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Kiev continues to shield those responsible for Odessa tragedy - Russian lawmaker

Chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky noted that "just like its overseas sponsors, Kiev seeks to shift responsibility to others and justify its crime of omission"

Chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky Anna Isakova/Russian State Duma Photo Service/TASS

Chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky

© Anna Isakova/Russian State Duma Photo Service/TASS

MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. The Ukrainian authorities continue to shield radical nationalists by making allegations about Russia’s unwillingness to figure out the causes of the 2014 Odessa Trade Union House tragedy, Chairman of the Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky told reporters on Sunday.

"The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s allegations that Russia is unwilling to figure out the causes of the Odessa tragedy are cynical. Russia has been calling for an impartial investigation of the Odessa tragedy but no investigation results have been announced yet," he pointed out.

Slutsky added that "just like its overseas sponsors, Kiev seeks to shift responsibility to others and justify its crime of omission." "Ukraine is making such statements in order to shield Nazis who carried out a massacre in the Trade Union House on May 2, 2014," he said.

The senior Russian lawmaker emphasized that under President Pyotr Poroshenko, Kiev sought to delay the investigation with the tacit consent of its Western sponsors. "President Zelensky’s team has failed to make significant efforts to find out the truth. And now, six years after the tragic events, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is trying to put the blame on Russia," Slutsky noted.

On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian radical nationalists, including members of the Pravy Sektor organization (or Right Sector, outlawed in Russia) set fire to the Trade Union House in the city of Odessa, where protesters against Ukraine's coup had found refuge. According to official estimates, the clashes killed 48 people, most of whom lost their lives in the Trade Union House tragedy, while 240 more people were reported to be injured in the inferno and its aftermath.

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