Ukrainian media are calling the clashes in Mukachevo between Transcarpathian police and the Right Sector, involving machine guns and grenade launchers, the "opening of the Western Front." The conflict stemmed from smuggling, a key problem in Transcarpathia, which borders four European countries.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko took advantage of the incident to appoint General Gennady Moskal as the new head of Transcarpathia. (more about it in the article Gennady Moskal: the many-faced foul-mouthed general), and also to replace the head of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs, who, according to locals, has long been protecting smugglers. Meduza special correspondent Ilya Azar traveled to Transcarpathia to find out who provoked the conflict in Mukachevo, whether Moskal can defeat smuggling, and whether there is potential for separatism in the region.
"I will govern Zakarpattia. I'm doing my job and I'll do it in such a way that no clan will rule here. And what happened before that doesn't concern me. We've drawn a line," retired police lieutenant general Gennady Moskal told me on July 16, his first day as governor of Zakarpattia Oblast. Moskal is known for his temper and outspokenness.
The day before, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko personally introduced him to Transcarpathian officials in the administration building. He recounted Moskal's accomplishments as governor of the Luhansk region, a post he held until mid-July 2015: "Combat General Moskal demonstrated that he doesn't hide from bullets, that he can stop smuggling, and maintain order in the region. Now I'm giving you my most precious asset—one of the best regional leaders." The decision to transfer Moskal from the "eastern front" to the "western," he said, was made immediately after the armed clash between the Right Sector and regional police in Mukachevo.
Gennady Moskal
On July 11, armed Right Sector activists arrived in four jeeps at the Antares sports complex, which belongs to Verkhovna Rada deputy Mykhailo Lanyo (formerly a member of the Party of Regions faction and now a member of the People's Will parliamentary group). Gunfire erupted, and unexpectedly, police arrived on the scene almost immediately. After negotiations to disarm Right Sector failed, Dmytro Yarosh's associates attempted to leave Mukachevo. On their way out of the city, the militants encountered a police checkpoint. Using a Utes heavy machine gun mounted on one of the jeeps and grenade launchers, the Right Sector activists opened fire on three police vehicles, wounding several officers, and then fled into the woods.
The National Guard and military equipment were deployed to the city, and security forces declared an anti-terrorist operation and trapped Right Sector fighters in the forest. Despite this, the city of 96 resumed normal life the following day.
No additional security has even been posted around the city administration building: anyone can enter Mukachevo Mayor Zoltan Lengyel's office from the street. Lengyel tells me that five civilians (one of whom later died) and six law enforcement officers were taken to the hospital as a result of the shootout in Mukachevo. According to the mayor, the Right Sector has one dead and two seriously wounded. "If Right Sector decided to fight smuggling, then why are they in Mukachevo? The smuggling is on the border," Lengyel complains, while simultaneously boasting about the 180% city budget surplus in the first half of the year and the extremely low unemployment rate, which is less than 1%.
Enemies of Ukraine
"An ordinary clash has been blown out of proportion to a global event," laments Stepan Sikora, a local political strategist and patriarch, in a conversation with me. It's difficult to gauge how commonplace clashes involving grenade launchers and machine guns are in Mukachevo, but Right Sector's involvement inevitably attracted increased attention in both Ukraine and Russia.
President Poroshenko, who arrived in the region, was furious: "Cars with grenade launchers and machine guns are driving through Transcarpathia, firing single shots from sniper rifles. They want to show that it's not the constitutionally elected government and the security forces that will rule Ukraine, [but] they. This is already reminiscent of the LPR or DPR, where if you have a machine gun, you're the boss, and if you don't, you're a slave. Neither I nor the Ukrainian people will allow such a country to be built! Those who plunder Transcarpathia with weapons in hand are enemies of Ukraine." However, the president never mentioned either the Right Sector or MP Lanyo in his speech.
"Why is some shabby Right Sector staking claim to a parliament member [Lanjo], a fairly influential figure in the region?" wonders political strategist Sikora. However, Oleh Dyba, editor-in-chief of the Uzhgorod website Zakarpattya.net, has a slightly different opinion on Lanjo: "He's a common bandit nicknamed Bluk, whom the Party of Regions elected to parliament because he's easy to control, thanks to his criminal past. He has his own armed army of bandits, who were trying to resolve some issues with the Right Sector, but then everything got out of control."
At the scene
Lanyo's only legal business in Mukachevo is the Antares sports complex, although according to his 2014 income declaration, the deputy owns six plots of land and a house, as well as three Mercedes-Benz cars and a BMW. In the 1990s, according to the Kyiv magazine Novoye Vremya, Lanyo was a close associate of Transcarpathian businessman Mykhailo Tokar, nicknamed Gesha, who was shot in 1998. The Chestno movement claims that Lanyo has a criminal record and is a suspect in the murder.
After the shootout near Antares (in which, according to Sikora, Lanyo's men did not use weapons), the deputy claimed that Right Sector fighters had approached him for help in rehabilitating fighters returning from the ATO zone. This version, Mayor Lengyel admits, doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and Lanyo himself allegedly attempted to leave the country, but was denied entry by border guards.
My interlocutors are mostly skeptical about the Right Sector's influence in Transcarpathia. According to Mayor Lengyel, the Right Sector was previously virtually invisible in Mukachevo, and militants from Uzhhorod and other Transcarpathian cities participated in the shootout.
"It's not normal for people to be driving around the city with grenade launchers, but if we claim without evidence that Right Sector was involved in smuggling, they'll come tomorrow and twist our heads," the mayor cautions.
According to journalist Dyba, the Right Sector in Uzhhorod was formed out of the patriotic movement "Carpathian Sich," whose activists went to Kyiv's Maidan and then seized the Transcarpathian Regional Administration building in Uzhhorod. "Our Right Sector are normal patriots, quite radical, but not fascist," Dyba defends them. The problem, the journalist explains, is that two well-known smugglers in the city, Volodymyr Glasner and Roman Stoyko, soon took over the leadership of the Transcarpathian branch of the Right Sector.
According to him, Stoyko was a "simple, primitive smuggler": just two years ago, he was a suspect in a case involving smuggling cigarettes across the Slovakian border using a hang glider. After infiltrating the Right Sector, Stoyko, according to the editor-in-chief of Zakarpattia.net, began "simulating a fight against smuggling." "If they're going to close the border supposedly to fight smugglers, that means they've cut off someone's air supply and then, for some money, opened it back up," the journalist asserts.
Oleksandr Sachko, the leader of the Transcarpathian Right Sector, has a different view of the role of his protégés in the ongoing events. He is holding an impromptu press conference right at the Narodnaya gas station, near which a battle between police and Right Sector activists erupted on July 11 (he remained in Uzhhorod that day). A checkpoint consisting of several police cars and one army armored personnel carrier remains stationed near the gas station.
Sachko was wounded in the ATO and leans on a crutch. Several of his comrades in "Freedom or Death" T-shirts stand by him. The regional Right Sector commander is extremely laconic, forcing him to ask many clarifying questions. "We had a conflict with Lanyo after we started interfering with his smuggling activities. We posted patrols both at the checkpoint and in the 'zelyonka' [forest on the border]. We observed instances of corruption and were planning to hand them over to the authorities," Sachko explains. He declines to reveal what exactly Right Sector uncovered.
Yuriy, an employee of a radio station in Uzhhorod, saw representatives of the Right Sector at the border with Slovakia in the summer: "They were there, yes, but why stop in front of them? Who are they, really, and who authorized them? After the Maidan, for example, Svoboda members came to our radio station, brought a flash drive with [nationalist] music, and demanded that we play at least three songs an hour, threatening to shut down the station."
Mikhail Lanyo
Stoyko himself published a video recorded in the forest, in which he claims that before the shootout he was in Lanyo’s office at Antares, where Lanyo told him that “the smuggling business in Transcarpathia is all his, and he and [former head of the Transcarpathian police, Sergei] Sharanich will not let anyone in here.”
According to Sachko, Right Sector brought weapons to the meeting (both officially registered ones and a machine gun and grenade launchers brought from the eastern front) because they "had information about Mr. Lanyo and his reputation over the past many, many years." Right Sector didn't contact the police, firstly because "the police are completely corrupt and discredited," and secondly, they knew they would be there anyway.
Police and smuggling
"I have to disappoint you, Gennady Gennadyevich," Poroshenko said at the presentation of the new regional governor, placing his hand on Moskal's. "Don't think it will be any easier for you here than in Luhansk." The usually calm Poroshenko struggled to contain his anger in Uzhhorod and frequently raised his voice.
"There will be no anarchy or atamans in Ukraine. Medieval clannishness and the fact that smugglers and law enforcement have merged, like in the 1990s, are damaging the country's image. Everyone here knows everything, but they keep their eyes down, as if that's the way it should be. They told me I shouldn't come here, that they should come to some sort of agreement themselves. But that won't happen!" the Ukrainian president fumed.
Few doubt that the police knew about the showdown in advance, as they were protecting smuggling in Transcarpathia. "Smuggling can't exist without the participation of the police, the SBU, the prosecutor's office, the border service, and customs. This just doesn't happen. Everyone benefits," Moskal tells me. The new head of the region should know better, since from 1995 to 1997, it was Moskal who headed the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Transcarpathia.
"In Mukachevo, we have no more than ten traffic cops, and when two accidents happen at once, someone has to wait because there aren't enough police to handle them all. But here, they immediately set up a checkpoint, blocked everything off, and there were a lot of police on the scene, and not just from Mukachevo," Dmytro Tuzhynsky, editor-in-chief of the city portal Mukachevo.net, tells me. Later, during the work of the temporary investigative commission of the Rada in Mukachevo, it was discovered that the "showdown" between Lanyo and the Right Sector was organized by an agent of the Transcarpathian SBU.
According to political strategist Sikora, Transcarpathian police chief Serhiy Sharanich (who was dismissed four days after the shootout near Antares) decided to eliminate two rivals—Right Sector and Lanyo—in one fell swoop. What exactly Sharanich planned is unclear: Poroshenko and Moskal have so far avoided answering whether a criminal case would be opened against him (moreover, on July 18, it was revealed that Sharanich had been promoted to Kyiv). Journalist Dyba, who assures me that he has been persistently fighting Sharanich for a long time, calls him "a cop in the worst sense of the word." "Under him, the police oversaw drug trafficking, prostitution, gambling, and smuggling. That's a fact," the journalist says.
Transcarpathia borders four European countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania), so many, if not everyone, is involved in smuggling here. Almost everyone has relatives, friends, or at least acquaintances involved in the illegal business. This is unsurprising, as salaries in Transcarpathia are low (the average is about 3200 hryvnias, or about $150), and cigarettes in Ukraine, for example, are several times cheaper than in Europe (a pack of Kent cigarettes costs 20 hryvnias, less than $1). Calls to combat smuggling have little inspiring effect on ordinary people in Mukachevo.
"If a guy in his car transports a few cartons of cigarettes over the permitted limit, it's not considered a crime here," says political strategist Sikora. However, it's precisely these kinds of young men who are mostly caught in Transcarpathia, while the big-time smugglers remain free. "A year and a half ago, Slovak border guards discovered a tunnel dug under a swamp with geodetic expertise, one and a half meters in diameter, and equipped with an electric trolley. Did ordinary smugglers dig this? And to get trucks through, approval is needed at a high level. So far, there's only the semblance of a fight," says the political strategist.
Mukachevo Mayor Lengyel shrugs: "I'd be surprised if there wasn't smuggling in a weakened state, in a region with four borders. Just three days ago, 600 cartons of cigarettes were seized at the Romanian border." He also recalls the tunnel: "What, didn't law enforcement know about it? But there's so much money involved that I deduce, by deduction, that everything was very expensive."
According to Verkhovna Rada member Mustafa Nayem, a truck loaded with cigarettes leaving Ukraine and reaching Italy nets 470 euros, with three to five trucks leaving the "zelenka" (forest on the border) per week. According to some reports, the monthly income from smuggling in Zakarpattia exceeds the region's annual budget. Ukrainian media report that in the first five months of 2015, law enforcement agencies seized four million packs of counterfeit cigarettes worth eight million euros.
A passenger car carrying counterfeit cigarettes was detained at the Tisza checkpoint on the border with Hungary. February 2013
Where there's big money, there's crime, so it's hard to find people willing to talk openly about smuggling in Transcarpathia, and local journalists don't do the necessary investigations.
"Firstly, it's dangerous—not long before the Maidan, security forces and businessmen's cars were constantly burning here. Secondly, it's impossible to find anyone who can actually tell you about smuggling, even though there are plenty of suspicions: there are plenty of beautiful dachas and cars around, including those of law enforcement officers. You can't help but think they won't be able to earn money from them honestly," says Tuzhynsky, editor-in-chief of Mukachevo.net.
At the same time, both political strategist Sikora and the new regional governor, Moskal, assure me that quickly tackling the corruption problem isn't difficult. "We need to completely replace the customs and police every two to three months—they won't have time to establish connections," suggests Sikora. Meanwhile, the new regional governor claims that the region currently has timber and cigarette mafias, which he will combat with a "complete personnel overhaul."
"If law enforcement and the state administration take a clear stance, the smuggling will simply disappear. To prevent goods from entering, we simply need to block [the channels at customs]. You can't carry much through the forest in sacks. The organizers sit in their offices, in parliamentary seats, but we need to understand that drones belong in the ATO zone, not transporting cigarettes," a cheerful and confident Moskal tells me.
The owners of the region
The deeper you delve into the internal affairs of Transcarpathia, the more you realize that everyone here is related to one another, whether they're godparents, former comrades, or subordinates, all connected, and that enemies aren't so irreconcilable, because there's enough "green space" along the long border for everyone. "I have no godparents, no brothers, no matchmakers here. No one. I have no ties to anyone. I can clearly align everyone within the framework of current legislation. And the new leaders of the SBU and the police were specifically chosen so that they wouldn't have any connections here, so that they wouldn't be from Transcarpathia, or connected to politicians, clans, or criminal groups," explains Moskal.
Locals agree that Moskal is first and foremost Poroshenko's man, but he's no stranger to Transcarpathia either. Born in the Chernivtsi region, Moskal rose to prominence thanks to his work in Crimea (where he headed the police) and in the Verkhovna Rada. In the 1990s, he also headed law enforcement agencies in Transcarpathia, and from June 2001 to September 2002, he served as governor of the Transcarpathian region.
"I need to get my bearings. I left here 13 years ago, and in that time, more water has drained from the Tisza (a river on the border with Hungary – Meduza) than the entire Black Sea. I need to quickly get up to speed and move on," Moskal says.
Journalist Dyba recalls Moskal's tenure with great skepticism. "Under Moskal, they seemed to have restored order in the police, but it was illusory. At least the police drove around in smuggled jeeps confiscated from bandits," the journalist says. He also claims that Moskal didn't combat smuggling during his tenure. "Perhaps a different Moskal came to power, but back then, as a populist, he fought against gasoline prices at gas stations, and then he allowed Russian companies like Lukoil into the region, charging $30 for every fill-up," Dyba asserts.
Moskal himself says that during his tenure, "seven or eight trucks carrying cigarettes were caught in a single day, and smuggled vodka flows were shut down." "We interrupted transit, found out that there was no contract, no company, no agreement on foreign economic activity. This needs to be shut down, as it compromises the state," Moskal says.
However, according to political strategist Sikora, the governor can do little in the region. Firstly, Moskal is unlikely to be allowed to abuse his authority the way the new head of the Odesa region, Mikheil Saakashvili, has. Secondly, with the decentralization law passed by the Rada on July 17, the institution of heads of state administrations will be completely abolished, and the powers of the prefects replacing them will be significantly curtailed.
The third and perhaps most important reason for Moskal's potential failure is the clan of Verkhovna Rada deputy Viktor Baloha (two more of Baloha's brothers, Petro and Ivan, are also members of the Ukrainian parliament; Baloha's wife and son, Oksana and Oleksiy, are members of the regional council). It is he, and not some Lanyo, who is considered the true master of Transcarpathia. In 2001, Moskal was appointed head of Transcarpathia to replace the dismissed Baloha.
When I visited Mukachevo Mayor Lengyel on July 14, a smiling Baloha was just emerging from his office. But after Moskal's appointment became known, he seemed to vanish into thin air: Baloha didn't show up for the introduction of the new regional governor and declined scheduled interviews with journalists.
Political strategist Sikora denies Baloha's involvement in the shootout between Right Sector and the police: "An hour before, I was sitting with Baloha. We were discussing how they had improved relations with Lanyo and the upcoming local elections in October. Baloha's [instigation of the situation] is stupid. He already effectively controls the entire region; what's the point in him creating a scandal?"
The extent of Baloha's influence is also demonstrated by the fact that everyone who agreed to discuss smuggling and internal affairs in the region turned out to be connected to Baloha. Sikora, for example, headed Baloha's campaign headquarters during the 2002 parliamentary elections and calls himself his "political father." Journalist Dyba, who also doesn't believe Baloha has any connection to the events of July 11 or smuggling in general, admitted during the conversation that he served as Baloha's press secretary when he was governor of the region, and that the parliament member later became the godfather of the journalist's adopted children.
Moskal is extremely cautious when speaking about Baloha. "I'm not an expert on clans. Baloha works full-time in the Verkhovna Rada. I don't think the deputies should interfere with my work—it's better if they help me," he says.
However, as early as July 14, Gennady Moskal's press secretary, Yaroslav Galas, confidently claimed that the shooting in Mukachevo was a conflict over smuggling between Baloga and Lanyo. "I don't know the details of their agreement, but I heard that one allegedly smuggles cigarettes through the checkpoint, and the other through the 'Zelyonka.' They often quarreled, then made up. The Right Sector's visit was likely intended to intimidate, to demonstrate force, but it all ended in a brawl," Galas stated.
Moskal's aide adds that Baloha has long used the Transcarpathian Right Sector to his advantage—for example, during the seizure of the dacha of Viktor Medvedchuk, the former head of the administration of Ukraine's second president, Leonid Kuchma. However, Sachko of the Right Sector denies that the Transcarpathian branch is financed by Baloha, although he admits that he has known the deputy for over ten years.
Moskal roughly echoes his assistant's version, though he doesn't mention Baloha's name. "Our problem isn't the checkpoint, but the 'green zone,' which was divided between criminal groups. That's what started it," Moskal says.
Regardless, Sikora asserts that Baloha's position in the region is unshakable. "Baloga recently conducted a sociological survey, and his United Center party is polling between 28 and 30%, while Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk's parties are not even reaching 5%. Baloha could secure an absolute majority in all cities in the October elections," the political strategist is confident.
Victor Baloha
Both Sikora and Dyba assure me that Baloha's involvement in smuggling simply doesn't make sense, given that he has numerous legitimate businesses—a brick factory, a meat processing plant, stores, restaurants, and so on. "If Baloha is involved in smuggling, then let them prove the facts. [Former Transcarpathian police chief] Sharanich could have dug something up on him; that was his assignment," Dyba says, forgetting that he had just accused Lanyo, Sharanich, and Moskal of various corruptions without concrete evidence.
However, the temporary investigative commission has already received information that Baloga's companies are also involved in smuggling.
Sikora says that Baloha has no "competitors in Transcarpathia, either in brains or in business," and he even approves of Baloha's clannishness, explaining that "usually oligarchs have rich kids who only smash cars."
It's unclear how seriously Poroshenko (and his protégé Moskal) intend to combat Baloha's influence in the region. It was Baloha's men who ran Poroshenko's campaign in Transcarpathia last year. "As a result, Poroshenko received Transcarpathian votes from Baloha, and Baloha received an entire region from the president," Ukrainian media reported. "Poroshenko won't let Baloha down," Sikora confidently asserts.
Medvedchuk's shadow
Baloha's supporters, in turn, accuse Viktor Medvedchuk of attempting to destabilize Transcarpathia. He is currently perhaps the most convenient target in Ukraine (Berezovsky was perhaps the same for the Russian authorities), because he is not only the former head of President Kuchma's administration but also allegedly Putin's godfather. Sikora recalls that it was Medvedchuk who replaced Baloha with Moskal in 2001 and then gave the regional authorities the specific task of preventing the "master of Transcarpathia" from entering the Rada, yet he still garnered 75% of the vote. Even Right Sector member Stoyko reports from the forest that Medvedchuk is behind MP Lanyo and policeman Sharanich.
Journalist Dyba maintains the same line: before the Orange Revolution, Medvedchuk, with Sharanich's help, helped rig the Mukachevo mayoral election by removing the Sokol special forces from guarding the town hall, where the completed ballots were stored. Dyba claims that Sharanich was supervised by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Sergei Chebotar — a Medvedchuk man who worked as a department head in Kuchma's administration. "This is Medvedchuk's vertical power structure in the region, which ultimately reaches back to Moscow and Putin," Dyba asserts.
In his opinion, Medvedchuk needed a "mess" in Transcarpathia so that Russia could see images of destabilization in western Ukraine, and also to draw Right Sector away from the front. "The authorities are also interested in this; they don't want Baloha to be [excessively] strengthened, and they're tired of Right Sector's independence," Dyba explains.
Dyba and Sikora smoothly transition from criticizing Medvedchuk to criticizing Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Interior Minister Arseniy Avakov (but not Poroshenko). "The biggest evil in Ukraine right now is Yatsenyuk and Avakov, who used a quota to appoint their governor and police officer (referring to the previous regional governor, Vasyl Hubal – Meduza's note)," says journalist Dyba.
Nevertheless, most of those interviewed are happy that the region has "burst open." "This situation is carte blanche for the president to slam the table," says the mayor of Mukachevo. "This is an opportunity for Zakarpattia, but I'm skeptical about our future, because the same SBU chief, Oleh Voevodin, served as deputy head of the SBU during the Maidan and signed orders to wiretap activists," Dyba concludes sadly.
So far, only one real change has been announced in Transcarpathia: Deputy Nayem will be tasked with creating a new patrol police force.
Will there be a "Western Front"?
Whether or not smuggling in Transcarpathia can be combated, a "second front" in the region is unlikely to open. However, after the shootout in Mukachevo, many in the country have accused Right Sector, if not of receiving money and direct instructions from the Kremlin, then at least of unknowingly acting in Russia's interests. Right Sector's Sachko, however, vehemently rejects such accusations. "For 24 years, we were told, 'Just don't let there be a war,' and as a result, we have a war. Now we're being told not to destabilize the situation, because it will only get worse. But Ukraine is on the brink of default, the economy is stagnating, and society is barely surviving. How much worse could it get?" he says. Sachko believes that it's not his organization that is dividing the country, but rather that the new government is gradually disconnecting from society and the people.
Russian media have repeatedly attempted to prove that pro-Russian sentiment exists in Transcarpathia since the Maidan. There were illusory grounds for this: for example, of all the western regions of Ukraine, only here had people voted for Viktor Yanukovych, and local Rusyn (Rusyns are an East Slavic group living in Transcarpathia, eastern Slovakia, and elsewhere) politician Petro Getsko attempted to establish a Transcarpathian People's Republic (but ultimately fled to Russia).
"Of course, this benefits the Kremlin," the mayor of Mukachevo tells me. "It wanted to take advantage of the Rusyn movement; the Rada simply refuses to grant them the national status they enjoy in neighboring countries."
The mayor, however, says that people here voted for Yanukovych only out of fear that Yulia Tymoshenko would come to power. Journalist Tuzhynskyi adds that "Transcarpathia is used to living independently, and it's not about separatism or autonomy, but simply that the majority are used to solving problems themselves": "Few people rely on the state; people here rely on themselves, so appointments from other regions are not well received."
Political strategist Sikora is convinced that the Rusyns need to be granted national status to ensure peace in Transcarpathia: "All Rusyn organizations are pro-European, but they want autonomy. You can't ban an entire people! After all, they have a different mentality; the Ukrainian nation was formed without Transcarpathia. But to say that Transcarpathia is ready to join Russia is nonsense."
At a cafe near Mukachevo City Hall, I suddenly overhear people at the next table discussing the rumor that Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh will be the new mayor of Mukachevo, and they laugh. It turns out that two Rusyn women are drinking coffee and are very annoyed that Ukrainian TV channels refer to their beloved city as Mukachevo, not Mukachevo (even Baloha commented on this on his Facebook page).
"We have the most tolerant region, and Ukraine should learn from Transcarpathia how to live in harmony. Two weeks ago, Svoboda members marched here shouting, 'Death to the enemies.' What enemies? We don't have enemies, we have so many nationalities here—Ukrainians, Hungarians, Russians, Rusyns, and Slovaks—that we don't need nationalism. Many Hungarians, for example, don't speak Ukrainian," Yarina begins.
"Actually, there are Ukrainians in Transcarpathia only because in the Soviet Union, Rusyns were considered Ukrainians. We were taught to love internationalism, and now they say Ukraine is only for Ukrainians, but Hitler, too, wanted one titular nation. We're not separatists; we just want everyone to have equal rights. Two years ago, we wore Ukrainian vyshyvankas, but now we don't even want to look at them," her mother continues.
— I want us to be recognized as a nationality and a language, we are not a dialect!
“They say that this kind of talk is now in the Kremlin’s interests,” I remind the Russian women.
"No, Transcarpathia is already de facto part of Europe! Most of our people haven't been to Moscow for 15 years, and they still go to Europe for dinner. These are fairy tales designed to silence people's opinions. What do 'Putin's agents' have to do with this?" the mother protests.
"My daughter went to the same school for seven years, but then she came home and said the kids were swearing 'Putin is a *****,' and the teachers were encouraging it. So, I transferred her to the Ukrainian class in a Russian school because of this," Yarina complains, and they both get up from the table.
"You know what I'll tell you? The most important thing is that there be no war and no nationalists," her mother says, and as she's leaving, she suddenly whispers in my direction: "And love Putin."
The Right Sector organization is recognized as extremist in Russia, and its activities are banned within the country.
Ilya Azar
Uzhgorod - Mukachevo (Ukraine)
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