In Western Ukraine, notorious Right Sector leader Oleksandr Muzychko, aka Sasha White,was killed in a police operation intended to capture him for trial.
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says a prominent member of a radical nationalist movement in Ukraine that played a key role in recent anti-government demonstrations was killed during a police operation to detain him.
Right Sector’s Oleksandr Muzychko, better known by his nom de guerre Sashko Bily, had become a recurring figure in Russian attempts to portray Ukraine’s interim government as dominated by radical nationalists. Moscow has cited the purported influence of groups like Right Sector to justify the absorption of Crimea.
Muzychko gained notoriety by threatening many including the local prosecutor, head of the interior ministry in Kyiv, and members of the local government council. He was most often filmed carrying around an AK-47. Notably, the botched operation which killed him was carried out by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Right Sector is already
vowing revenge against the Kyiv government. Before he was famous for threatening Ukrainian authorities, Muzychko fought with Chechens against the Russian government. He was wanted by Russian authorities for this, making attacks against Russian targets a possibility. Dimitry Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector in Ukraine, has threatened to
sabotage Russian gas pipelines and commit guerrilla warfare in Crimea. Any sort of terrorist action, aka revenge, by Right Sector is only going to lay the basis for Russian intervention. I can only hope that Ukrainian authorities plan to detain the rest of the group before this gets out of hand.