Page 51 - bne magazine September 2021_20210901

bne September 2021 Eastern Europe I 51
Ukraine’s law enforcement clashes with far right Azov movement
Ben Aris in Berlin
Ukrainian law enforcers violently clashed with members of the far right Azov movement on August 14 as the authorities attempted to crack down on the criminal schemes the movement uses to make money.
Police officers and a National Guard serviceman were injured after they tried to halt a group of Azov protesters mov- ing towards Bankova, the presidential offices in Kyiv. They tried to search the members of Azov but were assaulted
by the protesters. Several police offices were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.
"The police decided to inspect the items that the [Azov] protesters could bring to the President's Office. However, the activists categorically refused to be inspected and were given a command to attack the National Police and the Guard,” the head of the National Police Igor Klimenko said in a statement.
"We are against provocations and for the peaceful conduct of any action. The presence of police officers and the National Guard are the necessary mea- sures to ensure order in the area where the actions are held," he added.
Azov has been a hugely controversial movement since it sprang to prominence during the 2014 Maidan revolution. Its militias have also prominently served on the front line in the undeclared war with Russia in the Donbas.
The group openly glorifies the Nazis and regularly holds rallies using symbolism that blatantly evokes Hitler’s rallies and the other trappings of the Nazi era. And yet the authorities have done little to curb or control the group.
Their presence in the demonstrations and street fighting with former presi-
dent Viktor Yanukovych’s police in 2014 led the Kremlin to claim that Maidan was a right wing-driven coup d'état, a claim that was virulently denied at the time by pro-Ukrainian commentators, but in retrospect clearly has an element of truth.
After the regime change the group
was quietly subsumed into the Ukrai- nian military as a separate unit but it maintains its own clear identity and enjoys close ties with senior figures in the government. It has been allowed to continue to operate its criminal schemes with impunity.
At home the group ran various schemes and have been accused of racketeer-
ing and extortion. The group has been associated with the recently departed powerful interior minister Arsen Avakov and the police action this weekend is believed by commentators to be a result of a house cleaning now that his protec- tion has been withdrawn.
Considered to be the second most pow- erful man in the country, who served
under four prime ministers and was also the longest serving minister in office, Avakov submitted his resignation on July 13, without giving a reason for his decision.
His departure was seem by some ana- lysts as part of a government shake up by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zel- enskiy, who is trying to consolidate his grip on power as part of a slow moving crackdown on corruption.
Zelenskiy nominated Denys Monastyr- skyi to replace Avakov. Monastyrskyi is
a lawyer and a member of Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party. The former head of the parliament’s Law Enforce- ment Committee, Monastyrskyi’s appointment gives Zelenskiy more direct control over the police force and Ukrai- nian Security Service (SBU).
Avakov’s resignation may be connected to Zelenskiy’s crackdown on the influ- ence of the oligarchs, analysts have speculated. Avakov allied himself with business magnate and Zelenskiy’s for- mer business partner Ihor Kolomoisky in
The Ukrainian government appears to be cracking down on far right group Azov, but the whole of Eastern Europe has a conflicted relationship with the far right.
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