Some Maydan protesters are motivated by their longing for the West. Others, like nationalist Oleh Tyahnybok, are motivated by the loathing of the East. Tyahnybok is the 45-year-old head of Ukraine’s Svoboda (Freedom) political movement, which stormed Kyiv’s city administration building on December 1 and has since called for a national strike. “A revolution is starting in Ukraine,” said Tyahnybok, who has accused Russia of “waging virtual war” on Ukraine; he has called for a visa regime with Russia and argued against the introduction of Russian as a second state language.
Tyahnybok, who has had a long, slow-growing career, may also see the protests as a political opportunity. Tyahnybok first entered parliament in 1998 and eventually won reelection as a member of Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc. But his nationalist views eventually saw him ousted from the bloc, and have routinely set back his political progress, with critics regularly accusing him of anti-Semitism.
In 2012, after failed presidential and mayoral runs, Tyahnybok reentered the Verkhovna Rada on his own terms, as the head of Svoboda’s parliamentary faction. But his support of the Maydan protests has not endeared him to many fellow lawmakers: during a December 2 interview, Tyahnybok showed head wounds he said were the work of parliament members irate over his role in the protests.
For a country with a famously fractious opposition, Tyahnybok is for now a team player, strategizing with mainstream opposition figures Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko. When it comes to Klitschko, the common ground extends beyond politics: Tyahnybok’s father was himself a celebrated boxer. But with Tyahnybok opposed to EU integration, it’s far from certain the opposition leaders will see eye-to-eye if the protests continue.