Right-wing radicals resort to an ultimatum with the government

Dmytro Yarosh believes he has the right to speak with the president with a raised tone of voice

Photo: PHL

Yesterday the leaders of the right-wing nationalist party Right Sector announced a crusade of teams of volunteers participating in military actions in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) on Kyiv if President Petro Poroshenko does not meet their demands. The ultimatum of the Right Sector was interpreted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs as the start of the parliamentary election campaign, while opponents of Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Ihor Kolomoiskiy claimed his complicity in the events. After negotiations with official Kyiv the Right Sector abandoned its ultimatum.

The Kornilov address

The main demand of the Right Sector to the president was dismissal of First Deputy Ministry of Internal Affairs Volodymyr Yevdokimov and employees of the ministry engaged in the detainment of the party’s activists. In the statement there were also demands to return weapons and technical equipment that were confiscated by the police in the ATO zone and the suspension of criminal acts against the activists. “If our demands are not met within 48 hours, we will be forced to recall all of our subdivisions on the front line, declare full mobilization of reserve battalions and launch an advance on Kyiv with the aim of conducting immediate reform of the ministry of internal affairs,” it was written in the statement of the leader of the Right Sector Dmytro Yarosh and Commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Coprs Andriy Stempytskiy.

After that the head of the information sector of the Right Sector party Boryslav Bereza stated that upon the directive of MIA Deputy Minister Yevdokimov the ministry was preparing a “large-scale provocation against the Right Sector, which should have entailed searches on the bases of the organization in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast and the arrest of its leaders.

In response, advisor to the MIA Anton Herashchenko stated live on the air that everything Bereza said is false and the ultimatum of the Right Sector can be explained by its desire to improve its popularity ratings on the eve of potential early parliamentary elections. “This is a PR action prior to the elections in which the party plans to run. They desperately need to gain 5% of the people’s votes in order to surpass the minimum barrier to win seats in the Verkhovna Rada,” said Herashchenko.

He also noted that the recent detainment of militants of the Right Sector in the Lviv oblast was legally grounded as the activists attempted to deliver a major arsenal of firearms, including three grenade launchers in two vehicles.

In turn, Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov accused Yarosh that the units of the Right sector participating in the ATO “essentially remain illegally armed formations”. Besides that, Avakov assured that two weeks ago he submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers documents demanding the dismissal of Yevdokimov.

As a reminder, this is not the first conflict between the right-wing organization and Avakov. After the death of activist Oleksander Muzychko at the end of March, the Right Sector declared war with the MIA. But there was not active resistance due to the aggravation of the situation in the east of Ukraine. After that the epicenter of activity of the Right Sector was relocated to Dnipropetrovsk.

Calling it off

Head of the Center for Information, Legal and Social Support of Participants of the ATO and former head of the press service of the Azov battalion Oleh Mosiychuk told Capital that the commanders of voluntary battalions Azov, Aidar and Shaktersk assured that their soldiers had no intentions of supporting the assault on Kyiv declared by Yarosh.

A source of Capital at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense stated that the formation of the Right Sector or certain of its members are not subordinated to the command of the defense ministry. He also pointed out that there are no official statistics that members of the Right Sector involved in the course of the ATO. “The units fulfill their tasks without being subordinated to their commanders,” the interlocutor told Capital.

People’s deputy Pavlo Rozenko (UDAR member) emotionally described yesterday’s statements of the leader of the Right Sector. “The statement of Yarosh is emotionally associated with the detainment of his soldiers in the Lviv oblast. In his ultimatum he expressed his disconcertedness about this fact, though now is not the best time for ultimatums,” he told Capital.

However, people’s deputy Oleksandr Briginets (Batkivshchyna) believes that the statements of Yarosh and Stempytskiy were not only addressed to President Poroshenko, though the issue is about the actions of the MIA, which is by law not subordinated to the president. “It seems that they are trying to pull Poroshenko into a scandalous situation. Perhaps this is being done in order to take away from the president some of his proponents and weaken him. After all today he is the most powerful political figure in the country,” Briginets told Capital.

People’s deputy Volodymyr Oliynyk of the deputy group “For Peace and Stability” agrees with this opinion. “It is possible that this is a check-up. They want to check out whether the ruling power in Ukraine is seriously prepared to face such a challenge,” he told Capital.

People’s deputy Yuriy Syrotyuk (Svoboda) feels that the interests of more influential political groups stand behind the ultimatum of the Right Sector. He refused to name them, though at the same time independent deputy Oleh Lyashko stated on this Facebook page that Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Ihor Kolomoiskiy is behind the actions of Yarosh.

However, members of the Right Sector and the inner circles of Kolomoiskiy denied this statement reminding that recently the conflict between Kolomoiskiy and Lyashko has recently flared up. Be that as it may, after the challenge of the Deputy Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Borys Filatov to the MIA and Yarosh to end the conflict, a response of the latter appeared on a video recording in which Yarosh stated that the MIA fulfilled the demands of the organization and the military units were called off from an advance on Kyiv. Moreover, the organization declared a ban on withdrawal of weapons from the ATO zone.

Deputy Chair of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Svyatoslav Oliynyk told Capital that a phone call from Kyiv influenced the position of the leader of the Right Sector. "I believe that the Kyiv leadership had a conversation with him. It is quite possible that the president himself made the call from the Presidential Administration in response to the statements of those people participating in the ATO,” Oliynyk suggested.