DONETSK, May 2. /TASS/. The tragedy in the Odessa Trade Union House has become a point of no return for Ukrainian neo-Nazism, the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) head Denis Pushilin has said.
"This was the point of no return. Odessa, the House of Trade Unions. May 2, 2014. That day the world was divided into those who condemned the violence of Ukrainian neo-Nazis against people who honestly expressed their position, and those who turned a blind eye to it," Pushilin wrote on his Telegram channel.
"Every person who died ten years ago in the fire of the 'Odessa Khatyn' stands together with us in spirit," Pushilin added.
On May 2, 2014, in Odessa, radicals from Right Sector (an organization banned in Russia) and the so-called Maidan self-defense forces attacked a tent site on Kulikovo Field, where Odessa residents were collecting signatures for a referendum on federalizing Ukraine and granting Russian-speaking regions the status of a state. Supporters of federalization took refuge in the House of Trade Unions, but the radicals surrounded the building and set it on fire. In these tragic events, according to the official data of the Ukrainian Internal Ministry, 48 people were killed and more than 240 injured.
The authorities declared that the instigators of the riots were exclusively "anti-Maidan" supporters. However, the investigation, which lasted several years, failed to prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those initially detained were acquitted.