MOSCOW, May 2. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday it expects that Ukraine will create conditions for carrying out an impartial and unbiased investigation into the May 2, 2014 events in Odessa and punish those guilty.
"Five years have passed since the bloody events of May 2, 2014 when after the atrocities of Ukrainian radicals in the Odessa House of Trade Unions at least 50 were burned alive and hundreds of innocent people were hurt. This chilling tragedy, which shocked the entire civilized world, was the consequence of this policy of Ukrainian nationalist forces, who seized power in a coup d’etat," the Foreign Ministry said.
The statement highlights that five years after this "disgusting crime" its instigators and perpetrators have not yet been found. Despite the calls of international organizations and human rights activists to carry out a thorough investigation, Kiev continues hindering it. "All this allows us to say about the complicity of the Ukrainian leadership with those awful events. Particular cynical is the fact that Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies continue prosecuting those who managed to escape from fascist thugs," the ministry said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Kiev’s Western sponsors continue keeping silence about the Odessa events. "It’s obviously not advantageous for them to admit that they are backing those forces at the helm of the country, whose arms are wet to the elbows with blood," the document says. "Instead of really demanding that the Ukrainian authorities find and punish those responsible for cruel crimes in the House of Trade Unions, over the past five years we have been hearing from Western partners just deliberations on the democratic nature of their proteges."
On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian radical nationalists, including members of the Right Sector organization (outlawed in Russia) set fire to the House of Trade Unions in the city of Odessa, where protesters against the coup had found refuge. According to official estimates, the clashes killed 48 people, most of whom lost their lives in the House of Trade Unions tragedy, while 240 more people were reported to be injured in the inferno and its aftermath. At least 22 people were recognized as instigators, but exclusively anti-Maidan supporters were arrested. Five of them spent more than three and a half years in custody, but later were recognized as not guilty. Shortly after the verdict, Ukraine’s prosecutors and the Security Service brought new charges against two of them into separatism, and placed them under arrest. Later the prosecutors appealed the court’s acquittal.