Ukraine’s Ultra-Right Issues Call to Arms

As Russian troops and tanks continue to pour into Ukraine, the Ukrainian military has yet to act. This apparent inaction has angered many within Euromaidan self-defense groups, who played a pivotal role in toppling Viktor Yanukovych’s government and forcing him to flee the country. Less than a week after that victory, they’ve seen their revolution and new interim government come under threat from Russia, which has essentially annexed Crimea.

One of these self-defense groups, the Right Sector, itself a collection of smaller far-right groups, issued a statement today calling on its members to mobilize and arm themselves in the face of Russian aggression:

“Being aware of all the dangers that are looming over the Ukrainian state, the headquarters of the Right Sector order all its units to mobilize and arm, and depending on the specific situation to coordinate with the armed forces. We remind all citizens of Ukraine regardless of nationality (including Russians) that our struggle is anti-imperial, not Russophobe. Russian empire will be destroyed. Urge Resistance Movement Caucasus and all liberation movements in Russia to step up their activities.”

The Right Sector is a relatively small group; the largest by far is Maidan Self-Defense, composed of some 10,000 men and women and headed by Fatherland party MP Andriy Parubiy. The new government honored the role these groups played in the revolution when senior cabinet positions were handed out to figures within the groups. Parubiy was handed the defense minister position; Dmytro Yarosh, of Right Sector, became his deputy.

That's a meteoric rise to power for members of the self-defense groups, which appeared in central Kiev after the Euromaidan protests began last November. Their main objectives were to protect other protesters from police and hired government thugs, known as titushka. As the months wore on, they became highly organized, forming themselves into groups of 100 people, known as sotnias, and operated under a strict hierarchical command structure. They created their own armor and shields from sheet metal, and supplied their own weapons, from clubs and maces to hatchets and Molotov cocktails. They also trained in a similar fashion to the police, using the Roman testudo shield formation — think of movies in which groups of soldiers crouch together under their shields to avoid bombardment by arrows — to fight.

As the police moved against the barricades set up in Independence Square, the sotnias moved to the front and engaged the police in hand-to-hand and ranged combat. When possible, they fought the police face-to-face. Otherwise they threw Molotov cocktails and stones, or even used DIY catapults, bringing a very medieval feeling to the clashes in Kiev.

Some of these groups are now arming themselves with pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles. VICE News spoke to a vice captain in one of the Maidan Self-Defense sotnias who believed firearms were needed to make sure the police understood they could no longer bully and threaten citizens as they did in the past. When asked what would happen if the new government didn’t live up to its promises, the captain said, "It will be bloodier than before.”

The thought of an armed civilian militia standing up to the might of the Russian military may sound ridiculous. But some of these groups contain Afghan War veterans and members of the now defunct paramilitary group Ukrainian National Self-Defense, which fought the Russians in Chechnya. That means many of the volunteers are combat-tested and (in theory) know how the Russian military operates.

It remains to be seen, however, how many Ukrainians heed the Right Sector’s call to arms.