The parliamentary faction of Ukraine's Radical Party has expelled its member Serhiy Melnychuk.
The announcement was made in parliament by Deputy Speaker Oksana Syroid on Feb. 5, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
Melnychuk was a commander of the Aidar volunteer battalion.
Syroid said that the parliament received a notice from the party faction leader, Oleh Liashko, about the faction’s decision to expel Melnychuk “for the actions discrediting the title of an elected representative and for violating the oath of a Ukrainian elected representative.”
Earlier Melnychuk, along with Aidar fighters and other people in camouflage uniform, twice picketed the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, setting fire to tires and blocking traffic outside the office building.
The protest was organized over a scandal involving the battalion’s lost seal, the reissuance of documentation and change of name.
Aidar was set up as a volunteer battalion. Later it became part of the Defense Ministry, but some volunteers were either left out or refused to join. Now the defense ministry is making organizational changes to the defense battalion following the loss of its seal, but activists have opposed the initiatives.
The Aidar protests outside the ministry were “sabotage,” Liashko said.
The faction leader wrote on his Facebook page: “Melnychuk came to Rada ‘on my hump’.”
“In wartime, they execute for that,” Liashko said.
