Transcarpathian brawl nets four wounded
2016-01-12
Posted by: badanov
Gawd help me, I love the Ukrainians so...
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Four individuals were wounded in a brawl between members of the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sektor and guards at a ski resort near Dragobrat on Sunday.
According to data supplied by the Russian language Ukrainian news outlet korrespondent.net, five private militiamen fought with guards at the site over a restaurant bill, wounding two guards and two militiamen. All five militia were detained for pretrial investigation by Ukrainian police.
One source says that knives were used, but others hint firearms were used, although no reports indicate that firearms were seized in the aftermath. The report also said that the five militiamen were from the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine, and were tied to the Right Sektor (Prava Sektor) political/military movement in Ukraine.
According to a Right Sektor commander, identified as Andrei Stempitsky, two of those involved in the incident were veterans of the fighting at the Donetsk airport earlier last year.
Two of them were identified, one with the call sign "Croatia," said to be a chief of the operational staff and the other as a fighter identified with the call sign "Demon," said to be commander of the 13th Right Sektor Reserve Battalion. In a separate report two other members of the group were identified with the call sign "Pedro" and "Trident".
Stempitsky said that two of the group involved were wounded by gunfire, but he failed to identify who had been wounded.
An unidentified source in the Transcarpathian region affiliated with Right Sektor denied that Right Sektor members were involved in the incident.
According to yet another report, the Right Sektor group, dressed in military camouflage uniforms, demanded to be put up at the resort but refused to pay. When security elements confronted the men, the fight started. One of the security elements was wounded with a knife. A militiamen and a guard drew down on one other before the militiamen were detained.
Although no one was wounded by gunfire, local reports continue to call the incident a shootout, so presumably gunfire was exchanged.
The incident is being likened to the shootout last August in Mukachevo, where four men were killed and several wounded following a "sit down" between local members of the Right Sektor and members of a local criminal group over smuggling routes through the area. The meeting turned out to be an ambush, according to subsequent reports.
Right Sektor recruitment is grounded in Ukrainian nationalism, but a number of groups, particularly in the Transcarpathia region are loosely affiliated with organized crime in the movement of excise goods through the area into Ukraine and Russia.
Although Russian-backed Donetsk authorities vehemently deny it, some of those running the government appear to have ties with these same groups.
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 Ukraine by clicking here.
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