S14 (Ukrainian group)


S14, also known as Sich is a Ukrainian nationalists group founded in 2010 that gained notoriety in 2018 for being involved in violent attacks on Romani camps. S14 itself claims that it is only involved in removing illegal Romany camps with only using "compelling legitimate arguments.

History

S14 began in 2010 as the youth wing of the ultra-nationalist political party Svoboda.
S14 was one of the far-right groups active during the Euromaidan movement. They were involved with skirmishes with the violent pro-government supporters known as 'Titushky'.
Early 2018 Ukraine's capital Kiev and S14 signed an agreement allowing S14 to establish a "municipal guard" to patrol the city streets.
On 19 November 2018, S14 and fellow Ukrainian nationalist political organizations—the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Right Sector—endorsed Ruslan Koshulynskyi candidacy in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election Koshulynskyi received 1.6% of the votes.

Group image

News organization and the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium have reported that the number 14 in the group’s name has been seen as a reference to a 14-word slogan coined by American white-supremacist David Lane. But this white-supremacist link is being denied by the group members, they say S14 just resembles the word Sich – the name given to the administrative and military centres for Cossacks in the 16–18th century. S14 leader has repeatedly denied being a Nazi. According to him his main "confrontations" were with "non-Ukrainian ethnic groups that controlled Ukraine's political and economic forces". "We don’t consider ourselves a neo-Nazi organization, we’re clearly Ukrainian nationalists." In May 2018 Hromadske.TV stated "Most of C14's actions do seem to be directed at Russia, or those sympathetic towards Russia". German political scientist Andreas Umland on the other hand claimed that S14 "could qualify as neo-Nazi." Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in June 2018 that members of the group had openly expressed neo-Nazi views.
In 2017, S14 was accused by left-wing anti-war activist Stas Serhiyenko of having been involved in his stabbing. The day after the attack S14 leader Karas accused Serhiyenko of having supported the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Kharkiv and the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and claimed that the attack was "far from the first, but not the last, attack on the bacilli of terrorism, hidden in the midst of peaceful Ukrainian streets".
In June 2018, S14 gained international notoriety after reports it was being involved in violent attacks on Romani camps. After one such alleged attack in May 2018, Kiev Police released a statement it had not receive complaints from Roma for beatings nor violence. S14 itself claims that it does only use "compelling legitimate arguments" to remove illegal Romani camps.