Maidan Square activists urged to fight for Ukraine in the east
By Howard Amos in Kiev
Chief of rally's fighting wing aims to co-opt Kiev protesters into battalions opposing pro-Russian rebels
Ukrainian soldiers at a checkpoint near Slavyansk, where the National guard has deployed 400 volunteer fighters.
Andrei Vlasov admitted that it used to be more exciting. Since November the 33-year-old has been living in a tent in Kiev's Maidan, or Independence Square, the focal point for Ukraine's protest movement.
But revolutionary fervour has faded and instead of the pitched battles with riot police that characterised the first months of the uprising, activists now spent time managing the day-to-day running of the camp. "It's boring here," he said, adding that only TV and the internet went some way towards relieving the tedium.
The Maidan Self-Defence Force was founded by current Ukrainian Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov to protect protestors from Yanukovych riot police.
After Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the country in February, the centre of unrest shifted, first to the Crimean peninsula, and then to the east where armed pro-Russian insurgents are now defying the interim government.
In central Kiev, burnt-out cars and barricades of cobblestones and tyres still litter the streets. Molotov cocktails, improvised clubs, stretchers and shields remain close to hand, but they have not been used since the fall of the regime.
The state of limbo has posed many questions about Maidan's future. Some say it should become a semi-permanent feature of political life, others that it should disperse after the presidential elections scheduled for 25 May.
In a government office a few miles up the road the former commander of the protest camp's fighting wing, Andriy Parubiy, is now at the heart of the Kiev's attempts to counter the rebellion in the east. As head of the national security and defence council, he oversees Ukraine's security forces.
"There was a time to throw stones, but now is the time to collect stones," Parubiy said about the remaining protesters in Maidan.
Officials are acutely aware of the potential threat posed by the large groups of men, many well-armed, that make up Maidan's self defence force. Extremist rightwing elements, which led much of the violence against the previous government, also have a prominent presence in the square.
The group of self-defense of the Maidan goes down the street the Khreshchatyk to a day of mourning on victims.
In late March, rightwing radicals blockaded the Ukrainian parliament after a leader of the radical ultranationalist Right Sector group was killed by security forces during an attempted arrest. The interim Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, warned at the time of "destabilisation".
Parubiy is spearheading attempts to co-opt Maidan activists into volunteer units that will fight alongside police, the army and special forces in the east.
Billboards across Kiev call for recruits for the re-formed national guard, which already has one battalion of about 400 volunteers deployed around the rebel-held town of Slavyansk.
"When we set off to Maidan we did not go to fight, but that's what life threw up, that's what fate decreed for us," said Parubiy. "A lot of people on Maidan still think that they need to protect Kiev … we are calling on all these people, especially young men, to join our [volunteer] battalions and go to where there are currently real barricades."
A first battalion of the National Guard has been deployed in the eastern Ukraine. Many of its members are former Maidan Square protesters.
The strategy is not without risk. Some volunteer groups under the official jurisdiction of the interior ministry have been accused of leading the deadly violence in Mariupol and Krasnoarmeisk last week that helped to push local people into the arms of the rebels.
In another effort to boost fighting power, Kiev announced on 1 May that it was reintroducing conscription because of threats to the country's territorial integrity. The Ukrainian military was strongly criticised for its passivity as a string of administrative buildings in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk fell to pro-Russian irregulars in recent weeks.
While there appears to be strong support for the action of Ukraine's security forces in the east, there is also an awareness of the risks.
"People need to understand that they belong in Ukraine," said Anna Calyack, 24, a civil servant, who was walking with a friend through central Kiev on Saturday evening. "If we force them, then we will be just the same as Yanukovych."
Observers in Russia and Ukraine have hurried to describe events in the east as a civil war but people in Kiev tend to shy away from such language.
Parubiy said an unconventional war was being waged by Russia against Ukraine, and described pro-Russian irregulars as terrorists.
Others contrast the fast-paced propaganda campaign in the media with the relatively limited action on the ground.
Irina Rozsoshko, 29, said there was no sign, at least in Kiev, of a traditional war with tanks and people in uniform "but there is an information war going on".
Vlasov believed he had a better idea than most about the nature of the conflict in the east; he said he was from Kramatorsk, one of the towns taken by pro-Russian rebels last month, and he was sharing his tent with a group of activists from the eastern regions.
"Those who have seized power in Kramatorsk are all acquaintances of mine and it has become like the 1990s there – all the bandits have returned," he said. "About 70% of people support a unified Ukraine but they can't go against automatic weapons."
He said that many of the fighters there were being paid, and he did not believe the conflict would be over soon.
Other Maidan Square protesters remained on Maidan because they were convinced the uprising had not ended with the removal of Yanukovych and had not yet been completed.
Parliamentary elections should follow the inauguration of the country's new president, said Alexander Borshulyak, a vintage-car collector who arrived to protest in Kiev last year.
Borshulyak and three other volunteers from Maidan Square run a small charity helping the thousands of people who fled to Kiev after Russia annexed Crimea in March. "When I left my two sons last year I embraced them and said that I will only return to a different town in a different country," he said. "If I go back now when prices have risen, all the gold has been stolen and there are barricades on every street, what can I say to my children?"
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