MOSCOW - Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov slammed a "cowardly and disgusting" physical assault on his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Symonenko, in Ukraine's parliament on July 23.
“It is not the first attempt to get rid of Symonenko and his party. These attempts to gag and get rid of them show the cowardly and disgusting nature of those who make them,” Zyuganov told Russia’s Rossiya 24 television.
“I officially appealed to all parliamentarians of the Council of Europe, I have been supported by the leaders of quite many groups and movements, who have officially sent [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko protests and demands for this kind of lawlessness to be prevented,” he said.
The incident with Symonenko occurred after a deputy representing the nationalist Svoboda party, speaking from the legislature’s platform, accused the Communist leader of alleging that the Ukrainian military kills people in order to obtain organs for transplantation.
This was followed by a motion for expelling Symonenko from the session room, after which Svoboda deputies began to physically push Symonenko outside.
After a while, the entire Communist group in parliament left the room without making any statement.
Earlier, the Justice Ministry had requested a judicial ban on the Communist Party.
