Infiltrating Right Sector Part III, translation and commentary

Pyrotechnic experiments, how to kill a policeman, completing the National Revolution, time to beat up journalists, how the Right radicalized EuroMaidan

See part one and two here. I don’t have too much to say about this last, final installment. I will say I particularly like the line about how Yarosh’s (the Fuhrer of RS) proofreaders told him to replace anti-Russian sectarian rhetoric with anti-oligarch rhetoric for the western press. This dovetails with several interesting processes - for one, the way that pro-NATO leftoids in Ukraine and outright Atlantic Council ghouls try to combine anti-Russian and anti-oligarchic rhetoric.

On a deeper level, it reflects the deep conflict between the West and their middle-class NGO comprador allies and Ukraine’s industrialists, or ‘oligarchs’, a topic I have extensively written about here, here, and here.

Things are heating up

Days go by with such simple entertainment [race war music and interrogating suspected communists/government agents]. The absence of any active actions and communication with the leadership is gradually demoralizing the units. The efforts by "Trident" (and it was this organization that took over almost all the leadership of the Right Sector) to maintain at least some semblance of army discipline seem futile. There is no one on duty at the posts, the schedule is not respected. Attempts to fight guerrilla activity during night patrols are also futile. The command forbids leaving the fifth floor after lights out, but patrols now just start leaving earlier. Discontent among the fighters is growing.

- Before Trident took over, it was easier to deal with the titushkas," [suspected pro-government provocateurs, in reality a term used for anyone who looked lumpen/proletarian. See part II for the violent search for titushkas] two football ultras from somewhere in the southern regions complain to each other in the corridor. - Now you can't even hit him just once.

- Why the hell do I need to bring them up here. Interrogations, investigations. They took them behind the barricades and did a good job there.

Under me, D88 [the Donetsk football Nazis, see part I] breaks the strict rule that one must ask permission from the commander before passing in front of a lined up squad.

- Fuck you, - one of the ultras throws in response to our remark about the violation of discipline.

Anger is growing among everyone. A fight begins over the limited amount of body armor coming in - the fighters compare them in terms of protective characteristics, trying to "push through" stronger protection. During hand-to-hand combat training, the instructor explains:

- Remember: Berkut [the Ukrainian riot police at the time] we hit only on the neck, the rest of their body is protected by ammunition. You can break the attachment on the helmet with your "argument" [reinforced fighting bats], and hit them with your fist right in the caddy.

- You can also kill someone like that," someone in the ranks either asks or indignantly states.

- Yes, you can. As far as I'm concerned, there's no need to play softball with Berkut. The main thing is to forget about this blow after everything is over.

Like hell someone would forget anything here. We modernize our weapons for nothing: we reinforce the bats with nails, weight the pipes, a couple of guys got an anvil from the Afghan veterans and forged short blades from rebar.

More serious weapons are also being prepared. I don't know who responded to the call by the leader of Right Sector Dmytro Yarosh to bring "firearms" to Maidan - I never found such weapons, but there was a pyrotechnic laboratory on the fifth floor.

That was before the explosion, during which the arm of one of the fighters was blown off and another injured his eye. At the time, the Right Sector claimed a terrorist act had been committed against it: under the guise of medicine, a bomb was transferred to the building, which exploded when the package was being unsealed. The very next day, the police reported an investigation into the fact of careless handling of explosives.

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh calls himself "a commander, not a politician," but there is plenty of populism in his speeches

I was not on the floor that morning, and when I returned, I found it in complete chaos. For several hours, the commanders fought off the journalists, the posts were not changed, and nothing was said to the soldiers. Then they repeated the official version of the terrorist attack. In the evening, however, rumors spread around the floor that some reagents had exploded in the pyrotechnic laboratory.

It was right across the hall from the only functioning toilet, which also served as a smoking room. The chemistry students working in the lab were always scolded for the stench in the hallway from their experiments with sulfur, bertolitic salt, and who knows what else. According to eyewitnesses, the explosion happened there.

- I jumped out into the corridor, and from there a kid came flying out, without an arm, bleeding, and yelling: "Finish me off, finish me off!" Well, we wrapped him up, and then the ambulance pulled up," says one of the medical center workers during a smoke break.

Some people dressed in civilian clothes come to the command on the fifth floor. From the fragments of quiet conversation I hear only a suggestion to evacuate the laboratory to some basement. The next night it was transported, and we were assigned to carry sealed bags and boxes to the minibus.

It turns out that for the past two weeks the High Command has been busy working with the regions. Every now and then on the PS VKontakte page there was a message about the appointment of the head of the organization in this or that region. New recruits who came from the west told how the Right Sector was taking over the Maidan Self-Defense units and seizing local administrations.

Propaganda material is also leaving Kiev for the regions: Yarosh's interview with [leading liberal publication and USAID favorite] Ukrainian Truth printed in at least 10,000 copies.

Yarosh periodically wanders back and forth across the floor - you can see that he has a lot of work to do. But, it seems, the general demoralization has forced him to find time for the fighters as well - one day they announce to us that from now on there will be meetings with the "leader" in the evenings before prayer [the term is ‘providnik’, which is the Ukrainian equivalent to Fuhrer. See Rossolinski Liebe’s book on Bandera for details on how this term was used by the OUN in 1930s and onwards]. The people are visibly encouraged.

The meeting takes place in one of the cramped offices taken over from the trade unionists, where two squads can barely squeeze in. Yarosh himself, trim and in field uniform, easily fits the image of "a commander, not a politician”. However, his speech is full of outright populism.

- Friends, you are without a doubt the vanguard of this revolution, the best part of it. Everyone understands that. Right Sector has broad support among the population. Only Russian imperialists and European liberals, who do not need the Ukrainian national revolution and the strong national state created as a result, criticize us," he begins to the approving nods of the fighters.

- The denouement is not far off, Right Sector will still play its key role in the current protests, which will be appreciated after the victory. That is why the most important task now is to create a nationwide organization not only with a fighting wing, but also with a political wing that would ensure our future presence in power. I believe that after the victory the Right Sector should form a powerful vertical power bloc of the new Ukrainian state, only in this way we will be able to complete the national revolution and bring order to Ukraine. Everything is in your hands, fighters!

Those present are visibly revitalized. Yarosh is cheered up as well:

- Yes, we don't like many things about the other organizations and parties currently involved in the revolution. But it is wrong from a tactical point of view to split the movement. We should not enter into open conflicts with Svoboda or the Maidan Self-Defense forces, it makes us weaker. And Right Sector must remain strong: believe me, we will still need our strength to deal with these weaklings after the general victory!

For the first time in almost two weeks among the Right Sector, I felt truly creeped out by those words and the flurry of applause they elicited.

Farewell to the Slavs

The original soldier’s farewell is called ‘Farewell to the Slavic girl’ in the feminine, but in this text it is in the masculine

Posing for a long time as a person whose views on violence, xenophobia, and racism were openly alien to mine was not easy - by the end of the second week, my nerves were wrecked. Besides, after the information about the explosion was leaked to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Right Sector started to get "paranoid": everyone realizes that there are spies on the floor and they should be searched for.