by Pavlo Shevchenko
On the 17th of April in Odessa 15 nazi-skinheads attacked 5 members of the anti-fascist movement with bottles and rocks. Nazis ran up to the antifascists sitting on a bench near the “Orech” club and started shouting threads and Nazis slogans and started a fight. “Antifa” activists were often before threatened by Nazi-skinheads; anti-fascists were victims of Nazi attacks. Therefore they realized that any conflict provoked by Nazis could be fatal. Protecting their lives one antifa had to use a pen-knife (a means of self-protection not prohibited by the law) and Nazi-skinhead Maksim Chaika -was wounded. He did not get proper medical aid and died. If the antifascists had not fought back to protect themselves they would have been in the morgue. The far right are trying to benefit from the incident by falsely presenting the facts and cynically lying to the public.
Far-right propagandists claim that the killing had a political subtext. Actually 5 antifa had to resist 15 aggressive Nazi-skinhead attackers. The police have confirmed what number of antifascists there were. Nazis are trying to present Maksim Chaika as our victim: however it was him and his friends who started the fighting.
It is well known that Chaika himself and another Odessa Nazis often threatened antifa activists, collecting info – even addresses – and making attacks on antifascists. Naturally though Nazis can reject unfavorable facts and replace them with their own falsifications.
The mass media also reproduce the myth that Maksim Chaika was an activist of a ‘’patriotic organization”. But it is well known that the organization ‘’Sich” is a Nazi-skinhead organization who carry out attacks on the basis of racism. Criminal reports from all over Ukraine have more and more facts about racist killings. People who disagree with the antihuman ideology of Nazism take a great risk of falling victim to street terror.
Bands of neo-Nazis do not keep it a secret that they are planning revenge- we can see this info online: “We must do everything possible that the least of over blood should be shed and the most blood should be shed by the enemy. Our enemies should be killed first then our losses would be minimal”.
Meanwhile the far-rights parties try to make political gain, hypocritically invoking the repression of the “Ukrainian patriots”. It is worth mentioning that politicians of the opposition (pro-Russian party “Rodina” and the politician Igor Markov) – are taking a pragmatic stance. They preset the incident as a conflict of pro-Russian and Ukrainian right wing radicals. But the Ukrainian “antifa” is not related to any political force. More than that a party promoting national superiority could provoke only negative sentiments among antifa members.
The fact that antifa are presented as extremists is another myth that should be denied. The mass-media keep silent about the extremist nature of neo-Nazi ideology, which rejects the value of human life. The mass-media forget about the terrifying statistics of killings motivated by race hatred. It is terrible that people who do not agree with Nazis can’t count on any protection from the authorities or society. We should add that the reaction of the antifa-activists to the aggression had a legal foundation: part 3 paragraph 27 of the constitution of Ukraine grants individuals the right to protect their own lives and health and also lives and the health of other individuals from illegal actions; according to provision 36 of the Criminal Law of Ukraine the response of the antifascists ought to be considered as necessary self-protection. The antifascists knew that the Nazis were more numerous and that they were armed with bottles and rocks so fighting was inevitable.
We – the activists of the antifascist movement – express our sincere condolences to Maksim Chaika’s family and relatives. Those who make fools of young people who follow the neo-Nazi ideology and “trend” to gain money, power and glory are really guilty for Maksim Chaika’s death.
We demand from the Odessa police a comprehensive investigation of the incident and the confirmation of the fact that it was necessary self-protection on the part of antifa.
We demand that all mass-media resist all provocations and present the event objectively, because the fate of the antifascists involved in this incident depends on it. More than this, the mass-media should oppose certain political forces’ attempts to cash in on Maksim Chaika’s death.
“Antifascistska diya” http://antifa-action.org.ua
the commune 
I believe you’ve got your facts wrong, mate. Chaika was not a fascist or a neo-nazi. He was, however, a Ukrainian patriot. The fact that you’re slandering him this way strongly suggests that you’re a Muscovian cyber-slanderer. Muscovy stole Ukraine’s name (Rus at the time), stole a large chunk of Ukraine’s population (I’m referring to all those who died in Holodomor or were sent of to labor camps as punishment for being patriotic) and continues to try to steal our heroes and culture (the recent Russian-Kossack film, Taras Bulba, is historically inaccurate and is a giant piece of anti-Ukrainian propaganda).
Chaika may not have the cleanest personal history possible. But make no mistake – he died at the hands of trained killers who were in league with Russian gangsters/politicians (hard to tell the difference in Russia these days!).
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