The "Dnipro-1" Regiment (Ukrainian: Полк «Дніпро-1») is a Special Tasks Patrol Police regiment subordinated to Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The regiment is based in Dnipro.
The Dnipro-1 was one the first official Ukrainian volunteer battalions to be created. The unit also had a football club of the Ukrainian Premier League named SC Dnipro-1, named after the unit.[2]
The unit was first established as "Dnipro-1" Special Tasks Patrol Police Battalion in April 2014 on a voluntary basis as the response to 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine.[3][4][5][6] Its assignments included duties at multiple checkpoints in the south-eastern part of Ukraine.[7] The unit claimed to have hired Romanian and Georgian military advisers to help with the training of troops.[8] Before June 2014 this training was often just one week.[8] It first operated outside Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in May 2014.[8]
The militia unit, nicknamed Kolomoyskyi's battalion,[8] was funded by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and also through the charitable organization "Fund Dnipro-1".[9][10][11] Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi (who was Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast during the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine) is believed to have spent $10 million to create the unit.[7]
Commander of the unit Yuriy Bereza is since the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election a member of the Ukrainian parliament for the People's Front; he was placed 10th on the party's election list.[12][13] Member of the unit Volodymyr Parasyuk was also elected into parliament during these elections by winning the electoral district of Yavoriv with 56.56% of the votes.[14]
The unit was involved in the liberation of Lyman during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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