The Cossacks resist to extremist forces in Ukraine

The consul of the International Academy of the Cossacks (Kiev) Alexander Fedorovich Presny answers the questions of the Internet portal «The world and we» about the Cossacks role in the events occurring in Ukraine.
— How do the various groups of the Ukrainian Cossacks treat the events on Donbass?
The Ukrainian Cossacks have no common position of rather occurring events in general. Because of it there was an opportunity to use the name and symbols of the Cossacks in interests of forces conducting punitive operations on Donbass. The Sich battalion can be an example of it.
The International Academy of the Cossacks (IAC) took a neutral position at the moment. The reason is obvious here because the Cossacks weren’t ready to such turn of events and therefore the different directions of the Cossacks are not integrated now. There is no that one idea which could show and define a Cossacks place in those events which now occur in the Southeast of Ukraine.
The destructive role is played by promotion of the Ukrainian mass media, pressure of official bodies of the power which bring doubts and split in ranks of the Ukrainian Cossacks, interfere with formation of the uniform Cossack movement. Besides, special complexity is represented with that the Cossacks have no uniform leader.
Those events which are now developed in the east of Ukraine, certainly, will be long and by some estimates will take about three years. Further restoration of the destroyed regions will begin, but not of Ukraine as this state will lose the meaning by then.
If the Cossacks are able to unite on patriotic bases for these years, then the real Cossacks will revive, the real Slavic spirit will revive and all succession of events conducts to it.
— What do you think of those Cossacks who are at war in the ranks of regular Ukrainian army against DNR and LNR?
Cossacks are the separate people who live in the territory of all globe. In fact it is the militant people. As Ukraine is divided to the West and the East, naturally some part of Cossacks got under influence of that promotion which now exists in Ukraine. And more conscious part, first of all in Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporozhye, took a patriotic position. In Zaporozhye the Cossacks support DNR and now wait the moment when it is possible to be connected to the happening processes fully.
— Can the Cossacks be a worthy counterbalance of Bandera ideology and did the actions make in this direction?
One of the real forces which can resist to fascism really is the integrated Cossacks. The Cossack people have the corresponding ideological and historical potential — they opened new lands, responded to an appeal of princes, voevodes and tsars in a hard time for the state and always protected that earth and the territory of the state in which lived. But it is the free people. It submits only to own Charter and a way of life.
Those Cossacks who are at war on the party of a militia, arrived from the different countries of the world. Often, participation of concrete divisions in military operations is an initiative of their atamans. And it is a problem — the Cossacks at least in scales of the former USSR have no common, integrated position as the Cossack people are still not integrated. There were many undertakings and attempts to make it, but it wasn’t succeeded to agree.
Thanks to Mikhail Ivanovich Yamnenko’s activity, the President of IAC, it was succeeded to prove that Cossacks are separate people. And today the IAC has the representative in the U. N. But it is only one voice. And if it is correct to raise a question who is such Cossack and what are the Cossacks, the CIS countries can have not one voice in the person of the Cossacks, but 15−20 and more.
Unfortunately, the events on Donbass don’t allow to realize this geopolitical potential of the Cossacks now — the sharp phase of the conflict forces to concentrate on absolutely other actions.
— Do the participants of punitive battalions who use the names connected with the Cossacks reckon themselves among the real Cossacks?
It is only exclusively the use of symbols. Cossacks were never fascists. And in the Charter and in approach to life it is impossible that the Cossack killed women, children and old men. Of course, every family has its black sheep, but the vast majority of Cossacks never will do that.
Yes, the Cossacks have rigid orders, but to kill the woman only because she is weaker or to kill the old man who can’t take the weapon in hand is inherent only in fascism and the Banderovshchyna. And any Banderovite, any fascist won’t stand in direct collision with the real Cossack — he simply won’t have spirit.