Fashionable jeans, plimsoll shoes, sneakers. We are gilded
youth, we are party goers,” says the motto of an unknown group of
children. Tired fighters who have come back from the frontline were
sitting against this background.

From time to time, shots and explosions are heard east of the
base. But the sounds are not coming from the frontline. Every day, the
fighters are training. For some, this training is equivalent to military
exercises because, before going to the front, they had no combat
experience.

But, according to Bohemia, 80 percent of the volunteers who join the battalion have military training.

One of the most interesting instructors is Dodo – a 54-year old
Georgian colonel who survived two wars. At first sight, this woman
looks more like a foreign journalist than a soldier: red lipstick, huge
earrings and broken Russian.

“A woman is always a woman,” she said, smiling.

Dodo was the head of the Georgian underground (she fought
against Russia in the 1992-1993  Abkhaz war and the 2008
Russian-Georgian war), and was wounded several times. She wears a cross
of (Ukrainian nationalist group) UNA-UNSO around her neck.

“Why did I come here? That is obvious. When we were in a
difficult situation UNA-UNSO guys helped us a lot,” she said, holding
the cross in her arms. “We have a common enemy – Russia.”

On Dodo’s bedside table, there is a grenade, cartridges for
an A-545 assault rifle, creams and other stuff for women. Under the bed,
there is a bullet-proof vest, army boots and camouflage. Everyone lives
like that there.

In the kitchen, locals are working.

“There are two shifts here – one of them loves us and cooks
tasty food, while the other one doesn’t like us and its food isn’t that
good,” the fighters said, laughing.

Then a column of people I hadn’t seen before passed us. The
men’s heads were lowered, and their hands were behind their backs. They
were escorted by men with assault rifles.

The Right Sector admits that a number of captured separatists are located at their base.

“We identify them and hand them over to the Security Service or
Interior Ministry,” said Artyom Skoropadsky, the Right Sector’s
spokesman.

At a certain moment the fighters’ quiet life was disrupted by
news that reinforcements were needed at the front. Chyorny (Black), the
battalion commander, took several soldiers and went to the frontline.

Apart from weapons, Right Sector fighters have also seized other “trophies” – cats and dogs. There is even a parrot.

“Separatists leave everything behind, including animals, after
they go. Our guys feel sorry for them and take them. So that’s why we
have a mini-zoo,” said a girl whose boyfriend serves in the battalion.

Her favorite story is about Comrade, a dog that saved a fighter
near Illovaisk (in the Donetsk Oblast). The dog, which had previously
been owned by separatists, lay on the fighter’s back during a shootout
and saved him from sure death.

The human factor

The medical service of the Right Sector’s Ukrainian volunteer corps is headed by Yana, 19.

“Let’s talk later,” she shouted at me while on the move and
running towards a car.  She is on the frontline on every day of the
fighting.

Apart from providing first aid on the ground, she also
coordinates with hospitals in the war zone, where severely injured
soldiers are sent.

For Yana, the most vivid memory is fighting in Stepanivka a few kilometers from the Russian border.

“I clearly remember a school that had been bombed. Several
hours after we left, the village was razed to the ground by Grad rocket
launchers,” Yana said.

There are a lot of women at the base. They include Alla, head
of the battalion’s information department, a psychologist who goes by
“Arrow,” volunteers and even girls who take part in fighting on the
frontline.

I entered a room to talk to Alla and realized that she was
telling one of the fighters’ wives about her husband’s death. That was a
tragic day for the battalion. On the frontline, a grenade was thrown to
their trench – one person was killed and two were injured.

“This is the most difficult part of my work. When you tell
their relatives about this, the main thing is to be patient. Because
relatives often don’t believe, ask questions etc. But this is normal,”
Alla said.

The battalion is staffed by all kinds of people – from those
who have military training to hitchhikers with friendship bracelets on
their hands.

When you ask them about their motivation, it’s different for different people.

“A friend of mine was killed. I knew him for twenty years. That
was the last straw. The motivation is obvious – if the authorities
don’t give a damn about what’s going on in the country and if they turn a
blind eye to obvious things, we should step in instead,” said a fighter
who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“My friend was taken prisoner by separatists. It is then that I
decided that I should go,” a soldier named Kirill said. His brother and
father are also fighting in the Right Sector’s battalion.

Family members fighting together is not rare. For example,
“White” works as a journalist in peacetime but now she’s training to be a
sniper at the base, and her husband is already fighting on the
frontline.

“Is it scary on the frontline?” I asked a soldier who had just returned from the front. “Are your hands trembling?”

“What should I be afraid of? If someone dies, he’s replaced by
another one. It would be scary if we lost and did not live up to our
loved ones’ expectations but I’m not afraid of fighting,” he said.