Ukrainian nationalist organizations will receive a considerable part of the grants of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the country, intended to support youth and children's organizations. On the eve of the department published a list of winners of the competition of children's and youth projects, which should receive funding from the state in 2020. Among them are well-known nationalist structures: “Young People's Movement”, “Youth Nationalist Congress”, “Falcon of Freedom” and others.

For example, the “Union of Ukrainian Youth in Ukraine” will receive funding for the projects “The Knighthood of Archangel Michael,” “The Way of the Warrior,” “We Together” and “The Cyborg Igor Branovitsky Charity Run”. “Youth Nationalist Congress” - for “The Course of Free People” and “The Course of Young Bandera”, “Ukrainian National Youth” - for the all-Ukrainian campaign “The True History of Ukraine” and the festival of social advertising. “The Falcon of Freedom” - on the “Games of the Patriots”.

  • One of the camps of the Youth Nationalist Congress
  • © mnk.org.ua

Also in the list of projects that are promised state funding in 2020 - “Unconquered by him. Yaroslav "Robert" Miller "- one of the leaders of the OUN-UPA * in Western Ukraine.

It will be financed by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the field camps of the scout organization Plast, which was previously banned in the USSR and Poland due to ties with Ukrainian nationalists.

Even among organizations with seemingly harmless names in the list of winners of the state competition, you can find structures with nationalist roots. For example, in the document of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine appears “National Center for Human Rights”.

This structure is led by Denis Polishchuk of the neo-Nazi group C14, accused of the murder of writer and journalist Oles Buzina. Another structure associated with C14, the Educational Assembly, will also receive state funding for the project “We Are Proud of Ukrainians”.

The amount of grants intended for nationalists will range from 120 to 450 thousand hryvnias per project. Only the “Union of Ukrainian Youth in Ukraine” will receive at least 1 million 600 thousand hryvnias. In total, as the Ukrainian publication Strana.ua notes, nationalists will receive 8 million hryvnias (more than 20 million rubles). This is almost half of all the funds that the Ministry of Culture plans to allocate to children's and youth organizations.

“The state allocates money to nationalists and, thus, supports their activities. This was a common scheme under President Petro Poroshenko; neither the new president nor the new minister refused it. Obviously, it is beneficial for them to solve some problems with the help of nationalists. For example, it could be a fight against dissent. This is a very dangerous game, because at any moment nationalists can get out of control, ”a source in the Batkivshchyna party said in an interview with RT.

However, as Kirill Koktysh, associate professor of MGIMO, noted in a RT commentary, the fact that under Zelensky state funds go into the pockets of nationalists is evidence that "Zelensky does not control the state."

  • Festival Banderstadt
  • © bandershtat.org.ua/

Steady trend


It is worth noting that after Vladimir Zelensky came to power in Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is not the first time allocating grants for nationalist organizations.

So, in December last year, the results of the competition on another project of "national-patriotic education" were announced. Then the state decided to allocate money for the “Festival of Ukrainian Spirit Banderstadt”, projects “UPA Roads”, “Dad, Mom, I am a Ukrainian family”, “Symbols of Ukrainian Faith”, “Paths of a Lost History: Stepan Bandera”, etc.

Among the recipients of grants in December were the same “Plast”, “Union of Ukrainian Youth in Ukraine”, “Youth Nationalist Congress”, “National Center for Human Rights Protection” and a number of other structures.

According to experts, official Kiev in many areas continues the nationalist policy of the time of Petro Poroshenko.

So, on the day when the president of the country, Vladimir Zelensky, during his visit to Poland blamed the unleashing of the Second World War and the Holocaust not only on Nazi Germany, but also on the USSR, in Ivano-Frankivsk, on the Walk of Fame, SS officer Mikhail Mulik was buried in the presence of city authorities .

The process of “decommunization” continues in the country, and even the hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky was able to decommunize. It was decided at the time of Zelensky to remove the name of the historical figure from the name of the city Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky.

Now the Institute of National Remembrance is developing a course of lectures on decommunization for schoolchildren.

In education, the process of Ukrainization continues. As previously reported by the Minister of Education and Science Anna Novosad, teachers of Russian-speaking schools will be prepared for the transition to the Ukrainian language of instruction. According to the law adopted on January 16 by the Verkhovna Rada, from September 2020, schools where training was previously conducted in Russian will switch to Ukrainian. This law was called discriminatory in the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Nationalist trends are criticized in other countries. Honoring Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalists caused a diplomatic scandal involving the Ukrainian, Polish and Israeli Foreign Ministries at the beginning of the year.

“Contrary to the hopes of some of our politicians and political scientists. Zelensky turned out to be the same Ukrainian nationalist as Poroshenko, - said Deputy Director of the Institute of CIS Countries Vladimir Zharikhin in an interview with RT. - Actually, nothing has changed: the president’s words are the same, and Zelensky and his government perform the same actions as Poroshenko. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in this. "

  • Vladimir Zelensky with his wife
  • © president.gov.ua

An anxious future


RT sources in Ukrainian political parties expressed concerns that the pro-nationalist position of official Kiev could lead to destabilization of the situation in the country.

“A large number of young people understand that it is enough to take a mask, firecrackers with you, and under the guise of nationalist ideas you can do whatever you want. None of the nationalists were punished for their actions. And it unties the hands of young people. In recent years, children aged 14-15 have begun to take to the streets, who do whatever they want. It will be very difficult to live in a state with such orders in 5-10 years, ”a representative of the Voice party said in an interview with RT.

In turn, the RT source in the European Solidarity party believes that Ukraine may not be able to cope with the army of nationalists.

“These people are not afraid to use force, they are well armed. I think that only the tough stance of the EU can make a difference. In a few years, all these people may well end up in Europe and already commit atrocities there. Therefore, I think that Europe will issue loans provided that all these people are held accountable, ”the deputy emphasized in an interview with RT.

According to Vladimir Zharikhin, due to the predominance of the nationalist paradigm in the upbringing of the younger generation, “Ukraine will have ever-increasing difficulties in contacts not only with Russia, but also with neighbors on the European continent.”

“The modern Ukrainian state can make change, unfortunately, only a radical change of power. The current political elite of Ukraine is almost completely infected with nationalist ideology, ”the political scientist is convinced.

In turn, Cyril Koktysh notes that behind the support of nationalism by the Ukrainian elites is the intention to shift social discontent over the plunder of the country to an external enemy, "an attempt to accordingly lay a grudge for the generation not receiving, the whole world, Russia and the West."

“It is clear that this tactic will work for a while, but I'm not sure that it can be long-term,” the political scientist believes.

* “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) is a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 11/17/2014).