Dmytro Yarosh

Dmytro Anatoliiovych Yarosh (; born 30 September 1971) is a Ukrainian activist, politician and military commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army. From 2013 to 2015, he led the Right Sector nationalist organisation, and formerly the Right Sector's Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. From 2014 until 2019, Yarosh served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine. In February 2016, he started a new organisation called Governmental Initiative of Yarosh (Державницька ініціатива Яроша; shortened as ).

In the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election, Yarosh received 127,772 votes (0.7% of the total). He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election from a single-seat constituency in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast by winning 29.76% of the votes. He lost the seat in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

Biography

Early life Yarosh was born on 30 September 1971 in Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske), a town in predominantly Russian-speaking Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central-eastern Ukraine. Yarosh grew up in a Russian-speaking family. As almost all pre-teens and young teenagers in the Soviet Union, he was a member of Young Pioneers and later the Countrywide Leninist Communist Youth League organisations, youth-based sub-organisations of the Communist Party.

In the mid-1980s, Yarosh became interested in politics and according to him the Soviet Union "It became clear that the system was false".

Political activities Since October 1988, Yarosh has been active in Ukrainian politics: in February 1989, he became a member of the People’s Movement of Ukraine, coinciding with his service in the Soviet Army. In 1994, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yarosh was one of the founders of the Ukrainian nationalist organisation Tryzub. He later became head of Tryzub in 2005. In October 2010, he tried to create a unified Ukrainian nationalist movement.

Right before the 21 February ouster of Yanukovych, in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Yarosh claims he and the Right Sector leadership was consulted by Yanukovych on the deal Yanukovych had signed with the opposition to end Euromaidan. but Yarosh rejected this position as being beneath him. There were discussions of appointing Yarosh deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine, but these discussions quickly petered out for unknown reasons.

Yarosh was a candidate in the 25 May 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. On election day he actually received 0.7% of the votes. Yarosh did not join a faction in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament). He did join the inter-factional group UKROP.

Military and withdrawal from Right Sector In July 2014, Yarosh announced the creation of a paramilitary formation known as the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK), a volunteer battalion formed by members of the Right Sector. On July 17, the first orders were given and the official statute was issued, and is considered the official date of formation of the Corps.

During the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport, Yarosh was wounded on 21 January 2015 by an exploding Grad rocket in the nearby village of Pisky. He was evacuated out of the conflict zone.

In early April 2015, Ukraine's defence ministry announced that MP Dmytro Yarosh was to become an aide to military chief Viktor Muzhenko and that his Right Sector fighting group would be integrated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Yarosh resigned as Right Sector leader on 11 November 2015.

Governmental Initiative of Yarosh In February 2016 Yarosh started a new organisation called Governmental Initiative of Yarosh (DIYA). According to Yarosh DIYA will be a public movement like People's Movement of Ukraine was in its early days.

Yarosh did not participate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Yarosh himself was placed 3rd on the party list. The party did also not win a single-mandate constituency parliamentary seat.

Adviser to Valerii Zaluzhnyi On November 2, 2021, Yarosh said on social media he had been appointed Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. In response to a (December 2021) request by Ukrayinska Pravda the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine refused to disclose details of its alleged cooperation with Yarosh citing the confidentiality of the information requested.

Awards Order of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi 3rd class (November 21, 2016). Jubilee Medal "25 Years of Independence of Ukraine" (August 19, 2016). Order "People's Hero of Ukraine" (2015)

Personal life Yarosh met his wife Olha, On 11 March 2014, grandson Nazar was born.

Political positions and views Yarosh calls himself a follower of Stepan Bandera. Yarosh proposed to ban the Party of Regions of Ukraine, as well as the Communist Party of Ukraine. "For all the years of Ukraine's independence, Russia has pursued a systematic, targeted policy of subjugation toward Ukraine ... So of course we will prepare for a conflict with them...If they stick their faces here like they did in Georgia in 2008, they'll get it in the teeth." "We're not using oligarchs' money in politics, but when a war is on, we do not object to their funding the army." Regarding the Minsk agreements, he stated in 2019, following Zelensky's victory in the 2019 Ukrainian election, that they should only be considered a means to delay the onset of a new war and give time to prepare the armed forces, arguing that their implementation would mean the death of Ukraine as a state, as well as treason on the part of whoever would do so. Referencing then newly-elected president Zelensky's public support for the implementation of the Minsk Accords, he stated, "Zelenskyy said in his inaugural speech that he was ready to lose ratings, popularity, position.... No, he would lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk—if he betrays Ukraine and those people who died in the Revolution and the War."

Public image Yarosh is a controversial figure. In Russia's state-run media he has been described as a "radical nationalist". Mainstream Western media has generally called him a radical or extreme nationalist. Some mainstream and far-left sources have denounced him as a "fascist".

Reactions in Russia On 12 March 2014, an editor of privately owned Lenta.ru website, Galina Timchenko, was fired by the company's owner Alexander Mamut for publishing a link to an interview with Yarosh he gave two days earlier, after Russian media regulatory agency Roskomnadzor formally warned the Lenta.ru website for publishing this link. In this interview Yarosh said: "Sooner or later, we are doomed to fight a war with [the] Moscow empire".

Criminal charges On 1 March 2014, Right Sector's page on Russian online social networking service VKontakte showed an entry with Dmytro Yarosh's alleged appeal to Doku Umarov, a Chechen militant guerrilla leader associated with Al-Qaeda, for support of Ukraine. On 2 March 2014, Right Sector's spokesman Art Skoropadskyi denied the message was posted and approved by Yarosh. According to the spokesman, this alleged appeal to Umarov appeared on Right Sector's VKontakte webpage after one of its administrator's accounts was hacked. VKontakte blocks the page at a request of an Attorney General of Russia. On 11 March 2014, Russian State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin urged Russian special services to "follow Mossad examples" and assassinate leaders of Right sector Dmytro Yarosh and Oleksandr Muzychko.

On 12 March 2014, an infamous of Moscow has issued an arrest warrant of Yarosh in absentia alleging public calls for terrorism.

In March 2014 Investigative Committee of Russia has launched a criminal case against Yarosh, and some members (including party leader Oleh Tyahnybok) of Svoboda and UNA-UNSO, for "organising an armed gang" that had allegedly fought against Russian 76th Guards Air Assault Division in the First Chechen War and for "public calls for extremism and public calls for terrorism". Yarosh has been placed on an international wanted list by Interpol at the request of the Russian Federation on 25 July 2015. The charge last alleges he "incriminated [himself by making] public appeals to terrorism and extremism." These two actions are a crime according to Russian criminal code (205th and 280th articles, respectively). Yarosh has been placed on an international wanted list by the Russian Federation.

Since 2 January 2016 Yarosh's name can not be found on the international wanted list that is visible on Interpol's website.