Dmytro Korchinsky: Gapon of the Ukrainian Revolution

Dmitry Korchinsky

This man possesses great eloquence and a talent for brainwashing. Most political orators appeal to law and justice, but Dmytro Korchynsky prefers subtle cynicism to populism, captivating his audience with speeches about the aesthetics of war and the harmony of revolution. But everyone who knows him well follows this rule: listen to what Mr. Dmytro calls for—and do the opposite if you don't want to get into serious trouble! After all, he's long been known as Ukraine's leading provocateur.

Army tales

Dmitry Alexandrovich Korchinsky was born on January 22, 1964, in Kyiv. He graduated from Secondary School No. 206 in 1981, after which he enrolled in the Industrial Heat Power Engineering Department of the Kyiv Institute of Food Industry. In those days of shortages, working in the food industry was considered prestigious, but for Korchinsky, this prospect apparently was boring. In any case, his biography states that he voluntarily left the university after his second year in 1984. However, by then he should have already been finishing his third year and preparing for his first student internship. Wasn't his disillusionment with his career choice too late?

His next step was also strange: Korchinsky left Kyiv and headed south, where he found work with the Kherson Archaeological Expedition. And, as he later claimed, not as a simple excavator, but as a laboratory assistant! A man without the relevant education or experience? Whether he was truly fascinated by archaeology or simply "hiding" from some kind of persecution, Korchinsky never admitted.

By the end of 1984, the failed Ukrainian Indiana Jones returned home and found work at a Kyiv building materials plant, where Korchinsky was immediately greeted by the military commissar, who had been waiting for him for a long time. With the spring draft of 1985, he was sent to the Soviet Army: according to his official biography, to the 24th "Iron" Motorized Rifle Division of the Carpathian Military District (Yavoriv). However, in his memoirs, included in his book "War in the Crowd," he wrote that he graduated from a training center specializing in "BMP commander - squad leader" near Riga—that is, in the Baltic Military District. The problem is that in the Soviet Army, soldiers weren't transferred from one district to another for training—each had its own training center. So, which district did Mr. Dmytro serve in?

Demobilized in the spring of 1987, Korchinsky didn't think about work or even the newly fashionable entrepreneurship; he had no plans for his future. He hung out in central Kyiv, where, with the onset of perestroika, interesting people began to come out and mingle: dissidents, informal groups, unrecognized creative individuals. Korchinsky became fascinated with Ukrainian nationalists—at that time still very moderate and intelligent, former members of the "Sixties." However, he considered their moderation a huge drawback.

His interest in nationalism arose during his military service, where, by his own admission, he actively participated in interethnic conflicts known as "community wars"—during which several soldiers ended up in the hospital, and one died of a ruptured spleen. Korchinsky himself participated in these conflicts not so much with his fists as by encouraging his "Slavic" comrades (Ukrainians and Russians) to take action. Although such behavior was immediately noted by the special department at the time, Korchinsky suffered no punishment and, on the contrary, ended his service as a deputy platoon commander.

Provocation-repression-revolution

Korchinsky's new passion prompted him to enroll in the history department of Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv in 1987. But instead of studying, he immediately became fascinated with politics: first, he spent time at meetings of the Ukrainian Cultural Studies Club and the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and then began trying his hand as a propagandist and organizer. However, his ideas were so outrageous and his appeals so radical that they unnerved even the gray-haired "anti-Sovietists," who had given him the appearance of being one.

At the time, veteran Ukrainian dissidents, who were forming the first legal organizations, called people like Korchinsky KGB provocateurs. They were sent, they claimed, with two goals: to provoke activists of the Ukrainian national movement into criminal acts and to discredit its very idea. Rumors of Korchinsky's alleged role as a KGB provocateur, recruited either in the army or during his first year at university, were circulating as early as the late 80s. Later, they even revealed his agent codename, Shnur, and his first assignment was supposedly the graffiti "get out Muscovites" he daubed on the walls of Kyiv's Main Post Office (before the building's collapse in August 1989). Moreover, the choice of location was no accident: Kyiv's national patriots of the time traditionally met at the entrance to the Main Post Office, and this "graffiti" indeed worked against them.

A curious coincidence: two days before the 1989 tragedy that claimed the lives of 15 people, Dmytro Korchinsky was detained by Kyiv police and placed under administrative arrest (15 days) for allegedly participating in an unsanctioned rally. This, one might say, saved him from the risk of being buried under the rubble. Immediately after the disaster, his arrest was commuted to a small fine, and Korchinsky was released.

Korchinsky's response to the accusations of provocation was original. He admitted that he did engage in provocations to some extent, but categorically rejected the accusation of working for the KGB. According to him, provocation is the initial stage of revolution; it initiates government repression, which must be responded to by a "mass uprising." From that moment on, the formula "provocation-repression-revolution" became his political credo. It was quite convenient: he could always explain his provocative calls and actions by citing a desire to help birth a revolution. However, no one ever provided any documentary evidence of Korchinsky's work for the KGB, and later the SBU. Incidentally, 99,9% of informants, provocateurs, and agents of the Soviet and Ukrainian intelligence services lack such evidence: intelligence archives are securely stored, and their declassification (as was the case in the former GDR and Poland) was not even planned in Ukraine.

Mr. Guide

In the spring of 1988, Korchinsky dropped out of Kyiv University and devoted himself entirely to "social and political activities." How an unemployed young man, who had dropped out of university twice and had no profession, made a living in Soviet times was a complete mystery. But the sources of his livelihood remained unknown throughout his career to this day. Korchinsky wasn't involved in business, he didn't rely on grants, and yet he never needed money. When asked where he got his money, Korchinsky joked that he got it through "robbery and alms."

Having despaired of persuading veterans of the dissident movement to take "active action," Korchinsky decided to turn his attention to the youth, who dazzled by his fiery speeches. In March 1988, he helped found the student union "Gromada," with which he participated in all sorts of protests: without setting specific goals, the students simply became engrossed in the process. Even then, it was noted that Korchinsky's organizations acted as a magnet, attracting and gathering potential rebels and extremists of a certain type—intelligent, romantic, with unconventional thinking, and often eccentric. For the KGB, and later the SBU, this was an excellent way to identify such people for subsequent neutralization.

D. Korchinsky and O. Vitovich

If an organization accumulated a majority of members who, in Korchynsky's opinion, were "moderate," he would become bored with it and break with it, joining a new one. In 1989, he helped found the Union of Independent Ukrainian Youth (SNUM), which he split in 1990 with his calls for radical action. On July 1, 1990, Dmytro Korchynsky and Oleh Vitovych founded the Ukrainian Nationalist Union (UNS), which they immediately decided to make a semi-closed organization: membership was possible only with the personal consent of the "leaders." For several years, the UNS served as Korchynsky's personal pocket party, adopting the title "Mr. Providnik," but due to its small membership (a few hundred members), it played no role in Ukrainian politics. To attract more supporters, the Ukrainian Inter-Party Assembly (UIA) was founded in 1990, later renamed the "National Assembly" (UNA). To give it greater weight among veterans of the national movement, Korchinsky invited the respected dissident Anatoliy Lupinos as a co-founder. In March 1991, Yuriy Shukhevych (Roman Shukhevych's son) became the formal leader of the UNA, although due to his disability, he merely played the role of ushers.

The specifics of Korchinsky's "political struggle" raised questions from the very beginning. On November 7, 1990, Kyiv was in turmoil: as a result of the so-called "Revolution on Granite," a military parade was canceled to avoid clashes and casualties, but a celebratory communist demonstration on Khreshchatyk went ahead. Korchinsky then persuaded a group of his comrades to attack the column to "teach the communists a lesson," but they abandoned the plan upon seeing the march guarded by a large police force. After a while, Korchinsky's group found themselves in an underground passageway, where MP Stepan Khmara clashed with police Colonel Grigoriev. "I and a few of my lads rushed into the fray," he later admitted, admitting he was the one who first provoked the clash. The result: Stepan Khmara spent several months behind bars, while Korchinsky got away with it.

More drive

In 1991, the talk of the town was one thing: the catastrophic shortages and the "Pavlovian reform." This was destroying the USSR more effectively than any ideology, but Korchinsky was uninterested in economics; he called for rebellion and upheaval. On June 29, he and his comrades entertained themselves with Ukraine's first torchlight procession, held in Lviv (calling it "Imperialist Day"). Despite the fact that similar events had once been held in the USSR, the media immediately interpreted it as a "neo-fascist march," provoking a corresponding reaction from many ordinary people and laying the foundation for the division of Ukraine. Korchinsky wasn't the least bit upset; on the contrary, it seemed exactly as he had intended.

On August 19, when the State Emergency Committee (GKChP) had erupted in Moscow and the Kyiv republican authorities were struggling to maintain a wait-and-see neutrality, Korchinsky, Vitrovich, and Lupinos announced the creation of the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNSO) as the paramilitary wing of the UNA. This was the first political movement in Ukraine to acquire its own "army" (later, the Social-Nationalist Party began to copy the UNA-UNSO). However, the minor uproar in government circles over the "Bandera army in Kyiv" was in vain: the UNA-UNSO had no intention of opposing the government. Its first "exploits" in the fall of 1991 were attacks on distributors of pro-Russian newspapers, a raid on a pro-Russian movement meeting in the Polytechnical Institute's assembly hall, and an attack on demonstrators on November 7. These actions gave UNA-UNSO prominence and attracted young people, but many later left the organization, misunderstanding its strategic goals. Korchinsky promised them a swift revolution and elite status in the new society—and then led them in attacks on pro-Russian Cossacks, communist pensioners, and "Moscow priests."

In 1992, with Korchinsky's participation, under the formal auspices of Metropolitan Filaret (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate), the organization "Order of St. Hilarion" was founded. The shadow side of this organization's activities was the recruitment and deployment of mercenaries (including members of the UNA-UNSO) to fight in local conflicts: in 1992 in Karabakh (on the side of Azerbaijan), Yugoslavia (on the side of the Serbs), and Georgia (on the side of the Abkhaz separatists); in 1993 in Georgia (on the side of the Georgian authorities); and even in Zaire (on the side of the rebels). In 1994, mercenaries returning from Azerbaijan never received the promised "bonuses," which were supposed to be delivered through a certain priest named Druzenko and SBU officer Oleh Komar. Soon, Azerbaijani intelligence officials arrived in Kyiv and discovered the theft of $2,7 million earmarked for payments. Druzenko quickly surrendered to Ukrainian law enforcement, and the scandal was hushed up. However, the Verkhovna Rada subsequently passed a law criminalizing mercenary activity.

In the summer of 1992, Korchinsky decided to take his UNA-UNSO on a fact-finding "safari" and negotiated the UNA-UNSO's participation in the Transnistria conflict (on the side of the PMR). They occupied positions alongside volunteers from Russia, including Igor Strelkov, the future "DPR Minister of Defense." Since major combat had ceased by then, and both sides had virtually no artillery, the UNA-UNSO's presence on the "Tiraspol Front" was completely safe—their losses amounted to only two lightly wounded.

UNA-UNSO in the PMR, 1992

However, this "campaign" had a profound political impact: the Ukrainian party Rukh and its leader, Vyacheslav Chornovil, accused UNA-UNSO of supporting pro-Russian separatism in Moldova and provoking a confrontation between Chisinau and Kyiv. Chornovil even insisted on disbanding UNA-UNSO and detaining its leaders. However, when the KamAZ trucks carrying UNA-UNSO members and Korchinsky returning from the war crossed the Ukrainian border, they were merely disarmed and offered a train ride home.

In 1993, Korchinsky, with the help of Lupinos, who was personally acquainted with Jaba Ioseliani (a Georgian crime boss), formed the "Argo Expeditionary Force" from UNA-UNSO members. It was sent to Georgia to fight on the side of President Shevardnadze under the slogan of "defending the fraternal Georgian people from Russian aggression." Korchinsky also explained this by saying that Ukrainians would rather fight against Russia in Abkhazia than in Crimea. He even stated this in an interview on Russian television, which immediately raised the issue of "aggressive Ukrainian nationalism."

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The fact that some UNS men had been recruited as mercenaries for Abkhazia itself a year earlier was kept quiet. Similarly, nothing was said about the Ukrainians recruited to fight on Tbilisi's side by agents of Filaret's "Order of Saints Hilarion." The rationale behind the "Argo" scheme wasn't entirely clear: formally, Korchinsky spoke of the UNS men gaining combat experience and coming to fight for a cause, but behind the scenes, official speeches whispered that Ioseliani had generously paid Korchinsky and Lupinos for each "Argonaut." And this was supposedly a separate project from the "Order of Saints Hilarion" for supplying mercenaries to the Caucasus.

In 1994, UNA-UNSO embarked on its final military campaign: this time to Chechnya, and without much fanfare (the mercenary law had been enacted), virtually incognito. Korchinsky wisely stayed away, only making one trip to Grozny as part of a group "providing assistance to ethnic Ukrainians" (they were evacuating captured Russian soldiers of Ukrainian descent). Direct contact with the Chechen side was maintained by "Uncle Tolya" Lupinos, who had become close to Shamil Basayev back in 1992 during the Abkhaz War (the Chechens fought for the Abkhazians). General Skipalsky, the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense's GRU, was named as the overseer of this process. Nevertheless, the recruitment and formation of UNA-UNSO units did not occur without Korchinsky's knowledge and participation. The Chechen campaign was unsuccessful for UNA-UNSO: many of its participants died, and others (like Sashko Muzychko – Sashko Bely) returned with a broken psyche.

Korchinsky's last high-profile action in the 90s was the brawl at the funeral of Patriarch Vladimir on July 18, 1995. It was the UNS members who organized the funeral procession and then clashed with the Berkut officers who blocked their way. This incident caused such a stir in society and within the government that it became the UNA-UNSO's final chord: a full-scale persecution of the organization began, its members were summoned for questioning and threatened with criminal charges. Korchinsky, as always, escaped with only a rude awakening.

Igor Mosiychuk (in the middle – young and thin) during clashes at the funeral of Patriarch Vladimir

Read more about it in the article Igor Mosiychuk: How one of Ukraine's leading "radicals" got his start

Brother Dmytro

In 1996, the UNA-UNSO "Lviv faction" (Andriy Shkil, Yuriy Shukhevych) declared a course toward a democratic struggle for power and opposed the organization's participation in provocations within Ukraine and local wars abroad. Korchynsky declared that he would have no interest in such a party, and a year later, he effectively left it. Thus, he dropped out of Ukrainian political life for almost five years: no one knew where he had gone or what he was doing.

In 2002, Korchinsky appeared on the 1+1 TV channel, as co-host of the show "Podviyniy Dokaz" (The Subversive Proof), and then as the host of the political program "Prote" (the Ukrainian equivalent of "Odnako" with Mikhail Leontiev). He literally shocked everyone with his "anti-opposition" rhetoric, elegantly delivered with his characteristic cynicism and wit. It was for this that Korchinsky was labeled a traitor to the "national revolution" by Ukrainian national patriots and the anti-Kuchma opposition, a label that still hangs over him. And it is truly astonishing: a man who had been provoking unrest and revolution for 10 years suddenly began giving televised sermons against the growing "Ukraine without Kuchma" movement, defending the regime. The reason for this was unknown, but it was said that Korchinsky was trying to improve his financial situation, and he owed his employment to Viktor Medvedchuk (Read more about it in the article Viktor Medvedchuk: Putin's crony guarding Russia's interests in Ukraine).

At the same time, Korchinsky founded his "Brotherhood" movement in 1999 and registered it as a party in 2004—essentially his small fan club. His political orientation shifted: he abandoned Ukrainian nationalism, embraced "Christian socialism" and anarchism, and began preaching Slavophilism and "Eurasianism," becoming co-chair of the Council of the International Eurasian Movement, led by Russian philosopher and politician Alexander Dugin (who was sanctioned by the US in 2015 for propagandizing Russian aggression against Ukraine).

This strange alliance culminated in an even stranger connection between Korchinsky and "Putin's right ear," Vladislav Surkov. In July 2005, Korchinsky visited a camp of the pro-Kremlin youth movement "Nashi" in Selegir, where he lectured young United Russia members on how to properly... fight revolutions and offered some helpful advice on how to combat "street unrest." The invitation was officially extended to Korchinsky by the leader of "Nashi," Vasily Yakimenko (now head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs), but it came from Vladislav Surkov himself. Russian journalists and State Duma deputies then raised a great deal of concern about the participation of "Korchinsky, the murderer of Russian soldiers," at a gathering of Russian patriotic youth, but they were unable to trace Korchinsky's connection to Surkov.

The scandal again forced Korchinsky out of big politics, although in 2007 he had demonstratively left the Eurasian Movement. Korchinsky focused on the activities of his "Brotherhood," whose members, inspired by the sermons of "Brother Dmytro," occasionally staged eccentric or even hooligan-like behavior. But under any government, Korchinsky always emerged unscathed, and now he tried to pull his "little brothers" out of trouble. Thus, in 2007, a clash broke out at the "Brotherhood" premises with members of nationalist organizations who had come to disrupt Korchinsky's "sermon." The result: several attackers were stabbed, and the prosecutor's office took up the case, but no one from the "Brotherhood" was held accountable—they were "covered up" by then-mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.Read more about it in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: How "Lenya Kosmos" robbed Kyiv and moved to Georgia). He also facilitated the release from pretrial detention of the "brothers" arrested under Omelchenko for hooliganism in the mayor's office.

In 2009, the Brotherhood was noted for its active participation in the events in Odessa. Its members joined Odessa protests, engaged in hooliganism, and provoked the intervention of the Berkut special police force. As a result, the entire opposition campaign against the city's then-mayor was disrupted. Eduard GurvitsThis is unsurprising, given that Gurvits's team and the "Brotherhood" had enjoyed a very close friendship since 1998. Specifically, members of the Odessa branch of the "Brotherhood" included Oles Yanchuk, head of the consumer protection department; Vakhtang Ubiriya, vice-mayor; Oleksiy Arestovich, deputy chairman of the Primorsky district administration; and the editorial staff of "Svobodnaya Odesa." And when Korchinsky went to Iraq in 2004, Gurvits and Yanchuk joined him.

The smoke of Euromaidan

Korchinsky and the "Brotherhood" made their next high-profile appearance on December 1, 2013, at the Euromaidan in Kyiv, acting as a collective Gapon, inciting the crowd to storm the Presidential Administration. A bulldozer was brought up, the "brothers" hid their faces with masks, and then the show began. This was precisely the case, as the bulldozer operator acted very carefully, trying not to damage the police cordon under any circumstances, and merely egged on the screaming crowd. This incident, coupled with the simultaneous actions of the Right Sector (seizing the Kyiv City State Administration building) and Svoboda (seizing the Trade Union Building), led to the transformation of the Euromaidan from a peaceful democratic protest into a mutual massacre and freed the authorities to resort to more forceful measures.

An interesting fact: although no one provided direct, compelling evidence of the Brotherhood's involvement in these unrest, both law enforcement agencies and Euromaidan leaders simultaneously placed the blame on it. Such was the provocative reputation Korchinsky and his associates had developed over many years! Korchinsky himself prudently fled before the Euromaidan's finale: on February 5, 2014, at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, he was arrested in Israel. What he was doing there is anyone's guess, but he went there with the help of friends from Gurvits's team. Korchinsky also had influential friends in the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs: the next day, a notice arrived from Kyiv lifting his international arrest warrant, and the Brotherhood leader was immediately released.

Dmitry Korchinsky

This close connection between the Brotherhood and Odessa's "best people" has given rise to unofficial suspicions of its involvement in the events of May 2, 2014. It should be noted that the identities of the mysterious armed "titushki" who attacked the pro-Ukrainian radical march and provoked the massacre remain unknown.

With the outbreak of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), Korchinsky immediately seized the opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of Ukrainian society. A "Jesus Christ Company" was formed from Brotherhood activists, who trained with the Azov Battalion and were later absorbed into the ill-fated Shakhtarsk Battalion—disgraced by its disbandment for looting and other crimes against civilians, becoming known as the Tornado Battalion. Afterward, the "Brotherhood" company was spun off into a separate battalion, dubbed "Saint Mary," and incorporated into the National Police. But in May 2016, Korchinsky declared that his men were bored serving as regular police officers, and therefore their battalion was "disbanding itself."

Sergey Varis, for SKELET-info

PS: By the way, have you noticed how similar the fate of Korchinsky and the Brotherhood is to the fate of Yarosh and the Right Sector? ;)

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