You're reading: Zyuganov says is not afraid of prosecution in Ukraine

Moscow - Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said he does not take seriously the accusations made against him by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, which has opened a criminal case against him.

“We are not scared by claims made by those who smell of blood,” Zyuganov told Interfax on Friday, July 25.

Zyuganov recalled that he has faced trial several times in his long political career.

“[Former Soviet president Mikhail] Gorbachev had me tried in a
political court for saying that his perestroika was poorly organized and
would end to an exchange of fire. I have been tried by one Yeltsin-era
man who promised to put me in jail for ten years for my ‘Address to the
People.’ I have been tried by other figures from that period. We then
spend seven months in the Constitutional Court, but we proved out right
to have a party that reflects the interests of the people and whose main
values are friendship and justice,” Zyuganov said.

Zyuganov said he is now prosecuted by those who “illegally seized
power in Ukraine, who are killing their fellow countrymen in the
southeast [of Ukraine], who shoot down planes, who stifle
parliamentarians in the Rada, and who take them to court.”

In the meantime, the Communist Party leader said he is “a man who has fought for friendship with Ukraine all his life.”

Zyuganov suggested that Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov “ask
questions of all presidents who preceded the imposters.” “Everyone will
confirm that I have always been for friendship with this country, and I
will stay that way,” Zyuganov said.

“As for the borders, don’t shoot your fellow countrymen and do not
ban them from speaking in their native language,” Zyuganov said.

According to an earlier report, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry has
opened criminal cases against Russian Communist Party leader Gennady
Zyuganov and Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who
are accused of “financing activities aimed at changing the borders of
the territory and the state border of Ukraine.” Specifically, they are
accused of organizing the financing of the activities of the
self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.