Ukrainian volunteer units refuse to join army
2015-04-29
Posted by: badanov
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
As both sides of the civil war in southeastern Ukraine continue to fire on the other, and accuse the other of provocations, one issue continues to dog both sides as to a peaceful settlement, the participation of private volunteer military units for the Ukrainian sides.
When Dnepropetrovsk governor Igor Kolomoisky resigned his seat last month, a casualty of Kolomoisky's political demise was said to be the volunteer military units, privately funded military units, Kiev have used against the Russian backed rebels with mixed success.
Last March 24th, several armed individuals were detained by Ukrainian security services in western Ukraine, when a three truck convoy attempted by bypass a security checkpoint near the Ukrainian held town of Volnovakha. A subsequent firefight ended with the death of one Ukrainian security officer, and the seizure of a cargo of illegal alcohol and tobacco, bound for rebel held Donetsk city.
The individuals detained were said to be members of the Dnepr-1 volunteer battalion, a private military unit funded by Kolomoisky. Several such units had been used by Ukrainian military commanders since the very start of the civil war, but now with the fall of Kolomoisky, it seemed that those unit would be folded into the ranks of the Ukrainian regulars.
Last April 1st, another unit, the Azov Regiment had been ordered to disarm and to leave the Mariupol defense zone, or have its command structure integrated into the Ukrainian Army. At the time, it was said that all private units, colloquially called punisher units by rebels, were said to have been ordered integrated into the Ukrainian military structure of disband.
Originally -- and as it turned out, mysteriously -- Kiev denied the ultimatum was delivered to Azov's commanders, inasmuch as the commanders themselves at the time said they would refuse any such order.
For the Azov Regiment, at least, the reaction was outrage and a refusal to comply, for several reasons, but mostly because those volunteers consider the Ukrainian Army communications compromised.
This writer since that time had read several accounts, where private units refused to comply with orders to integrate themselves into the Ukrainian Army command structure.
Another unit, deployed near to Peski, near western Donetsk city, had been ordered to leave the area earlier in April, but subsequently refused to do so, as did the Azov regiment.
"Help a brother out"
According to a news account in regnum.ru, with data supplied by the Donetsk ministry of defense spokesman Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin, rebel unit commanders in Shirokino, one of the most hotly contested areas in Donetsk, claimed to have received a cell phone call from Ukrainian Army commanders last Sunday asking rebel commanders to begin shelling Azov regiment units in far western Shirokino and in eastern Mariupol city.
The caller told rebel commanders, according to Basurin, that Azov regiment commanders have refuse orders, and are committing crimes against civilians.
Since the start of the February 12th ceasefire, rebel commanders and political leaders have made much of their claim to have refused to return artillery fire against Ukrainian artillery units.
According to a separate regum.ru news account, the volunteer unit in Peski, called the "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (OUN), was ordered Sunday to give up their weapons, which they had previously refused to do. Rebel reports at the time said that the unit had prepared to leave, but for some reason not included in reports, had not done so.
From reports on the rebel and Ukrainian side, rebels apparently made a special exception to their "regime of silence" to shell positions of the OUN as they were leaving.
However on Monday, according to the regnum.ru report, Ukrainian military units maneuvered and surrounded elements of the OUN before its commanders complied, gave up their weapons and then left the area.
Historically, the original OUN namesake was a pro Ukrainian nationalist group with a long past dating back to the late 1920s, just a few years before the Soviet collectivization campaign. The current group has its roots in the Right Sector political movement, which is one of the most vociferous supporters of the Maidan Ukrainian government in Kiev.
Right Sector itself is one of the most reviled political groups in Ukraine by Russian backed rebels. Russian and rebel media said it was Right Sector activists who participated in the murder of several ethnic Russians in Odessa one year ago.
According to rebel reports, at least one other volunteer unit remains in Peski, the Dnepr 1 Regiment.
Right Sector Disarms
Meanwhile on Monday in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast, elements of the Ukrainian 25th Parachute Brigade and the 95th Airmobile Brigade, began setting up checkpoints around Right Sector headquarters near the town of Velikomikhailovka Pokrovsky, according to a news account on the pro Ukrainian website tsensor.net.
The action effectively surrounded Velikomikhailovka Pokrovsky, an operation that Right Sector leader Dmitri Yarosh said violated Ukrainian law, which apparently forbids Ukrainian military operations outside the Anti Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone in southeastern Ukraine.
Yuri Butusov editor of tsensor.net said that at least one vehicle with armed individuals belonging to Right Sector was stopped and forced to disarm. Yuri Butusov said that an attempt to contact the Ukrainian Army chief of Staff Viktor Muzhenko had failed before the story was posted on tsensor.net.
According to the story, Yarosh, after contacting an unidentified commander of one of the units about the checkpoints, agreed that vehicles in the area would not pass armed.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraina by clicking here.
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