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Far-right politics in Ukraine

January 01, 1970

During Ukraine's post-Soviet history, the far-right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991.[1][2] Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far-right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries' politics during the decline and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the national electoral support for far-right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3% of the popular vote.[3] Far-right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single-mandate districts, and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election.[3] Only once in the 1994–2014 period was a radical right-wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting: Svoboda in 2012.[3] Since then far-right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation, even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Russo-Ukrainian War.[3]

The far-right was heavily represented among the pro-Russian separatists with several past or current leaders of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk linked to various neo-Nazi, white supremacist and ultra-nationalist groups. The importance of the far-right on both sides of the conflict declined over time. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the coalition of Svoboda and the other extreme-right political parties in Ukraine―National Corps, the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh, and the Right Sector―won only 2.15% of the vote combined and failed to pass the 5% threshold. As a result, no party was able to win a proportional seat.[4][5] One party – the Svoboda party – was able to secure a single constituency seat.[6]

Background edit

 
Schutzmannschaft with Nazi uniform and the logo of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

The far-right in Ukraine is not identical with Ukrainian nationalism which resulted in part from Ukraine being historically divided between various imperial powers.[7] Post-Soviet Ukraine is home to competing nationalisms and cultural orientations.[8] The nationalist organizations during World War II remain controversial.[8] National attitudes about the far-right are impacted by the ambivalent role Ukraine played during Nazi occupation, with Ukrainians volunteering in SS troops and as concentration camp guards.[9]

Hate crime edit

 
Ukrainian Right Sector extremists wearing the Wolfsangel on Maidan. 2014

Hate crimes were relatively uncommon in Ukraine compared to other Eastern European countries, with increase after 2005,[10] and decrease after 2008 - 2009. The increase was mostly due to informal youth groups, in particular skinheads. 2007 was the most violent year in terms of racially motivated crimes with 88 registered assaults with 6 fatalities.[11] By comparison, in Russia during the same year there were a reported 625 casualties with 94 deaths attributed to far-right violence.[11] The significant difference results in part the from the different sizes of the racist youth and skinhead scene in Ukraine and Russia.[11] According to estimates, in 2008 Ukraine had a maximum of 2,000 organized skinheads whereas in Russia the estimates range between 20,000 and 70,000 members of skinhead groups.[12][13] Since 2008, there has been a more explicit response to such crimes by law enforcement and the justice system, which has led to a decrease of violent right-wing offences.[10] Ukraine has seen a decrease in both the frequency and the severity of hate crimes since their high in the mid-2000s.[11] Between 2006 and 2012, there were 295 reported violent hate crimes and 13 hate-crime-related deaths, the last reported death occurred in 2010 before the start of the war with Russia.[11]

In 2008, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, issued an open letter complaining about the radical right-wing organization Patriot of Ukraine which according to the author had close ties to Russian and Ukrainian extremists. The author warned that the spread of extremist ideology was reminiscent of that in Russia 2000-2001.[14]

In 2018, Human Rights Watch issued a letter stating that, in the months preceding the letter's publication, there have been a series of hate-motivated violent incidents and harassment by radical groups against LGBT people, Roma people, feminists and rights activists. According to the letter, the violent incidents were not prosecuted adequately by the Ukrainian authorities.[15] According to a 2018 report by Freedom House, in the first three months of 2018, extremist groups tried to disrupt twelve public events and attacked a variety of targets. While direct physical violence was not deployed in all twelve cases, extremist groups sought to restrict the rights and freedoms of Ukraine's citizens. Overall, the report argues that far-right groups have been marginal in Ukrainian society and especially in Ukrainian politics.[16] The 2018 report by Freedom House concluded that far-right groups in Ukraine had no significant representation in parliament nor any plausible path to power, however they had "a serious impact on everyday life and societal development in the country." The report identified three extremist political parties―Svoboda, National Corps and Right Sector—and argues that their lack of relevance in official politics has resulted in right-wing groups seeking avenues outside of politics to impose their agenda on Ukrainian society. Such attempts have included efforts to disrupt peaceful assemblies and violence against those with opposite political and cultural views including the left, feminists, LGBT groups, and human rights activists. One particular area of concern noted in the report is that Ukrainian law enforcement had failed to properly stop or punish far-right disruption. The report called on Ukrainian authorities to take more effective measures.[2]

In 2019, a Bellingcat investigation revealed that the Ukrainian government gave over 8 million hryvnias (over US$300,000)) for "national-patriotic education projects" targeting Ukrainian youth. A proportion of this (845,000 hryvnias — over $30,000) went to several far-right nationalist groups, including National Corps and possible fronts for C14.[17]

Violence against Jews edit

Main article: Antisemitism in Ukraine

A survey by the Pew Research Center in 2018 found that antisemitic sentiments were less prevalent in Ukraine than other Eastern and Central European countries. While 5% of Ukrainians stated that they would not like to have Jews as their fellow citizens, the figure was 14% in Russia and Hungary, 16% in Greece and 32% in Armenia.[18] According to a 2023 survey by the Anti-Defamation League Ukraine has a 29% index score (answering 'probably true' to a majority of the antisemitic stereotypes tested), compared to 37% for Hungary, 35% for Poland and 26% for Russia.[19]

Antisemitic rhetoric used by far-right activists relatively rarely translates into violent actions.[11][20] Between 2004 and 2014, there were 112 anti-Semitic violent attacks, with a decrease over time, in Ukraine.[11]

Historical memory edit

In April 2015, Ukraine passed four decommunization laws regulating official memory of the Soviet period. The laws ban Nazi and Communist ideology and symbols and the "public denial of the criminal nature of the Communist totalitarian regime 1917–1991"; they open former KGB archives; replace the Soviet term "great patriotic war" with the European second world war, and provide public recognition to anyone who fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century.[21] The laws represent attempts to reorient historical memory and pivot more decisively away from the Russian-Soviet narrative of the Soviet period, and in particular the World War II era.[22] They laws were criticized by intellectuals in Ukraine and abroad who argued that the laws limited freedom of speech.[22][23] The fourth bill in the package, "On the Legal Status and Honouring of Fighters for Ukraine's Independence in the Twentieth Century", has been particularly controversial because it covers a long list of individuals and organisations from human rights activists to fighters accused of committing crimes during World War II, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.[21][24][25][26]

Monuments in honor of members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army such as Roman Shukhevych and Yaroslav Stetsko have been controversial and, in one case, earned official protest notes by Israel and Poland.[27][28]

Pro-Russian separatism edit

 
Flags of three far-right Russian separatist groups in Ukraine: Rusich, Russian National Unity, and the Russian Imperial Legion.
Further information: Ruscism and Russian separatist forces in Donbas

According to a 2016 report by French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), far-right Russian nationalism, neo-imperialism and Orthodox fundamentalism has shaped the official ideology of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics,[29] the two self-proclaimed states controlled by pro-Russian separatists but internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. During the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially at the beginning, far-right groups played an important role on the pro-Russian side, arguably more so than on the Ukrainian side.[30][31]

Members and former members of Russian National Unity (RNU), the National Bolshevik Party, the Eurasian Youth Union, and Cossack groups formed branches to recruit volunteers to join the separatists.[32][33][34][35] A former RNU member, Pavel Gubarev, was founder of the Donbas People's Militia and first "governor" of the Donetsk People's Republic.[32][36] RNU is particularly linked to the Russian Orthodox Army,[32] one of a number of separatist units described as "pro-Tsarist" and "extremist" Orthodox nationalists.[37] Neo-Nazi units such as the 'Rusich', 'Svarozhich' and 'Ratibor' battalions, use Slavic swastikas on their badges.[32] 'Rusich' is part of the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary group in Ukraine which has been linked to far-right extremism.[38][39]

Some of the most influential far-right nationalists among the Russian separatists are neo-imperialists, who seek to revive the Russian Empire.[32] These included Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin, first "minister of defence" of the Donetsk People's Republic, who espouses Russian neo-imperialism and ethno-nationalism.[32] The Russian Imperial Movement, a white supremacist militant group,[38] has recruited thousands of volunteers to join the separatists.[37] Some separatists have flown the black-yellow-white Russian imperial flag,[32] such as the Sparta Battalion. In 2014, volunteers from the National Liberation Movement joined the DPR People's Militia bearing portraits of Tsar Nicholas II.[33]

Other Russian volunteers involved in separatist militias included members of the Eurasian Youth Union, and of banned groups such as the Slavic Union and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration.[34] Another Russian separatist paramilitary unit, the Interbrigades, is made up of activists from the National Bolshevik (Nazbol) group Other Russia.[32]

Russian far-right groups gradually became less important in Donbas as the need for Russian radical nationalists faded.[32]

Ukrainian paramilitary units edit

Following the February 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied Crimea, and armed detachments of Russians seized towns in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, and, by their claims, "pulled the trigger" of the Donbas War.[40] In response, several Ukrainian volunteer battalions formed to help the regular Ukrainian military. One of these self-funded volunteer militias was the Azov Battalion.[41][42] In 2014, some members of the battalion were reported as openly white supremacists.[43] Its first commander was Andriy Biletsky, the head of the ultra-nationalist and far right political groups Social-National Assembly and Patriots of Ukraine.[44][43] The battalion was taken under the command of the National Guard of Ukraine in 2015. In June 2015, United States Democratic Representative John Conyers and his Republican colleague Ted Yoho offered bipartisan amendments to prevent U.S. military training of the Azov Battalion—called a "neo-Nazi paramilitary militia" by Conyers and Yoho.[45][46][47]

While far-right volunteers played a role in the early stages of the Donbas War, their importance was often exaggerated, and both sides had less need to rely on them as the conflict progressed.[32] Alexander Ritzmann, a Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, wrote of the Azov Battalion: "when your country is under attack by foreign invaders, it is understandable that Ukrainians will not focus on the political views of their co-defenders, but on who can and will fight the invaders".[48]

American scholar and journalist Stephen F. Cohen wrote in The Nation in 2018 that the resurrection of Nazi ideology could be observed all around the globe, including Europe and the United States, but that the growing Ukrainian Neo-Nazi movement posed a special danger due to its well-armed and well-organized nature.[49] Cohen cited the Azov Battalion and Right Sector in this regard.[49] In 2020, Taras Kuzio criticized Cohen, noting research finding that these groups were largely made up of Russian speakers and national minorities. Kuzio says despite Cohen's claims, even Right Sector and the Azov Regiment that are often described as 'Ukrainian nationalist', included minorities such as Georgians, Jews, Russians, Tatars, and Armenians.[50]

British scholar Richard Sakwa wrote in 2015 that "The creation of the National Guard, consisting largely of far-right militants and others from the Maidan self-defence forces, had the advantage of removing these militants from the centre of Kyiv and other western Ukrainian towns, but they often lacked discipline and treated south-east Ukraine as occupied territory, regularly committing atrocities against civilians and captured 'terrorists'."[51]

Russian disinformation edit

Despite the fact that far-right parties in Ukraine have been unpopular with the electorate and received less support than far-right parties in other European countries, the Russian government and media started to label Ukraine a "fascist state" following the Orange Revolution in 2004.[1] The subject of the far right's alleged influence in Ukraine became especially politicized during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity when small radical groups received disproportionate media attention not only in Russia but also in the West. The impact of these organizations on Ukrainian politics and society has been greatly exaggerated in Russian state media and also in some West European media.[3] Media coverage has been focused largely on Right Sector and on Svoboda,[1] whose members stand accused of killing four national guardsmen using hand grenades during a rally outside Ukrainian parliament in August 2015.[52]

Russian president Vladimir Putin used the pretext of "denazification" to launch the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, falsely claiming that the Ukrainian government were neo-Nazis.[53] Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti published an article by Timofey Sergeytsev, "What Russia should do with Ukraine", where he argued that Ukraine and Ukrainian national identity must be wiped out, because he claimed most Ukrainians are at least "passive Nazis".[54][55]

These allegations of Nazism are widely rejected as untrue and part of a Russian disinformation campaign to justify the invasion, with many pointing out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and had relatives who were victims of the Holocaust.[56] Some of the world's leading historians of Nazism and the Holocaust put out a statement rejecting Putin's claims, which was signed by hundreds of other historians and scholars of the subject. It says:

"We strongly reject the Russian government's ... equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it".[57]

The authors say that Ukraine "has right-wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups" like any country, but "none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine".[57] The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum,[58] the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem condemned Putin's abuse of Holocaust history.[59][60][61] Ukrainian Jews likewise rejected claims of Ukraine being a neo-Nazi state.[62]

Kremlin claims of Nazism against Ukraine are partly an attempt to drum-up support for the war among Russians, framing it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's "Great Patriotic War" against Nazi Germany, "even as Russia supports extreme-right groups across Europe".[63][64] Experts on disinformation say that portraying Ukrainians as Nazis also helps Russians justify war crimes against them, such as the Bucha massacre.[65] Historian Timothy Snyder said the Russian regime calls Ukrainians "Nazis" to justify genocidal acts against them. He said pro-war Russians use the word "Nazi" to mean "a Ukrainian who refuses to be Russian", and he called Putin's Russia "the world center of fascism" (ruscism).[54]

Observers commented how Russia has used real issues, such antisemitism in Ukraine and Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany, for its own propaganda in support of Putin's debunked de-Nazification claim,[66] as Ukraine is not a Nazi state, Russia has been supported by the European far-right, and Russian fighters in the war include neo-Nazis,[67] and its de-Nazifications claims and invasion are not true or justified.[66][68] By June 2023, some observers, such as Bellingcat analyst Michael Colborne in a New York Times article and war reporter since 2014 and Kyiv Independent journalist Illya Ponomarenko,[69][70] argued that Ukraine should consider more seriously the media damage produced by the partial negligence in the condemnation of some symbols, which are present in the most radical military communities of both sides in the conflict, including Azov, the Russian Volunteer Corps, Wagner, and the numerous neo-Nazis within the Russian Imperial Movement.[citation needed] According to Colborne, Ukraine must understand that any communication failure can undermine Western support and the country's international credibility.[citation needed] Ponomarenko proposed to tighten punitive measures against individual soldiers who display neo-Nazi symbols but also commented how the presence of these symbols is not unprecedented for Western armies, citing similar cases in the Australian Army and a US Marine Corps during the war in Afghanistan.[71] Russian responses to the Yaroslav Hunka scandal in September 2023 were designed to cause their conduct of war in Ukraine to appear more legitimate,[72][73] with James L. Turk calling the scandal "a gold mine for Russian propagandists",[74] who shared on Twitter an image of a fake Ukrainian postage stamp featuring the SS Galician veteran Hunka.[75]

Far-right political parties edit

After Yanokovych's ouster in February 2014, the interim First Yatsenyuk government placed four Svoboda members in leading positions: Oleksandr Sych as Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Ihor Tenyukh as Minister of Defense, lawyer Ihor Shvaika as Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food and Andriy Mokhnyk as Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine; with the fall of the First Yatsenyuk government on 27 November 2014, Svoboda lost representation in the Ukrainian Government.[76][77] From 14 April 2016 to 29 August 2019, the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament was Andriy Parubiy,[78][79] the co-founder of the SNPU; however, Parubiy left such organizations in 2004 and later joined moderate political parties, such as Our Ukraine, Batkivshchyna and the People's Front.[77][80]

In the 2019 Ukrainian elections, the far-right nationalist electoral alliance, including Svoboda, National Corps, Right Sector, Azov Battalion, OUN, and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, under-performed expectations. In the presidential election, its candidate Ruslan Koshulynskyi received 1.6% of the vote, and in the parliamentary election, it was reduced to a single seat and saw its national vote fall to 2.15%, half of its result from 2014 and one-quarter of its result from 2012.[81][82]

Other far-right groups edit

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 861, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  2. ^ a b Likhachev 2018, p. 1.
  3. ^ a b c d e Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 862, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  4. ^ Aram Terzyan: Towards Democratic Consolidation? Ukraine After the Revolution of Dignity. Open Political Science, 2020; 3: 183–191, p. 186. doi:10.1515/openps-2020-0015
  5. ^ CEC counts 100 percent of vote in Ukraine's parliamentary elections, Ukrinform (26 July 2019)
    (in Russian) Results of the extraordinary elections of the People's Deputies of Ukraine 2019, Ukrayinska Pravda (21 July 2019)
  6. ^ "Результаты внеочередных выборов народных депутатов Украины 2019". Украинская правда (in Russian). Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  7. ^ Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 12, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  8. ^ a b Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 876, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  9. ^ Kersten & Hankel 2013, p. 91, 92.
  10. ^ a b Kersten & Hankel 2013, pp. 93―94.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 878, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  12. ^ Melanie Mierzejewski-Voznyak: The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine. In: The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Ed. Jens Rydgren). Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 879, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190274559.013.30.
  13. ^ Andreas Umland & Anton Shekhovtsov (2013): "Ultraright Party Politics in Post-Soviet Ukraine and the Puzzle of the Electoral Marginalism of Ukrainian Ultranationalists in 1994–2009." Russian Politics and Law 51 (5), p. 47, doi:10.2753/RUP1061-1940510502.
  14. ^ "Open Letter from KHPG regarding the organization "Patriot of Ukraine"". Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
  15. ^ "Ukraine: Investigate, Punish Hate Crimes". 2018-06-14.
  16. ^ Likhachev 2018, p. 1-4.
  17. ^ "Ukrainian Far-Right Extremists Receive State Funds to Teach "Patriotism"". 16 July 2019.
  18. ^ David Masci: Most Poles accept Jews as fellow citizens and neighbors, but a minority do not. Pew Research Center, March 28, 2018.
  19. ^ ADL Global: Eastern Europe
  20. ^ Lenka Bustikov (2015): "Voting, Identity and Security Threats in Ukraine: Who Supports the Radical 'Freedom' Party?" Communist and Post-Communist Studies 48 (2), pp. 239–256, doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2015.06.011.
  21. ^ a b Hyde, Lily (2015-04-20). "Ukraine to rewrite Soviet history with controversial 'decommunisation' laws". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  22. ^ a b Oxana Shevel (October 2016). "The Battle for Historical Memory in Postrevolutionary Ukraine". Current History. 115 (783). University of California Press: 258–263. doi:10.1525/curh.2016.115.783.258.
  23. ^ Barbara Törnquist-Plewa; Yuliya Yurchuk (2019). "Memory politics in contemporary Ukraine: Reflections from the postcolonial perspective". Memory Studies. 12 (6). SAGE Publications: 699–720. doi:10.1177/1750698017727806. S2CID 148625264.
  24. ^ Kasianov, Georgiy (2022-05-04). "The War Over Ukrainian Identity". ISSN 0015-7120. Archived from the original on 2022-05-04. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  25. ^ Shevel, Oxana (2016-01-11). . PONARS Eurasia. Archived from the original on 2022-07-05. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  26. ^ Rudling, Per Anders; Gilley, Christopher (2015-04-29). "Laws 2558 and 2538-1: On Critical Inquiry, the Holocaust, and Academic Freedom in Ukraine". Політична критика (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 2022-06-08.
  27. ^ "Israel, Poland join in protest against Ukraine monument to Nazi collaborator". timesofisrael.com.
  28. ^ "Nazi collaborator monuments in Ukraine". forward.com. 2021-01-27.
  29. ^ Likhachev, Vyacheslav (July 2016). "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine" (PDF). Russie.NEI.Visions in English. pp. 25–26. Retrieved 1 March 2022. The ideas of Russian imperial (and, to some extent, ethnic) nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism shaped the official ideology of the DNR and LNR. ... Anti-Semitism and homophobia play a lesser, though still significant, role in public rhetoric. ... It can therefore be argued that the official ideology of the DNR and LNR, which developed under the influence of Russian far-right activists, is largely right-wing, conservative and xenophobic in character.
  30. ^ Likhachev, Vyacheslav (July 2016). "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine" (PDF). Russie.NEI.Visions in English. pp. 21–22. Retrieved 1 March 2022. Members of far-right groups played a much greater role on the Russian side of the conflict than on the Ukrainian side, especially at the beginning.
  31. ^ Averre, Derek; Wolczuk, Kataryna, eds. (2018). The Ukraine Conflict: Security, Identity and Politics in the Wider Europe. Routledge. pp. 90–91. Separatist ideologues in the Donbas, such as they are, have therefore produced a strange melange since 2014. Of what Marlène Laruelle (2016) has called the 'three colours' of Russian nationalism designed for export—red (Soviet), white (Orthodox) and brown (fascist) ... there are arguably more real fascists on the rebel side than the Ukrainian side
  32. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Likhachev, Vyacheslav (July 2016). "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine" (PDF). Russie.NEI.Visions in English. pp. 18–28. Retrieved 1 March 2022. The National Bolshevik Party (NBP), the Russian National Unity (RNU), the Eurasian Youth Union, newly formed armed Cossack units and other groups were active in opening branches... The involvement of "The Other Russia" ("descendants" of the outlawed NAtional Bolshevik Party) supporters in the war against Ukraine is entirely consistent with the party's activities... The first "separatist people's governor of Donetsk...had also been an RNU member... During the war in Donbass, the RNU altered the symbols on its chevrons, dispensing with the modified swastika it had always used in the past. Other Russian neo-Nazi groups were less careful, however. The round eight-pronged swastika-kolovrat (a neo-pagan swastika) appeared on the badges of the neo-Nazi "Rusich" and "Ratibor" [units].
  33. ^ a b Yudina, Natalia (1 June 2015). "Russian Nationalists Fight Ukrainian War". Journal on Baltic Security. 1 (1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH: 47–60. doi:10.1515/jobs-2016-0012. S2CID 157714883. Less known organisations are more active in sending fighters to the conflict area, such as Alexander Barkashov's Russian National Unity, RNE (or rather a fragment thereof which somehow remained loyal to the leader)...The National Liberation Movement (NOD) led by United Russia deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov is busy forming volunteer units and transporting them to Ukraine... Other Russian volunteers spotted in Ukraine included activists of the Eurasian Youth Union (the youth branch of Alexander Dugin's party), the Russian Imperial Movement led by Stanislav Vorobyov, and the National Democratic Party.
  34. ^ a b Laruelle, Marlene (26 June 2014). "Is anyone in charge of Russian nationalists fighting in Ukraine?". The Washington Post. Many mercenaries are related, directly or indirectly, to the Russian National Unity (RNU) movement of Alexander Barkashov ... The RNU is supposedly closely associated to members of the self-proclaimed government of Donetsk and in particular of Dmitri Boitsov, leader of the Orthodox Donbass organization ... The volunteers come from several other Russian nationalist groups: the Eurasianist Youth inspired by the Fascist and neo-Eurasianist geopolitician Alexander Dugin; the now-banned Movement Against Illegal Immigration led by Alexander Belov; the group 'Sputnik and Pogrom'; the national-socialist Slavic Union of Dmitri Demushkin; several small groups inspired by monarchism such as the Russian Imperial Movement
  35. ^ Saunders, Robert (2019). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation. Rowman & Littlefield Publishing. pp. 581–582. Russian National Unity (RNU), banned ultranationalist political party ... neo-Nazi party ... a number of RNU members joined separatist forces in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk
  36. ^ Snyder, Timothy. Far-Right Forces are Influencing Russia's Actions in Crimea. The New Republic. 17 March 2014.
  37. ^ a b Kuzio, Taras (2015). Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism. ABC-CLIO. pp. 110–111. the Russian Orthodox Army, one of a number of separatist units fighting for the "Orthodox faith," revival of the Tsarist Empire, and the Russkii Mir. Igor Girkin (Strelkov [Shooter]), who led the Russian capture of Slovyansk in April 2014, was an example of the Russian nationalists who have sympathies to pro-Tsarist and extremist Orthodox groups in Russia. ... the Russian Imperial Movement ... has recruited thousands of volunteers to fight with the separatists. ... separatists received support from Russian neo-Nazis such as the Russian Party of National Unity who use a modified swastika as their party symbol and Dugin's Eurasianist movement. The paramilitaries of both of these ... are fighting alongside separatists.
  38. ^ a b Townsend, Mark (20 March 2022). "Russian mercenaries in Ukraine linked to far-right extremists". The Guardian. Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, including the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, have been linked to far-right extremism ... Much of the extremist content, posted on Telegram and the Russian social media platform VKontakte (VK), relates to a far-right unit within the Wagner Group called Rusich ... One post on the messaging app Telegram, dated 15 March, shows the flag of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a white-supremacist paramilitary ... Another recent VK posting lists Rusich as part of a coalition of separatist groups and militias including the extreme far-right group, Russian National Unity.
  39. ^ Šmíd, Tomáš; Šmídová, Alexandra (2021-06-01). "Anti-government Non-state Armed Actors in the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine". Mezinárodní vztahy. 56 (2). Institute of International Relations Prague: 35–64. doi:10.32422/mv-cjir.1778. ISSN 2570-9429. S2CID 236341469. Another group of Russian citizens who became involved in the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine were members of the so-called right-wing units of the Russian Spring. Here we mean mainly extreme-right activists... the members of Rusich around [Aleksei] Milchakov are activists of various Russian extreme-right groups... Varyag is one of the few not to hide their extreme-right orientation, as it endorses its neo-Nazi ideology quite openly...
  40. ^ "The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine". www.ifri.org. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
  41. ^ "Azov fighters are Ukraine's greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat". The Guardian. 10 September 2014.
  42. ^ "German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers". NBC News.
  43. ^ a b "Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists". The Daily Telegraph. 11 August 2014.
  44. ^ "Ukraine conflict: 'White power' warrior from Sweden". BBC News. 16 July 2014.
  45. ^ "Ukraine's Neo-Nazis Won't Get U.S. Money". Bloomberg. 12 June 2015.
  46. ^ "US lifts ban on funding 'neo-Nazi' Ukrainian militia". The Jerusalem Post. 18 January 2016.
  47. ^ "Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo-Nazis From Its Year-End Spending Bill 14 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine". The Nation. 14 January 2016.
  48. ^ Ritzmann, Alexander (12 April 2022). "The myth that far-right zealots run Ukraine is Russian propaganda". Euronews.
  49. ^ a b Stephen F. Cohen America's Collusion With Neo-Nazis. Neo-fascists play an important official or tolerated role in US-backed Ukraine 2019-12-27 at the Wayback Machine The Nation, 2018
  50. ^ Kuzio, Taras (2020). Crisis in Russian Studies? Nationalism (Imperialism), Racism and War. E-International Relations. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-910814-55-0. Retrieved 2022-06-09.
  51. ^ Sakwa 2015, p. 159-160.
  52. ^ Paul Funder Larsen Right-wing nationalists under investigation after last year's sniper massacre in Kiev Jyllands-Posten, 2015
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References edit

  • Kersten, Joachim; Hankel, Natalia (2013). "A comparative look at right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobic hate crimes in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia". Right-Wing Radicalism Today. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-62723-8.
  • Likhachev, Vyacheslav (2018). Far-right Extremism as a Threat to Ukrainian Democracy (PDF). Nations in Transit. Freedom House.
  • Mierzejewski-Voznyak, Melanie (2018). "The Radical Right in Post-Soviet Ukraine". The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 860–889. ISBN 978-0-19-027456-6.
  • Sakwa, Richard (2015). "Peace and War". Frontline Ukraine. Crisis in Borderlands. London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85773-804-2.

January 01, 1970
right, politics, ukraine, during, ukraine, post, soviet, history, right, remained, political, periphery, been, largely, excluded, from, national, politics, since, independence, 1991, unlike, most, eastern, european, countries, which, right, groups, become, per. During Ukraine s post Soviet history the far right has remained on the political periphery and been largely excluded from national politics since independence in 1991 1 2 Unlike most Eastern European countries which saw far right groups become permanent fixtures in their countries politics during the decline and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the national electoral support for far right parties in Ukraine only rarely exceeded 3 of the popular vote 3 Far right parties usually enjoyed just a few wins in single mandate districts and no far right candidate for president has ever secured more than 5 percent of the popular vote in an election 3 Only once in the 1994 2014 period was a radical right wing party elected to the parliament as an independent organization within the proportional part of the voting Svoboda in 2012 3 Since then far right parties have failed to gain enough votes to attain political representation even at the height of nationalist sentiment during and after Russia s annexation of Crimea and the Russo Ukrainian War 3 The far right was heavily represented among the pro Russian separatists with several past or current leaders of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk linked to various neo Nazi white supremacist and ultra nationalist groups The importance of the far right on both sides of the conflict declined over time In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election the coalition of Svoboda and the other extreme right political parties in Ukraine National Corps the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh and the Right Sector won only 2 15 of the vote combined and failed to pass the 5 threshold As a result no party was able to win a proportional seat 4 5 One party the Svoboda party was able to secure a single constituency seat 6 Contents 1 Background 2 Hate crime 2 1 Violence against Jews 3 Historical memory 4 Pro Russian separatism 5 Ukrainian paramilitary units 6 Russian disinformation 7 Far right political parties 8 Other far right groups 9 See also 10 Notes 11 ReferencesBackground edit nbsp Schutzmannschaft with Nazi uniform and the logo of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The far right in Ukraine is not identical with Ukrainian nationalism which resulted in part from Ukraine being historically divided between various imperial powers 7 Post Soviet Ukraine is home to competing nationalisms and cultural orientations 8 The nationalist organizations during World War II remain controversial 8 National attitudes about the far right are impacted by the ambivalent role Ukraine played during Nazi occupation with Ukrainians volunteering in SS troops and as concentration camp guards 9 Hate crime edit nbsp Ukrainian Right Sector extremists wearing the Wolfsangel on Maidan 2014 Hate crimes were relatively uncommon in Ukraine compared to other Eastern European countries with increase after 2005 10 and decrease after 2008 2009 The increase was mostly due to informal youth groups in particular skinheads 2007 was the most violent year in terms of racially motivated crimes with 88 registered assaults with 6 fatalities 11 By comparison in Russia during the same year there were a reported 625 casualties with 94 deaths attributed to far right violence 11 The significant difference results in part the from the different sizes of the racist youth and skinhead scene in Ukraine and Russia 11 According to estimates in 2008 Ukraine had a maximum of 2 000 organized skinheads whereas in Russia the estimates range between 20 000 and 70 000 members of skinhead groups 12 13 Since 2008 there has been a more explicit response to such crimes by law enforcement and the justice system which has led to a decrease of violent right wing offences 10 Ukraine has seen a decrease in both the frequency and the severity of hate crimes since their high in the mid 2000s 11 Between 2006 and 2012 there were 295 reported violent hate crimes and 13 hate crime related deaths the last reported death occurred in 2010 before the start of the war with Russia 11 In 2008 Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group issued an open letter complaining about the radical right wing organization Patriot of Ukraine which according to the author had close ties to Russian and Ukrainian extremists The author warned that the spread of extremist ideology was reminiscent of that in Russia 2000 2001 14 In 2018 Human Rights Watch issued a letter stating that in the months preceding the letter s publication there have been a series of hate motivated violent incidents and harassment by radical groups against LGBT people Roma people feminists and rights activists According to the letter the violent incidents were not prosecuted adequately by the Ukrainian authorities 15 According to a 2018 report by Freedom House in the first three months of 2018 extremist groups tried to disrupt twelve public events and attacked a variety of targets While direct physical violence was not deployed in all twelve cases extremist groups sought to restrict the rights and freedoms of Ukraine s citizens Overall the report argues that far right groups have been marginal in Ukrainian society and especially in Ukrainian politics 16 The 2018 report by Freedom House concluded that far right groups in Ukraine had no significant representation in parliament nor any plausible path to power however they had a serious impact on everyday life and societal development in the country The report identified three extremist political parties Svoboda National Corps and Right Sector and argues that their lack of relevance in official politics has resulted in right wing groups seeking avenues outside of politics to impose their agenda on Ukrainian society Such attempts have included efforts to disrupt peaceful assemblies and violence against those with opposite political and cultural views including the left feminists LGBT groups and human rights activists One particular area of concern noted in the report is that Ukrainian law enforcement had failed to properly stop or punish far right disruption The report called on Ukrainian authorities to take more effective measures 2 In 2019 a Bellingcat investigation revealed that the Ukrainian government gave over 8 million hryvnias over US 300 000 for national patriotic education projects targeting Ukrainian youth A proportion of this 845 000 hryvnias over 30 000 went to several far right nationalist groups including National Corps and possible fronts for C14 17 Violence against Jews edit Main article Antisemitism in Ukraine A survey by the Pew Research Center in 2018 found that antisemitic sentiments were less prevalent in Ukraine than other Eastern and Central European countries While 5 of Ukrainians stated that they would not like to have Jews as their fellow citizens the figure was 14 in Russia and Hungary 16 in Greece and 32 in Armenia 18 According to a 2023 survey by the Anti Defamation League Ukraine has a 29 index score answering probably true to a majority of the antisemitic stereotypes tested compared to 37 for Hungary 35 for Poland and 26 for Russia 19 Antisemitic rhetoric used by far right activists relatively rarely translates into violent actions 11 20 Between 2004 and 2014 there were 112 anti Semitic violent attacks with a decrease over time in Ukraine 11 Historical memory editIn April 2015 Ukraine passed four decommunization laws regulating official memory of the Soviet period The laws ban Nazi and Communist ideology and symbols and the public denial of the criminal nature of the Communist totalitarian regime 1917 1991 they open former KGB archives replace the Soviet term great patriotic war with the European second world war and provide public recognition to anyone who fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century 21 The laws represent attempts to reorient historical memory and pivot more decisively away from the Russian Soviet narrative of the Soviet period and in particular the World War II era 22 They laws were criticized by intellectuals in Ukraine and abroad who argued that the laws limited freedom of speech 22 23 The fourth bill in the package On the Legal Status and Honouring of Fighters for Ukraine s Independence in the Twentieth Century has been particularly controversial because it covers a long list of individuals and organisations from human rights activists to fighters accused of committing crimes during World War II including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists 21 24 25 26 Monuments in honor of members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army such as Roman Shukhevych and Yaroslav Stetsko have been controversial and in one case earned official protest notes by Israel and Poland 27 28 Pro Russian separatism edit nbsp Flags of three far right Russian separatist groups in Ukraine Rusich Russian National Unity and the Russian Imperial Legion Further information Ruscism and Russian separatist forces in Donbas According to a 2016 report by French Institute of International Relations IFRI far right Russian nationalism neo imperialism and Orthodox fundamentalism has shaped the official ideology of the Donetsk and Luhansk People s Republics 29 the two self proclaimed states controlled by pro Russian separatists but internationally recognized as part of Ukraine During the Russo Ukrainian War especially at the beginning far right groups played an important role on the pro Russian side arguably more so than on the Ukrainian side 30 31 Members and former members of Russian National Unity RNU the National Bolshevik Party the Eurasian Youth Union and Cossack groups formed branches to recruit volunteers to join the separatists 32 33 34 35 A former RNU member Pavel Gubarev was founder of the Donbas People s Militia and first governor of the Donetsk People s Republic 32 36 RNU is particularly linked to the Russian Orthodox Army 32 one of a number of separatist units described as pro Tsarist and extremist Orthodox nationalists 37 Neo Nazi units such as the Rusich Svarozhich and Ratibor battalions use Slavic swastikas on their badges 32 Rusich is part of the Wagner Group a Russian mercenary group in Ukraine which has been linked to far right extremism 38 39 Some of the most influential far right nationalists among the Russian separatists are neo imperialists who seek to revive the Russian Empire 32 These included Igor Strelkov Girkin first minister of defence of the Donetsk People s Republic who espouses Russian neo imperialism and ethno nationalism 32 The Russian Imperial Movement a white supremacist militant group 38 has recruited thousands of volunteers to join the separatists 37 Some separatists have flown the black yellow white Russian imperial flag 32 such as the Sparta Battalion In 2014 volunteers from the National Liberation Movement joined the DPR People s Militia bearing portraits of Tsar Nicholas II 33 Other Russian volunteers involved in separatist militias included members of the Eurasian Youth Union and of banned groups such as the Slavic Union and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration 34 Another Russian separatist paramilitary unit the Interbrigades is made up of activists from the National Bolshevik Nazbol group Other Russia 32 Russian far right groups gradually became less important in Donbas as the need for Russian radical nationalists faded 32 Ukrainian paramilitary units editFollowing the February 2014 Revolution of Dignity Russia occupied Crimea and armed detachments of Russians seized towns in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and by their claims pulled the trigger of the Donbas War 40 In response several Ukrainian volunteer battalions formed to help the regular Ukrainian military One of these self funded volunteer militias was the Azov Battalion 41 42 In 2014 some members of the battalion were reported as openly white supremacists 43 Its first commander was Andriy Biletsky the head of the ultra nationalist and far right political groups Social National Assembly and Patriots of Ukraine 44 43 The battalion was taken under the command of the National Guard of Ukraine in 2015 In June 2015 United States Democratic Representative John Conyers and his Republican colleague Ted Yoho offered bipartisan amendments to prevent U S military training of the Azov Battalion called a neo Nazi paramilitary militia by Conyers and Yoho 45 46 47 While far right volunteers played a role in the early stages of the Donbas War their importance was often exaggerated and both sides had less need to rely on them as the conflict progressed 32 Alexander Ritzmann a Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project wrote of the Azov Battalion when your country is under attack by foreign invaders it is understandable that Ukrainians will not focus on the political views of their co defenders but on who can and will fight the invaders 48 American scholar and journalist Stephen F Cohen wrote in The Nation in 2018 that the resurrection of Nazi ideology could be observed all around the globe including Europe and the United States but that the growing Ukrainian Neo Nazi movement posed a special danger due to its well armed and well organized nature 49 Cohen cited the Azov Battalion and Right Sector in this regard 49 In 2020 Taras Kuzio criticized Cohen noting research finding that these groups were largely made up of Russian speakers and national minorities Kuzio says despite Cohen s claims even Right Sector and the Azov Regiment that are often described as Ukrainian nationalist included minorities such as Georgians Jews Russians Tatars and Armenians 50 British scholar Richard Sakwa wrote in 2015 that The creation of the National Guard consisting largely of far right militants and others from the Maidan self defence forces had the advantage of removing these militants from the centre of Kyiv and other western Ukrainian towns but they often lacked discipline and treated south east Ukraine as occupied territory regularly committing atrocities against civilians and captured terrorists 51 Russian disinformation editDespite the fact that far right parties in Ukraine have been unpopular with the electorate and received less support than far right parties in other European countries the Russian government and media started to label Ukraine a fascist state following the Orange Revolution in 2004 1 The subject of the far right s alleged influence in Ukraine became especially politicized during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity when small radical groups received disproportionate media attention not only in Russia but also in the West The impact of these organizations on Ukrainian politics and society has been greatly exaggerated in Russian state media and also in some West European media 3 Media coverage has been focused largely on Right Sector and on Svoboda 1 whose members stand accused of killing four national guardsmen using hand grenades during a rally outside Ukrainian parliament in August 2015 52 Russian president Vladimir Putin used the pretext of denazification to launch the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 falsely claiming that the Ukrainian government were neo Nazis 53 Russian state owned news agency RIA Novosti published an article by Timofey Sergeytsev What Russia should do with Ukraine where he argued that Ukraine and Ukrainian national identity must be wiped out because he claimed most Ukrainians are at least passive Nazis 54 55 These allegations of Nazism are widely rejected as untrue and part of a Russian disinformation campaign to justify the invasion with many pointing out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and had relatives who were victims of the Holocaust 56 Some of the world s leading historians of Nazism and the Holocaust put out a statement rejecting Putin s claims which was signed by hundreds of other historians and scholars of the subject It says We strongly reject the Russian government s equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression This rhetoric is factually wrong morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it 57 The authors say that Ukraine has right wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups like any country but none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine 57 The Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum 58 the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem condemned Putin s abuse of Holocaust history 59 60 61 Ukrainian Jews likewise rejected claims of Ukraine being a neo Nazi state 62 Kremlin claims of Nazism against Ukraine are partly an attempt to drum up support for the war among Russians framing it as a continuation of the Soviet Union s Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany even as Russia supports extreme right groups across Europe 63 64 Experts on disinformation say that portraying Ukrainians as Nazis also helps Russians justify war crimes against them such as the Bucha massacre 65 Historian Timothy Snyder said the Russian regime calls Ukrainians Nazis to justify genocidal acts against them He said pro war Russians use the word Nazi to mean a Ukrainian who refuses to be Russian and he called Putin s Russia the world center of fascism ruscism 54 Observers commented how Russia has used real issues such antisemitism in Ukraine and Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany for its own propaganda in support of Putin s debunked de Nazification claim 66 as Ukraine is not a Nazi state Russia has been supported by the European far right and Russian fighters in the war include neo Nazis 67 and its de Nazifications claims and invasion are not true or justified 66 68 By June 2023 some observers such as Bellingcat analyst Michael Colborne in a New York Times article and war reporter since 2014 and Kyiv Independent journalist Illya Ponomarenko 69 70 argued that Ukraine should consider more seriously the media damage produced by the partial negligence in the condemnation of some symbols which are present in the most radical military communities of both sides in the conflict including Azov the Russian Volunteer Corps Wagner and the numerous neo Nazis within the Russian Imperial Movement citation needed According to Colborne Ukraine must understand that any communication failure can undermine Western support and the country s international credibility citation needed Ponomarenko proposed to tighten punitive measures against individual soldiers who display neo Nazi symbols but also commented how the presence of these symbols is not unprecedented for Western armies citing similar cases in the Australian Army and a US Marine Corps during the war in Afghanistan 71 Russian responses to the Yaroslav Hunka scandal in September 2023 were designed to cause their conduct of war in Ukraine to appear more legitimate 72 73 with James L Turk calling the scandal a gold mine for Russian propagandists 74 who shared on Twitter an image of a fake Ukrainian postage stamp featuring the SS Galician veteran Hunka 75 Far right political parties editSocial National Party of Ukraine 1991 2004 Ukrainian National Assembly 1990 present Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists 1992 present Svoboda political party 2004 present Social National Assembly 2008 2015 Ukrainian National Union 2009 present Right Sector 2013 present National Corps 2016 present After Yanokovych s ouster in February 2014 the interim First Yatsenyuk government placed four Svoboda members in leading positions Oleksandr Sych as Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Ihor Tenyukh as Minister of Defense lawyer Ihor Shvaika as Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food and Andriy Mokhnyk as Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine with the fall of the First Yatsenyuk government on 27 November 2014 Svoboda lost representation in the Ukrainian Government 76 77 From 14 April 2016 to 29 August 2019 the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament was Andriy Parubiy 78 79 the co founder of the SNPU however Parubiy left such organizations in 2004 and later joined moderate political parties such as Our Ukraine Batkivshchyna and the People s Front 77 80 In the 2019 Ukrainian elections the far right nationalist electoral alliance including Svoboda National Corps Right Sector Azov Battalion OUN and Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists under performed expectations In the presidential election its candidate Ruslan Koshulynskyi received 1 6 of the vote and in the parliamentary election it was reduced to a single seat and saw its national vote fall to 2 15 half of its result from 2014 and one quarter of its result from 2012 81 82 Other far right groups editPatriot of Ukraine 2005 2014 S14 2010 2020 Misanthropic Division 2014 present Azov Movement 2014 present See also editAntisemitism in Ukraine Far right politics in Russia Radical nationalism in Russia Antisemitism in the Soviet Union Right wing movements Radical rightNotes edit a b c Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 861 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 a b Likhachev 2018 p 1 a b c d e Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 862 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 Aram Terzyan Towards Democratic Consolidation Ukraine After the Revolution of Dignity Open Political Science 2020 3 183 191 p 186 doi 10 1515 openps 2020 0015 CEC counts 100 percent of vote in Ukraine s parliamentary elections Ukrinform 26 July 2019 in Russian Results of the extraordinary elections of the People s Deputies of Ukraine 2019 Ukrayinska Pravda 21 July 2019 Rezultaty vneocherednyh vyborov narodnyh deputatov Ukrainy 2019 Ukrainskaya pravda in Russian Retrieved 4 August 2023 Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 12 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 a b Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 876 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 Kersten amp Hankel 2013 p 91 92 a b Kersten amp Hankel 2013 pp 93 94 a b c d e f g Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 878 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 Melanie Mierzejewski Voznyak The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right Ed Jens Rydgren Oxford University Press 2018 p 879 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190274559 013 30 Andreas Umland amp Anton Shekhovtsov 2013 Ultraright Party Politics in Post Soviet Ukraine and the Puzzle of the Electoral Marginalism of Ukrainian Ultranationalists in 1994 2009 Russian Politics and Law 51 5 p 47 doi 10 2753 RUP1061 1940510502 Open Letter from KHPG regarding the organization Patriot of Ukraine Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group Retrieved 2022 06 07 Ukraine Investigate Punish Hate Crimes 2018 06 14 Likhachev 2018 p 1 4 Ukrainian Far Right Extremists Receive State Funds to Teach Patriotism 16 July 2019 David Masci Most Poles accept Jews as fellow citizens and neighbors but a minority do not Pew Research Center March 28 2018 ADL Global Eastern Europe Lenka Bustikov 2015 Voting Identity and Security Threats in Ukraine Who Supports the Radical Freedom Party Communist and Post Communist Studies 48 2 pp 239 256 doi 10 1016 j postcomstud 2015 06 011 a b Hyde Lily 2015 04 20 Ukraine to rewrite Soviet history with controversial decommunisation laws the Guardian Retrieved 2022 06 08 a b Oxana Shevel October 2016 The Battle for Historical Memory in Postrevolutionary Ukraine Current History 115 783 University of California Press 258 263 doi 10 1525 curh 2016 115 783 258 Barbara Tornquist Plewa Yuliya Yurchuk 2019 Memory politics in contemporary Ukraine Reflections from the postcolonial perspective Memory Studies 12 6 SAGE Publications 699 720 doi 10 1177 1750698017727806 S2CID 148625264 Kasianov Georgiy 2022 05 04 The War Over Ukrainian Identity ISSN 0015 7120 Archived from the original on 2022 05 04 Retrieved 2022 06 08 Shevel Oxana 2016 01 11 Decommunization in Post Euromaidan Ukraine Law and Practice PONARS Eurasia Archived from the original on 2022 07 05 Retrieved 2022 06 08 Rudling Per Anders Gilley Christopher 2015 04 29 Laws 2558 and 2538 1 On Critical Inquiry the Holocaust and Academic Freedom in Ukraine Politichna kritika in Ukrainian Retrieved 2022 06 08 Israel Poland join in protest against Ukraine monument to Nazi collaborator timesofisrael com Nazi collaborator monuments in Ukraine forward com 2021 01 27 Likhachev Vyacheslav July 2016 The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine PDF Russie NEI Visions in English pp 25 26 Retrieved 1 March 2022 The ideas of Russian imperial and to some extent ethnic nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism shaped the official ideology of the DNR and LNR Anti Semitism and homophobia play a lesser though still significant role in public rhetoric It can therefore be argued that the official ideology of the DNR and LNR which developed under the influence of Russian far right activists is largely right wing conservative and xenophobic in character Likhachev Vyacheslav July 2016 The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine PDF Russie NEI Visions in English pp 21 22 Retrieved 1 March 2022 Members of far right groups played a much greater role on the Russian side of the conflict than on the Ukrainian side especially at the beginning Averre Derek Wolczuk Kataryna eds 2018 The Ukraine Conflict Security Identity and Politics in the Wider Europe Routledge pp 90 91 Separatist ideologues in the Donbas such as they are have therefore produced a strange melange since 2014 Of what Marlene Laruelle 2016 has called the three colours of Russian nationalism designed for export red Soviet white Orthodox and brown fascist there are arguably more real fascists on the rebel side than the Ukrainian side a b c d e f g h i j Likhachev Vyacheslav July 2016 The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine PDF Russie NEI Visions in English pp 18 28 Retrieved 1 March 2022 The National Bolshevik Party NBP the Russian National Unity RNU the Eurasian Youth Union newly formed armed Cossack units and other groups were active in opening branches The involvement of The Other Russia descendants of the outlawed NAtional Bolshevik Party supporters in the war against Ukraine is entirely consistent with the party s activities The first separatist people s governor of Donetsk had also been an RNU member During the war in Donbass the RNU altered the symbols on its chevrons dispensing with the modified swastika it had always used in the past Other Russian neo Nazi groups were less careful however The round eight pronged swastika kolovrat a neo pagan swastika appeared on the badges of the neo Nazi Rusich and Ratibor units a b Yudina Natalia 1 June 2015 Russian Nationalists Fight Ukrainian War Journal on Baltic Security 1 1 Walter de Gruyter GmbH 47 60 doi 10 1515 jobs 2016 0012 S2CID 157714883 Less known organisations are more active in sending fighters to the conflict area such as Alexander Barkashov s Russian National Unity RNE or rather a fragment thereof which somehow remained loyal to the leader The National Liberation Movement NOD led by United Russia deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov is busy forming volunteer units and transporting them to Ukraine Other Russian volunteers spotted in Ukraine included activists of the Eurasian Youth Union the youth branch of Alexander Dugin s party the Russian Imperial Movement led by Stanislav Vorobyov and the National Democratic Party a b Laruelle Marlene 26 June 2014 Is anyone in charge of Russian nationalists fighting in Ukraine The Washington Post Many mercenaries are related directly or indirectly to the Russian National Unity RNU movement of Alexander Barkashov The RNU is supposedly closely associated to members of the self proclaimed government of Donetsk and in particular of Dmitri Boitsov leader of the Orthodox Donbass organization The volunteers come from several other Russian nationalist groups the Eurasianist Youth inspired by the Fascist and neo Eurasianist geopolitician Alexander Dugin the now banned Movement Against Illegal Immigration led by Alexander Belov the group Sputnik and Pogrom the national socialist Slavic Union of Dmitri Demushkin several small groups inspired by monarchism such as the Russian Imperial Movement Saunders Robert 2019 Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation Rowman amp Littlefield Publishing pp 581 582 Russian National Unity RNU banned ultranationalist political party neo Nazi party a number of RNU members joined separatist forces in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk Snyder Timothy Far Right Forces are Influencing Russia s Actions in Crimea The New Republic 17 March 2014 a b Kuzio Taras 2015 Ukraine Democratization Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism ABC CLIO pp 110 111 the Russian Orthodox Army one of a number of separatist units fighting for the Orthodox faith revival of the Tsarist Empire and the Russkii Mir Igor Girkin Strelkov Shooter who led the Russian capture of Slovyansk in April 2014 was an example of the Russian nationalists who have sympathies to pro Tsarist and extremist Orthodox groups in Russia the Russian Imperial Movement has recruited thousands of volunteers to fight with the separatists separatists received support from Russian neo Nazis such as the Russian Party of National Unity who use a modified swastika as their party symbol and Dugin s Eurasianist movement The paramilitaries of both of these are fighting alongside separatists a b Townsend Mark 20 March 2022 Russian mercenaries in Ukraine linked to far right extremists The Guardian Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine including the Kremlin backed Wagner Group have been linked to far right extremism Much of the extremist content posted on Telegram and the Russian social media platform VKontakte VK relates to a far right unit within the Wagner Group called Rusich One post on the messaging app Telegram dated 15 March shows the flag of the Russian Imperial Movement RIM a white supremacist paramilitary Another recent VK posting lists Rusich as part of a coalition of separatist groups and militias including the extreme far right group Russian National Unity Smid Tomas Smidova Alexandra 2021 06 01 Anti government Non state Armed Actors in the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine Mezinarodni vztahy 56 2 Institute of International Relations Prague 35 64 doi 10 32422 mv cjir 1778 ISSN 2570 9429 S2CID 236341469 Another group of Russian citizens who became involved in the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine were members of the so called right wing units of the Russian Spring Here we mean mainly extreme right activists the members of Rusich around Aleksei Milchakov are activists of various Russian extreme right groups Varyag is one of the few not to hide their extreme right orientation as it endorses its neo Nazi ideology quite openly The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine www ifri org Retrieved 2024 02 16 Azov fighters are Ukraine s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat The Guardian 10 September 2014 German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers NBC News a b Ukraine crisis the neo Nazi brigade fighting pro Russian separatists The Daily Telegraph 11 August 2014 Ukraine conflict White power warrior from Sweden BBC News 16 July 2014 Ukraine s Neo Nazis Won t Get U S Money Bloomberg 12 June 2015 US lifts ban on funding neo Nazi Ukrainian militia The Jerusalem Post 18 January 2016 Congress Has Removed a Ban on Funding Neo Nazis From Its Year End Spending Bill Archived 14 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine The Nation 14 January 2016 Ritzmann Alexander 12 April 2022 The myth that far right zealots run Ukraine is Russian propaganda Euronews a b Stephen F Cohen America s Collusion With Neo Nazis Neo fascists play an important official or tolerated role in US backed Ukraine Archived 2019 12 27 at the Wayback Machine The Nation 2018 Kuzio Taras 2020 Crisis in Russian Studies Nationalism Imperialism Racism and War E International Relations p 135 ISBN 978 1 910814 55 0 Retrieved 2022 06 09 Sakwa 2015 p 159 160 Paul Funder Larsen Right wing nationalists under investigation after last year s sniper massacre in Kiev Jyllands Posten 2015 Ukraine conflict Russian forces invade after Putin TV declaration BBC News British Broadcasting Corporation 2022 02 24 Archived from the original on 2022 03 07 Retrieved 2022 02 24 The Russian leader launched the special military operation by repeating a number of unfounded claims he has made this week including alleging that Ukraine s democratically elected government had been responsible for eight years of genocide He said the goal was demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine Hours earlier Ukraine s president had asked how a people who lost eight million of its citizens fighting Nazis could support Nazism How could I be a Nazi said Mr Zelensky who is himself Jewish a b Snyder Timothy 2022 04 08 Russia s genocide handbook The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts Thinking about Opening the future by understanding the past Substack Archived from the original on 2022 04 11 Retrieved 2022 04 01 Brown Chris 5 April 2022 A Kremlin paper justifies erasing the Ukrainian identity as Russia is accused of war crimes Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Retrieved 5 April 2022 Grzegorz Rossolinski Liebe Bastiaan Willems 2022 Putin s Abuse of History Ukrainian Nazis Genocide and a Fake Threat Scenario The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 35 1 1 10 doi 10 1080 13518046 2022 2058179 S2CID 250340541 a b Tabarovsky Izabella Finkel Eugene 2022 02 27 Statement on the War in Ukraine by Scholars of Genocide Nazism and World War II The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles Archived from the original on 2022 03 04 Retrieved 2022 03 07 John Haltiwanger 24 February 2022 Auschwitz museum says Russia s war in Ukraine is an act of barbarity that will be judged by history Business Insider Archived from the original on 24 February 2022 Retrieved 11 October 2022 Snyder Timothy 2022 02 24 Putin s Hitler like tricks and tactics in Ukraine The glorification of violence and the disregard for law is central to the history of fascism Taking law seriously and preventing senseless war was supposed to be the lesson learned from World War II The Boston Globe Boston Globe Media Partners LLC Archived from the original on 2022 03 09 Retrieved 2022 02 25 Vladimir Putin s excuse for his senseless attack on Ukraine is denazification the president of Russia claimed that he needs to replace a neighboring democracy with his own foreign tyranny in the name of World War II He also referred to an entirely imaginary genocide of those who speak Russian in Eastern Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky the president of Ukraine is himself a Russian speaker He also referred to the grotesque Nazi charge pointing out that Ukrainians had died by the millions in World War II fighting the Germans Tell it to my grandfather he said who fought in the infantry of the Red Army and died a colonel in independent Ukraine Hollinger Andrew ed 2022 02 24 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemns Russia s invasion Of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin s exploitation of Holocaust history as a pretext for war Washington DC USA United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archived from the original on 2022 02 25 Retrieved 2022 02 25 In justifying this attack Vladimir Putin has misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history by claiming falsely that democratic Ukraine needs to be denazified Equally groundless and egregious are his claims that Ukrainian authorities are committing genocide as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine Yad Vashem Statement Regarding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Press Release Jerusalem Israel Yad Vashem 2022 02 27 Archived from the original on 2022 03 09 Retrieved 2022 03 04 the propagandist discourse accompanying the current hostilities is saturated with irresponsible statements and completely inaccurate comparisons with Nazi ideology and actions before and during the Holocaust Yad Vashem condemns this trivialization and distortion of the historical facts of the Holocaust Zoya Sheftalovich 25 April 2022 Putin wants to de Nazify Ukraine that s ludicrous say the country s Jews Politico Archived from the original on 11 October 2022 Retrieved 11 October 2022 Garner Ian 26 March 2022 Russia and Ukraine Are Fighting for the Legacy of World War II Foreign Policy The Death Cult Keeping Russia in Ukraine The Bulwark 1 June 2022 Charlie Smart 2 July 2022 How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis The New York Times Archived from the original on 3 July 2022 Retrieved 11 October 2022 a b Ripp Allan 2022 03 05 Ukraine s Nazi problem is real even if Putin s denazification claim isn t NBC News Archived from the original on 6 October 2023 Retrieved 2023 10 16 Nalbone Daniele 2022 04 26 Sei domande scomode e sei risposte sulla guerra in Ucraina Micromega in Italian Retrieved 2023 10 16 Troianovski Anton 2022 03 17 Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2023 10 16 Gibbons Neff Thomas 2023 06 05 Nazi Symbols on Ukraine s Front Lines Highlight Thorny Issues of History The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 2023 10 16 Ponomarenko Illia 2023 05 26 Illia Ponomarenko Why some Ukrainian soldiers use Nazi related insignia The Kyiv Independent Retrieved 2023 10 16 Braschayko Andrea 2023 06 13 Le accuse di nazismo all esercito dell Ucraina Valigia Blu in Italian Retrieved 2023 10 16 Karadeglija Anja 2023 09 26 Parliament s Nazi scandal a top headline story for Russian propaganda news National Post Archived from the original on 30 September 2023 Retrieved 16 October 2023 One of the main narratives pushed by Russia since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine is that it is engaged in de Nazifying Ukraine The Russian narrative is that resisting Russian influence or direct rule is an act only a Nazi would consider the thinking goes so they Ukrainians today are Nazis or are at least controlled by Nazis said Michael Habegger an advisor at the University of Delaware who studies disinformation Rota s actions made this almost too easy for the Kremlin and Russia Today the Russian propaganda news network he said Paas Lang Christian 30 September 2023 The Hunka affair has embarrassed Canada how bad is it historically speaking CBC News Retrieved 16 October 2023 Boudjikanian Raffy 28 September 2023 Opposition disinfo experts push government to fight Russian propaganda in wake of Hunka incident CBC ca Retrieved 4 October 2023 Khatsenkova Sophia 4 October 2023 Fact check Did Ukraine issue a stamp honouring Nazi veteran Euronews Retrieved 16 October 2023 Ukraine s revolution and the far right BBC News 7 March 2014 a b How the far right took top posts in Ukraine s power vacuum Channel 4 5 March 2014 Rada appoints Andriy Parubiy its speaker Archived 10 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine Interfax Ukraine 14 April 2016 Deputy Chairman of Ukraine s parliament in Washington to present list of weapons Ukraine needs Ukraine Today 25 February 2015 Razumkov elected as Chairman of Verkhovna Rada ukrinform net 29 August 2019 Zelenskiy wins first round but that s not the surprise 4 April 2019 The Far Right and the 2019 Parliamentary Election Reporting Radicalism in Ukraine reportingradicalism org References editKersten Joachim Hankel Natalia 2013 A comparative look at right wing extremism anti Semitism and xenophobic hate crimes in Poland Ukraine and Russia Right Wing Radicalism Today Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 62723 8 Likhachev Vyacheslav 2018 Far right Extremism as a Threat to Ukrainian Democracy PDF Nations in Transit Freedom House Mierzejewski Voznyak Melanie 2018 The Radical Right in Post Soviet Ukraine The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right New York Oxford University Press pp 860 889 ISBN 978 0 19 027456 6 Sakwa Richard 2015 Peace and War Frontline Ukraine Crisis in Borderlands London I B Tauris ISBN 978 0 85773 804 2 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Far right politics in Ukraine amp oldid 1216856669, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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