Who could have seen this com­ing:

Ukraine civ­il war fears mount as vol­un­teer units take up arms
As Kiev strug­gles to wrest back con­trol of east from pro-Rus­sia fight­ers, irreg­u­lar units of ‘Ukrain­ian patri­ots’ are step­ping in

Shaun Walk­er in Mar­i­upol and Howard Amos in Kiev
theguardian.com, Thurs­day 15 May 2014 07.16 EDT

The men, dressed in irreg­u­lar fatigues and with bal­a­clavas pulled over their heads, fin­gered their Kalash­nikovs ner­vous­ly and jumped at every unusu­al sound. Eager to aid their coun­try’s mil­i­tary strug­gle, the so-called Don­bas vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion was ready to fight, but appeared to be short on train­ing.

The bat­tal­ion com­man­der, Semy­on Semenchenko, a 40-year-old from Donet­sk with a degree in film-mak­ing, insist­ed that he and all his men had com­bat expe­ri­ence, from the Ukrain­ian or Sovi­et armies. They are all vol­un­teers, receiv­ing zero salary from either the state or oli­garchs, he said, claim­ing they live off their own sav­ings and dona­tions from patri­ot­ic Ukraini­ans, who trans­fer them mon­ey after read­ing about them on social media.

“Our state needs defend­ing, and we decid­ed that if the army could not do it, we should do it our­selves,” said Semenchenko, dur­ing a meet­ing with the Guardian out­side the town of Mar­i­upol, where his men were based and offer­ing sup­port to reg­u­lar units of the Ukrain­ian army in their fight against armed sep­a­ratists in the region.

...

Regard­ing the claims that no oli­garchs are pay­ing for them, note that the rich­es man in Ukraine, Renat Akmhetov, has been send­ing patrols of his employ­ees to rout Russ­ian sep­a­ratists in five cities, includ­ing in Mar­i­upol.

Con­tin­u­ing...

...
With mil­i­tary oper­a­tions inside Ukraine’s bor­ders an unap­peal­ing prospect for many of the coun­try’s pro­fes­sion­al sol­diers, irreg­u­lar units are spring­ing up as Kiev strug­gles to wrest back con­trol of Donet­sk and Luhan­sk regions from the grip of pro-Rus­sia fight­ers. They have been giv­en semi-legit­i­ma­cy by the Ukrain­ian author­i­ties, grate­ful for any help they can get in their fight in the east.

“It is hard to trust the army and the nation­al guard,” said Semenchenko. “There are cas­es when they have just giv­en up their weapons and fled. I don’t under­stand it at all, how can you give an oath to a coun­try and then not stick to it?”

Vol­un­teers are recruit­ed from west­ern Ukraine and Kiev, and more qui­et­ly, with­in the east itself. A self-pub­lished news­pa­per in Donet­sk gives the phone num­ber where “Ukrain­ian patri­ots” can sign up for the vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions; its edi­tor has gone into hid­ing to avoid being kid­napped by the sep­a­ratist fight­ers. Vol­un­teers under­go train­ing in neigh­bour­ing Dne­propetro­vsk region, and their bat­tal­ions can be brought under the com­mand of the inte­ri­or min­istry, allow­ing them to oper­ate legal­ly. Nev­er­the­less, the train­ing peri­od can be as lit­tle as 50 hours, before the vol­un­teers are put into real com­bat sit­u­a­tions.

Arm­ing troops with almost no real train­ing and send­ing them into extreme­ly sen­si­tive sit­u­a­tions where they may be shot at with weapons from with­in crowds, large­ly made up of angry but unarmed civil­ians, sounds like a recipe for dis­as­ter.

Indeed, it has result­ed in blood­shed on a num­ber of occa­sions so far, most notably in Mar­i­upol last Fri­day, when at least eight peo­ple died when the nation­al guard entered the city to clear the police sta­tion of sep­a­ratist fight­ers. On their retreat, troops fired at civil­ians, almost all of whom were unarmed.

These inci­dents, already awful enough, are often ampli­fied and dis­tort­ed by Russ­ian media, lead­ing to even more anger among the crowds in what is becom­ing a down­ward spi­ral of hatred and vio­lence.

Kiev’s “anti-ter­ror­ism oper­a­tion” in the east of the coun­try involves units of the army, the police, spe­cial forces and the nation­al guard, which is part­ly made up of vol­un­teers drawn from those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Maid­an protests in Kiev.

Andriy Paru­biy, head of Ukraine’s nation­al secu­ri­ty and defence coun­cil, told the Guardian that these were all coor­di­nat­ed from a sin­gle anti-ter­ror­ism com­mand cen­tre, but numer­ous sources on the ground attest to the fact that coor­di­na­tion is poor, and there are major con­cerns over how ready the vol­un­teer brigades are for com­bat.

In addi­tion to the dif­fi­cul­ties of coor­di­nat­ing such a diverse range of para­mil­i­tary groups, there has also been con­cern at the extreme nation­al­ist ele­ment among those fight­ing. The fre­quent Russ­ian claim that the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment itself is fas­cist is untrue, but there are cer­tain­ly far-right ele­ments involved in the fight in the east.

Paru­biy him­self has an extreme­ly dubi­ous past, hav­ing set up the neo-fas­cist Social Nation­al par­ty of Ukraine togeth­er with the cur­rent leader of far-right Svo­bo­da, Oleh Tyah­ny­bok, in the ear­ly 1990s. While there has been lit­tle evi­dence that the mili­tias have been moti­vat­ed by any kind of far-right ide­ol­o­gy when fight­ing in east Ukraine, there is no doubt that rad­i­cals have been the peo­ple most will­ing to fight, and this has led to a num­ber of sit­u­a­tions which appear to be well beyond the bounds of nor­mal mil­i­tary behav­iour.
...

Again, note that Andriy Paru­biy, head of Ukraine’s nation­al secu­ri­ty forces, co-found­ed the Social Nation­al Par­ty (styled after the Nazis) with Oleh Tyany­h­bok and it was this par­ty that become Svo­bo­da.

Con­tin­u­ing...

...
In one inci­dent, the rad­i­cal politi­cian Oleh Liashko was shown in footage that emerged last week humil­i­at­ing cap­tured insur­gent and self-pro­claimed defence min­is­ter of the “Donet­sk Peo­ple’s Repub­lic”, Igor Kakidzyanov.

A video of the inter­ro­ga­tion, where Kakidzyanov was shown in his under­wear with his hands bound, cir­cu­lat­ed wide­ly on social media and was pro­mot­ed by Liashko him­self.

“This whole sit­u­a­tion is com­plete­ly out of con­trol,” said Anna Nei­s­tat, an asso­ciate direc­tor at Human Rights Watch, who is cur­rent­ly in east­ern Ukraine.

Five days after the inci­dent, Paru­biy told the Guardian that he had not even watched the footage, which also appeared to show Liashko order­ing around armed men, and there had been no for­mal con­dem­na­tion from the gov­ern­ment.

Posters pro­mot­ing Liashko’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign read: “Death to the Occu­piers!” and are wide­ly dis­played all over cities across west­ern Ukraine.

Speak­ing to the Guardian by tele­phone, Liashko said he con­duct­ed the inter­ro­ga­tion because he want­ed to find out what the moti­va­tions and ideas of Kak­izdyanov were. He said he did not think it inap­pro­pri­ate that he was allowed to car­ry out the inter­ro­ga­tion, nor that the ques­tion­ing took place with Kakidzyanov stripped to his under­wear.

“I had before me a ter­ror­ist and I want­ed to under­stand how he thinks; what his goals, moti­va­tions and ideals were,” said Liashko. “It turned out he was in close con­tact with Russ­ian intel­li­gence; it just proves that the peo­ple we are deal­ing with are Russ­ian agents.”

Liashko is cur­rent­ly in the process of set­ting up his own vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, which he hopes will become anoth­er addi­tion to the mot­ley selec­tion of forces cur­rent­ly fight­ing for Kiev in the east.

“For 23 years nobody has paid any atten­tion to our army, and now when we need to fight for the bor­ders of our coun­try today, we can’t,” he said.

“We need a peo­ple’s war, like in the sec­ond world war when peo­ple rose up to fight fas­cism, that’s what we need to do now.”

Liashko said that he would be the “com­mis­sar” of the bat­tal­ion but that it would take mil­i­tary orders from the army or the inte­ri­or min­istry. So far, he said, over 3,000 peo­ple had applied to join, of which around 400 had been select­ed. The cri­te­ria were that they should be phys­i­cal­ly fit, have com­bat expe­ri­ence, and under­go a back­ground check to ensure they were not work­ing for for­eign intel­li­gence agen­cies.

...

With the new mili­tias often fight­ing in unmarked uni­forms, it has some­times been dif­fi­cult even to iden­ti­fy who they are. In one inci­dent dur­ing Sun­day’s unrecog­nised ref­er­en­dums on inde­pen­dence, a group of mili­ti­a­men arrived in the town of Kras­noarmeisk, sup­pos­ed­ly to stop peo­ple from vot­ing.

They said they were from the “Dnepr” vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, a sim­i­lar out­fit to the Don­bas bat­tal­ion, made up of vol­un­teers and trained in neigh­bour­ing Dne­propetro­vsk region, fund­ed by the local gov­er­nor-oli­garch, Ihor Kolo­moysky.

There was shout­ing and aggres­sion from the crowd about the men who had dis­rupt­ed the vot­ing. At one point, sev­er­al peo­ple lunged towards them, unarmed, and the men shot into the air. The vol­ley of bul­lets did noth­ing to pla­cate the crowd, and the men kept shoot­ing, a look of pan­ic on their faces. The inci­dent end­ed with two civil­ians dead, and lat­er the Dnepr bat­tal­ion claimed its forces had nev­er been there.

Exact­ly who the men were remains unclear, and the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment has said it will inves­ti­gate. Pho­tographs from the event appear to show one of the deputy lead­ers of Right Sec­tor involved in the inci­dent.

The Right Sec­tor is a loose group­ing of ultra-rad­i­cal ele­ments that led con­fronta­tions with riot police in Kiev, throw­ing molo­tov cock­tails and wield­ing base­ball bats. The group’s influ­ence has been con­sis­tent­ly dis­tort­ed by its own boasts and Russ­ian state media exag­ger­a­tions, but it is clear that some of its mem­bers are fight­ing in the east, pre­sum­ably with­in vol­un­teer bat­tal­ions.

It is Right Sec­tor that is most often men­tioned as the fas­cist com­po­nent of the new gov­ern­ment. Although its leader has met with the Israeli ambas­sador to Ukraine and insist­ed that the group does not adhere to racial ide­ol­o­gy, it is clear that it con­tains some extreme­ly far-right ele­ments.

One 18-year old Right Sec­tor mem­ber, who gave his nick­name as “White”, claimed that he was involved in fight­ing in the east and had been wound­ed out­side the insur­gent-con­trolled town of Slavyan­sk.

“Peo­ple are ter­ri­fied of Right Sec­tor and think that we will kill chil­dren, but we don’t make a big show of it [in the east] and we wear dif­fer­ent uni­forms with­out recog­nis­able insignia,” he said while patrolling in cen­tral Kiev with a gas mask and a rub­ber trun­cheon.

...

“I hope it does not progress fur­ther, but there is a ten­den­cy of mov­ing towards the sce­nario we saw in the Yugoslav wars,” says Ihor Todor­ov, a pro­fes­sor at Donet­sk Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty. “We can end up with dif­fer­ent field com­man­ders, who are fight­ing against every­one; not for a par­tic­u­lar side but just for their own ends.”

For now, all-out infight­ing between groups osten­si­bly on the same side has been pre­vent­ed by a stronger hatred for the ene­my, as both the pro-Kiev and pro-sep­a­ra­tion forces have cul­ti­vat­ed a hatred for their oppo­nents.

On the pro-Rus­sia side, the gun­men reg­u­lar­ly speak of the Ukrain­ian army as “fas­cists”. Rumours that Ukraini­ans are forced to go through psy­cho­log­i­cal train­ing that allows them to kill unarmed women and chil­dren with no remorse are wide­spread.

On the Ukrain­ian side, too, there is lit­tle sym­pa­thy for the views or goals of those they are fight­ing against.

Semenchenko, of the Don­bas vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion, was uncom­pro­mis­ing about civil­ian casu­al­ties, claim­ing that many of the unarmed peo­ple in the crowds were paid to be there as cov­er for armed attack­ers, and referred to them as “pigs”. It was the “ter­ror­ists” who were respon­si­ble for gen­uine­ly unarmed pro­test­ers being inad­ver­tent­ly shot by pro-Kiev forces, such as in Mar­i­upol, he said.

...

With polls show­ing the far-right still doing very poor­ly in the upcom­ing May 25 elec­tions, it’s going to be very inter­est­ing to see if the new gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to place out­right fas­cists in promi­nent posi­tions of pow­er (espe­cial­ly the secu­ri­ty forces) if the far-right does poor­ly at the polls. Because why it’s very unclear why the same oli­garchs with deep ties to the mafia and the fas­cists should­n’t be able to find a shared vision for Ukraine’s future, whether the pub­lic at large shares that vision or not.

Pres­i­dent Poroshenko signed the agree­ment for clos­er ties with the EU on the 100th anniver­sary of the Assas­si­na­tion of Arch­duke Franz Fer­di­nan, which sparked the first World War. Was the singing date cho­sen to add to sym­bol­ism and the provocation/antagonism aimed at Rus­sia?

Who’s killing for­mer allies of Yanukovych and Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ists with Russ­ian sym­pa­thies? Well, accord­ing to the Kiev gov­ern­ment, the Krem­lin, that’s who:

CNN
Who’s killing allies of for­mer Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych?

By Vic­to­ria Butenko and Don Melvin, CNN

Updat­ed 9:23 AM ET, Fri April 17, 2015

Kiev, Ukraine (CNN)

The ques­tion haunt­ing Kiev is this: Who might be mur­der­ing allies of Ukraine’s oust­ed Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych?

The idea that this might be hap­pen­ing is not entire­ly new. But it mus­cled its way to the fore again this week with two high-pro­file shoot­ing deaths in the Ukrain­ian cap­i­tal — one of a for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment with ties to Yanukovych, the oth­er of a Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist known for his pro-Russ­ian views.

Oleg Kalash­nikov, the for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment, was shot and killed short­ly after 7 p.m. Wednes­day at the entrance to his apart­ment block. Kalash­nikov, 52, was a mem­ber of the Par­ty of Regions, the for­mer rul­ing par­ty in Ukraine, and was close to Yanukovych. Police are inves­ti­gat­ing the death as a mur­der.

A day lat­er, on Thurs­day, jour­nal­ist Oles Buzy­na, 45, was killed near his home by shots fired from a dark blue Ford Focus, Inte­ri­or Min­istry advis­er Anton Herashchenko said. The car’s license plates were report­ed to have been from either Latvia or Belorus­sia.

Sev­er­al sus­pi­cious deaths in recent months

The killings renewed spec­u­la­tion, sparked by ear­li­er unusu­al deaths, about a con­spir­a­cy to kill peo­ple close to Yanukovych. At least three for­mer mem­bers of par­lia­ment with the Par­ty of Regions have report­ed­ly com­mit­ted sui­cide in the last sev­en weeks:

• On Feb­ru­ary 28, Mikhail Chechetov report­ed­ly jumped from the win­dow of his 17th-floor apart­ment in Kiev, hav­ing left a sui­cide note. He was sus­pect­ed of hav­ing fal­si­fied the results of a par­lia­men­tary vote in ear­ly 2014 that essen­tial­ly pro­hib­it­ed protest just as thou­sands of peo­ple were protest­ing against the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment.

• On March 9, Stanislav Mel­nik, a for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment with the Par­ty of Regions and the man­ag­er of sev­er­al busi­ness­es in the sep­a­ratist-mind­ed east­ern city of Donet­sk, was found dead in his apart­ment near Kiev. He, too, report­ed­ly left a sui­cide note.

• And three days lat­er, on March 12, Olek­san­dr Peklushenko, anoth­er for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment, was found in his house in Zapor­izhzhya, in south­east­ern Ukraine, dead of a gun­shot wound. Police are inves­ti­gat­ing var­i­ous sce­nar­ios, includ­ing sui­cide. Inte­ri­or Min­istry advis­er Anton Gerashchenko said Peklushenko “might have want­ed to avoid pun­ish­ment for using vio­lence against pro­test­ers, which he was sus­pect­ed of.”

...

Diver­gent the­o­ries on moti­va­tion for killings

With a gov­ern­ment top­pled and armed con­flict in the east, Ukraini­ans have rea­son to want each oth­er dead. But the view of who might be respon­si­ble for the series of deaths dif­fers stark­ly, accord­ing to which side of the coun­try’s divide one is on.

The Oppo­si­tion Bloc, the coun­try’s major oppo­si­tion par­ty, has no doubt the deaths have been polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed — “bloody ter­ror against oppo­si­tion politi­cians and jour­nal­ists,” the bloc’s media office called them.

“It is clear oppres­sion of those who are not afraid to crit­i­cize the gov­ern­ment,” it said.

The gov­ern­ment, unsur­pris­ing­ly, sees things dif­fer­ent­ly.

Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko, who came to office after Yanukovych was oust­ed, has demand­ed an inves­ti­ga­tion of the killings of Kalash­nikov and Buzy­na, his media office said.

“It is evi­dent that these crimes have the same ori­gin,” the media office quot­ed Poroshenko as say­ing. “Their nature and polit­i­cal sense are clear. It is a delib­er­ate provo­ca­tion that plays in favor of our ene­mies. It is aimed at desta­bi­liz­ing the inter­nal polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine and dis­cred­it­ing the polit­i­cal choice of the Ukrain­ian peo­ple.”

And Anton Geraschenko, an advis­er to the coun­try’s inte­ri­or min­is­ter, took the the­o­ry one step fur­ther.

“It should not be exclud­ed that the killings of Oleg Kalash­nikov and Olez Buzy­na were planned and orga­nized from Moscow and are a part of a plan to desta­bi­lize Ukraine and fur­ther sup­port anti-Ukrain­ian mood in Russ­ian soci­ety,” Geraschenko said.

Ok then..

Keep in mind that, while it is entire­ly pos­si­ble that this was some sort of Krem­lin plot to kill of its own sup­port­ers in order to gar­ner more sup­port, if that’s going to be the offi­cial line from Kiev as more and more of these ‘sui­cides’ take place, the Russ­ian inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of Boris Nemtsov next to the Krem­lin is going to get inter­est­ing.