DONETSK, May 2. /TASS/. Authorities in Ukraine continue committing crimes to please the West, by killing civilians, even after nine years since the Odessa Tragedy of May 2, 2014, the acting leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said on Tuesday.

"The Ukraine that we knew ceased to exist forever for many of us back nine years ago, when people were burned alive at the trade union building in Odessa," Pushilin wrote on his Telegram channel, commemorating the 9th anniversary of those tragic events. "To please the West and to preserve power, Ukrainian politicians keep committing crimes - killings, genocide, and ethnic and religious oppression."

According to Pushilin, "the current Kiev regime is unable to make an unbiased assessment of those terrible events or conduct a fair investigation." However, he expressed confidence that those responsible for that crime would be punished. "Donbass will always remember those who died at the hands of Ukrainian neo-Nazis at the Trade Unions House in Odessa on May 2, [2014]," he concluded.

On May 2, 2014, radicals of the Right Sector (banned in Russia) and the so-called Maidan self-defense forces attacked a tent camp in the Kulikovo field public garden, where Odessa residents were collecting signatures for a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine and on giving the Russian language official state status. Some supporters of federalization took refuge in the House of Trade Unions, but the radicals surrounded the building and set it on fire. In those tragic events, according to official data from the Interior Ministry, 48 people died and more than 240 others were injured.

The authorities blamed the unrest entirely on "anti-Maidan" activists. However, the investigation, which lasted several years, was unable to prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those initially detained were acquitted.