You're reading: Ex-chief of Aidar Battalion fired as deputy head of Ukraine parliament committee

Ukraine's parliament on Feb. 12 dismissed Serhiy Melnychuk, a former commander of the Aidar Battalion, as deputy head of the legislature's National Security and Defense Committee.

By doing so, parliament satisfied a demand on Thursday by Oleh Liashko, leader of the Radical Party, from which Melnychuk had been expelled earlier, an Interfax correspondent reported.

A motion for firing Melnychuk as deputy head of the committee had been blocked on several occasions before being passed by a small majority of 234 votes in the 450-seat parliament.

The Radical Party said its reason for expelling Melnychuk were “acts discrediting the title of people’s deputy [member of parliament] and for violating the oath of a people’s deputy of Ukraine.”

The party was referring to two demonstrations outside the Defense Ministry during which Melnychuk, members of Aidar and people in camouflage uniforms burned tires and blocked traffic in condemning the loss of the battalion’s official seal and in protest against the renaming of the battalion and the replacement of some of its papers.

Liashko branded the demonstrations as “subversive.”