Far-Right Groups in Ukraine: Professionalized with Mainstream Visibility

Since the Revolution of Dignity of 2014, Ukraine has been widely viewed as an important leader and symbol of democratic values and reform across Eastern Europe and Eurasia. However, in recent years the country’s significant democratic gains have been paralleled by a dramatic increase in the activity of far-right groups. While radical far-right groups have existed in Ukraine since the 1920s, they now represent a sophisticated and politically influential element of society.

In electoral politics, the Svoboda (Freedom) party is considered the most developed political arm of Ukraine’s far right. The party’s greatest political victory came in 2010, when it received 10 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections and several ministerial positions in the Ukrainian government. The Revolution of Dignity and outbreak of war with Russia in 2014 gave further momentum and mainstream legitimacy to nationalist political narratives, driving large numbers of patriotic Ukrainians to support more extreme measures to safeguard the country’s independence and security.

Electoral support for Svoboda and other openly nationalist political parties waned in the years that followed; Svoboda took only 4.5 percent of the vote in 2014, and a Svoboda-led coalition of right-wing parties failed to enter parliament in 2019 after taking only 2.15 percent of the vote. However, the narrow vision of pro-Ukrainian nationalist orthodoxy and vehement anti-Russian rhetoric championed by Svoboda and its allies became a dominant political narrative, variants of which are increasingly common in mainstream political discourse. With his slogan “Army, language, faith!” former President Petro Poroshenko helped to popularize an exclusivist brand of patriotism that continues to draw significant support from both moderate and radical segments of society. Poroshenko’s political rhetoric ultimately culminated in a series of severe legal measures purporting to preserve Ukrainian identity, but which often infringe upon the rights of the country’s minority groups.

Far-right groups are also highly active outside the formal political arena. Emboldened by the struggle with Russia and greater societal acceptance of a radical and intolerant brand of patriotism, these groups target perceived internal threats and “impure” elements of society—including Roma, LGBT+ people, and religious and linguistic minorities—that do not align with their exclusive “traditional” vision of Ukrainian identity. Their methods range from brutal violence, such as pogroms on Roma camps, to aggressive efforts to prevent the LGBT+ community from using public spaces and participating in public life. According to recent data from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the number of hate-motivated incidents in Ukraine has grown steadily in recent years, with 178 incidents recorded by the police in 2018 alone.

The war in the east has provided newfound social legitimacy to far-right groups, bringing with it unprecedented levels of sophistication, funding, recruitment, and organizational capacity. According to Vyacheslav Likhachev, a Kyiv-based expert on right-wing groups in Ukraine, the activity and visibility of these groups has increased significantly since the war’s outbreak, drawing new members from a generation of youth who have come of age in a new era of war patriotism. As the hot conflict against the external Russian threat has wound down, many young people have turned to far-right paramilitary groups in search of new ways to prove themselves, seeing membership as offering opportunities to defend the Ukrainian homeland against supposed internal enemies.

Worryingly, Ukraine’s far-right groups are not sustained on ideology alone: their activities are supported by various homegrown commercial and political operations, which regularly hire out the groups’ services as paid thugs. The Ukrainian government itself is one of many stakeholders that draws on far right groups’ violent skillset both formally and informally, even going so far as to integrate right-wing paramilitary groups into the Ukrainian armed forces. Likhachev observes that the establishment of far-right violence as a lucrative industry in Ukraine has resulted in greater fragmentation and radicalization of these groups, as they compete amongst themselves for resources and prestige. Thus, the instrumentalization of far-right groups by various actors pursuing personal gain has actually made the far right more dangerous to their ideological opponents by reinforcing the violent character of their activities.

Violence and intimidation by far-right groups has taken place with near-total impunity, as Ukrainian law enforcement has rarely taken meaningful action to hold perpetrators accountable in recent years. This is primarily due to a lack of political will among policymakers and the Ukrainian public to take a stand on this issue in the context of the ongoing war. This failure of political will is complex and stems from many sources, ranging from genuine popular support for these groups as defenders of threatened Ukrainian identity, to powerful interest groups who stand to gain from the thriving industry of far-right thuggery. A weak legal framework to combat hate-motivated violence also aggravates the problem; existing articles in the criminal code do not provide investigators and prosecutors with the tools they need to hold perpetrators accountable for hate-motivated violence and are inconsistent with international standards.

The election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in April 2019 on an anticorruption and rule of law platform raised hopes that the government would take a firmer stance on this issue. While it is too early to assess the full impact of the new government’s policies, it is clear that some short-term progress has been achieved since Zelenskyy took office. According to Likhachev, the activity of the far right has become less prominent in recent months, with fewer violent incidents reported in 2019 than in 2018. Likhachev credits this change to a renewed commitment to maintaining law and order among law enforcement bodies—a key campaign promise of the Zelenskyy administration.

However, it is doubtful if this dynamic can hold in the longer term, particularly as individuals with strong interests in sustaining far-right activity continue to hold positions of power in the new government, and the weak legal framework for bringing perpetuators to justice remains unchanged. Rather than truly disappearing from the scene, it may be that Ukraine’s far right is instead channeling their energies into sectors less visible to the public eye while they assess the changing political landscape under Zelenskyy.