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Donetsk republic leader’s Facebook account blocked

Facebook’s moderators received more than 2,500 complaints over Alexander Zakharchenko message concerning Nazism in Ukraine

Alexander Zakharchenko Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Alexander Zakharchenko

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/. Facebook has blocked the account of Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, the unrecognized republic’s press service has said.

"A couple of hours ago I discovered that my page in Facebook had been blocked for no apparent reason. It is noteworthy that the page went dead immediately after I published my message to the Ukrainian people on the occasion of the anniversary of Ukraine’s liberation from Nazi invaders," Zakharchenko’s press service quotes him as saying.

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"I believe that I managed to find the right words that drove the message home. They surely reached those whom I described as Nazi henchmen, their descendants and followers, in other words, advocates of Bandera and Shukhevich."

Zakharchenko said that in his message posted on Wednesday he did not use a single derogatory word or term, but Facebook’s moderators received more than 2,500 complaints.

"My post allegedly harmed the feeling of their dignity and caused irreparable harm to their honor," he explained.

"The way I see it, this is clear evidence that Kiev is afraid of Donbas' opinion no less than it is afraid of its military strength," Zakharchenko said. "But the authorities in Kiev must have forgotten what the Donetsk people and their mentality are like. We will gain the upper hand in this media war."

In his message on the occasion of the liberation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from Nazi invasion Zakharchenko said that the Kiev regime’s policy of glorifying Nazi collaborators in fact stripped the Ukrainians of a great holiday.

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