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Leader of Ukraine’s Radical Party quarrels with presidential bodyguards

Oleg Lyashko was transmitting a video from the event to Ukrainian television channels online
Leader of Ukraine’s Radical Party, Oleg Lyashko Maxim Nikitin/TASS
Leader of Ukraine’s Radical Party, Oleg Lyashko
© Maxim Nikitin/TASS

KIEV, May 21. /TASS/. The leader of Ukraine’s Radical Party, Oleg Lyashko, quarreled with the bodyguards of President Vladimir Zelensky before consultations with the leaders of parliamentary parties and the Verkhovna Rada’s leadership.

Lyashko, who had arrived at the office of the presidential staff for the meeting by bicycle, was transmitting a video from the event to Ukrainian television channels online. At the entrance to the conference hall he was stopped by the bodyguards and asked to hand in his mobile. Lyashko refused and quarreled with the bodyguards. Zelensky was of no help. He shook hands with Lyashko and, after asking him about his attitude to the dissolution of parliament, proceeded to the conference room.

"The president gave me no chance to enter and allowed his bodyguards to block my way," Lyashko said on TV. The radicals’ leader complained the election of a new president had changed nothing.

"Zelensky has taken over, but we see the very same backstage talks there had been during Pyotr Poroshenko’s rule," Lyashko said.

On Monday, Lyashko had a heated verbal exchange with Zelensky after the president-elect’s inauguration in the Verkhovna Rada. While speaking about the situation in Donbass Zelensky began to use Russian. Lyashko interrupted him with a yell the legislators in the Verkhovna Rada’s hall "understand the Ukrainian language well enough." Zelensky snapped back they "understand both Ukrainian and Russian" and warned Lyashko against discriminating the people on the basis of "the passport they hold and the language they speak."

On Tuesday, Zelensky invited the leaders of parliamentary factions and the Verkhovna Rada leadership for consultations on the early termination of the parliament’s powers. At the presidential inauguration ceremony Zelensky declared he was disbanding parliament with the aim to call early parliamentary elections within two months.

Under the Constitution the president calls early parliamentary elections and holds them within sixty days following the decree on the early termination of the outgoing parliament’s powers.