Last week’s Champions League football clash between Dynamo Kyiv and Manchester United saw yet more violent clashes between visiting fans and local hooligans. Manchester supporters were apparently identified at isolated locations and systematically attacked by well-organised gangs of skinheads who inflicted serious injuries, leaving many fans in need of hospital treatment. This follows on from similar scenes of coordinated violence that accompanied the visits of the Scottish national football team and Glasgow Celtic over the past year.
Hooligan smokescreen for xenophobia
Football violence in itself is not a Ukrainian disease, of course, but given the extent of similar unprovoked attacks on physically recognisable foreigners in Ukraine over the past few years, it is clear that a dangerous culture of xenophobic violence is emerging from the shadows.
Earlier this month on the same day that ultra-nationalists joined a mass march in favour of recognising the WWII-era UPA Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a Bangladeshi man was brutally murdered in Kyiv in an apparent racially motivated attack, while three Chinese girls were stabbed in a separate incident.
Ukrainian officials are loathe to admit that this rising tide of violence against foreigners is racially or nationalistically motivated, preferring to categorise all such attacks as common hooliganism, but the organised nature of the violence and numerous eye-witness accounts of individual attacks, citing large groups of teenagers screaming racial epithets, would seem to confirm that this is a far bigger and more sinister issue than simple youthful excess.
Recruiting the disaffected
Kyiv’s skinhead community, although embryonic compared to the alarming underground culture in neighbouring Russia, is growing, and the number of ultra-nationalistic pseudo-political organisations that offer the shield of respectability to angry young men is also on the rise.
They do not have to struggle hard to find potential recruits in the ideological laboratory that is today’s Ukraine.
Young Ukrainians with few personal prospects and a smoldering resentment at the perceived third-class status they are afforded in western Europe make for enthusiastic recruits, while the highly uneven distribution of Ukraine’s new-found wealth only adds to the resentment. The lack of any previous interaction with non-Europeans has also served to heighten racial tensions since the appearance of an international community in the 1990s.
Embassies forced to take action
Taken together, these factors make for a potent, potentially deadly cocktail and the results have been explosive. No matter how long the Ukrainian government turns a blind eye to the problem, there is no denying that it has already impacted on perceptions of the country.
International organisations in Kyiv now routinely notify staff and other members of the international community ahead of planned marches by nationalist groups.
Many embassies have taken to advising non-white members of staff to avoid certain areas and try not to get caught alone at night anywhere in the city.
Non-European ambassadors who previously relished the strolling culture of the Ukrainian capital are now reluctant to set foot outside without protection.
It is only a matter of time before the wider world starts to view Ukraine through the prism of racial hatred and xenophobia.
Ultimately this damaging trend could pose a threat to the opportunities presented by Euro 2012. The coming football championships represent a chance for Ukraine to demonstrate just how progressive and European this country really is, and also guarantees a captive audience.
However, no matter how well the infrastructure renovation plans proceed, if visitors are subjected to violent attacks and racial assaults, then Ukraine will be slaughtered in the international media as a backward, savage land to be avoided at all costs. That may well be exactly what the thugs would like to see, but it is up to the authorities to make sure that the interests of decent Ukrainians are protected.
