8/13/2019 Have Ukraine's Protests Been Taken Over by This Ultra-right-wing Group? - The Globe and Mail

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Have Ukraine's protests been taken over by this ultra-right-wing group?

DOUG SAUNDERS

KIEV The Globe and Mail

Last updated Monday, Feb. 10 2014, 9:15 AM EST

Members of the radical group Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) practice street ghting incentral Kiev on Monday, Feb. 3, 2014. (Darko Bandic/AP)

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speak to journalists, are members of Pravy Sektor, an umbrella group of fascist,nationalist, football-hooligan and right-wing extremist gangs some with neo-Nazihistories which is generally considered to the right of Svoboda and which tends to be very secretive. It has not, to this point, been a political party.

A senior Pravy Sektor ofcial, in a rare interview, told The Globe and Mail that theadmiration his group has won from protesters for its heroic battles with police has ledit to consider entering the electoral arena.

When this revolution is nished, then we will be willing to think about it if we wereable to do so much for the country, then why not? People are disillusioned with theofcial opposition, and we should be listened to, says Artem Skoropadsky , a slight,mild-looking 32-year-old activist who agreed to an interview, after lengthy negotiations with the people on the fth oor, over beers at a cellar restaurant.

Pravy Sektors commander and gurehead is Dmitro Yarosh, a bald-headed, burly militant who rarely speaks. Mr. Skoropadsky describes himself as the groupsspokesman, but his language suggests that he has a leadership role. And he choosesto speak in Russian, indicating that he is from eastern Ukraine which suggests thatthe group differs from the Ukrainian-nationalist focus of Svoboda, whose membershiphas sometimes been restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.

While he says Pravy Sektor is right-wing, Christian and intolerant of any foreigninuence in Ukraine, he insists that they are not neo-Nazis or fascists and that they condemn outright racism. But keeping extremists out of a self-professed extremistgroup is, he admits, not always easy. Some Pravy Sektor members have been spotted wearing neo-Nazi symbols.

Of course, it is difcult to control everyone, he says. I know one guy whos got

14/88 [a symbol referring to Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf] painted on his shield. But were trying to purge them. We are a highly disciplined organization.

Despite their history of extreme intolerance, Pravy Sektor has won the admiration of a surprising number of mainstream protest organizers. The real extremists are onthe government side some see the Pravy Sektor people as being too extreme, but weneed them now, says Andrey Dzyndzya, a founder of AutoMaidan, which started as a car owners protest group against highway-police corruption and became a majororganizing force in the protests. We need their kind of radicalism to support therevolution.

There is a paradox here, Mr. Skoropadsky acknowledges. The EuroMaidan (literally Euro Square) protests began as, and continue to be dominated by, a call for closerrelations with the EU Union, yet Pravy Sektors members are opposed to foreigninuence and, like many on the far right, distrust Brussels.

If you ask me which is better, Russia or the EU, Id go with the EU Russia is a tyrannical empire, he says. But we dont think everythings okay with the EU. Weare Christians, and we share Christian values, and we dont want the things we see in

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