Ukraine’s far-right C14 conducts anti-Roma cleansing operation at Kyiv train station
Late evening October 23, Ukrainian far-right organization C14, which is included in the American terrorist base, has conducted anti-Roma attack at Kyiv central train station. One of the C14 members Serhiy Bondar was streaming the scene, calling it consequences of the “cleansing operation.” On October 24, this C14 member published new photos and videos, calling it “new yield of Romani robbers.”
As we might learn from his Facebook, Serhiy Bondar, besides being a member of the neo-Nazi organization, is a member of a paramilitary unit, legalized as state-funded Municipal Guard.
“We are ready for chasing the burglars,” he writes.
Founded in 2010, C14 is named after the 14-word slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children” of American Nazi David Lane. C14 is regularly involved in numerous attacks against civilians, students, journalists, lawyers, social activists, foreigners, minorities, LGBT activists, they often conduct hate crimes and often go unpunished.
This is not the first C14’s pogrom against Ukraine’s Romani community.
April 20, 2018, C14 filmed themselves carrying out a pogrom in the Lysa Hora nature reserve near Kyiv, where they drove fifteen families from their homes. C14 gangs, carrying weapons, attacked the Roma. A video posted days later showed whole families with small children fleeing in terror, chased by masked men who hurled stones and sprayed them with gas canisters, before setting their tents ablaze. In July 2018, far-right C14 member Serhiy Mazur, was convicted for attacks against Roma settlement; he has received a two-month suspended sentence.
Other Ukrainian far-right activists and neo-Nazi have drawn inspiration from C14. Thus, May 22, 2018, a group of masked men armed with guns and bats forced Roma families living near Ternopil, western Ukraine, to flee into the forest, and then set fire to their temporary dwellings. Shots were fired and three people were injured in the attack.
May 10, anti-Roma pogrom occurred in Rudne village, Lviv region, people in masks dragged Romani out of their beds, beat them and set their homes alight, destroying all their belongings and forcing them to flee. Police and ambulance responders were on the scene, but no arrests were made.
June 23, 2018, neo-Nazi Sober and angry youth group, referring themselves to Hitler Youth, killed 24-year David Pap during a violent attack on Roma encampment near Lviv (western Ukraine). Four others national minorities were injured, including a young boy and a pregnant woman. The group posted a video titled “A small report on a Gypsy Safari.” The suspected attackers were detained along with a 20-year-old organizer. According to some information, this group is affiliated to far-right Misanthropic Division organization.
April 20, 2016, C14 members stabbed a left-wing anti-war activist and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy student Stas Serhiyenko. In September 2018, C14 members have conducted an attack against the lawyer in Zhytomyr.
C14, which has taken part over the spring in brutal anti-Roma raids with hammers, has recently been a recipient of Ministry of Youth and Sport grants totalling at least $14,000. C14 first emerged as the youth wing of the extremist Svoboda party.