"The West gave us weapons

because we have fun killing"

Analysis of the neo-Nazi group 'C14' and its leader's
recent speeches at the 'Bandera readings' conference.
Events in Ukraine
Feb 12, 2022
On February 5th, an event called "Bandera readings" took
place in Kiev – a forum about the goals and objectives of
nationalists, involving representatives from various such
groups. The organizer was the party "Svoboda" and the
conference was chaired by one of its members, former People's
Deputy of Ukraine Yuriy Sirotyuk.

Yevgeny Karas, second from the left, at the ‘Bandera readings’.

Bandera, a WW2 Nazi collaborator, is pictured at the right.

Yevgeny Karas, the leader of the far-right group C14 (recently

C14 has rebranded itself as "The Basis of the Future"), said
some quite interesting things about Ukrainian nationalists and
their relation to western Europe and the USA at this
conference.

Before we get to what he said, what is C14? According to some

estimates, it only has around 350 active members, while more
well-known rightwing organizations in Ukraine like the Azov
movement have around around 10 thousand active members.
So why worry about C14? Plenty of liberal commentators like
to emphasize how Nazi groups in Ukraine are marginal and
focusing on them is part of ‘the Kremlin narrative’. So what is
C14, and how marginal is it to Ukrainian politics?

The name, of course, refers to the famous neo-Nazi ’14 words’

‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for
White children’. Older C14 posts stated this openly, though
more recently C14 has sued a liberal Ukrainian newspaper for
calling them neo-Nazis – a court case won by C14. The neo-
Nazi views of their members are well-documented.

An undated photo of Karas.

C14 originally emerged as a group of people who found the

Svoboda party not radical enough for them. The International
Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium describes it as a ‘a
paramilitary right-wing radical group’.
Like many rightwing groups, the events of Euromaidan
brought it to political influence – it was largely C14 members
who occupied the Kiev City Administration building, leaving
neo-Nazi graffiti behind them.

C14 in the Kiev City Administration building during Euromaidan.

Among C14’s acts of ‘activism’ have been their attacks on

Roma settlements, burning their camps, pepper-spraying and
throwing rocks at the inhabitants, and posting videos on the
internet of it all. In 2019, one attack by a different neo-Nazi
group on a Roma camp involved the murder by stabbing of one
19-year-old Roma man and caused injuries to 4 others.
A C14 member burning a Roma settlement to the ground in 2018

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group,

C14 also received state funding from the Ministry of Youth and
Sport:

Three organizations were successful in the competition for ‘national-

patriotic education projects’.  ‘Educational Assembly’ [«Освітна
асамблея»], founded by the head of C14, Yevhen Karas; ‘C14 Sich’,
founded by Volodymyr Karas, who shares the same patronymic,
surname and address as the head of C14; and Holosiyiv Hideout
[«Голосіївська криївка»], whose founders include several members of
Svoboda.

Three events by ‘Educational Assembly’, as well as a C14 Sich

children’s camp will all get 440 thousand UAH (a little over 14
thousand euros), while Holosiyiv Hideout will receive 760 thousand
UAH (nearly 25 thousand euros) for four festivals.  The successful
projects included ‘National-patriotic education as guarantor of
Ukraine’s information security’, a nationwide distance learning
centre for such national-patriotic education, and the use of
historical simulations as a means of popularizing Ukraine’s historical
heritage.

The ministerial commission which chose C14 as the recipient

of these grants was chaired by Mykola Lyakhovich, the head of
the Ministry of Youth and Sport’s Department for National-
Patriotic Education. In the words of the same human rights
group, Lyakhovich himself ‘has a background in the UNA-
UNSO [Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s
Self-Defence], an extremely far-right movement with views
similar to those espoused by Svoboda and C14.’

In 2015, Oles Buzina, a ‘pro-Russian’ Ukrainian journalist, was

murdered, for which a member of C14 was arrested. In any
case, they were clearly acting on higher political orders, though
the court case, naturally, does not deal with this question.
Years later, no one has been punished for his killing.

The two nationalists charged for the murder of Buzina. Both are
veterans of the war in Donbass.
C14 is also closely linked to ‘Municipal Guard’, a highly
controversial para-police public organization financed by the
Kiev city government which is filled with open neo-Nazis and
various veterans of the war in Donbass. According to its
facebook page, it is dedicated to ‘protecting public order and
the national borders’. Here is Sergei Bondar (left), one of the
leaders of Municipal Guard in Kiev and a member of C14,
posing with Karas:

Although it hasn’t existed for very long, Municipal Guard has

already been involved in a long list of ‘controversies’, to put it
mildly. Among them: public beatings of homeless and drunken
individuals, captured on camera, such a degree of white
supremacist views among its members that even the official
Kiev police refused to work with the group, racist declarations
about the ‘national mentality’ of Roma and constant
harassment of them on camera, and recently, the illegal storage
of grenade-launchers and other weaponry taken from the war
in Donbass.
Bondar hard at work humiliating a homeless man in Kiev.
The grenade launchers stored by Municipal Guard, found by the
Security Service of Ukraine on a raid
Bondar’s social media also features the following posts, openly
praising the fascist collaborationist governments of WW2-era
Ukraine and Belarus, which were responsible for hundreds of
thousands of murders of Soviet citizens:

‘The president’s office should return to its historic appearance!’ –

pictured is the president’s office in Kiev under Nazi occupation in
1941, with the swastika edited out.

timurtimur14
 A post shared by Сергій Бондар (@timurtimur14)

‘Good protection against Colorado beetles [a derogatory term for

‘separatists’ and ‘pro-Russians’] for your money. A European
producer. I recommend it.’
‘As for Belarus – only like this!’ Posted during the nationalistic
protests in Belarus in 2020

‘For a European Belarus!’ A photo from the Nazi occupation of

Belarus, featuring the Nazi occupation flag (which is advocated by
the ‘pro-democracy’ and ‘pro-European’ ‘Belarussian opposition’
leaders like Svetlana Tikhanovskaya).

Karas has also openly admitted to cooperation with the

Security Service of Ukraine (SSU). In an interview, he said that
C14 engages in delivering people he judges to be ‘separatists’
to the SSU, and that the SSU ‘transmits C14 information’ about
upcoming ‘separatist’ political activity – in other words, that
the SSU tells C14 which unfriendly political figures to attack.
One wonders what the SSU told C14 about Oles Buzina, the
journalist murdered in 2015. Karas gave as an example of
‘separatist protests’ the events of May 2nd 2014, when 42 ‘pro-
Russian’ protestors were burned to death and killed in various
ways by armed nationalists in Odessa, a crime for which no
one has been charged. According to him, the SSU tells C14 in
advance about such events – ‘it’ll be a mess, come along and
help us’.

Former member of the SSU Ivan Stupak confirmed the

organization’s cooperation with the SSU. In his words: "There
has always been this idea - to take secret control over any
public organization that has a power bloc. The SSU at certain
stages involved in its operational contacts, that is, found
certain common points of view with the leaders of "C14" and
sent them to solve certain operational tasks. For instance, the
search for and detection of separatists, whom the SSU for some
reason cannot detain due to legislature - while if you send a
public organization, it can break the car or inflict bodily harm.’

Karas also said that C14 cooperates with a wide range of

elected politicians in various parties – including Yuri
Lutsenko, a member of Poroshenko’s ‘European Solidarity’
party and prosecutor general of Ukraine at that time (2017).
During one of the most politically important moments of
Poroshenko’s presidency – the official creation in 2019 of a
Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Istanbul –
Karas was photographed to the left of Yuri Lutsenko.
Now, onto Karas’s talk at the ‘Bandera Readings’. He spoke at
the discussion titled “the tasks and forms of activity of the
nationalist movement”. He began by discussing whether the
nationalists should go into official politics or stay on the
streets and in the civil sector. According to Karas, the presence
of nationalists on the street during mass protests "was the
form that gave it a fighting color and encouraged people to use
force."

Thanks to this, from 2006 to 2010, "we captured all public

spheres purely by means of occupational activity." This is
referring to the years of President Yushchenko’s reign and the
"orange" government that came to power after the proto-
euromaidan events of 2004.

"Leftists hold actions in trade unions – squeeze it away from

them. We did more, and faster, better" – this is how Karas
describes how this "occupation" worked. He gave several more
examples of how the nationalists copied the methods of leftist
forces.
"There was a strike in Donbass in 2013. The leftists initiated
the action. I thought: let's overtake them. We gather an hour
earlier, the leftists are standing with posters, and we were
already breaking into Akhmetov's [the richest businessman in
Ukraine] office".

Such tactics provided an influx of supporters who were

constantly offered some kind of "action". And after Maidan in
2014, the role of such groups grew so much that many of their
leaders did not even need to go into politics - their influence
and value were higher on the street, "because everyone is
afraid of them," Karas frankly explained.

Here is the reason why the ordinary claim that ‘neo-Nazis are
politically irrelevant in Ukraine’ is so wrong - their role isn’t to
win elections, its to repress and terrorize political opponents of
the post-euromaidan regime. Karas also admitted in these talks
that Igor Kolomoisky, one of the richest men in Ukraine,
financed the nationalists to drive former president Viktor
Yanukovych out of the country, who at that time was
centralizing economic and political power in the country to an
extent that was unacceptable for big business.

Because of this, the nationalists have been having "the best

time in the last three hundred years." "And even if half of us
get killed, the other half will have fun, because they will get
more happiness and success."

Karas explains the successes of the nationalists by their

"hyperactivity". In percentage terms there were no more of
them than other small groups, but their effectiveness was far
higher according to him.

However, these self-serving paeans don’t quite correspond to

reality, as we saw through the wide-ranging links C14 enjoys
with the Ukrainian state. C14’s success isn’t just due to their
organizational genius. C14 is also supported by businessmen–
the C14 facebook page featured an announcement in 2018 that
read ‘C14 works for you.  Help us keep afloat, and we will help
you.  For regular donors, we are opening a box for wishes. 
Which of your enemies would you like to make life difficult
for?  We’ll try to do that’. In his older interviews, Karas was
open about being financed by business, including wealthy
diaspora Ukrainians. Although one of C14’s official purposes is
‘to fight corruption’ (a nice dovetailing with the post-maidan
liberal discourse), what this means in practice - public attacks
on businesses labelled ‘pro-Russian’ or ‘supporting separatist
terrorism’ - is often hard to distinguish from another weapon
in capitalist competitive struggles. Some of C14’s attacks on
Roma settlements also seem to be motivated by the interests of
construction companies to free up space for their projects.

Now, for some of Karas’s most juicy comments - about

Euromaidan and Ukraine’s place in the world.

The head of C14 said that in fact, the goal of Euromaidan was
not to move into Europe: "Maidan was a victory for nationalist
forces. All that talk about European integration and EU flags -
they disappeared. All this "euro" disappeared like in a
comedy."
Regarding Ukraine’s place in the ‘European community’, he
stated that "in terms of geopolitics, these 38 million are not at
all like 60 million Germans or 80 million French, but are much
stronger, because this is a public with drive."

"We're having fun. Putin will attack, but we're having fun, it's
cool. Or maybe we'll attack him first?"

Therefore, "if nationalists come to power in Ukraine, it will

become a problem not only for the EU, but also for many
countries of the world."

Further, Karas said that at the same time, the West is not
trying to neutralize the nationalists as a factor, because they
"perform the tasks of the West." While Europe is weak and
losing influence, "Ukrainians all piled into Europe, but they
still want to attack it".

"We were given so many weapons now, not because we are

good. Not because "they want us so much." Because we are
fulfilling the tasks of the West. Because we are the only ones
who are ready to fulfill them, we have fun, it's fun to kill and
it's fun to fight"

On this topic, I might add that it is no secret that the

shipments of ‘lethal aid’ by the USA to Ukraine routinely end
up in the hands of neonazi groups like the Azov battalion.
Members of the Azov batallion posing with US-supplied grenade
launchers

The head of C14 also said that Ukraine is the "flagship" of an

informal alliance between Britain, Poland and Turkey, because
"we started a war that has not been seen for the past 60 years."

While imagining a fantastical situation whose contemplation is

adored by Ukrainian nationalists and liberals alike - “the
collapse of Russia”, Karas discusses how Ukraine could hit
European countries.

"Imagine how many weapons and veterans we have. And now

imagine - Russia is disappearing ... do you understand what
kind of eyes Budapest will have, for example, if we turn around
towards it? We already have the most Javelins in Europe ... If
we come to power, it will be both joy and problems for the
whole world, for countries that are trying to prick us," Karas
prophesies. He is probably referencing Budapest due to the
large Hungarian population in Western Ukraine, which
nationalists often suspect of preparing for a Budapest-
supported separatist war.

U.S. Embassy Kyiv

@USEmbassyKyiv
The 14th flight carrying U.S. security assistance, including Javelins, arrived
at Boryspil tonight. The United States has provided almost 1200 tons of
materiel, approved by President Biden in January, that Ukraine needs to
defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression.

7:53 AM ∙ Feb 11, 2022

628 Likes 229 Retweets

All in all, some slightly ‘worrying’ statements from a figure

who, as we saw earlier, is far from ‘marginal’ in Ukrainian
politics. C14 makes up for its numerical weakness with deep
links with the Ukrainian Secret Services and neo-Nazi
paramilitary organizations like ‘Municipal Guard’, which itself
is financed by the Kiev city government.

Plenty of liberals like to downplay the relation between

Euromaidan and neo-Nazi groups - Karas, on the other hand,
proudly admits that C14 and other nationalist, rightwing
groups were catapulted to political power by Euromaidan, and
that the ‘revolution’ had little to do with ‘European values’
(unless one has the same interpretation of these values as
Karas’s friend Bondar).
For Karas, the singular value of Ukraine on the international
arena is as a sacrificial warrior against Russia. By being the
most bloodthirsty and willing to die for Western goals, Ukraine
gets the ‘prize’ of being filled with weapons and a strong neo-
Nazi movement.

Finally, isn’t it so familiar hearing Karas’s simultaneous

disdain for the West, and his joy that the West is pumping him
and his friends full of weaponry to achieve their geopolitical
aims? The word ‘blowback’ comes to mind.

A US drone flying over Afghanistan

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