After the Maidan events of 2013 and 2014, Ukraine has seen a significant increase in the number of right-wing organizations. They are known for creating some of the volunteer battalions that fought rebels in the country's east, as well as targeting Russian businesses across Ukraine.

One of those is the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

On Saturday, several dozen members of the group gathered at Kiev's main city square. During the gathering, we asked the group's leader if he was bothered by being labeled as a "far right" organization.

"If they want to call nationalists 'far right,' let them. I am proud of it," Mykola Kohanivskyi, leader of the OUN, told CGTN.

"Because we are not going to keep silent, we are acting. We burn their banks, we are taking their offices, we take the weapons and go to war as volunteers, for our motherland. If it is right radicalism – then yes, we are right radicals."

In a YouTube video from 2016, Kohanivskyi is seen leading a group of men storming Russian Alfa Bank offices in Kiev, smashing everything inside. Similar scenes are not rare across the country.

The latest in the string of such events happened in the very heart of Kiev at the U.S. fast food restaurant chain KFC. The restaurant was attacked just ahead of its grand opening by C14, one of the right wing groups. The group claimed that it was supposedly part of a Russian-owned franchise business and as such it had to either change the ownership or never be opened.

Now, police officers are standing guard outside the restaurant, indefinitely postponing its opening.

And it is not just Russian businesses that have been targeted recently in Ukraine.

Just recently, an LGBT gathering was attacked in the center of Kiev. Members from an NGO called "Insight" say these kinds of attacks have increased dramatically and they feel that in many occasions these right wing groups are working in coordination with the authorities.

Ulyana Movchan, a spokesperson for Insight, said that these right wing groups are not just well-organized, but adequately funded as well.

"All of this situation started last year. So, we have attacks on different events, not only of our organization but on all events on human rights across whole territory of Ukraine. These groups are moving to different cities, they have transport, so they have the money," Movchan said.

She also claims that these groups are just tools for applying political pressure from some interest groups, and that their funding is most likely coming from abroad.

On the other side, mainstream political parties do not consider these far right groups as threat to the current political system.

"We don't see this as a huge problem," Oleksiy Ryabchyn, a MP from the opposition Batkivshchyna Political Party told us.

"This is an overestimated problem. This is usual scenes to have when the country is in war. But if you could see our current parliament, we have only one out of 423 members of parliament who could be considered as a far right person," Ryabchyn said.

Overestimated or not, the number of far right organizations in Ukraine is significant, and many of them exist because of the Maidan events.

Many used the chaos that was created in the center of Kiev back in November 2013 to put themselves on the country's political map. Those groups took to the front lines in opposing the government and claimed public support in the country.

Years after the political violence, tensions here are still constant and enshrouding all of Ukraine. And yet, even these days it appears that there is not much political will to deal with these organizations, particularly as they have been seen as useful for pushing various agendas.

(Top image: Members of the OUN rally in the center of Kiev. /CGTN Photo)