Those responsible for the deaths of 42 anti-Maidan activists in Odessa in 2014 should face justice, Valentina Matvienko said
Russia must establish a special tribunal for Ukrainian neo-Nazis after Moscow’s military campaign ends, the chairwoman of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, has said.
The senator singled out events in Odessa in May 2014, when 42 activists burned to death after being pelted with Molotov cocktails by a mob supporting Western-backed protests in Kiev which overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected government.
During the clashes, both sides used sticks, batons, Molotov cocktails, rubber-bullet guns and firearms. Outnumbered by far-right radicals, the so-called anti-Maidan activists took cover inside the port city’s Trade Unions House, which was surrounded and torched by the nationalists.
In a post on her Telegram channel on Thursday, Matvienko wrote that she was “convinced that on completion of the SMO (Special Military Operation) there will be a need for a big tribunal,” adding that events in May 2014 in Odessa should be investigated as the cornerstone of the process.
The senior Russian lawmaker insisted that there would be “no statute of limitations” and those responsible for the massacre, as well as Ukrainian officials who chose to “turn a blind eye,” would not evade justice.
The fact that ten years on, authorities have still not named or prosecuted any of the perpetrators, proves that Nazism is a “deep-rooted, natural norm” for the current Kiev authorities. “I would even call it an overt, deliberate, brazen cover-up by Kiev of its ideological Nazi-supporters,” Matvienko wrote.
The top senator also accused Western powers and international organizations of ignoring the crime, comparing their stance to Europe’s appeasement policies toward Nazi Germany back in the 1930s.
She concluded that there are currently no forces capable of uprooting the “ordinary Nazism” which she said has taken hold in Ukraine, meaning that “external efforts are needed” to accomplish this task.
“A clear understanding of this fact today completely confirms that Russia’s decisions and actions aimed at denazifying Ukraine have been justified,” Matvienko said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated goal of the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. She added that this was in the interests of Russian security, of the Ukrainian people, and “in the interest of mankind.”
Following the deadly clashes in Odessa on May 2, 2014, top-ranking Ukrainian officials were quick to point the finger at Moscow, claiming the events had been a “pre-planned and well-financed operation by the Russian special services.”
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