S14 (Ukrainian group)

Founding S14 was founded in 2010 as the youth wing of the ultranationalist political party Svoboda. They were involved with skirmishes with the violent pro-government supporters known as titushky. In openDemocracy, Denys Gorbach commented that "C14 combine generic 'healthy patriotic' message with subtler hints which can be easily deciphered by members of the subculture (such as the symbolic date of the Roma pogrom on Hitler's birthday or indeed the very name of the organisation)". Relationship with Ukrainian Intelligence (SBU) In 2017, S14 was accused by anti-war, left-wing activist Stas Serhiyenko of having been involved in his stabbing. The day after the attack, S14 leader accused Serhiyenko of having supported the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Kharkiv Oblast and annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and stated that the attack was "far from the first, but not the last, attack on the bacilli of terrorism, hidden in the midst of peaceful Ukrainian streets". In November 2017, S14 was accused by former member to have cooperated with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Karas openly boasted about it. In 2019 a former intelligence officer of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) stated that the SBU had found some common ground with S14 and directed them to carry out some actions against separatists that they could not legally arrest, such as searches and identifications of separatists. The actions also included causing physical harm, such as crashing a car. Involvement in Ukrainian Society In January 2018, S14 counter-protested the annual demonstration commemorating Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov, two murdered Russian anti-fascists, by shouting the demonstrators down and attacking them with eggs and snowballs; the demonstration has been an annual target of the far right. In March 2018, the Holosiivskyi District of Kyiv signed an agreement allowing to establish a municipal guard headed by a S14 representative to patrol the capital city's streets. This decision was criticized by human rights groups commenting that "Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions." In June 2018, S14 gained international notoriety after reports it was being involved in violent attacks on Romani camps. The day after the attack, Karas posted a blog entry entitled "Separatist Safari", taking responsibility for the assault. He made threats "on the germs of terrorists hiding in the peaceful Ukrainian streets". Amnesty International, Freedom House, Front Line Defenders, and Human Rights Watch signed a "Joint Letter to Ukraine's Minister of Interior Affairs and Prosecutor General Concerning Radical Groups" citing S14, alongside Karpatska Sich, Right Sector, Traditsii i Poryadok, and others, to "have carried out at least two dozen violent attacks, threats, or instances of intimidation in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Uzhhorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and other Ukrainian cities". On 14 June 2018, Hromadske Radio reported that Ukraine's Ministry of Youth and Sports was funding S14 to promote "national patriotic education projects", for which the group was awarded almost $17,000. S14 also awarded funds to far-right linked Educational Assembly and Holosiyiv Hideout. On 19 November 2018, S14 and fellow far-right Ukrainian nationalist political organizations, among them the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and Right Sector, endorsed Ruslan Koshulynskyi in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. where he received 1.6% of the votes. In March 2019, a cooperation between S14 and the SBU was announced; the SBU instructed S14 to perform certain tasks that the SBU could not perform for legal reasons. In March 2021, S14 members were elected to the Public Council at the country's Ministry for Veterans Affairs, with whom the group, alongside Azov, has partnered since November 2019; far-right groups and leaders were involved in shaping the ministry, which was formed in November 2018. On 17 October 2019, an event was arranged by far-right figure , who chairs an organization for veterans of the war in Donbas linked to S14 and is a suspect in the murder of journalist Oles Buzina; the event, a concert attended by, among others, neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denying band , was also attended by then-government ministers, among them Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and minister Oksana Koliada. Following harsh criticism, Honcharuk justified his presence stating that many different bands had attended the event and that he had visited the place following an invitation from a veteran group, not because he is a fan of Sokyra Peruna. == Image ==

S14 (as spelled in the Ukrainian alphabet) says it resembles Sich (), the name given to the administrative and military centres for Cossacks in the 16–18th century. Experts and the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium have reported that the number 14 in the group's name has been seen as a reference to the Fourteen Words slogan coined by David Lane, an American white supremacist. while sociologist described it as "a neo-Nazi terror group ... whose major activity is harassing and terrorizing opposition journalists, bloggers, and citizens". S14 leader has defended himself from attacks calling him a Nazi and his group being neo-Nazi. According to Karas, his confrontations were mainly with non-Ukrainian ethnic groups that he said controlled the country's political and economic forces, whom he identified as Jews, Poles, and Russians. author of the 2018 Freedom House report on the far right in Ukraine, Ivan Katchanovski, and Branislav Radelic. Likhachev said that S14 members decorated the captured Kyiv City State Administration's building during the Euromaidan with neo-Nazi symbolism and flags, which they continue to use. referred to the group as neo-Nazi. The ruling was criticized by human rights groups, journalists, and both national and international observers, with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media expressing concern because it "goes against #mediafreedom and could discourage journalistic work" in Ukraine. Bellingcat, The Economist, Haaretz, The Nation, Reuters, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and The Washington Post, as well as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and human rights organizations like the European Roma Rights Centre, Hope not Hate, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, PEN Ukraine, , and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, among others, have referred to S14 as a neo-Nazi group. The ruling of the Commercial Court of Kyiv was upheld on 7 November 2019. The day prior, Matthew Schaaf, the director of Freedom House in Ukraine, said that the ruling "could seriously damage media coverage of important events in Ukraine in conditions where many media and journalists already apply self-censorship". After the ruling, critics argued that it was not sufficient that neo-Nazi is offensive, it must also be false, which the court did not establish because it ignored the views of experts. On 21 January 2020, the Supreme Court of Ukraine rejected Hromadske's appeal, and the case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights. == Rebranding ==

In autumn 2019, S14 leader Yevhen Karas announced the creation of the new political movement "Society for the Future", which has the objective of uniting several radical nationalist groups, including S14, Misanthropic Division and some veterans of the disbanded OUN Battalion. In March 2020 S14 officially rebranded into the "Foundation for the Future" (), which will act as the youth wing of the Society for the Future. == Notes ==