Directly before our eyes, a political movement is being created, at the head of which is, or rather, is its symbol — the ex-leader of the Odessa banned in Russia «Right Sector» Sergei Sternenko. His public reputation (as well as of the other ultra-right involved in the project) is successfully «laundered» by people from the liberal community who are in charge of this project.

From rallies that have been regularly gathering for several months at the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kiev, to marches in the capital to the building of the Office (formerly the Administration) of the President of Ukraine. This is how the political project «Sergei Sternenko» is being launched literally from scratch. As Mayakovsky would say, a person is being made a political biography.

It just so happened that successful political projects in Ukraine are always extremely personified — be it the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, or “Ukraine without Kuchma,” or “Freedom to Nadia Savchenko,” or #FreeSentsov, or “Who orderedthe hit of Katya Gandzyuk”. The head does not have to be a super-charismatic person, the main thing is that he must evoke pity and sympathy as a victim (by the way, it is in this image that in recent times the “woman with the scythe” also successfully worked with the audience).

Sergei Sternenko is an active and intelligent person in himself, but it is obvious that they come to support him mainly with the motivation “against” (“We support Sternenko, because the bandits-developers and former regionals want to close him”). In addition, skillful PR specialists have worked systematically and for a long time on his current campaign.

On May 10 this year, in the midst of the conflict between the National Corps and the Dynamo ultras association Honor, which broke away from it a year earlier, headed by Nazar Kravchenko (in 2016-2019, the first deputy head of the National Corps) and Sergei Filimonov (in 2015 In 2019, the head of the Kiev branch, first of the Azov Civil Corps, and then of the National Corps party), the famous volunteer Roman Sinitsyn published a very candid column on the Glavkom website.

To begin with, Sinitsyn spoke about the assistance he had previously provided to Azov, in whose ranks Kravchenko and Filimonov fought in 2014: “As for Azov, I have even more affection. Because many of my friends or acquaintances passed through this unit, several of my acquaintances were killed, several were seriously injured … In 2014-2017, my friends and I personally tried to help this unit as much as possible. We were looking for funds and literally bought these cartridges for snipers, sights, equipment. They taught your flyers to fly and brought «wings» (obviously, we are talking about drones. — Author), and reload snipers with 338 caliber. They sewed and handed over hundreds of Kevlar vests, imported cars from Europe, medicine … I have been and even spent the night many times at your bases in Urzuf, Yuryevka. «

It is true, in response, the former fighters of Azov, who are now in the ranks of the National Corps, said that they did not remember the help from Sinitsyn. «Will you prove that you handed over at least 50 armored vehicles (not hundreds, as you lie in the post) to Azov?» — Rodion Kudryashov, the former commander of the Azov reconnaissance and sabotage company, wrote on May 11 in Telegram, then became the head of the central headquarters of the National Corps party.

Kudryashov’s answer was then disseminated through their Telegram channels by all the acting functionaries of the Azov movement. For example, the former commander of «Azov» in 2015-2016, and since 2017, the head of the «National squads» Igor Mikhailenko, who added on his own: “Friend Rodion put everything in its place. You can’t say better.

                “Then Sinitsyn turns to the leadership of the National Corps, trying to persuade him to give up speaking in the media against Sternenko:“ Does media Sternenko and a bunch of likes and subscribers and a lot of “hype around him” bother you or annoy you? personally and his friends. Without injections into advertising and promotion. And he organically «pumped» in a year, because he says the right things and people perceive it … So what’s the problem? Perhaps in Sergey’s illusory «political project»? Sergey won’t go to politician, he announced this publicly, his task is not to allow himself to be closed in lawlessness. «

However, the fact that Sternenko does not go into politics and is furiously promoted in the media “just like that” was hardly believed in the “National Corpus”. And, most likely, they were right in this.

But, most importantly, the National Corps did not harbor illusions as to who exactly was behind Sternenko’s promotion campaign. Here are a few quotes from the same answer by Kudryashov to Sinitsyn: “Your“ comrades-in-arms ”from“ civil society ”on a good salary, no longer hesitate, call on the authorities to tear up the dobrobats … You launched a vile campaign that we are Russian agents, quilted jackets and garbage. You conduct this campaign in a dirty way, including anonymously, from corrupt garbage dumpsters for 5 thousand dollars an article … When your left-liberal friends knocked denunciations on us at the embassies, we freed towns and villages from separatists … I have no doubt that you knew: it is because of your cronies left-liberals, as well as Russia, that «Azov» was included in the list of US sanctions. Twice».

On May 8, one of the ideologists and leaders of the conservative wing of the «Azov» movement, Roman Yurchenko, repost on Telegram the post of the editor-in-chief of the conservative site «Catharsis» about who and how promotes the ex-leader of the Odessa «Right Sector»: «Sternenko, so as not to go to jail , he had to make friends with the anti-corruption wing of Ukrainian politics (Westerners, Soros, Europidores — read whatever you want). After that, the prospect of being behind bars became a little further away, subscribers on FB and YouTube are growing, but you have to pay for everything, namely, to support the rhetoric of your patrons, which is sharply contrary to your own rhetoric a couple of years before: 1) drown light for LGBT; 2) to assert that the pernicious influence of Western structures is cotton propaganda; 3) look everywhere for Nazis and their connection with the Kremlin. » (For the latter, to all appearances, the National Corps is particularly offended.)

Now these accusations no longer seem unfounded, because journalists come to rallies in support of Sternenko near the Shevchenkovsky court and see that these actions are steered with a microphone by the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the liberal Golos party Yaroslav Yurchishin, who in 2016-2019 the post of executive director of Transparency International Ukraine, and since January 2018 he was a member of the board of the Vozrozhdenie Foundation, the Ukrainian subsidiary of the well-known Soros structure.

One might wonder what the refined pro-Western liberals from cozy Kiev living rooms have in common with the radical and murderer Sternenko, who until recently spoke to journalists exclusively in T-shirts of the neo-Nazi brand Svastone?

Firstly, over the past two years, they have worked hard on Sternenko’s image, and he is literally unrecognizable — from an Odessa hooligan-urkagan with a knife, he turned into an intelligent man in a shirt and jacket, wearing elegantly framed glasses.

Secondly, such an important moment as the ideological plasticity of a person, his readiness for changes in tactical purposes is important here.

We are used to the idea of ​​Sternenko as the leader of the Odessa Right Sector. Yes, he did hold this post in 2014-2015. But before that, he was not noticed among nationalists or simply public activists. It is characteristic that Sternenko himself did not try to assert the opposite, realizing that he would be caught in a lie.

“Before and after Maidan, these are, in principle, two different people. I cannot say that until the winter of 2013-2014 I was engaged in some kind of social work or something similar to what I am currently doing. I worked on the Internet, made money, and planned to open a business. But everything has changed. He quit his job, «he said on August 12, 2014, in an interview with the Odessa city website, catchily titled» Sergei Sternenko — a man who changes Odessa. «

In the interview, literally immediately — a joint photo of Sternenko in an embrace with Dmitry Yarosh, and Sternenko is in uniform, and in the same appears in other photographs below. But, unlike his brothers-in-arms, he did not bother to fight in a year and a half. True, he found an explanation for this question he was still asking him — he wanted to, but he was not given guidance: “I, for example, at the moment would like to be there (on the front line. — Author). In September last (2014 — author), during a trip to the ATO zone, I planned to stay there, but by order I was sent back to Odessa. «

The fact is that in 2014, membership in the «Right Sector» represented the prospect of a powerful «social lift» for the «little man from the crowd». After all, it was the radicals who appropriated all the laurels of the victory over Yanukovych at the Euromaidan, and in the fall of 2014, Yarosh and other popular battalions in uniform (Melnichuk, Semenchenko, Biletsky, Teteruk and others) were easily elected to the Verkhovna Rada.

A couple of years later, the people in camouflage became boring to society, and the volunteer battalions were “tightened”. And then Sternenko changes his niche — he is no longer the leader of the «Right Sector», but a public activist, the leader of the «Not Indifferent» organization, which fights against infill development (a very painful topic for the whole of Ukraine and especially Odessa) and earns points from completely apolitical and non-radical people.

Now you can change the image again, or rather, the political positioning. And who you were before is not so important, if you are useful to the «Soros» now.

Let us recall that the above-mentioned Sinitsyn is of the same berry field.

“A very interesting dividing occurred between the radicals themselves. Some, having gone through the Maidan and the war, turned into fighters against the System. The former ultras Roman Sinitsyn has just left this studio, today he is one of the organizers of the initiative “Who has caught Katya Gandzyuk?” — she quite approvingly mentioned him in an article published on November 9, 2019 on the YouTube channel of the influential Kiev edition “Mirror of the week”, journalist Inna Veretennikova.

Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration. Sinitsyn really comes from among the ultras of the Volyn football club from Lutsk, which he does not hide. The ultras organized by this club are, of course, right, although it is not known that Sinitsyn took any special part in fights or other similar activities. He was already targeting the media, using the fan movement as a springboard into politics.

“I even worked in a club when I was in 11th grade,” Sinitsyn said on May 16, 2019 in an interview with the Orange Coffee blog on Tribuna.com. — Two friends and I made the first official site of Volyn when the team reached the top league. We came to Kvartsyaniy (Vitaliy Kvartsyaniy was the head coach in 2001-2011 and 2013-2017, in 2013-2017 he was also the president of the Volyn club. — Author) for an appointment, they waited for him under the office for several hours. They showed him the website, offered to make it official, because Volyn was the only one of all the tower’s teams. He paid us something like $ 30 for this, as far as I remember, but in 2000 it was a lot of money for schoolchildren … I used to always go to the matches for Volyn. Now, maybe once or twice a year … But I’m not really interested in football, especially recently. Now I can name only one or two players of Volyn.

But this did not prevent Sinitsyn in August 2014, becoming a co-organizer — along with Georgy Tuk — of the People’s Rear Volunteer Group, and then in a matter of years to become one of the recognized leaders of public opinion in Ukraine.

And in the role of organizer of mass actions, Sinitsyn successfully tested himself last year. But before that he was just a typical ultra, gaining experience in politics …

But, although he also keeps his nose to the wind, as an orator (completely «inhibited») and as a frontman (in need of charisma) Sinitsyn noticeably loses to Sternenko. That is why it is not he who is going to be promoted by the «Soros», but the former leader of the Odessa «Right Sector», despite all the disadvantages of the latter’s biography.

Another example from a similar series is the aforementioned “Honor” activists. Again, we well remember Filimonov and his company from 2014-2016 as tattooed from head to toe with runes and swastikas of the right ultras from the Young Hope firm, which is part of the Kindred association of Dynamo Kiev fans. As participants in public beatings of leftist activists or, for example, Africans in the stands of stadiums. And also as fighters of «Azov» and subsequently prominent activists of its political structures. And on this basis, many considered them to be convinced right-wing radicals.

At the same time, I have already cited the opinions of people from among the Kiev nationalists about «Honor»: «They are not very Bon (Nazis. — Author). Kiev boys with their material priorities ”. Indeed, today the recent right-wing ultras are quietly rallying alongside left-wing activists.

After leaving the National Corps a year ago, Filimonov, Kravchenko and Igor (widely known under the nickname Malyar) began to change their image for public activists concerned about police arbitrariness and the spread of democracy in the world. We went to different forums, to protests in different countries of the world. Of course, so far they have not yet “washed” as thoroughly as Sternenko, but already, as they say, “in the process”. In turn, without such fighters ready to fight with the police, any protest will be «toothless» and meaningless. Therefore, the Soros, and above all the Golos, which has lost its leader, are beginning to create their own street faction headed by Sternenko.

For obvious reasons, the killer from Odessa is also supported by the «European Solidarity» of Petro Poroshenko — the worse for Zelensky, the better for them, as they strengthen their image and the image of their leader, who is still running for a second presidential term.

Such a mixture — the ultra-right, who yesterday were anti-Western, ultras, liberal, completely pro-Western «Soros» from «Golos» and conservatives from «European Solidarity» stands behind Sternenko.

Vladislav Maltsev, Ukraine.Ru