Antisemitism in Ukraine today

The active surveillance, monitoring, and
analysis of antisemitic manifestations in Ukraine over the last 25 years allows
us to elucidate important tendencies in the dynamic of how this particular
brand of xenophobia manifests itself.

First of all, it must be noted that, as in other Eastern European countries,
Ukraine lacks two important factors which define the current significant
manifestations of antisemitism in Western Europe. These are the radical wing of
the Muslim diaspora and the anti-Israeli rhetoric that has been fashionable in
the last dozen years among European left wing intellectuals, who base their
position on alleged systematic violations of the rights of Palestinians. In
Ukraine, and in Eastern Europe in general, these factors are largely absent.

It is also important here that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,
the population of the new Eastern European countries and former USSR moved from
essentially living under colonial rule to life in independent countries. This
meant the disappearance of the Soviet Union’s state-sponsored antisemitism and
an influx of new modes of coexistence for peoples and ethnic groups in the
aforementioned states – which, in turn, led to a signficant decline in the
number of manifestations of antisemitism.

Nonetheless, a multitude of social and political currents manifested as civic
institutions developed in Ukraine. These included certain radical right-wing
and ultra-nationalist fringe groups with neo-Nazi and racist ideology.

This led to two distinct consequences. First of all, after 10 years of
Ukrainian independence, the leaders of these groups attempted to actively take
part in politics and make it into the Parliament. Secondly, the post-Communist
government and the Russian government which supported the Ukrainian regime,
began systematically foisting propaganda and forms of provocation aimed at
representing the entire Ukrainian opposition, which was trying to steer Ukraine
in a democratic pro-European direction, as ultra-nationalist and Nazi.

An example of one of these fringe groups that became a political party after a
number of transformations in the early 1990s is the Social-National Party of
Ukraine, known today as All-Ukrainian “Svoboda” Union, which became
notorious for its antisemitic rhetoric in the 1990s. It was one of the parties
in the Ukrainian parliament in 2012-2014, with 37 MPs out of 450, but then lost
many of its voters due to its ineffectiveness in the government and parliament.
It did not pass the electoral threshold in the most recent pre-term
parliamentary elections. 

Several radical groups that came to prominence during EuroMaidan and half a
year of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine also need to be mentioned
here. These include “Right Sector,” the “Social-National Assembly” and “Patriot
of Ukraine” led by Andrei Biletsky, who became an MP in the last election, and
Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party, which gained approximately 7% of the votes. 

Despite the fact that the aforementioned groups’ ideology includes radicalism
as well as – in particular cases – neo-Nazi and racist motives, our experts did
not find antisemitic elements in their rhetoric and action either during
EuroMaidan or the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Over the last several years, the number of antisemitic incidents in Ukraine has
been steadily declining*. The number of antisemitic incidents peaked in
2005-2007:

It should be noted that, thankfully, none of the
attacks in the years given above were fatal.

Over the course of the protests – from November
2013 to February 2014 – there were thousands of speeches given at the open
microphone on Maidan. Out of all of these, our experts noted only one that was
clearly antisemitic and one ambiguous speech.

According to our experts, it is quite probable that over half of the antisemitic
incidents of the past year have been deliberate provocations aimed at propping
up the powerful propaganda campaign of the former Ukrainian and current Russian
government against the democratic, pro-European movement in Ukraine. We believe
that monitoring and analysis of antisemitic incidents in 2014 should be able to
divide the real manifestations of antisemitism from the provocations.
Naturally, this division is sketchy at best without court decisions.

Even now, Russian propaganda does not pay any heed to the contradictions in its
own words as it baselessly accuses the new Ukrainian government of
ultra-nationalism and neo-Nazism in one breath, and then follows that up in
another with no more justified attempts to explain Ukraine’s problems as due to
‘Zionist scheming’. Zionists have, according to them, taken power in Ukraine.
Those responsible for the propaganda use the fact that the current leadership
of Ukraine includes several people with Jewish roots.

The low popularity of radical right parties and groups is also confirmed by the
May 2015 presidential elections, where two leaders of the aforementioned
radical groups ran. Oleh Tyahnybok (“Svoboda”) and Dmytro Yarosh (“Right Sector”)
got 1,2% and 0,7% respectively, while a candidate with a very obviously Jewish
surname got 2,25%. A similar trend was seen at the recent parliamentary
elections, which resulted in decreased parliamentary representation for these
parties.

Representatives of the new government – both the President and the Prime
Minister – have repeatedly stressed that they will not allow antisemitic or
other xenophobic manifestations in Ukraine. The new government has appointed an
authorized Representative on Ethnic Policy attached to the Cabinet of Ministers
and special offices and departments in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
Security Service [SBU]; the Prosecutor General’s office and the Interior
Ministry, thus confirming its determination to counteract xenophobia and antisemitism.

It is, of course, possible that the decline in antisemitic and, incidentally,
other xenophobic activity in Ukraine over recent years is temporary and due to,
first and foremost, a massive reaction to Russia’s attempts to stop Ukraine’s
movement towards Europe, the further democratization of the country, as well as
anti-corruption and other reforms.

However, I believe that the positive charge of the Maidan and the selflessness
of the Ukrainian volunteer battalions, who stopped the advance of the Russian
army in the summer of 2014 and localized the conflict in the south-east of
Ukraine, as well as the active participation of Ukrainian Jews in all these
events and processes, will determine a lower level of antisemitism in the near
future of Ukraine. 

*According to Vyacheslav Likhachev, head of the
National Minority Rights Monitoring Group.