Far-right Extremism as a Threat to Ukrainian Democracy

Over the last few years, Ukrainian far-right groups have become a subject of attention in the media and the international community. The interest partly originates in the dramatic events the country has undergone, namely the 2014 revolution and the ongoing war. But it has also been bolstered by the scandals surrounding the presence of these groups in public spaces and that of members of the armed forces who propagate radical views and use radical symbols. Russian propaganda exaggerating ultranationalist tendencies in modern Ukraine has also had an impact on the perception of these trends.

Despite the abundance of articles and television dispatches, the field lacks high-quality analytical research on the Ukrainian far right, making it difficult for foreign observers to understand the place of these groups in Ukraine’s political system, the threat they pose, and the future of such movements. This brief will attempt to define what we mean by far-right extremist and radical groups in the modern Ukrainian context; list the main groups belonging to this field, summarize the specifics of their ideology, political strategies, and future prospects; and formulate a general picture of the threat they pose to the democratic development of Ukrainian society.