Far-right warriors ready for a fight

Ukraine’s newly decorated war hero remains troubled by an illchosen remark concerning the bones in the cage of his unit’s pet wolf.

By rights, Dmytro Kotsyubaylo, nom de guerre Da Vinci, should be basking in glory. Last month the 26-year-old captain became the first living recipient serving in the ultranationalist Right Sector volunteer battalion to be awarded the title Hero of Ukraine by the country’s president.

Photographs of him shaking hands with President Volodymyr Zelensky at the ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament, where he was also decorated with the Order of the Golden Star for courage on the battlefield, marked not just a moment of personal glory for him but a political rehabilitation for a unit mired in controversy since its formation.

Ukraine is preparing for an escalation in the eight-year conflict in its eastern regions, and is looking to a wide array of fighters to bolster its chances – Right Sector nationalists among them.

The group originated in 2013 as a militarised movement that included both ultra-nationalist extremists and right-wing supporters, and quickly became a mainstay in the fight against Russian-backed separatists.

Though its political wing flopped, failing to secure a single seat in the 2019 elections, Right Sector’s volunteer units are widely regarded in Ukraine as a dedicated force of patriotic volunteers committed to preserving the country’s territorial integrity.

In Moscow, they are seen as fascists intent on purging ethnic Russians from Ukrainian territory. Indeed, scarcely had Kotsyubaylo time to relish his moment with Zelensky than Russian media recalled a remark he had made to a

‘‘We will protect Ukraine street by street.’’ Dmytro Kotsyubaylo, Right Sector officer

Times reporter last year. Asked about bones in the wolf cage maintained by his unit, Kotsyubaylo replied that they came from ‘‘Russian-speaking children’’.

At home, as the threat of a Russian invasion looms, the Right Sector has found itself in an era of revitalised prestige. Its fighters are training reservists and volunteers across eastern Ukraine. ‘‘We are an integrated part of our country’s defence who co-ordinate at the highest level with Ukrainian military,’’ Kotsyubaylo said.

Yet Ukraine’s volunteer formations have a chequered recent history.

They played a key role in the early stages of the Ukrainian conflict, when they stepped in to fill the gaps fighting Russianbacked separatists in the east as the regular Ukrainian army crumbled.

But Right Sector units were cited in multiple human rights reports concerning the abuse of prisoners, and in May 2015 Amnesty International wrote that prisoners held by the group had endured ‘‘a horrifying spectrum of abuses, including mock executions, hostagetaking, extortion, extremely violent beatings, death threats’’.

By 2016, as Ukrainian regular forces re-established their role in the east, and amid criticism that many paramilitary formations were little more than the private armies of oligarchs or political parties, a process began to remove volunteer units from the front, or to assimilate them into regular units. Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps has taken up reserve positions and training roles under the auspices of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.

‘‘We can mobilise thousands of our people in the event of Russian aggression,’’ Kotsyubaylo said. ‘‘We will protect Ukraine street by street.’’