Dmytro Yarosh

Dmytro Anatoliiovych Yarosh (; born 30 September 1971) is a Ukrainian activist, politician, nationalist and military commander who is the main commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army. From 2013 to 2015, he led the Right Sector nationalist organisation,Profile: Ukraine's key protest figures
BBC News (27 January 2014)Yarosh quits as Right Sector leader
Interfax Ukraine (11 November 2015)Right Sector chief Yarosh resigns, cedes leadership role of group
Kyiv Post (11 November 2015) and formerly the Right Sector's Ukrainian Volunteer Corps. In late 2015, he withdrew from the Right Sector. From 2014 until 2019, Yarosh served as a People's Deputy of Ukraine. In February 2016, he started a new organisation called ''Governmental Initiative of Yarosh'' ().

In the 2014 Ukrainian presidential election, Yarosh received 127,772 votes (0.7% of the total).
Results election of Ukrainian president
Телеграф (29 May 2014) He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election from a single-seat constituency in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast by winning 29.76% of the votes.
"Parliament to form leadership and coalition on November 27"
UNIAN (26 November 2014)
Ukraine's new parliament sworn in
Kyiv Post (27 November 2014) He lost the seat in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election.

On 25 July 2015, at the request of the Russian authorities, Interpol placed Yarosh on its international wanted list. Since 2 January 2016 this request no longer appears on Interpol's website.

Biography

Early life

Yarosh was born on 30 September 1971 in Dniprodzerzhynsk (now Kamianske), a town in predominantly Russian-speaking Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central-eastern Ukraine.Short biography of Dmytro Yarosh
Korrespondent.net Yarosh grew up in a Russian-speaking family. His mother worked in a car factory and his father an engineer at a machine plant. Yarosh has described his early years as "a happy Soviet childhood." His father refused to join the Communist Party, although Yarosh claims he was asked to join many times.

In 1988 Yarosh graduated from High School #24 of Dniprodzerzhynsk.The love story of Dmitry Yarosh: Wife hides and shows children
Bigmir.net (15 May 2014) As almost all pre-teens and young teenagers in the Soviet Union, he was a member of Young Pioneers and later the Countrywide Leninist Communist Youth League organisations, youth-based sub-organisations of the Communist Party.

In the mid-1980s, Yarosh became interested in politics and according to him the Soviet Union "It became clear that the system was false". In 1989, Yarosh, who was 18 at the time, and a group of friends (who were all about twelve years old) were, allegedly, the first people to raise the yellow-blue flag of Ukraine in eastern Ukraine, more precisely in Dneprodzerzhinsk. The flag was sewed by his grandmother and her sister with cloth bought by Yarosh.

Starting in February 1989, Yarosh was a member of People's Movement of Ukraine organisation. From October 1989 to November 1991 he was drafted and served two years in the Soviet army as a private.

During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yarosh joined Ukrainian nationalist groups. In 1994, he joined the Tryzub organisation, which he has led since 2005.

Political activities

Since October 1988, Yarosh has been active in Ukrainian politics: in February 1989, he became a member of the People’s Movement of Ukraine, coinciding with his service in the Soviet Army. In 1994, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yarosh was one of the founders of the Ukrainian nationalist organisation Tryzub. He later became head of Tryzub in 2005. In October 2010, he tried to create a unified Ukrainian nationalist movement.

In 2001, Yarosh graduated from the State University of Education in Drohobych, Ukraine (today the ). On 1 April 2013, Yarosh became an assistant-consultant to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) deputy from the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, they are long-time friends.

2014 revolution

During the Euromaidan protests in early 2014, Tryzub became the core of the newly-founded Right Sector, a coalition of right-wing nationalists. During these protests Yarosh advocated for a "national revolution" and dismissed the Viktor Yanukovych administration as an "internal occupational regime". In early February, weeks before the ousting of President Yanukovych, Yarosh stated in an interview that there would be no civil war in Ukraine because 80% of the population did not support Yanukovych.

Right before the 21 February ouster of Yanukovych, in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Yarosh claims he and the Right Sector leadership was consulted by Yanukovych on the deal Yanukovych had signed with the opposition to end Euromaidan. Yarosh refused to endorse this agreement and refused to disarm Right Sector.

In the aftermath of the collapse of Yanukovych's regime, Yarosh demanded to be appointed Vice Prime Minister for the law enforcement matters, but his demand was rejected; he was offered a post of the Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine instead, but Yarosh rejected this position as being beneath him. There were discussions of appointing Yarosh deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine, but these discussions quickly petered out for unknown reasons.

On 20 April 2014, Dmytro Yarosh claims he was ordered by acting President Oleksandr Turchinov to lead 20 Right Sector members to sabotage an insurgent-controlled television tower in Sloviansk, leading to the first combat fatalities in the Siege of Sloviansk. Yarosh denied his role in these events until two years later.ДМИТРО ЯРОШ: "ПЕРШИЙ НАСТУПАЛЬНИЙ БІЙ ВІЙНИ ВІДБУВСЯ 20 КВІТНЯ 2014-ГО - ДОБРОВОЛЬЦІ АТАКУВАЛИ БЛОКПОСТ ПІД СЛОВ'ЯНСЬКОМ"
Censor.net.ua. 2016-04-22.

Yarosh was a candidate in the 25 May 2014 Ukrainian presidential election. A poll conducted by the "Socis" research center (from 25 February – 4 March 2014) predicted that Yarosh's candidacy received the support of 1.6% of the people who were surveyed. On election day he actually received 0.7% of the votes. In January 2019 Yarosh stated he only took part in the election "not to destroy the revolutionary structures after the revolution". He also stated that he was fully aware it was "virtually impossible" he could win the election and that because he was engaged in military action since the first days of April 2014 he did not campaign.

Yarosh took part in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election as a Right Sector candidate in single-member district number 39 (first-past-the-post wins a parliament seat) located in Vasylkivka Raion. He won a parliamentary seat by winning this constituency with 29.76% of the votes. Yarosh did not join a faction in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament). He did join the inter-factional group UKROP.

Military and withdrawal from Right Sector

In July 2014, Yarosh announced the creation of a paramilitary formation known as the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK), a volunteer battalion formed by members of the Right Sector.Yarosh assembles 'Donbas' special battalion
On July 17, the first orders were given and the official statute was issued, and is considered the official date of formation of the Corps.

During the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport, Yarosh was wounded on 21 January 2015 by an exploding Grad rocket in the nearby village of Pisky. He was evacuated out of the conflict zone.

In early April 2015, Ukraine's defence ministry announced that MP Dmytro Yarosh was to become an aide to military chief Viktor Muzhenko and that his Right Sector fighting group would be integrated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Yarosh resigned as Right Sector leader on 11 November 2015. After he was wounded on 21 January 2015 he had delegated tasks to others in the organisation and he stated on 11 November 2015 he "did not want to be a wedding general". Especially since he claimed "my positions were not always the same as the aspirations of some of the leadership". Late December 2015 Yarosh announced he was forming a new political party that would have its founding congress in February 2016. Similarly, Yarosh announced the creation of a new paramilitary volunteer battalion known as the Ukrainian Volunteer Army (UDA). The Volunteer Army would use units of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps — more specifically the 5th and 8th Battalions, as well the Hospitallers Medical Battalion — as a basis for his new formation.

Governmental Initiative of Yarosh

In February 2016 Yarosh started a new organisation called ''Governmental Initiative of Yarosh'' (DIYA). The departure of Yarosh resulted in at least 20% of Right Sector members leaving with him. According to Yarosh DIYA will be a public movement like People's Movement of Ukraine was in its early days.

Yarosh did not participate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election he endorsed the candidacy of Ruslan Koshulynskyi.

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election DIYA joined a united party list with the political parties of Svoboda, Right Sector and National Corps. Yarosh himself was placed 3rd on the party list. But in the election they won not enough votes to clear the 5% election threshold and thus no parliamentary seats.CEC counts 100 percent of vote in Ukraine's parliamentary elections
Ukrinform

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