You're reading: Five deputies injured, two seriously

Five lawmakers from opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc were hospitalized after a fight in parliament on Dec. 16. One lawmaker received a broken hand, another a broken jaw, and three others concussions as pro-presidential lawmakers stormed the podium and forced the opposition out of the hall.

Andriy Shevchenko, a Verkhovna Rada member with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, identified Party of Regions members who he claims participated in the assault on his colleagues on Dec. 16 in parliament.

On his Twitter account, Shevchenko lists names of those deputies of the Regions who actively participated in the fight. Among them are Dmitry Salamatin, Oleg Tsarev, Alexander Volkov and Nikolai Zlochevsky. They could not immediately be reached for comment.

“They were like animals,” Shevchenko said. “The next time Regions will storm with knives.”

Shevchenko also tweeted that he suspects First Vice Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev of involvement. During the incident, “he was in parliament,” Shevchenko wrote.

Shevchenko said one of the injured BYuT deputies, Yuri Gnatkevich, is in serious condition.

In a telephone interview with Channel 5, one of the injured deputies, Vladimir Bondarenko, said that while BYuT deputies blocked the rostrom, lights went out in the hall before the assaults. Bondarenko broke a wrist. The Regions were cruel and brutal, he said.

“Today we saw the Regions “are capable of even killing," Bondarenko stressed.

Altogether, according to Bondarenko, five Tymoshenko members of parliament were injured: himself, Michael Wolyniec, Vasiliy Kravchuk, Yuriy Gnatkevich and Eugene Suslov.

He said the Regions Party outnumbered the BYuT deputies.

He asserts that the first deputy who began to beat opponents with chairs was Dmitri Salamatin. When Channel 5 contacted Regions Party member Mikhaylo Chechetov, he said BYuT blocked parliament out of fear of the results of an audit into spending by the Tymoshenko government

The opposition deputies had blocked parliament in protest at the opening of a criminal case against Tymoshenko on Dec. 15.

Tymoshenko is accused of the misuse of funds during her stint as prime minister in 2009, which she denies.