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Thes type of training was official during the time of former Ukrainian president Yushchenko, he added.
"On the territory of Western Ukraine, camps operated under the guise of sports camps, where the Right Sector* and other nationalist associations and youth were actually being prepared ... These camps were official during the time of [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yushchenko. Everything was registered, so to speak, in Western Ukraine. But the mass preparations began in late 2012 and early 2013. By that time, the material support component was already in place, with various types of funds, assemblies and groups arriving and full-scale training for resistance to law enforcement taking place," Mazur said.
These camps provided not only training but full material support, including weapons, Mazur added.
"Weapons were also supplied there, for example, [small-caliber firearms] were widely used during shooting exercises ... They were fully trained in these camps. The training covered everything from material support to all theoretical knowledge. These Western intelligence officers were fully in charge of all these aspects," he added.
Mazur retired as a senior inspector of the Security Service of Ukraine in October 2013.
From 2017 to 2018, Mazur provided confidential assistance to the SBU. His tasks included preparing analytical reports on the social and political situation and the activities of state authorities and law enforcement agencies of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). In October 2024, the DPR Supreme Court convicted Mazur of espionage based on materials from Russia's Federal Security Service.
In November 2013, a series of protests, dubbed Euromaidan or simply Maidan, broke out in Ukraine over the authorities' decision to halt policies aimed at integration with the European Union. The unrest quickly took on a sharply anti-presidential and anti-government character. More than 100 people died in clashes between Ukrainian security forces and demonstrators. The protests eventually turned into a coup, leading to the ouster of then-President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. It also led to the estrangement of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and the subsequent offensive against it by the new authorities in Kiev.
*a group designated as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia
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