Free Republic

Craig Lang, who is charged with killing a Florida couple in 2018, has become a cause célèbre in the country where he has fought as a mercenary. In the spring of 2015, former U.S. soldier Craig Lang traveled to Ukraine and joined a paramilitary group fighting the Russians. “I never noticed any fear,” said Mamuka Mamulashvili, who commanded Lang in the Georgian Legion. Four years later, Lang is under house arrest in Ukraine. His situation has nothing to do with his conduct inside the eastern European country. Lang is facing charges in the U.S. for allegedly killing a Florida couple...

undreds of Ukrainian right-wingers rallied in Kyiv on July 21 to protest against government policies in the wake of a deadly standoff between radical nationalists and police in the country's west. Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh announced that his group would start a campaign to conduct a national referendum on whether President Petro Porshenko and his government should be impeached and an “absolute blockade” set up against territory in eastern Ukraine under the control of pro-Russian separatists.

At least two people were killed and seven injured in the fighting that broke out after armed men bearing the insignia of Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), a far-Right paramilitary group, drove into the Ukrainian town of Mukachevo, near the Polish and Hungarian borders, on Saturday. At least two Pravy Sektor fighters were killed in the ensuing melee, which also saw two police cars destroyed by grenade launchers. An unknown number of Pravy Sektor fighters were still believed to be hiding in countryside near the town on Sunday evening. Dmitro Yarosh, the head of the far-Right group, flew into the town...

In the muddle of insurgency, assassinations, false flags, and military confusion, the right-wing Pravy Sektor’s Dmitry Yarosh is a key player. The recent high-profile murders in Kiev of opposition politician Oleh Kalashnikov and, the next day, of Ukrainian writer Oles Buzyna have made the scene in an already complicated and fractious Ukraine murkier than ever. Both Kalashnikov and Buzyan were overtly and, for many in Kiev and western Ukraine, disgracefully pro-Russian. Both were active in the “Anti-Maidan” movement of last year opposing the pro-Western change of power.

The perpetrators are often members of the radical right-wing group Right Sector It’s a bad time to be a Ukrainian politician. The war in the east refuses to end, despite a “ceasefire”. Winter is approaching, and with it all the worries of another “gas-war” with Russia. And with parliamentary elections just weeks away, pre-revolutionary MPs are getting nervous about hanging on to their jobs. To make things worse, there is a growing chance of ending up in a wheelie bin. Since early September up to a dozen MPs, city councillors and other officials accused of wrong doing have been hauled...

Outnumbered six-to-one, at least one Ukrainian Donbas Volunteer Battalion member was killed and 20 were wounded in an ambush by 150-200 pro-Russian separatists in the village of Karlivka, 35 kilometers northwest of Donetsk, the quasi-military unit’s press center said. An unspecified number were captured, the press center added. Reporting from Karlivka, Agence France-Presse stated that at least four separatists were also killed in the same confrontation. The ambush took place around 6 a.m. on May 23 while the group was approaching a separatist-held checkpoint near a dam reservoir next to the village where usually “7-10 people stood guard,” Semyon Semenchenko,...

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh has said that representatives of his organization will contribute to ensuring security at voting stations in eastern Ukraine. ...

In an interview with Bloomberg News [URL at link], Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland had meetings with the Ukrainian neofascist group Right Sector in Washington DC. The Right Sector has been involved in numerous killings including the burning of pro-Russian supporters in Odessa. ... Whether Nuland met with Artyomenko or any other representative of the Right Sector to help with fundraising and support is unknown. What is known is that the US is supporting the gang in Kiev's "interim government" which includes Svoboda an openly neofascist party...

Twitter blocked the account of Ukraine's ultranationalist Right Sector group in Russia. ...

That might very well be the best position to take: Don't support Putin, but realize that Obama has the fecal touch on foreign policy issues. Libya (Benghazi). Syria (he thought about arming Syrian "rebels"). Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood came to power and before that the WH said they were "largely secular"). Ergo - no interventionism of any kind in Ukraine, be it NGO's, mercs, etc. Don't support the Commies in Ukraine, but don't support Right Sector, or Svoboda, either. Angela Merkel and Hollande have both said that unlawful acts were carried out against those who were burned up in Odessa,...

Two leaked tapes have emerged on the internet where Kiev-appointed governor allegedly threatens an ex-presidential candidate who called for a referendum. The official may also be behind the Odessa massacre and Mariupol shootings, the leak adds. On the first tape, which appeared on May 14, an oligarch and governor of the city of Dnepropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine, Igor Kolomoisky, allegedly called ex-presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev and started threatening him. He told Tsarev to leave Ukraine immediately, saying it was in connection with the killing of Bogdan Shlemkevich, a soldier from Ukraine’s National Guard on May 9 in Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine....

Members of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group Pravy Sektor took part in a commando-style raid against the Donbass referendum last Sunday, killing two unarmed civilians in the town of Krasnoarmeysk, an investigation by Paris Match has found. Rumours had spread among separatists for several weeks about radical Pravy Sektor militants hiding amid government forces loyal to Kiev to perpetrate actions targeting pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine. Though a small political force, Pravy Sektor played a significant part in the street fights the lead to the downfall of president Viktor Yanukovitch during the Maidan Revolution in Kiev last February. Formed as an...

Kiev’s forces are using heavy weaponry and tanks in the eastern city of Mariupol to storm the local Interior Ministry building, where police have barricaded inside. After residents began flocking to the scene, Kiev fighters opened fire on civilians. There are conflicting reports about the killed and injured. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said that about 20 anti-Kiev activists were killed and four more were taken captive, according to a statement posted on Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s Facebook page. However, according to Donetsk authorities, three people have been killed and 25 injured, RIA Novosti cited the Donetsk region council's press service...

Israeli rabbi Michael Finkel says the Jewish community is on high alert because of the influence of the neo-Nazi's within Kiev's temporary government. "This is Right Sector. This is the peole who are marching in Nazi uniforms with SF on their arms and on their military uniforms," Finkel says. According to the rabbi, it is possible that Ukraine could turn into a country similar to Lebanon. "In Lebanon, there's an official government and there is Hezbollah, which is a terrrorist organization linked to the government. They're members of the parliament, and there's a Hezbollah militia over thre, a separate army,...

In the absence of effective military forces or law enforcement, Ukrainians are taking the defense of the nation in their own hands through loosely organized militias. One of them popped up in a YouTube video on May 2. Although the group was unidentified, the clip was posted by a pro-Ukrainian group of former military and law enforcement officers, calling themselves the Donbass Volunteer Battalion. The video shows men armed with Kalashnikov rifles and clad in black ninja outfits dismantling a Kremlin-backed roadblock near Krasnoarmiysk in western Donetsk Oblast. The national warriors also claim that 15 pro-Russian rebels were handed over...

Latvian MEP Tatjana Zdanoka urged her colleagues to support her motion to put the Ukranian radical group Right Sector on the terrorist organizations list, reports ITAR-TASS. ...

Fox News reported yesterday that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Odessa, and today the International Business Times reported that Kiev is sending an "elite National Guard" to Slavyansk. Who makes up the ranks of this elite National Guard when Vice News reported on March 19, 2014 - in their article "A look Inside Ukraine's Volunteer National Guard" - and in it said then that Ukraine had - by its own admission - only 6,000 combat-ready troops? Looks like Kiev didn't/doesn't have a pot to even... much less an "elite National Guard." BTW, Vice News was the news...

At least 38 anti-government activists died in fire at Odessa’s Trade Unions House after suffocating with smoke or jumping out of windows of the burning building, Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported. The building was set ablaze by the pro-Kiev radicals. [WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT INSIDE] Some 50 people, including 10 police officers, were also injured in the incident, the official statement said. It was not immediately clear whether those injured in Friday street clashes in Odessa were included in those numbers. According to the ministry, the Friday standoff on Odessa included “anti-Maidan” activists on one side and “football fans” from Odessa and...

At least 38 people have been killed in a fire in an official building amid clashes in Odessa, in south west Ukraine, local police say. ...

People in eastern Ukraine are not pro-Russian, they want a united and federalized Ukraine, a Finlandized Ukraine that is equally distant from the EU, NATO and Russia, and they are being confronted by guns, investigative journalist Pepe Escobar told RT. RT: We're now seeing Kiev deploying the military against its own people. Do you think the situation requires that? Pepe Escobar: No, of course not. Flashback, it’s very important. A few days ago John Brennan, head of the CIA, goes to Kiev, they launch an anti-terrorist operation. It’s a huge failure. A few days later US Vice-President Joe Biden goes...