page_title: Patriot of Ukraine
section_title: Re-establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Patriot of Ukraine / Re-establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: The Second Congress of the «Patriots of Ukraine» in Kharkov, April 12, 2008.
context_page_description: The Patriot of Ukraine was an ultranationalist organization in Ukraine founded in 2005 and defunct since December 2014. The group was described as having racist and neo-Nazi political beliefs. The leader of the Patriot of Ukraine and of the Social-National Assembly of Ukraine was Andriy Biletsky.
  It constituted a paramilitary wing of the S.N.A., an assemblage of neo-Nazi organizations and groups founded in 2008 that share the social-national ideology and agree upon building a social-national state in Ukraine. Both the Patriot of Ukraine and the S.N.A. engaged in political violence against minorities and their political opponents.
  In 2011, three members of Patriot of Ukraine were arrested in Kharkiv Ukraine in an alleged attempt to blow up a statue of Vladimir Lenin. In Kharkiv, Patriot of Ukraine members were arrested and charged with attempted murder, after an attempt to murder Biletsky. In an interview to the Left Bank on 10 December 2014, Biletsky announced that the Patriot of Ukraine as political organization suspended its activities due to the war situation in the country and dissolved primarily within the Azov Battalion.
context_section_description: In 2005, the process of the re-establishment was started in Kharkiv where the Patriot of Ukraine was re-constituted as an independent political organization and subsequently registered by local authorities as a civic association on 17 January 2006, registration number 1057.
  The Patriot of Ukraine defined itself as a "revolutionary vanguard of the Ukrainian social-nationalistic movement". The organization continued to use the "Idea of the Nation" symbol (similar to the Wolfsangel rune) which was initially used by the Social-National Party of Ukraine, the only difference is the color of the monogram as the SNPU used azure (blue) monogram on gold and the Patriot of Ukraine utilizes sable (black) on gold and gold on sable. The monogram consists of a combination of the Latin letters I and N (note that the organization's propaganda materials describe the letters as Old Russian as they were traditionally drawn before Peter the Great reformed the alphabet in 1707–1710). The letter N symbolizes the central place of the national idea in organizational ideology; while the letter I with both ends sharpened emphasizes the unstoppable movement of ideas and triumph of the ideal over materialistic.
  In 2007, the organization officially ended its relationship with Svoboda, a direct descendant to the Social-National Party of Ukraine.
  In the party statement, it was announced as follows:
  Breaking all relationships with "Svoboda", the "Patriot of Ukraine" realizes that it assumes all the responsibility in the struggle for future Greater Ukraine. As an organization the "Patriot of Ukraine" is based on the "party-army" principle: it aims at creating a powerful All-Ukrainian Social-National movement, in which the new Social-National Party of Ukraine will hold a prominent place aided by storm detachments of the "Patriot of Ukraine" and the social-national trade-unions.
  Despite the split some prominent Svoboda's members such as Andriy Illienko, Chairman of the Kiev City Branch of the Vo Svoboda (Freedom) All-Ukrainian Union and a member of the Verhovna Rada, continued to advocate social-nationalism and idea of the two revolutions (national and social) which created a common ground with the Patriot of Ukraine.
  Some researchers pointed to the fact that even after the declarative break-up, VO Svoboda continued to benefit:
  Svobova also seems to benefit from the increasing popularity of extreme-right youth movements and organizations like the Social-National Assembly (SNA), 'Patriot of Ukraine' and Autonomous Resistance, whose aim is to create 'a uniracial and uninational society.' The activities of these groups are not limited to physical or symbolic violence against ethnic and social minorities, as they also take an active part in numerous social campaigns — generally along with representatives of Svoboda — ranging from mass protests against price rises to leafleting against alcohol and drug use. Needless to say, members of these extreme-right movements are often members of Tyahnybok's party.
caption: Andriy Biletsky addresses the Second Congress of the Patriot of Ukraine, Kharkiv, 12 April 2008
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