Investigation into Trade Union Council tragedy misses the mark, says political scientist

Moscow, May 2 – Political scientist, director of the Institute of Russia Abroad Sergei Panteleev, said that the investigation into the tragedy of the Odessa House of Trade Unions was reduced to justifying the killers and accusations against the victims, and the West turned a blind eye to this. the News Agency.

In Odessa, after the change of power in Ukraine in 2014, anti-Maidan activists set up camp on the Kulikovo field as a sign of protest. On the afternoon of May 2, squabbles began between the anti-Maidan activists, on the one hand, and the football ultras from Kharkov and Odessa, as well as the Euromaidan participants, on the other. The fighting ended with the destruction of the tent city and the burning of the House of Guilds, where representatives of the “anti-Maidan” had taken refuge. The number of victims of the tragedy that day reached 48 people, more than 250 were injured. On the eve of the anniversary of these events, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the killing of people in the Odessa Council of Trade Unions a repeat of Bandera’s crimes in Khatyn during the Great Patriotic War. It noted that no thorough investigation had been conducted into the events in Odessa. Moreover, many of those caught on camera and clearly caught slaughtering living people are engaged in public activities.

“The investigation into the tragedy of the Odessa Council of Trade Unions has become a“ mirror ”of everything that is happening in Ukraine after the 2014 coup. There is one side (opposition to the nationalist authorities in Kiev. – Ed.), which is responsible for everything, and the other side (pro-government), which Instead of being held responsible for the crimes, they are being investigated, and some of them have even become national heroes, ”Panteleev told the News Agency.

In particular, he recalled the career of Sergei Khodyak, who in Odessa “killed and exterminated people with his own hands,” and then became a public figure and assistant to Verkhovna Rada Igor Musychuk.

“The investigation of these events was conducted first by the Odessa Prosecutor’s Office, and then by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. Obviously, the goal was to justify those who killed and those who arranged this terrible tragedy, to blame the victims of the tragedy for everything. This is how the investigation was conducted. .. They tried to radicalize even firefighters who did not have the conditions to help people in the Council of Trade Unions… The investigation simply did everything in order not to punish the real offenders, “Panteleev recalls.

The expert noted that “the illegal actions related to the investigation of this tragedy were pointed out by a number of international organizations, in particular, the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the UN observer mission – and drew attention to the delays, to the errors.”

“But all these instructions did not result in anything, as the principle of justifying the Ukrainian nationalists and the political system that caused this tragedy is valid. No official behind the organization of this crime has been held accountable. Years later, we can say that the Odessa tragedy has become one of the episodes of organized persecution. To opponents of Maidan and the current government in Kiev, and supporters of cooperation with Russia, who have become “scapegoats,” he said.

Panteleev also noted that from the very beginning of the investigation, the investigating authorities have been trying to find a “Russian trace” involved in organizing the riots in Odessa.

“But the only citizen of the Russian Federation who was found and convicted in this regard was Sergei Mifedov, who later returned to the Russian Federation in an exchange. But they did not succeed (find a trace), because he did not even participate in all these events .. although he was exposed An unfair trial, ”recalls the political expert.

According to him, as long as the power in Kiev does not change, one can not hope for an objective investigation of those events.

“In conditions where propaganda and ideology determine everything in Ukraine, it is simply not necessary to expect an objective investigation from the court.” When the West turns a blind eye to everything that happens there, it is simply impossible to expect any breakthroughs. This issue will gradually “merge”, as it is already happening, “he predicts.

80 years ago, the inhabitants of the Belarusian village of Khatyn, the Nazis and their henchmen from the 118th battalion of the Ukrainian security police were taken to a large collective farm and burned alive. The fire killed 149 people, including 75 children, according to new archival documents, made public for the first time and provided by the News Agency as part of the “Without a statute of limitations” project.

Nowadays, on the site where the village of Khatyn is located, there is a memorial complex commemorating the hundreds of villages destroyed during the war and the human losses suffered by the Belarusian people in the Great Patriotic War. In April 2021, the Prosecutor General of Belarus Andrei Shved announced that he had opened a criminal case on the fact of genocide of the population of the Republic of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. At the time of the initiation of a criminal case on genocide, according to official information, during the Nazi occupation, 9,200 Belarusian villages and villages were completely or partially destroyed. At the same time, 186 settlements were burned to the ground along with the inhabitants, and were not subsequently restored.