Situationen i Ukraina just nu, del 3

He has other orders from Munayev: he’s supposed to organize a “direct response group” in Kiev. The group will be a sort of rear echelon unit that take care of problems, like if someone tries to discredit the Dudayev battalion. It will also collect debts or scare off competition. There’s no doubt the new branch will work behind the lines, where there isn’t war, but there is money — as long as you know where to get it. If need be, the direct response group volunteers will watch over the mines in Rivne, or “will acquire” money from illegal casinos, which operate by the hundreds in Kiev.

Rizvan sends me photos of the group’s criminal exploits: they came into the casinos with weapons, and broke into the safes and slot machines. They disappeared quickly, and were never punished. The money went to food, uniforms, boots, tactical vests and other equipment necessary for the fighters. The mafia knows they can’t beat them at this game. The brothers are too good, because they are armed and experienced in battle. The police aren’t interested in getting involved either. In the end, it’s illegal gambling.

Maybe not: In a video statement released this week, one of the group’s leaders, the colorful “Babay” (Aleksandr Mozhaev), explained that its goal was to destroy “the Jew-Masons,” who are “fomenting disorder all over the world” and “causing us, the common Orthodox Christian folk, to suffer.” Another Cossack in Slavyansk told The Guardian’s Luke Harding that Russians and Ukrainians were one people “before Jews like Trotsky divided us.”