The Neo-Nazi Who Knew Too Much?

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On August 30th, Andriy Parubiy was shot dead in broad daylight in Lviv, Ukraine. A key figure in the foreign-fomented Maidan putsch and a prominent and influential politician locally for many years, he was mourned by a welter of British, European and US officials. Within three days, Parubiy’s murderer was arrested and pleaded guilty. Wholly unremorseful, the assassin claimed his actions were “revenge on the state” for his son having disappeared - presumed dead - while fighting in Bakhmut in 2023.

Yet, there is almost certainly more to this story than meets the eye. In the immediate aftermath of Parubiy’s slaying, claims emerged he had months earlier requested formal protection from the SBU, only to be rebuffed. This prompted some outcry, forcing Kiev’s security services to issue a statement explaining why Parubiy’s demand was refused. Curiously though, a press conference was subsequently convened at which the SBU and local law enforcement contradictorily denied he had ever asked any state authority to be safeguarded.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Parubiy took an enormous number of sensitive secrets to his grave, which a great many individuals and entities have a significant interest in remaining concealed forever. A longstanding, outspoken ultranationalist, in 1991 he cofounded the openly Neo-Nazi Social-Nationalist Party - later rebranded Svoboda - and 1998 - 2004 ran its paramilitary wing, Patriot of Ukraine. The unit, like its parent political party, aggressively advocated insurrectionary violence, and espoused virulent, genocidal hatred of Russia and Russians.

A Patriot of Ukraine leaflet, featuring Andriy Parubiy

Parubiy was a key figure in Kiev’s US-orchestrated 2004 Orange Revolution. His role in the Maidan coup and all that followed, which sent Ukraine hurtling towards war with Moscow, was considerably more outsized. After protests erupted in November 2013, Parubiy founded the “Maidan Self-Defense Force”. While ostensibly responsible for protecting “peaceful” demonstrators from riot police, the Force acted in close coordination with fascist paramilitary group Right Sector. The latter routinely engaged in incendiary, violent acts to provoke adverse responses from law enforcement.

The protests ended with elected President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing Ukraine on February 22nd 2014. This followed the sniper massacre of demonstrators in Kiev’s Freedom - now Maidan - Square. Government forces - perhaps with Russian assistance - were blamed for the bloodshed, triggering an avalanche of international condemnation, and threats from Paribuy’s Maidan Self-Defense to storm the President’s residence and remove him from power by force if he didn’t resign. Yanukovych’s government was replaced by a fascist-riddled unelected administration, hand-picked by the US State Department’s Ukraine point-person Victoria Nuland.

Parubiy was appointed National Security and Defense Council chief, overseeing the launch and execution of Ukraine’s “Anti-Terrorist Operation”, a savage crackdown on the country’s Russian-speaking population. He also instituted moves to integrate Kiev into NATO defence and security structures, in advance of formal membership. While Parubiy initially retained his position under elected, far-right President Petro Poroshenko, he resigned in August 2014 after the Minsk Agreements intended to achieve peace in Donbass were signed, believing the dispute could only be resolved via “force”.

Parubiy’s bellicosity only intensified when the proxy war erupted in February 2022. In the conflict’s early days, he vigorously argued against negotiation with Moscow, and instead urged Kiev to “destroy the Russian Empire.” In the meantime, the Maidan massacre officially remained unsolved. This deficiency was so marked, suspicion abounded even among Ukrainian investigators official probes into the killings were being deliberately sabotaged. There were certainly many powerful figures within the country who wanted the truth obscured and buried - Andriy Parubiy perhaps foremost among them.

‘Sacred Victims’

In October 2023, a Kiev court finally made a ruling on the Maidan massacre, in a trial that began in 2016. Of five police officers accused of complicity in the atrocity, one was acquitted outright, another sentenced to time served for alleged “abuse of power,” while three were convicted in absentia on 31 counts of murder and 44 counts of attempted murder. In effect, no Ukrainian official from the time has been in any way legally punished over the incident. The ruling also acknowledged there was no evidence of an order to shoot protesters being given by any state source.

Furthermore, the verdict conclusively ruled out involvement of Russian elements in the mass shooting - a conspiracy theory promoted heavily by pro-Maidan elements for many years, including Parubiy. Even more significantly, in at least 28 of the 128 shootings of protesters evaluated during the trial, the court found the “involvement of law enforcement officers has not been proven,” and the involvement of “other unknown persons” in the killings “cannot be ruled out.” Which is an extraordinary understatement.

The verdict noted “quite sufficient” evidence indicated “categorically” many shots were fired at protesters from Freedom Square’s Hotel Ukraina, which was “territory…not controlled by law enforcement agencies.” Unmentioned in the judgment, Hotel Ukraina was used as a headquarters by Svoboda throughout the Maidan unrest, its leaders - including Parubiy - coordinating chaos on the streets below. Many Svoboda operatives were based on the hotel’s 11th floor. Snipers in this vicinity were observed by numerous sources, including the BBC.

However, copious witness evidence heard throughout the longrunning trial indicated Hotel Ukraina was not the only building or area from which protesters were shot, proven to be occupied by opposition elements - not government forces - at the time. Of particular note was the testimony of Nazar Mukhachov, a Maidan Self-Defense commander and adviser to Parubiy. He gained access to government-collected evidence related to the massacre, and conducted his own investigation.

Hotel Ukraina

The results of Mukhachov’s probe into the mass killing amply indicated “third forces” linked to the Maidan leadership were responsible for shooting both protesters and police, from sites - including Hotel Ukraina - occupied by opposition elements. He concluded Parubiy et al required “sacred victims” in order to topple the government. Mukhachov’s account is especially forceful and persuasive, given his Maidan Self-Defense position, continued support for the Maidan coup, and enduring, committed ultranationalism.

Meanwhile, Stanyslav Shuliak, a riot police commander during the Maidan protests, recorded how numerous officers observed snipers shooting from Maidan-controlled locations. Resultantly, security services negotiated with Maidan Self-Defense representatives to investigate these areas, but Parubiy denied their requests. Even more damningly, numerous witnesses - including members of Right Sector - testified to catching armed individuals known or suspected to have shot at protesters during the massacre. After capture, these individuals were handed over to Parubiy’s Maidan Self-Defense - only to be released without consequence or explanation, and never seen again.

‘A Corpse’

In the immediate aftermath of Parubiy’s death, popular Ukrainian news outlet Strana interviewed a number of his associates. Intriguingly, while most blamed the “hand of the Kremlin” for his liquidation, others “[did] not exclude the internal political background of the murder.” Namely, Parubiy may have been rubbed out due to “expectations of some future political upheaval in the country.” After all, as an anonymous source told Strana, “Andrei knew well how to arrange a Maidan.”

The threat of impending “political upheaval” in Ukraine is very real. Every day, Moscow’s forces relentlessly advance in Donbass. Vast casualties, desertion and failed recruitment drives mean Kiev’s manpower shortage is so dire women - some of them pregnant - now fill frontline combat roles. Europe has been reduced to buying weapons from Washington to equip their failing proxy, while Donald Trump has firmly vetoed NATO membership, or the return of lost territory. The war has unambiguously been over for Kiev for some time.

Despite this, President Volodomyr Zelensky remains publicly committed to maximalist - and wholly unattainable - battlefield goals, including recapturing Crimea. He has strong grounds for maintaining this farcical facade publicly. In July, Zelensky’s attempt to take US-run “anti-corruption” bodies under his government’s direct control sparked mass protests, demands for his resignation from even his strongest Western supporters, and vitriolic condemnation from powerful elements within the country. Among the loudest voices was Andriy Biletsky, founder of the notorious Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. 

In an August interview with The Times, Biletsky repeatedly criticised Zelensky and rejected any negotiation with Russia, outlining a personal “vision for the future” for perpetual war with Moscow, in which Ukraine became a “permanently militarised society” and Europe’s “army and arsenal.” His comments were echoed mere days later in an almost identical puff piece by the same outlet, in which popular YouTuber and former head of Right Sector’s Odessa branch Serhii Sternenko openly threatened the Ukrainian President’s life:

“If…Zelensky were to give any unconquered land away, he would be a corpse - politically, and then for real. It would be a bomb under our sovereignty. People would never accept it…At the end there will only be one victor, Russia or Ukraine…If the Russian empire continues to exist in this present form then it will always want to expand. Compromise is impossible. The struggle will be eternal until the moment Russia leaves Ukrainian land.”

Sternenko was centrally involved in the May 2014 Odessa massacre, which killed dozens of anti-Maidan activists and injured hundreds more. Another key Right Sector figure implicated in that hideous incident was Demyan Hanul, assassinated in March. The fascist paramilitary group described the slaughter at the time as a “bright page of our national history.” In advance, Andriy Parubiy and 500 members of his Maidan Self-Defense were deployed to the city, strongly suggesting the industrial scale incineration of Ukrainian Russian-speakers was a premeditated, intentional act of mass murder.

The May 2nd 2014 Odessa massacre

In the Odessa massacre’s wake, prominent Svoboda representative Iryna Farion - whose room in Hotel Ukraina served as a sniper’s nest during the Maidan massacre - cheered the killings, declaring “let the devils burn in hell…Bravo!” She herself was murdered in July 2024, despite being under intensive SBU surveillance. It’s certainly quite some coincidence that, at a time the walls are evidently closing in on Zelensky, three individuals who could testify most potently to the events that brought the Maidan regime into being are now dead.