During the 2013–14 Maidan protests, Serhienko belonged to Borotba, a leftist, Euroskeptic organization. The group gained influence during the Antimaidan demonstrations in Kharkiv before its leaders backed the pro-Russian rebels and separatist movements. At that moment, Serhienko and other activists ended their involvement. Nevertheless, the right-wing media enthusiastically spread photographic evidence of his participation after he was spotted at an anti-austerity action in September 2016. His sudden notoriety sparked a wave of online bullying and physical harassment that culminated in the bloody attack.
While it remains unclear who actually attacked him, most agree that the assault was an instance of far-right violence: it took place on April 20 (Adolph Hitler’s birthday), the attackers filmed it, and they did not rob their victim. The day after the attack, the leader of C14, one of the most notorious far-right groups, published a blog entry called the “Separatist Safari,” hinting at the group’s responsibility for the assault. In the post, he made thinly veiled threats “on the germs of terrorists hiding in the peaceful Ukrainian streets.” [...]
Unfortunately, this gruesome case fits right into Ukrainian politics today. Far-right violence has been rising for the past seven years, intensifying after the Svoboda party first entered parliament in 2012. Despite having played an important role in the Euromaidan protests of 2013–14, the far right actually lost ground in the 2014 parliamentary elections — Svoboda won only six seats, compared to thirty-seven two years prior. After this electoral failure, these nationalist forces resorted to more violent means of political participation, both online and in the streets. They do not restrict their animus for the Left: journalists and activists from across the political spectrum have become victims of threats, harassment, and violence. [...]
Andriy Biletsky, National Corps’ leader, became an independent MP in a Kiev district after the pro-Western parties withdrew their candidates in his favor. In 2008, he founded the Social-National Assembly, an organization whose stated objective is “the defense of the white race by creating an anti-democratic and anti-capitalist ‘natiocracy’.” This group mutated into the Azov battalion, which then incorporated itself into the Ukrainian army as a regiment and, as of 2016, formed an officially registered party that gives its founder’s white supremacist ideas a policy form.
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