There is a common belief that the so-called “Yarosh’s business card,” which in 2014 became a popular meme and symbol of Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda, was invented by the Russian media. We decided to check if this is true.
For the first time "Yarosh's business card" appeared on the air of the Russian TV channel LifeNews, in a report about the battle near Slavyansk. I talked about her and Russia Today. Almost immediately it became a meme that ridiculed the Russian media’s accusations against the Right Sector*. For example, after the murder of former Russian politician Denis Voronenkov, Verkhovna Rada deputy Irina Gerashchenko stated: “It’s strange that the killer didn’t have Yarosh’s business card.” If you enter a hashtag on Twitter #Yarosh's business card, you can see thousands of posts, mostly humorous. TJournal published a whole selection of such tweets. Internet users have created hundreds of pictures with “Yarosh’s business card” - from shots from the series “The X-Files” to a photo of the flag planted by astronauts on the Moon.
On April 20, 2014, near Slavyansk there was fight between militias of the self-proclaimed republics at that time and unknown saboteurs. The militia immediately blamed the Right Sector for the attack. The only evidence that this particular organization took part in the shootout was the same business card of the leader of the Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, allegedly found on one of the victims. About her and told LifeNews journalist, giving rise to the meme “Yarosh’s business card.” At the same time, the organization itself denied its involvement in these events. Its press service released statement that the “Right Sector” has nothing to do with the shootout near Slavyansk, the organization conducts all its actions within the legal framework and generally condemns any attempts to desecrate Easter (the clash occurred precisely on this holiday).
In the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine this version supported and called the stories about Yarosh’s business card Russian propaganda. Doubts about the possibility of the existence of this business card were also added to by a video from the scene of the events, which showed cars burned to the ground. Many could not believe that a piece of cardboard could have survived there.
Subsequently, Dmitry Yarosh often speculated on this topic, registered trademark "Yarosh's Business Card", joked about it. His organization was going to release it in Dnepropetrovsk newspaper with that name. During his election campaign for the presidency of Ukraine in 2014, Dmitry Yarosh released a whole edition of such business cards and issued their propaganda materials in the same style. True, a year later, in an interview with the BBC, Yarosh himself told, that his first fight took place on Easter, April 20, 2014, near Slavyansk, although the business card was not mentioned in that interview.
All this time, Yarosh and his supporters did not directly deny the existence of that very business card, but ridiculed this meme, hinting that it was all an invention of propaganda. Yarosh spoke, that this is “the case when you don’t have to pay for PR.” But on April 22, 2016, Yuri Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor.net, published on his page on Facebook and then on website publication a story about the events of April 20, 2014, recorded by him from the words of Dmitry Yarosh himself. This is what the former leader of the Right Sector told Butusov: “We needed one experienced driver per car. And so the driver Mikhail Stanislavenko from Kyiv volunteered to go with us. He was not a Right Sector fighter, but he acted like a real warrior. On this day, he voluntarily decided to go into battle. <...> All this passed in a split second, because there were no questions and the sentry did not approach us - almost immediately the enemy opened heavy fire. Mikhail Stanislavenko died on the spot. <…> It pains me that the body of Mikhail Stanislavenko could not be taken away under fire. He actually had documents and my business card. Everyone left documents and their own things, and he was not our fighter, so, despite the order, he left the business card as a souvenir for himself.”
Thus, although for a long time it was believed that “Yarosh’s business card” was an invention of the LifeNews TV channel, a few years later it turned out that it really existed, and the Right Sector actually took part in the shootout near Slavyansk.
*Right Sector is an organization banned in Russia.
Not true
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