Interfax-Ukraine
March 27, 2015
Right Sector negotiates joining Ukrainian Army as independent division under Yarosh command
The volunteer battalion Right Sector is ready to join the Ukrainian Army as a separate division under the command of Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh.
“We can only agree on ‘legalization’ in one situation: if the volunteer Ukrainian corps remains a whole structure and if we continue reporting directly to our leader Dmytro Yarosh,” Right Sector press officer Artem Skoropadsky told reporters on Friday.
“We want everything to stay as it is now: we are now cooperating with the Defense Ministry and the Ukrainian Security Service,” Skoropadsky said.
“There should be no direct command. We don’t want any generals sent to Right sector to command it,” Skoropadsky said.
Responding to a question as to whether negotiations are being conducted with Defense Ministry officials on the inclusion of Right Sector in the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this format, he answered in the affirmative: “Negotiations are still being conducted and I don’t know what is being offered there as of this morning. Maybe during the way.”
Skoropadsky said offers to join the Ukrainian Army have been made to Right Sector before, but those offers were “various,” including those that were unacceptable to other organization, specifically, “the offer to disband the force and go to join the Ukrainian Armed Forces through district military commissariats” or to join the Ukrainian National Guard.
Skoropadsky said “the idea of disbanding the volunteer Ukrainian corps Right sector is also unacceptable.” Because we have groups, including intelligence groups, subversive groups, attack groups, where people are selected. It seems to me it will be very bad for the country’s defense capability to disband them now and make them ordinary privates, he said.
The Right Sector spokesman also believes the proposal on Right sector’s integration in the structure of the Ukrainian National Guard is unacceptable “because the National Guard is a police force, and we demand full-fledged lustration in the Interior Ministry.”
Vladyslav Selezniov, acting spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff, said on March 26 members of the volunteer battalion Right Sector had been offered to join the Ukrainian army, but the battalion had not made a decision yet.
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