Ukrainian Right Sector Leader Sashko Bily Killed in Police Raid

Ukraine's authorities said the leader of one of the country's most prominent far-right groups has been killed during a police raid.

The Interior Ministry said police moved in to detain Oleksandr Muzychko, aka Sashko Bily, one of the leaders of the nationalist Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) party, after they found him at a café in the western Ukrainian city of Rivne, and he was eventually killed.

"After police demands to surrender Bily wanted to run away through the window and opened fire for effect at police commandos Sokol," Ukrainian First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Yevdokimov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency.

"The first bullet hit a police commando in the helmet, but ricocheted in the forearm. Muzychko wounded this police commando in the shoulder with the second gunshot.

"When he was brought down to the ground, he kept on shooting and was wounded. Doctors found Muzychko dead," he said.

The role of Muzychko and Right Sector in post-revolution Ukraine was seized upon by Russia to argue Kiev had been taken over by fascists and neo-Nazis, thus justifying Moscow's military intervention to protect ethnic Russians in Crimea.

Muzychko was sought in Ukraine for organised crime links, hooliganism and for threatening public officials.

He was also on Russia's wanted list on charges of banditry and the establishment of an organised criminal group.

"Muzychko remains on the international most-wanted list because so far the Russian side has not received any official notification from its Ukrainian colleagues concerning his murder," a Russian security service source told Interfax news agency.