"We agreed to introduce a bill that would establish the Right Sector as the basis for an organization similar to the Estonia Defense Union. We will have reserve units, combat units. This will be a compromise system, the golden middle which will satisfy both us and the government institutions," Yarosh told Ukrainian journalists.
The Estonia Defense Union is a volunteer paramilitary formation which is part of the national army and which is financed by the state, but which at the same time retains certain autonomy. The EDU participates in national and international military exercises, and also prepares personnel for militias that patrol assigned territory.
Moreover, EDU units have their own command. Obviously it's that aspect of the organization that persuaded the Ukrainian radicals to cooperate with the GenStaff, after all the Right Sector HQ said many times they would not accept a leader other than Yarosh. Therefore the nationalists will become an official part of the armed forces, while retaining certain autonomy.
We remind our readers that the Ukrainian MOD held negotiations over several months with the Right Sector activists, offering them various options for incorporation into GenStaff structure. The nationalists rejected all Kiev proposals, including full legalization of the movement in return for joining the military as contract servicemen.
There are fully justified concerns among Ukrainian politicians and experts that should the conflict in the Donbass fade away, yesterday's volunteer fighters will create illegal armed formations aimed at, among others, the Kiev government.
Oleg Medvedev, an advisor to the president of Ukraine, admitted that the Kiev authorities had lost control over the National Guard. On his Facebook page, he blamed the volunteer battalions in creating disorders in Kharkov, where the Ukrainian activists picketed the state council in December, trying to force Mayor Gennadiy Kernes to resign. Medvedev proposed that they either return to the front, or find civilian work, and stop creating pickets and disorders in cities where they do not reside.
Source: Kiev convinced the Right Sector to become part of the UAF
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk
J.Hawk's Comment: This is actually a sign of weakness on part of Poroshenko, not quite the "night of long knives", but rather an "evening of short letter openers". It's one of several instances in recent days where Poroshenko, when trying to confront the right-wing nationalists, blinked first. One would think that he would follow up the success against Kolomoysky by mopping up the right-wing paramilitaries which represent the biggest threat to his own power at the moment. But instead he made them even more of a danger, both to himself and to the country as a whole.
Conversely, the granting of autonomous status to the Right Sector makes Yarosh more powerful, and it's not even clear whether Poroshenko was able to peel Yarosh away from Kolomoysky, who may well continue to fund the Right Sector, now a perfectly legal organization and moreover one with specific security responsibilities, thanks to its autonomous status. So now the Ukrainian neo-Nazis have a perfectly legal cover for conducting paramilitary training, something they could not have dreamed of before the Maidan. Ukraine is still firmly on course for its Doomsday.
Not that Ukraine is alone in doing this. In addition to Estonia, Poland is establishing a similar relationship with that country's virulently nationalistic Rifle Associations in order to re-create something resembling territorial defense which once used to exist in a very robust form--but that was under the Socialist government of the Cold War era, back when Poland had a military worthy of the name. All in all, it looks like all the countries of Central Europe are inching toward fascism, it's only a question of which one will be the first get a full-blown, openly fascist government.
Porky's grasping at straws. And the straws are poisonous.