KIEV, Ukraine — In the worst breach yet between Ukrainian authorities and one of the pro-government right-wing paramilitary groups, at least seven people were wounded in a gun battle over the weekend in usually peaceful western Ukraine.
The fighting broke out in the town of Mukachevo, near the borders with Poland and Slovakia, both members of the European Union. Members of the paramilitary group, Right Sector, were videotaped Saturday afternoon firing at police officers from a belt-fed machine gun mounted on a pickup truck as they drove along a street.
The immediate cause was a matter of dispute. Mustafa Nayyem, a member of Parliament, told the local news media that Right Sector was involved in cigarette smuggling, and that a fight with rivals for control of the illegal cigarette business set off the shooting.
Right Sector said that corrupt policemen ambushed its soldiers in the town, for unclear reasons, and that chaos ensued. Right Sector has refused to surrender the gunmen, who remain in defensive positions in the town.
Whatever the trigger, the violence highlighted the risks of Ukraine’s strategy of relying on quasi-legal paramilitaries in its war with Russian-backed separatists as its army and national guard are trained and equipped.
By late Sunday, the conflict appeared to be escalating; the Ukrainian authorities had closed roads into Mukachevo and were moving heavy military equipment to the town.
Right Sector, in turn, said it could deploy soldiers to the capital, Kiev, if the standoff was not settled peacefully.
The fighting started outside a gym and swimming pool complex, where members of the Right Sector group, armed with automatic rifles, arrived in four jeeps and pickups for a meeting with another member of Parliament, Mikhail Lano. The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported that the meeting was about the cigarette business. Mr. Lano said the Right Sector group arrived to discuss free memberships to the gym for veterans of the fighting in the east.
When police officers arrived in response to shootings there, Right Sector opened fire. Video showed the convoy of jeeps driving down a street as cars veered off it and passers-by ran for cover; later a police car was shown burning in the road.
By late Sunday, the Ukrainian government and intermediaries, including other paramilitary leaders active in the war in the east, were still negotiating with Right Sector for the gunmen to surrender.
Among them were Andrei Y. Belitsky, a Parliament member and founder of the Azov volunteer battalion. Mr. Belitsky asked for an independent investigation that might support Right Sector’s assertion that it was a victim of corrupt local police officers.
“This is a gravely dangerous situation for our country,” Mr. Belitsky said in an interview in Kiev. “With the economy falling, social instability rising and a war in the east, the last thing we need is a second front” in western Ukraine.
Right Sector formed from formerly marginal right-wing groups during the street protests in Kiev in 2013 and 2014 that led to the overthrow of the former government, and then organized into a well-armed paramilitary, one of about 30 such groups that have emerged during the conflict. Members of paramilitaries are prohibited from carrying battlefield weapons outside the war zone, but many do.
Unlike most of the others, including Azov, Right Sector has refused to incorporate formally into the army or Interior Ministry troops, leading to worries of a possible second wave of the revolution in Ukraine, led by this extreme right wing of the country’s politics, particularly as the economy unravels here.
The interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said four civilians and three officers had been wounded. Mr. Belitsky, the Azov founder, said he was told two people had died. Mr. Avakov said a special police operation had begun in the town. For a time, the authorities blocked a main east-west highway, apparently to block reinforcements from Right Sector.
A spokesman for Right Sector, Artyom Skoropadsky, said corrupt policemen in league with Mr. Lano, the member of Parliament, had attacked the soldiers in the town. In protest, he said, Right Sector was ready to send paramilitary soldiers to Kiev.
“They are training, undergoing preparation for the front,” Mr. Skoropadsky said. “But if it’s needed, we can send the reserve battalions wherever we need,” including to “outside the building of the presidential administration.”
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