Infiltrating Right Sector, January 2014. After interrogation, someone has to clean blood from the toilet
Translation and commentary. Part II. Debating the historical significance of Hitler and interrogations of suspected communist infiltrators.
For part 1, click here.
Interesting highlights:
Plenty of the most extreme nationalists in Right Sector were from Eastern Ukraine, including Donetsk. While they hardly represented the majority, or even a significant minority of the eastern Ukrainian population, it should be noted that Eastern Ukraine (and Russia itself) was often the most fertile ground for the emergence of maximally extreme forms of rightwing ideology. While rightwing nationalism was more widespread and normal in Western Ukraine, the nationalism of that region is often more of a peasant romanticism, even a localism, railing against the corruption of distant Kiev and its Russian-speaking elites. Of course, they also played a significant role in Maidan, but the prominent west Ukrainian rightwingers generally returned back to their rustic abodes after having received the fruits of the revolution. The east (and also central) Ukrainian rightwingers had much more elan d’esprit, and would go on to take leading roles in the Azov movement and other rightwing movements.
The rightwingers that emerged in eastern Ukraine found themselves on the far fringe of society, and had to be accustomed to the fact that open statement of their views could lead to violent disagreements from locals. As a result, rightwingers that emerged in these cities often embraced the most nihilistic, apocalyptic forms of rightwing ideology. Most people are scum, judeo-communist zombies, and society must be totally purged. As a rightist from Dnepropetrovsk says in this interview, ‘If it were up to me, I would simply shoot ten million people in our country, and put another five million in camps!’ A much more revolutionary ideology than many west Ukrainian nationalists, who are often more focused on extolling the beauty of the Carpathian mountains and whining about the misdeeds of Jews. It was the east Ukrainian nationalists that would play a significant role in the war in the east. Many western Ukrainians didn’t consider it worthwhile to fight and die for distant Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
Tension between Right Sector and other maidanites over the 19th January Hruschevsky road clashes. Right Sector was perceived by some as having made unnecessary concessions to the Yanukovych government. Throughout maidan, activists would constantly feel the pressure to prove that they were ‘truly radical’ and disprove suspicions of secret negotiations with the ‘Yanukovych regime’.
Builders of white paradise
Of course, there are also "Moskals" or Russians among the Right Sector. On the one hand, it is not customary to ask about nationality here, but on the other hand, many are proud of their conditionally multi-ethnic composition. They say that even an Orthodox Jew lived among the demonstrators in complete peace at one time, although it is hard to believe this.
- Hey, kid, aren't you a Yiddie, by any chance? - Mars, a football ultra from Dnipropetrovsk, hovered over the young boy in the smoking room.
- No, what you mean, what you mean, I'm a pure-blooded Ukrainian," the young man replies with bravado, pressing himself against the wall just in case.
- I'm kidding, I'm kidding, relax. Give me a cigarette - you're probably stocked up, you Yid.
Actually, the friendly atmosphere reigning on the fifth floor - something akin to Gogol's "comradeship" - does not foresee such conflicts. Even the formal address in the Right Sector is "friend". But there is always room for ideological disputes.
Adherence to national-patriotic ideology is, of course, a kind of "default option" among the fighters, but everyone still has their own truth. "Right Sector" is practically an informal association of several radical organizations, besides, most of the activists come from the street in general. Therefore, their views range from romantic nationalism and "loyalty to glorious Cossack traditions" to outright neo-fascism.
The appearance of the first victims among the protesters on Hrushevskyi street [19 January 2014] only encouraged Right Sector
In the morning, near the washbasins in the restroom, I come across a pumped-up guy about 25 years old with a huge swastika tattooed all over his back. Leaning over the mirror, he carefully shaves his head with a disposable razor. This is one of the fighters of a small group of Donetsk ultras - D88 (88 is the numerical designation of the abbreviation HH, or Heil Hitler!). Celtic crosses, Dr. Martens boots, Thor Steinar jackets, knives on the belt - in general, real warriors of the white race.
- We will build a white paradise! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!" the Mafia [a popular party game in the post-soviet world] players jokingly greet them.
- What do you know," says the youngest of the D88. - Hitler was right, have you even read Mein Kampf?
- Hitler was right about many things," admits one of my squad members, a 24-year-old graduate student of history from a southern regional center. - But he was an imperialist who wanted to enslave other nations. I am in favor of nationalism in a separate Ukraine, we don't want anything foreign. Although harsh methods are necessary. If it were up to me, I would simply shoot ten million people in our country, and put another five million in camps! It is necessary to purify the Ukrainian nation, because there is a whole bunch of stupid Ukrainian cattle [see this article of mine for a reflection on the term ‘cattle’/bydlo, a favorite of all post-soviet liberals and ethnonationalists in describing the ‘stupid masses’].
- How will you differ from the Communists then? - Bulbash, everyone's favorite, enters the argument. He is a young joker who made everyone understand his native language, he came from somewhere in Grodno [Belarus] to support, in his words, a new stage of the "national liberation struggle". - The main thing is the fight against Katsap [a derogatory term for Russians] imperialism, against Putin, who wants to recreate his Great Russia.
- That's right, Bulbash, you're right. But that's okay, we'll manage it here now, then we'll come to you, throw Luka off the throne, and then we'll deal with Putin. Let's free the prison of the peoples!
The attitude to "liberation of the prison of peoples" is also ambiguous. Some fighters speak of the freedom of the oppressed peoples of the Caucasus, Siberia and Central Asia, while others speak of "dirty chinks" [churka, a racist term for the Asian/Turkic residents of the USSR] who should be killed.
Days, evenings and nights pass over these arguments. Although at night for many there are more interesting things to do - patrols.
At night, all cats are titans
- No, guys, you guys do what you want, but I'm tired of sitting idle. The people from the neighboring unit are going to catch titushki, and I'm going with them," I heard one of our guys say on my first night on the fifth floor.
By 10-11 p.m., several groups of four or five people in full uniform gather in the corridor and walk around the Maidan territory. In their hands, unlike in training sessions, they hold "arguments" - treated pieces of rebar, steel pipes or, for those lucky enough to be there, baseball bats. Now the Right Sector is a counterintelligence and vice police at the same time.
- Titushkis, titushkis are coming! "Right Sector, put on your masks! - was heard on the floor half an hour later. A stubborn man with a bag over his head was dragged down the stairs with his hands clasped.
- Guys, what is it, what is it, what is it? - He's just mumbling.
- Shut up, bitch! Guys, let me fuck him up with my leg. N-n-na! Who is he? Where'd you find him?
- Stand down! - Someone from the command staff intervenes in the situation. - Take him to the toilet. No one comes in here anymore, let me do the interrogation!
After interrogation, sometimes someone has to clean blood from the toilet. At night, up to a dozen detainees are brought in, often three or four. The reasons are the most uncomplicated:
- He seemed suspicious, was asked to show his documents, in response he started to "be rude and claim his rights".
- Standing there and cursing Right Sector.
- He said he was from Right Sector, but he himself had documents from UDAR [Klitschko’s maidanite party].
When there are no more reasons to be found, the "bait-and-switch" fishing begins. A guy from a neighboring detachment shows me some souvenir 200-hryvnia bills.
- We found a suspicious client, I approached him and told him: "Self-defenders attacked me there, I need help, I'm ready to pay. I show him the money. If he agrees, it means he is a titushka, and we tie him up.
Everyone pounces on a man detained one night with a certificate of an assistant to a CPU [Communist Party of Ukraine] parliamentary deputy and a baton hidden under his jacket. There is no limit to the Right Sector's enthusiasm.
- Bring him here, bring him here! N-n-na, bitch, take this! Did you want to attack the Maidan, you commie bastard? N-na-na!
- Boys, boys, let me in, can I have him?! - A girl of about 18, who a couple of hours ago was running around the floor and showing everyone pictures of kittens on her phone screen, is also eager to torture.
- Stand down, stand down all of you, I said!!! - one of the commanders yells again. - You'll tear him up before the interrogation begins!
Formally, night patrols are not approved by the leadership of the RS, but they are not condemned either. Only occasionally one of the senior officers says something like "stop it, how are we better than "Berkut" [the Yanukovych government riot police]? But this is rare. But the contest, announced by the friendly "nearly-Svoboda" militant organization C14, is greeted with cheers. "Contest for the best amateur video about how dangerous it is to be a titushka. The video work should illustrate the possible consequences of cooperation with criminal authorities. The prize fund - 3 thousand hryvnia", - reads the announcement on the page of the RS "VKontakte".
When Radikal recovers, we pull him on patrol too. I join one group, too.
On a frosty Maidan evening, we set off in the direction of Hrushevskyi. We can only patrol the area inside the barricades, although in the first days after the clashes, titushki were searched for all over Kyiv. First we go down to the Globe, where we proudly walk past frightened guards and expensive shop windows. The moment is so majestic that we even decide to take a photo.
- Man, how expensive everything is! Look, borscht for 25 hryvnias!" says a boy from Lviv region. - Shit, who pays a hundred and fifty for this sushi?!
We cautiously approach the barricade near the Dynamo stadium, where from our side a documentary is being broadcast to the police about the corruption of Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko, and from their side - "The Ninth Company" by Fyodor Bondarchuk [a 2005 Russian film about Soviet soldiers bonding during training and in Afghanistan].
- Good evening, we are Right Sector. How's the post? Any suspicious elements, any troublemakers? - Radikal politely greets the self-defense guards of the barricade.
- What the fuck do you care? - A sturdy man in camouflage stained with soot from burnt tires. As it turns out later, he is the head of the guard.
- We're patrolling Maidan, looking for titushkis.
- You fucking gave up the Maidan. Who promised to free up Hruschevsky road, eh? Get out of here before it's too late. After midnight, no one except our Self-Defense Hundred will enter this area.
"Right Sector" together with the Afghan veterans had indeed issued a statement a few days earlier that they were ready to vacate the barricades at Hrushevsky if those detained during the January clashes were released. Not everyone likes this.
- What's the use of Hrushevsky? They'll wipe them all out in 10 minutes. I've fought here before. And we have fifty guys in jail! - Radikal unsuccessfully tries to explain.
At the other barricade, we are greeted more welcomingly.
- Oh, Right Sector! How do I call you if the cops start attacking? There are only eight of us on duty here, they'll scatter us like kittens!
Our main goal - the search for titushki - somehow fades into the background while we talk about offensive and defensive tactics. Slightly cold, we go to the Ukrainian House to drink tea and get stuck for almost an hour in the library, then in the cinema.
On his way out, Radikal pulls out a laser flashlight ("to hit the cops in the eyes") and, fooling around, starts shining the green beam through the windows of the Dnipro Hotel or the UNIAN building, or through the barricades. Another laser pointer soon comes from the barricades. Together with Radikal they "probe" the windows of the Cabinet of Ministers, then cross in the sky and make unimaginable dances. We laugh heartily.
- "Star Wars, a Jedi duel, honestly," Radikal pours in.
Already near the House of Trade Unions it turns out that another group from our squad has already brought one titushka to the floor. Someone was seized by patrols from the non-PS far-right groups C14 and Narnia. Radikal can't forgive that.
- Let's go to Billa supermarket, there's always some drunken scum hanging out there. Maybe we'll pick some up.
But even there we have a setback. When Radikal, who is not indifferent in principle, sees the drunks, he begins to shame them for breaking the Prohibition Law, while the rank and file are itching to get their hands dirty.
- Come on, guys, we've had a few drinks. We're on your side, from the Self-Defense, from the Chernigov [a city in central Ukraine] tent.
- Fuck, self-defense, too. They drink in the middle of the night in full view of everyone, and then they will say that Maidan is a gathering of drunkards. No, but if you're really uncomfortable, hide in your tent and have a drink! - mumbles Radikal, forcing the next "vacationers" to clean up their bottles.
By the way, no one in Right Sector drinks seriously, although there are only a few real straight-edge people. These are just the rules. A couple of times I saw how one of the commanders, having quarreled with someone, grabbed his things and said that he would go for a drink, but he would not return to the Maidan territory to spend the night. Football ultra-neurasthenic Mars, having found out that his girlfriend cheated on him, first smashed his fists against the walls of the toilet, and then, having drunk a glass of cognac, went to his end of the corridor to drink it. That's all the precedents.
That evening we do get into a bind. When we made a remark about alcohol, a company we met near the same "Billa" started to get "bullish". Our nerves are on edge, and we "twist" the most insolent one. The others pull out knives and airguns.
- Hey, Right Sector, are you out of your mind?! We are on your side, Dynamo ultras!
- Well, what are you doing?!
- What are you doing?!
The conflict is resolved amicably. Annoyed, we take another lap around Khreshchatyk - everything is calm. Radikal is grumbled at for being soft.
- Where in the subway?! Who are they? - another self-defense unit stops us in the underground passage under Maidan. - You were told that after 23:00 we, the 17th hundred, will patrol the passage. Get out of here!
- A hundred, what are you really, we'll just pass!
- You'll go over the top, you fucking radicals.
We have to obey - there are more of them. But this is not the first time we are angry with the Self-Defense, and conflicts between the RS and the hundreds arise regularly.
- No, you saw their uniforms, their equipment. We're like ragamuffins next to them. They got rich with party money, got their faces fat, and now they're drinking out of idleness.
- Yeah, and when it starts to get messy, the first ones to run.
They say that the RS command regularly gets harassed at self-defense meetings at Andriy Parubiy's [famous rightwinger, coordinator of the maidan ‘self-defence hundreds] house for lack of discipline and clashes with hundreds of people. Several times during my stay on the fifth floor we were raised on alarm - to go to deal with someone from Svoboda or other units. A couple of times we barricaded ourselves on the floor, waiting for self-defense attacks. Everyone's nerves are on edge during the ceasefire, but as a rule, conflicts are resolved peacefully.
- Why don't you come with us on a "white camping" trip tonight! Fun! - Mars suggests, when I tell him the details of the patrol the next morning. - The other day I beat up two Khaches [a racist term for asians] near the subway for good measure. I grabbed a Vietnamese woman by the hair, she's screaming: "Why, why you doing dis?" and I told her, "Shut up, you narrow-eyed bitch!"
I am left to politely decline.