Will there be a fascist coup in Kyiv?

With Donald Trump apparently intent on pulling the plug on US support for the Ukrainian government in its war with Russia, a peace agreement that leaves Vladimir Putin in de facto possession of large swathes of conquered territory is now a realistic prospect. But how might fascist forces in Ukraine react to a deal which, from their standpoint, would constitute treachery to the nation? A recent article by Jack Conrad in the Weekly Worker addresses that question.

Jack cites a report last September by the Financial Times, which pointed to the challenge Volodymyr Zelensky faces from “a nationalist minority opposed to any compromise, some of whom are now armed and trained to fight”. Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Verkhovna Rada’s foreign affairs committee and a prominent member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, was quoted as stating: “There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy.”

Merezhko was undoubtedly correct. While the size and influence of the fascist movement has increased under the impact of war, this is not a new phenomenon. In February 2014 it was threats of violence from the far right that destroyed the compromise president Viktor Yanukovych had agreed with the opposition and forced him to flee the capital in fear for his life, bringing to power a government that included four fascist ministers and unleashing a civil war in the east. In 2019, after Zelensky was elected with a mandate to negotiate a settlement of the Donbass conflict, it was angry protests and death threats by the ethnonationalist right that helped to derail the peace process.

The FT report was unusual in that it did acknowledge the impact of the far right on Ukrainian politics. Since the launch of the Russian invasion three years ago the mainstream media have largely fallen silent on this issue. If the neo-Nazi origins of the notorious Azov Brigade are mentioned at all these days, this is invariably accompanied by the assurance that the organisation has changed. Unfortunately, and in part as a reaction against that whitewashing of fascism, there is a section of the left that exaggerates the significance of the far right in Ukraine.

For example, the Weekly Worker article tells us that Ukraine issues postage stamps to celebrate the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, and that there is an annual holiday in his honour. The only Bandera stamp that I’m aware of was produced back in 2009 under Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency, and the widely circulated story about a national holiday for Bandera is false. There is certainly a cult of Bandera in Ukraine, which receives official backing, and this should be exposed and condemned. But we need to get our facts straight.

The main concern of the Weekly Worker article is to flag up the danger that a peace deal may provoke a fascist coup, which Jack Conrad suggests would be led by Azov’s Mykyta Nadtochiy. It’s unclear why he accords this role to Nadtochiy, who is no longer commander of the Azov Brigade. He held that position for only a year, after Denys Prokopenko was taken prisoner following the fall of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, and Prokopenko resumed command of the brigade when he returned to Ukraine in 2023.

Jack talks up the influence of Azov, describing it as “the ideological spinal cord of Ukraine’s armed forces”, but provides no assessment of numbers. A puff-piece about Azov in Le Monde last year claimed that the brigade was “set to grow from 1,500 to 7,000 men”, but it’s questionable whether this target was achieved. Even if you add the forces of the 3rd Assault Brigade, which is commanded by Azov’s founder Andriy Biletsky (see propaganda pic below), I’d be surprised if their combined numbers reach that figure. Is this enough to carry out a successful coup?

Let us allow that Azov could gather the forces necessary to overthrow Zelensky, by calling on the support of other politically sympathetic military units. Who would they replace him with? Jack Conrad outlines the following scenario for the period after the far right accomplishes its seizure of power: “With Azov in control in Kyiv, elections are held. Naturally, unpatriotic candidates and parties are barred from running. Andriy Biletsky is declared president and Mykyta Nadtochiy vice-president. The Rada is dominated by the far right.” What, in reality, are the chances of this happening?

The latest poll for the next parliamentary election puts the far right’s total vote at 12.4%. That does represent a big increase compared with their disastrous performance in 2019 when they got only 2.15%, and it even tops the 10.45% that Svoboda won in 2012 (although polls today exclude people living in territory now under Russian control, where Svoboda was always overwhelmingly rejected by voters). However, on current ratings, a lot of parties would need to be banned in order for fascists to dominate the Verkhovna Rada.

As for Biletsky, he doesn’t appear to have benefited at all from this wartime uptick in support for the far right, and remains deeply unpopular. (He may have toned down the neo-Nazi rhetoric in recent years, but his earlier political statements, notably his declaration that the historic mission of the Ukrainian nation is to “lead the White Peoples of the whole world in the last crusade for their existence, a crusade against the Semite-led untermenschen”, haven’t been forgotten.) The two most recent polls for the presidential election put Biletsky on 1.31% and 2.2%. That’s no advance on the derisory 1.65% the far right’s candidate, Ruslan Koshulynsky of Svoboda, received in 2019. Even with unpatriotic candidates excluded, it’s difficult to see how Biletsky could win a convincing electoral mandate.

Not so long ago I did think there was a real possibility of a fascist-military coup in the event of a Zelensky signing a peace deal with Putin. The obvious figure to have headed such a putsch would have been Valery Zaluzhny, the then commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, who made no secret of his ideological sympathies with and links to the far right (see photo above). Unlike Biletsky, Zaluzhny does have a base of popular support. The two recent opinion polls I’ve cited have Zaluzhny on 24.29% and 38.1% for the first round of the next presidential election, which is well ahead of Zelensky. He would easily defeat Zelensky in the second round.

But Zaluzhny was removed as commander-in-chief a year ago and has since been appointed ambassador to the UK, so is hardly in a position to participate directly in the overthrow of Zelensky. In any case, it would now make far more sense for Zaluzhny to pursue a constitutional path to political power, given that he is clear favourite to be elected as the next president of Ukraine.

This is not to deny that Ukrainian fascism, and the Azov movement in particular, represents a serious threat. In the event of an agreement to end the war that involves major territorial concessions to Russia — and realistically there can’t be an agreement on any other basis — a violent far-right backlash seems almost inevitable. Zelensky could well be assassinated by some infuriated ultranationalist. Or, in order to avoid that fate, he might renege on a commitment to sign a peace deal, as he did at the Normandy-format summit in December 2019. But an Azov-led coup that brings Andriy Biletsky to power belongs in the realm of political fantasy.

First published on Medium in January 2025