Ukraine's Protest Radicals: A Force to Be Reckoned with?
No sooner had deadly violence died down in Kiev last week than a menacing video appeared on YouTube, promising a "Great Ukrainian Reconquista" against images of armored vehicles on fire and violent police beatings.
Meet Pravy Sektor, a far-right paramilitary group that rose to prominence during the anti-government protests that rocked Ukraine, prompting warnings that a largely peaceful protest movement had been hijacked by radical elements that could have a major say in politics following the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych.
"It's just the beginning," Pravy Sektor leader Dmytro Yarosh says in the video to the sound of protesters banging on their shields, sitting in front of his group's red and black banner that mirrors that of the controversial UPA armed force which battled for Ukraine's independence during and post-Second World War.
Yarosh's young, balaclava-clad followers have inspired awe and fear in equal measure during the three-month protest movement over their reported fearless -- and sometimes violent -- involvement on the frontlines of clashes with riot police on Kiev's Independence Square, and their firm stance against corruption.
Many people on the square feel that they put words into actions -- unlike key opposition leaders who made speeches on the central stage but were nowhere to be seen when violence broke out last week, leaving nearly 100 dead including a dozen policemen.
And while those actions may have been of the Molotov cocktail-throwing kind, some believe they ultimately swayed the outcome.
"All politicians now are corrupted by the political system, but Yarosh is new," says Petro Gutsalo, a 57-year-old protester who wants to see the Pravy Sektor leader awarded a key government post.
While that has yet to happen, some fear that the radicals will use their new-found fame to exercise vigilante vengeance, stir up nationalist sentiment or repress minorities.
One of the first things the country's parliament did after the ouster of Yanukovych was repeal a law that approved the use of Russian and other minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in some areas.
Hungary slammed the move, expressing concern for the 150,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in the Ukraine's west, and also worrying over reports that Pravy Sektor activists aggressively broke up a recent council meeting in a majority ethnic Hungarian town.
But Ukraine's new interim president Oleksandr Turchynov later vetoed the repeal of the language law, and outside watchers say nationalist fears are overblown.
"These masks don't mean anything," one Pravy Sektor militant said in front of the group's jealously-guarded headquarters in Kiev.
"They're just to protect our families and children... I don't see myself as a radical," he said, dressed in army fatigues, his blue eyes only just visible through his balaclava.
He joined Pravy Sektor just one week ago, as have hundreds of others, keen to join a group born on the square out of several, small far-right organizations present after protests began in November.
As to what the group would do now that the fight was over and Yanukovych had been deposed, he said militants were currently in "discussions" and would decide over the next few days.
Andreas Umland, a Kiev-based political analyst at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, said the nationalists' influence had been hyped by their imposing presence on the square.
"They're very present with their flags, uniforms. This creates the impression that they're dominating the situation," he said.
The high-profile inclusion of members of nationalist party Svoboda in the new government, he said, was more likely to have a "moderating" effect on the party than the party having a "radicalizing" effect on the government.
And Pravy Sektor -- which is only thought to have several thousand members -- was "overrated", he added.
But Umland acknowledged that Maidan, as the protest movement is known, made the mistake of using too many nationalist symbols, such as the red and black flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the portrait of one of its controversial leaders Stepan Bandera.
The UPA has come to illustrate the deep divide between the country's nationalist west where it is idolized as a champion of independence and the pro-Russia east where it is despised for waging a long guerilla war against the Red Army and collaborating with the Nazis.
And for all the carefully-cultivated air of mystery and awe surrounding Pravy Sektor, Yarosh appears keen to give his group more publicity.
In a rare interview with Agence France Presse last month, he envisaged the creation of a "new political movement with is own niche".
The Pravy Sektor video has been translated into 12 languages, and the English-language version has been viewed more than 48,000 times.
And while it appears to criticize the protest leaders, slamming "corrupt marginal democracy" against a shot of new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Yarosh has reportedly appealed for calm on his Facebook-like VK account following unrest on the pro-Russia peninsula of Crimea.
"It's the tendencies of the Maidan and not radical organizations that have more chances to wield influence on Ukraine's new authorities," said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kiev-based political analyst.
Source: Agence France Presse
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