Despite his affiliation with an ultra-nationalist group, parliamentarian Boryslav Bereza looks more like a sophisticated metrosexual than a hardliner.
He sports an earring in his left ear and has a spooky resemblance to his friend Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector nationalist group.
Bereza, the group's 40-year old former spokesman, is of Jewish descent but at the same time espouses Ukrainian nationalism. He represents the community jokingly dubbed the Jewish Banderites – a reference to Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera who came to symbolize Ukrainian nationalism. This community includes, among others, major tycoon and Dnipropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoysky.
Bereza sees no contradiction between being a Jew and a Ukrainian nationalist and says that he supports civic, not ethnic, nationalism.
“You know why I was working with the Right Sector, not with Svoboda?” he said in an interview with the Kyiv Post, referring to a nationalist party whose members have been accused of anti-Semitism. “Because the Right Sector doesn’t do anti-Semitic stuff.”
The Right Sector unites Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians, Armenians, Jews and other ethnicities. It had started off as an umbrella organization for a handful of other groups. “The melting pot of Maidan has forged all of us into Ukrainians,” Bereza said, referring to the EuroMaidan Revolution in late 2013-early 2014.
Bereza, who speaks Hebrew and goes to the synagogue sometimes, worked and lived in Israel in 1991-1993. He believes that Ukraine has a lot to learn from that country.
Israel is hailed for building a vibrant and prosperous economy despite being surrounded by enemies - which is comparable to Ukraine’s situation – and having few natural resources. “They turned a desert into a garden,” Bereza says.
Instead of yielding to enemies who greatly outnumbered them, the Israelis have created a highly efficient military and security apparatus. “Enemies of Israel don’t go unpunished in any part of the world,” Bereza said.
He believes that Ukraine should emulate by creating a strong, well-functioning state capable of cracking down on crime and corruption and withstanding external aggression. “But now we have a strong society and a weak state,” he says.
In 1993 Bereza returned to Ukraine, intending initially just to visit friends but eventually deciding to come back for good. Subsequently he was involved in book-selling, set up a literary agency and was a host on Ukrainian television shows, including book-related ones.
Speaking of his penchant for books, Bereza said that he had diverse interests ranging from Mikhail Bulgakov’s Days of the Turbins and Spartacus by Rafaella Giovagnolli to J.D. Salinger, a Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin and Niccolo Machiavelli.
Bereza entered politics during the EuroMaidan Revolution, when he got acquainted with Yarosh and became the head of the Right Sector’s information department. “Ukraine was given a second chance and I realized it should be used to change the situation,” he said, implying that Ukraine had lost its first chance after the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Despite being the Right Sector’s spokesman, he did not formally join the organization.
He was subsequently elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the Oct. 26, 2014 parliamentary election, running in a majority constituency in Kyiv's Troeshchyna, a working class neighborhood. Bereza stepped down as the Right Sector’s spokesman in December – a move that he attributes to his busy schedule in parliament.
Bereza is unhappy with traditional parliamentary politics, with parties united not by ideas but by allegiance to a specific politician – former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk etc.
At the Verkhovna Rada, Bereza believes himself to be part of the “constructive” and pro-Ukrainian opposition, in contrast with the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc, the political heir of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
Bereza and his allies have created the Ukrop group, which unites lawmakers whose political base stems from the EuroMaidan movement, rather than from traditional elites. The group also includes Yarosh, former Dnipropetrovsk Deputy Governor Borys Filatov and EuroMaidan activist Volodymyr Parasyuk.
It is not clear whether Ukrop has been officially registered. Filatov told the Kyiv Post that it already formally exists but the Verkhovna Rada’s Web site lacked information on the group. “Ukrop is a group of like-minded people of the right-wing opposition,” Filatov said.
The group has initiated bills to recognize all members of volunteer battalions as participants of the war and to facilitate the activities of volunteers who help to supply the army.
Bereza and other Ukrop members are unhappy with the parliamentary majority, which consists of supporters of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. “The Verkhovna Rada is diverse,” he said. “There are people who want to change something but they’re not in the majority.”
Bereza is also displeased with what he thinks to be Poroshenko’s excessive clout at the parliament. “Not a single law passes without the president’s approval,” he said.
Unlike other pro-European lawmakers, Bereza opposes a bill seeking to strip parliamentarians of immunity in an effort to punish lawmakers involved in corruption. He believes that it could be used by the government to crack down on the opposition.
Bereza also voted against the appointment of Viktor Shokin as prosecutor general earlier in February, arguing that he was part of the old system and would not be able to make progress on high-profile cases. Another measure that he opposed was the hasty adoption of the 2015 budget in December 2014, when lawmakers voted for it without seeing the actual latest figures and allegedly violated parliamentary procedures.
