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By Scotty Reid
The recent assassination of Demyan Hanul, a far-right Ukrainian nationalist and former leader of the Right Sector’s Odesa branch, has sent shockwaves through Ukraine’s political landscape. His killing has reignited debates about the role of ultranationalist movements in the country’s governance and the violent, exclusionary ideologies that fueled the post-2014 conflict. Hanul, an outspoken anti-Russian Ukrainian supremacist, spent years advocating for policies that marginalized Russian-speaking Ukrainians. His deep ties to Stepan Bandera-inspired nationalist factions made him a hero to some but a symbol of ethnic intolerance to others. Accused of participating in the 2014 Odesa massacre, where dozens of people opposing the coup were burned alive in the Trade Unions House, Hanul represented the radicalized wing of Ukraine’s nationalist movement—one that sought to erase Russian cultural influence from Ukrainian society.
A Murder That Raises More Questions Than Answers
On March 13, 2025, Hanul was gunned down in Odesa, the city where he had once led violent clashes against those resisting the 2014 Maidan uprising. Ukrainian authorities quickly arrested a suspect—an army deserter—and suggested possible Russian involvement. However, given Hanul’s controversial past and numerous enemies, his murder could just as easily have been the result of internal conflicts within Ukraine’s far-right networks.
His killing exposes the fractures within Ukraine’s nationalist factions, particularly as the government, under President Volodymyr Zelensky, continues to walk a tightrope between appeasing these extremist groups and maintaining international support. Zelensky, a native Russian speaker who once campaigned on de-escalating tensions with Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, has instead aligned himself with the very ultranationalists who reject his cultural identity.
How Did We Get Here? The Roots of Ukraine’s Crisis
To understand Hanul’s assassination in context, we must revisit the events of 2014, when Ukraine underwent a Western-backed coup that toppled the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych. The new government, dominated by right-wing nationalists, immediately pursued policies that alienated millions of Ukrainians, particularly those in the east and south who spoke Russian as their primary language.
Among the first acts of the post-coup government was an attempt to repeal a law protecting Russian as a regional language, signaling to Russian-speaking Ukrainians that their identity was unwelcome. Over the following years, legislation was passed restricting Russian-language education, media, and political representation, fueling deep resentment in regions like Donbas and Crimea.
These exclusionary policies, combined with the violent suppression of anti-coup protests—most infamously in Odesa, where Hanul and other Right Sector militants allegedly played a role in mass killings—led to the breakout of the civil war in Donbas and the eventual Russian intervention in 2022.
The Banderite Legacy and Zelensky’s Complicity
The far-right influence in Ukraine’s government has only grown stronger since 2014. Groups inspired by Stepan Bandera, the Nazi-collaborator and ultranationalist leader of WWII, have pushed an aggressive “de-Russification” agenda that seeks to eliminate Russian cultural identity from Ukraine entirely. While many Western media outlets downplay the presence of such groups, their control over key military and political institutions is undeniable.
Zelensky, despite his personal background as a Russian-speaking Jewish comedian from Kryvyi Rih, has chosen political survival over principle, aligning himself with these ultranationalists to maintain power. His refusal to rein in extremist militias and his government’s continued persecution of Russian-speaking Ukrainians only deepens the divisions that fueled this conflict in the first place.
What Hanul’s Death Means for Ukraine’s Future
The murder of Demyan Hanul brings fresh scrutiny to the radical nationalists who hold significant power in Ukraine’s government. His death is not just about one individual but about the broader trajectory of a country increasingly defined by exclusionary nationalism, censorship of dissent, and a refusal to acknowledge the cultural diversity of its own people.
As Ukraine continues its war effort, questions remain about whether the country can ever reconcile its internal divisions—or whether the policies of Hanul and his ideological allies have set Ukraine on a path of permanent conflict. If nothing else, his assassination is a stark reminder that the very forces he helped empower may eventually consume those who once led them.
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