Ukraine's Western Backed Far Right Is Yet Again Blocking Peace.

Ukraine's Far-Right Is Blocking Peace Again, Issuing Threats Of Murder Towards Their Countries President.

Yet again, a far-right Ukrainian leader of a neo-nazi linked group is issuing open threats of violence to the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an attempt to pressure him to continue the war and reject a peace deal with Russia.

The Times of London wrote a disturbing puff piece on Serhii Sterneneko, a former high-level official with the far-right Ukrainian paramilitary group Right Sector.

In the interview, Sterneneko issued an open threat towards his president, saying, “If [President] Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse — politically, and then for real”.

As the geopolitical blog Moon of Alabama noted, “Zelensky thus rejects calls by U.S. President Trump to give up Ukrainian territory in exchange for peace” and “One reason why he does so may be the personal danger he is in. Any compromise about territory may well cost his life,” underscored by the disturbing comments from Serhii Sterneneko.

Serhii Sterneneko, now threatening Zelensky to not end the war, has previously been involved in the massacres in Ukraine’s Maidan Square and Odessa in 2014, which helped lead to the current proxy war.

The Times of London notes that Sterneneko was “appointed head of the regional branch of the Right Sector” and that he was “present for the worst of the Maidan violence”.

While the Times of London piece repeats the lie that, “Most of the deaths (at Maidan square) occurred between February 18-20, when police snipers opened fire on thousands of protesters advancing on parliament”, the reality is that the most consequential massacre was committed by Right Sector (which Sterneneko was a member of) and falsely blamed on Ukrainian police snipers.

At the time, CIA-funded protestors, which were soon overtaken by far-right groups such as Right Sector, gathered in Ukraine's Maidan Square, in an attempt to overthrow the country’s then elected president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Snipers opened fire on protestors gathering in Maidan Square on February 20th, killing 48 protestors and injuring many more.

At the time, Yanukovych’s police forces were falsely blamed for the massacre, and this claim was used to justify overthrowing him in a violent coup.

U.S. Senator Cris Murphy bragged on C-Span that after this massacre, falsely blamed on Yanukovych, the United States backed the coup against him, saying, “it was our role, including sanctions and threat of sanctions that forced, in part, Yanukovych from office”.

However, the Ukrainian-Canadian professor of political science at the University of Ottawa, Ivan Katchanovski, has since gathered a body of evidence, including from a Ukrainian trial on the massacre, that proves it was actually committed by Right Sector and falsely blamed on Viktor Yanukovych’s forces.

Katchanovski notes that, “51 out of 72 wounded Maidan protesters, with whose shooting on February 20 Berkut policemen (Yanukovych’s forces) are charged and whose testimonies were revealed, testified at the trial and the investigation that they had been shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings or areas, had themselves witnessed snipers there, or had been told by other Maidan protesters about such snipers.”

He has also documented that Ukrainian government forensic studies have found that the bullet wounds were consistent with sniper fire from areas occupied by pro-Maidan coup forces, namely Right Sector, writing:

The findings of forensic medical examinations done by government experts for the prosecution were first made public during the Maidan massacre trial, and revealed that the absolute majority of protesters were shot from the side or back, and from top to bottom. Most videos and photos, however, show that the absolute majority of those killed and wounded had the Berkut police in front of them and at ground level, whereas the Maidan-controlled buildings were generally behind them and on the left and right side.

Forensic medical examinations indicate that 40 out of the 48 killed protesters were shot from a high angle. At least 36 of them were killed at a time when the Berkut policemen were filmed on the ground.

He notes that “48 out of 51 wounded protesters had steep entry wounds, consistent with the theory that they were shot by snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings, or on the roofs of these buildings”.

Furthermore, he noted that “A forensic ballistic examination conducted by government experts with use of an automatic computer-based IBIS-TAIS system, found that the bullets extracted from killed protesters, trees, and the Hotel Ukraina rooms did not match police database for Kalashnikov assault rifles of members of the entire Kyiv Berkut regiment, including the special Berkut unit deployed”.

Witness testimony and Ukrainian government forensic analysis have shown that the sniper fire primarily came from the Hotel Ukraina building, which at the time was occupied by Right-Sector militants.

This was not the first massacre that Serhii Sterneneko was involved in.

The Times of London notes that “Sternenko, who two months earlier had been appointed head of the Odesa branch of the Right Sector, a coalition of right-wing and far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups, was on the streets for much of the day’s violence” during the Odesa massacre at the Trade Unions House, where pro-Russian Ukrainians were trapped in the building while it was on fire during clashes, leading 42 of them to be burned alive.

The Times of London allowed Sterneneko to whitewash his role in this massacre, quoting him as saying, “I gave orders for the people inside the building to be rescued”.

However, an EU court found that not only did Right Sector intentionally allow the pro-Russia Ukrainians to burn alive in the building, but the newly installed Ukrainian government, filled with far-right figures, intentionally allowed the massacre to happen, ruling “The deployment of fire engines to the site of the fire had been deliberately delayed for 40 minutes, and the police had not stepped in to help evacuate people from the building promptly and safely. Therefore, the State had failed to ensure timely rescue measures”.

The court ruling stated, “The Court concluded that the relevant authorities had not done everything they reasonably could to prevent the violence, to stop that violence after its outbreak, and to ensure timely rescue measures for those trapped in the fire in the Trade Union Building.”

This is not the first time a far-right figure has blocked peace in Ukraine using open threats of violence.

In 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine in a landslide victory, in part because he promised to implement the Minsk Accords, a peace plan that would have halted the fighting in Eastern Ukraine that erupted between Russian separatist rebels and far-right Ukrainian nationalists in the Ukrainian army.

However, he was prevented from doing so due to threats of violence from Andrii Biletski, the leader of the neo-nazi Azov Battalion.

The NGO Finnish Peace Defenders wrote at the time :

War in the eastern part of Ukraine and politics go together. While President Zelensky is trying to follow commitments given to his electorate and international obligations in implementation of the Minsk Agreements, he has to overcome obstacles placed by irregular armed groups who identify themselves as patriots of Ukraine.

On October 7, the Ukrainian Army should have withdrawn from the settlements at the frontline, Zolote and nearby Katerynivka, in the Luhansk Region. The 72nd Mechanized Brigade, which is currently deployed to the area, should have received the order in the morning that day. The same should have been done by the units of the opposing side controlling part of the villages. The OSCE SMM should have overseen the pullback.

It didn’t happen, due to the open threats and blackmail by far-right military circles in Ukraine, including the National Corps led by Andrii Biletski.

Ivan Katchanovski noted at the time that, “This shows that a few thousand neo-Nazis not only have power to block the crucial agreement towards peace in Donbas but that the president has no power and will to disband and arrest them and has to plead with them in person. This is another manifestation of the actual power of the far right in Ukraine”.

History repeats itself today. An article in Gallup, based on a recent poll in Ukraine, wrote, “Most Ukrainians now favor ending the war with Russia through negotiations”.

The article wrote, “In Gallup’s most recent poll of Ukraine — conducted in early July — 69% say they favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible, compared with 24% who support continuing to fight until victory”.

Yet again, Zelensky is being threatened by a small but powerful far-right group to not end the war, and yet again, he is capitulating to the threats of the far-right, instead of the majority of the country.

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