KYIV – Normally, the Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector), among the nation’s biggest paramilitary groups, is doing battle with Russian-backed terrorists in Ukraine’s easternmost Donbas region.
Last weekend, however, its soldiers engaged in a gunfight with local police outside the town of Mukacheve, just 18.5 miles from the border with Hungary in the Zakarpattia Oblast. When the smoke cleared, two people were killed and 14 injured in what Pravyi Sektor characterized as a battle against corruption unabated by the current government.
Yet the Ukrainian political establishment, including politicians and commentators, dismissed that claim, stating that the activity of paramilitary groups has begun to extend beyond the bounds of the Donbas war into regional conflicts for control of revenue streams in the illegal trade of goods, or contraband.
The July 11 gunfight with local police ignited after Pravyi Sektor fighters confronted local business baron Mykhailo Lanio in what could have been an attempt at bribery, blackmail or some forced attempt to gain a share in the local contraband trade, said Andriy Lyubka, a political commentator for Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL).
“That doesn’t affect what was at the essence of the conflict, which is a colossal contraband trade that is sheltered by the government in many ways,” he wrote in a July 12 column. “If not for the shots fired and unfolding of events, the fighters could have reached an agreement with the national deputy [Lanio], and everything would have continued as before. Simply new pockets would have entered into the distribution.”
About four jeeps with 21 Pravyi Sektor fighters arrived at a Mukacheve sports complex owned by Mr. Lanio to meet with him early in the afternoon of July 11. The local police chief arrived after reports that the fighters had closed off the entire street, reported National Deputy Mustafa Nayyem of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, who arrived on the scene that same evening and investigated the events.
The Pravyi Sektor fighters demanded the police chief surrender his arms and fired warning shots, then set off a smoke grenade when he refused, Mr. Nayyem reported. They reportedly rammed through a blockade of police jeeps with their own jeeps, igniting the gunfight.
When it was all over, one Pravyi Sektor fighter was killed and four injured, while six police officers and four civilians were injured, one of whom later died in a hospital. Three police cars were destroyed and a nearby gas station was set ablaze.
The incident drew comparisons with the Wild West and concerns that this scenario was unfolding throughout Ukraine, and became the subject of political football as various forces spun the events to suit their agenda.
Those aligned with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko were harshly critical of Pravyi Sektor, which has been at odds with the Presidential Administration since last summer.
Pravyi Sektor – an umbrella organizations of several nationalist groups that has both a political and a military wing – has repeatedly refused to submit to the authority of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, despite pledges to do so. Its leader, Dmytro Yarosh, has been critical of the president’s handling of the war.
The events in Mukacheve confirm that certain members of Pravyi Sektor serve the interests of the Kremlin in Ukraine, said Oleksandr Palii, an author and commentator on international politics.
“A patriot with brains never would have done to his country what Pravyi Sektor did today. Pravyi Sektor’s information campaigns have traditionally complied with the Kremlin. It’s likely the Kremlin agents in Pravyi Sektor got the command to activate because it couldn’t take Ukraine otherwise. The Kremlin always hoped that Ukrainians would destroy Ukraine with their own hands, and generously paid for such acts of betrayal,” he observed.
Mr. Palii said such incidents will make the U.S. think twice about giving Ukraine arms, while at the same time, Foreign Affairs Ministry Strategic Communications Director Dmytro Kuleba warned they could negatively affect the government’s ability to gain visa-free travel to the European Union for Ukraine’s citizens.
Supporting Mr. Palii’s Kremlin connection theory, National Deputy Serhiy Leshchenko on his Facebook page voiced his suspicion that Pravyi Sektor Press Secretary Artem Skoropadsky is a Kremlin agent. The Moscow native spent his career as a journalist for Russian newspapers and remains a citizen of Russia.
National Deputy Nayyem compared Pravyi Sektor to a franchise that rents its brand name and logo “if you have a few dozen guys, the ability to buy arms and if you can say you’re a patriot.” He dismissed the notion that gunfights are needed to fight corruption in the country.
Yet some political observers argued that Pravyi Sektor had earnest intentions when approaching Mr. Lanio.
“Lanio practically has his own army and he works for a well-organized system of criminal gangs that no one has ever tried to interfere with,” said Yurii Kravchuk, the head of the Mukacheve People’s Council civic organization.
“Pravyi Sektor, through its own initiative, or at someone’s request, went to discuss halting these streams. I think they were sure that they were going merely to talk. They didn’t anticipate this unfolding of events because their further actions were quite chaotic and uncalculated,” he added.
Ukraine’s other volunteer battalions, such as the OUN Battalion, expressed full support for the actions of Pravyi Sektor, which called upon its members to hold demonstrations nationwide in support of its efforts to combat corruption.
Instead of condemning Pravyi Sektor, OUN Battalion Commander Mykola Kokhanivskyi has accused Mr. Poroshenko of serving the Kremlin’s interests, reaching secret deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin and deliberately undermining the national war effort.
The contempt that paramilitaries have for the Presidential Administration came to a boil on July 3, the holiday commemorating Prince Sviatoslav’s conquest of the Khazarian capital of Atil in 964. More than 1,000 war veterans marched along Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv to voice their disagreement with how the government was handling the war.
At the top of their demands is for the president to denounce the Minsk accords, break all diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation and officially declare war on the Russian-backed terrorists by mobilizing the entire nation.
They repeatedly chanted “The junta will come,” threatened to storm the Verkhovna Rada, mocking the Kremlin’s notion that the current government is a junta, and burned tires a few hundred feet from the Cabinet of Ministers building in what they described as a warning signal if the government didn’t change its policies.
The criticism hasn’t gone unnoticed. In a veiled threat to Pravyi Sektor, Mr. Poroshenko said during a July 15 visit to Mukacheve that he’d consider submitting legislation to the Verkhovna Rada giving law enforcement bodies the temporary authority to arrest and prosecute as terrorists any armed individual not serving in the armed forces of Ukraine.
The president’s critical stance has wide support among the Kyiv establishment, since many are concerned that the volunteer battalions could undermine Mr. Poroshenko’s ability to govern, as well as Ukraine’s ability to receive ongoing support from the West.
“Only an enemy or an ignoramus in politics can’t understand that in the conditions of foreign aggression from Mordor [a reference to the dark realm in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”], any government of your own is better than chaos,” Mr. Palii wrote on his Facebook page on July 12.
So far, four Pravyi Sektor fighters have been arrested for their roles in the Mukacheve gunfight, news reports said, two of whom were reportedly injured and voluntarily surrendered. At least 10 suspects remained on the loose as of July 16, law enforcement authorities said.
As for Mr. Lanio, he was questioned by the Procurator General’s Office on July 13. Mr. Lanio has solid ties to the local police, prosecutors and security service, said Yurii Lutsenko, the head of Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction, as quoted by gazeta.ua. He’s never been prosecuted for his long history of criminal activity, which includes alleged drug smuggling and murder, reported gazeta.ua.
“The main factor in the conflict was contraband,” said Mr. Kravchuk of the Mukacheve People’s Council. “And the issue at hand was not about cigarettes, but arms, drugs and forests. After all, half of Zakarpattia makes a living off the contraband of cigarettes and other simple goods.”