Conflict between Right Sector and government escalates (UPDATE, VIDEOS)

Observers have linked the conflict to cigarette smuggling in Zakarpattya Oblast, while the Right Sector describes the standoff as part of the government’s crackdown on volunteer units.

Chorny, commander of the fifth battalion of the Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, and Dmytro Savchenko, a spokesman for the right-wing group, said fighters of the fifth battalion were withdrawing from the war zone. Savchenko said they would take part in a Right Sector protest in Kyiv, though he added they were not going there “with assault rifles and machine guns.”

The statements were contradicted by Alla Megel, head of the corps’ information department, and Andrei Sharaskin, the corps’ spokesman. They told the censor.net.ua news site that the unit’s fighters were staying on the front line.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) demanded that a group of armed Right Sector activists near the city of Mukacheve in Zakarpattya Oblast lay down their weapons. The SBU said it would start arresting the activists if they refused to be disarmed.

The developments followed a shootout between Right Sector members on the one hand and police and security guards of lawmaker Mikhailo Lanyo, an ex-member of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, on the other hand in Mukacheve on July 11.

The Right Sector says the conflict was initiated by Lanyo’s people and the police, while the authorities argue the right-wing group shot first.

Footage of the shootout in Mukacheve.

Following the shootout, the Right Sector activists retreated to the village of Lavky near Mukacheve and then went along a mountain ridge towards the town of Perechyn and Velyky Berezny District, Mustafa Nayyem, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, wrote on Facebook on July 12. Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh arrived in Mukacheve on the same day in an effort to settle the conflict.

President Petro Poroshenko, SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov are currently holding negotiations with Yarosh, Nayyem said.

Two of the 14 Right Sector fighters involved in the clashes in Zakarpattia Oblast voluntarily laid down their arms, Anton Gerashchenko, an aide to Avakov, said. But the Right Sector denied the statement, saying that none of its fighters had voluntarily surrendered.

Meanwhile, the government started moving military equipment towards Mukacheve, Hromadske Television reported. Helicopters were also seen in Mukacheve, according to eyewitness evidence.

Fears of further violent clashes intensified as the Right Sector also said the corps’ reserve units could be moved to any location in the country to support its demands and that the authorities were blocking its training bases.

The Right Sector also responded to the incident by launching nationwide protests for an indefinite period in at least 17 cities and demanding Avakov’s resignation and Lanyo’s arrest. The group has camped out near the presidential administration building in Kyiv since July 11 and set up tents in Dnipropetrovsk.

The Right Sector also said on July 12 it was setting up checkpoints near Kyiv and other regions to prevent police from moving to Zakarpattia Oblast.

The causes of the conflict between the Right Sector and authorities have been attributed to alleged disagreements over smuggling between the nationalist group and Lanyo.

On July 12, Nayyem published a video of the beginning of the shootout between the Right Sector and Lanyo’s people.

Footage of the shootout in Mukacheve published by Mustafa Nayyem.

The footage shows a man with a bloodied head lying below a Right Sector jeep. The man, whom Nayyem identifies as Yury Rusnak, a security guard protecting Lanyo’s property, is then carried into a jeep and subsequently handed over to medics when an ambulance comes. Rusnak is currently in a coma.

At 5.00 Vitaly Shymonyak, chief of Mukacheve’s police, comes and talks to the Right Sector members. At 5-20, Right Sector activists start shooting in the air.

Alexei Byk, a Right Sector spokesman, said on July 12 that the video was intentionally distorted, and the sound was only switched on when Right Sector activists were shooting. They could have responded to shots fired by the police, he said.

Eleven people, including police officers and civilians, were injured in the shootout, according to Mukacheve’s central hospital. Two Right Sector fighters were killed, and four were injured, the nationalist group said.

The Right Sector has argued that the conflict had been caused by its efforts to crack down on cigarette smuggling. They have accused Lanyo of running a protection racket for the illegal business and claimed that the police and Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian politician who is highly influential in Zakarpattia Oblast, had initiated an attack on the Right Sector.

Lanyo has denied the allegations, in turn accusing ex-Zakarpattya Oblast Governor Viktor Baloga of leading and financing the Right Sector’s branch in the region – a charge that Baloga denies.

The Right Sector has also been accused of involvement in smuggling.

Nayyem wrote on Facebook on July 12 that, based on information from locals, both the Right Sector and Lanyo could be involved in smuggling. He attributed the dispute to one side’s reluctance to pay protection money to the other side.

He also wrote that, in its talks with the authorities, the Right Sector was represented by Roman Stoiko, the son of an ex-SBU employee. Stoiko, who used to be a police officer, was fired in 2008-2009 and was allegedly caught smuggling cigarettes to Slovakia by hang glider in 2012-2013, Nayyem claimed.

Right Sector fighters during the shootout in Mukacheve.

National Guard troops entering Mukacheve on July 12.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at reaganx84@gmail.com.