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Registering UNA-UNSO as political party in Ukraine another test for EU and US — lawmaker

The Ukrainian Justice Ministry has registered the UNA-UNSO ultra-right Ukrainian nationalist organization as a political party
Ukrainian nationalists march in Kiev (archive) Maxim Nikitin/TASS
Ukrainian nationalists march in Kiev (archive)
© Maxim Nikitin/TASS

MOSCOW, August 28. /TASS/. Registering Ukrainian National Assembly/Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO) as a political party in Ukraine will be another test for the European Union and the United States, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin said on Friday.

UNA-UNSO’s ideology unequivocally states that the party is nationalist, he noted.

"I think this fact is another test for our European and American partners and colleagues. It is interesting how they will praise another manifestation of democracy in Ukraine," Naryshkin told the session of the working group on legal analysis of legislative procedures and acts approved in Ukraine.

He reminded that the Ukrainian Justice Ministry recently registered "such an odious and infamous pro-Fascist organization as UNA-UNSO" as a political party. "The program of this organization unequivocally states that the ideology of this organization is Ukrainian nationalism," Naryshkin said. "'Our ideology is Ukrainian nationalism as ideology of the nation’s self-determination'," he quoted the program as saying.

The registration of UNA-UNSO as a political party allows it to run in local election in October 2015. Earlier, on July 3, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry refused to register the organization as a political party saying that the reason for refusal is the fact that "UNA-UNSO fought on the side of Fascists in 1942."

UNA-UNSO, which is directly related to the ultra-right Ukrainian nationalist movements of the World War II era, although it re-emerged in its current form in the early 1990's. In March 2014, the Ukrainian National Assembly merged with the Right Sector extremist political organization, the activity of which is forbidden in Russia. Ukrainian People's Self-Defense continues functioning as a public association.