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Today, nearby the monastery that served as the spiritual capital of that rebellion is a monument to the 93rd brigade, which is flanked by a growing pantheon of modern day “Cossack Volunteers” who paid their respects to the “Kholodny Yar Republic” before giving their lives to defend Ukraine. Many of the deceased were friends of the Kholodny Yar Historical Club (KYHC) who served in far-right military units.

The 93rd brigade, which already suffered heavy losses in eastern Ukraine, adopted the name “Kholodny Yar” in 2018. According to Vakhtang Kipiani, a famous ideological officer in the National Guard who[m] I wrote about the other day, “Thanks to the efforts and pen of [KYHC president] Roman Koval, there is a cult of Kholodny Yar heroes in Ukraine.”

In 1994, Koval chaired the small far-right party “State Independence of Ukraine” (DSU, Derzhavna samostiynistʹ Ukrayiny) that chose as its symbol the “Great-Power Falcon,” which allegedly inspired the Azovites in the National Guard to put a falcon on their banners. That year, Koval read Kholodny Yar, an obscure novel by Yuriy Gorlis-Gorsky (1898–1946), a veteran of World War I who got involved in the “Republic” and worked with German military intelligence during World War II.

Koval became obsessed with the Kholodny Yar Republic and in 1995 he started the annual tradition of honoring its heroes on their former territory. He also helped to turn Gorlis-Gorsky’s book into a nationalist cult classic. The Kholodny Yar Historical Club was officially established in 1997, and uses the symbol of the DSU, which represented the struggle for “Greater Ukraine.”

The KYHC published several editions of Kholodny Yar, and apparently inspired a famous Ukrainian author (Vasyl Shkliar) to write a best-selling novel, The Black Raven (2009). This eventually became the symbol of the 93rd brigade, designed by Oleksiy Rudenko, the nationalist “chief artist of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” who often wears a hat with a Rhodesia army patch.

Hennadiy Shapovalov, the commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, recently joined Roman Koval, the president-for-life of the Kholodny Yar Historical Club, to lay flowers at the grave of Koval’s former vice-president, Oleh Kutsin (1965–2022), on what would have been his 60th birthday. “We work out of love for the Motherland and hatred for enemies,” according to Roman Koval.

Kutsin was also Koval’s deputy in the DSU. In 2015–16, Kutsin led the “Carpathian Sich,” an assault company in the 93rd brigade that was associated with the far-right “Svoboda” party, which has always glorified the Waffen-SS Galicia Division. In 2022, Kutsin organized the 49th Carpathian Sich battalion, which now includes the openly neo-Nazi “German Volunteer Corps.”

[…]

In 2019, the monument to the 93rd brigade was established in Kholodny Yar. Its commander spoke at the unveiling. Four years later, the KYHC expanded the site with a “Memorial to the Cossack Volunteers,” starting with the busts of four “heroes of the current war”: Oleh Kutsin, Andriy Zhovanik, and a pair of Right Sector commanders, Dmytro “Da Vinci” Kotsiubaylo and Taras “Hammer” Bobanych.

All of them but Kutsin have been decreed “Heroes of Ukraine” by Zelensky. KYHC member Andriy Zhovanik led the “V Legion” that fought with the Carpathian Sich and Right Sector. Arseniy Bilodub from Sokyra Peruna at least used to be a deputy commander of the unit, and supported them with his neo-Nazi brand Svastone. The far-right “Da Vinci” and neo-Nazi “Hammer” visited Kholodny Yar in 2018, and perhaps other years.

(Emphasis original.)