You're reading: Lawmaker who hoisted Yatsenyuk has history of fighting(VIDEO)

Lawmaker Oleh Barna from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc tried pulling Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the rostrum in parliament as he was delivering his annual report to the legislature on Dec. 11.

The awkward incident involved first handing the prime minister a bouquet of roses before attempting to hoist him with one of his arms positioned in between Yatsenyuk’s legs. A brawl ensued, with Punches thrown, as members of the prime minister’s People’s Front party came to his defense.

After the incident, Barna, 48, was expelled for five parliamentary sessions, People’s Front lawmaker Anton Herashchenko said on his Facebook page.

It appears that Barna, who heads an anti-corruption subcommittee, has been after Yatsenyuk for some time.

The former physics teacher from the village of Nahiryanka in Ternopil Oblast has since November been collecting signatures to remove the prime minister from office. He told a local Ternopil news outlet, the zz.te.ua, that it was his initiative, not Poroshenko bloc’s position.

“Yesterday I announced about my initiative in the committee. Not only Yatsenyuk but his entire Cabinet should be dismissed,” Barna told journalists in parliament on Nov.30.

Barna also has a history of getting physical.

On Sept.1 he got into a fight with Yuri Chyzhmar of the Radical Party after they both appeared on a political show of NewsOne TV channel.

Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko subsequently wrote on his Facebook page that Chyzhmar was hospitalized because Barna had broken his rib during the tussle.

Barna is a first-term lawmaker and was a school teacher for 20 years, according to dosye.info. Ternopil media report that he was a pro-democracy activist and as a university student took part in hunger strikes in Kyiv for Ukraine’s independence. He also headed the Nahiryanka village council for 10 years in 2002-2010.

He also helped win court cases against the government relating to corruption and unpaid pensions.

According to his 2014 income declaration, he is married and has two sons. He earned Hr 112,000 (about $9,300), while his family made an additional Hr 131,000 ($10,900). He owns a land plot of 10,000 square meters, and owns a 2009 and 2007 Ford Transit.

Barna took part in the so-called “Ukraine without (Leonid) Kuchma” protests in the early 2000s that called for the resignation of Ukraine’s second president over corruption scandals and the killing of journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

Barna also took part in the 2004 Orange Revolution and EuroMaidan Revolution that led to the ouster of another corrupt president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.

Last year he volunteered to fighter in the 128th mountain infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Army and fought against combined Russian-separatist forces in Donbas. He also served in the Soviet army in 1985-1987.

Barna got elected to parliament in October 2014 on the Poroshenko Bloc party list.

His younger brother Stepan Barna, also a Petro Poroshenko Bloc party member, is the governor of Ternopil Oblast.

Watch Kyiv Post coub on the fight:

Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]