MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. An unidentified assailant in Odessa shot dead Ukrainian neo-Nazi Demyan Ganul, who helped set fire to the city’s Trade Union building in 2014, the RBC-Ukraine news agency reported, citing police sources.

According to the report, the assailant fled the scene after firing shots. Investigators and crime scene experts are working at the scene.

The Strana news outlet published photos of the victim and said that the tattoos on his body are proof that it indeed belonged to Ganul. According to the report, until recently Ganul was fighting with opponents of the so-called decommunization and mobilization. The news outlet Insider reported that officials introduced measures to locate the attacker. According to preliminary reports, the shooter was dressed in military uniform.

Ganul is a neo-Nazi and the former security chief of the Odessa cell of Right Sector (designated extremist and banned in Russia), and also the leader of the Street Front grassroots initiative. He was one of the organizers and perpetrators of the May 2, 2014 murders in Odessa's Trade Union building. He said on television that he did not regard the victims as people, then published ironic posts on this subject in social media. On April 9, the Moscow’s Basmanny Court ruled to arrest Ganul in absentia. He was put on an international wanted list as part of an investigation into the destruction of monuments to Russian military glory.

On May 2, 2014, radicals from Right Sector and the so-called Maidan self-defense group attacked a tent city in Odessa, where residents were collecting signatures for holding a referendum on federalization of Ukraine and designating the Russian language as official. Supporters of federalization took refuge in the Trade Union building, but the radicals surrounded the structure and set it on fire. The tragic events left 48 people dead and more than 240 injured, according to the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry. The authorities blamed the riots solely on the opponents of the Maidan uprising. However, a years-long investigation failed to prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those who were initially detained were later acquitted.

On Thursday, the ECHR found the Ukrainian authorities guilty of failing to prevent violence and save lives during those events. The court unanimously ruled that there had been a violation of Article 2 (on the right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights due to the failure of the authorities to do everything that could have been expected of them to prevent the violence, to stop the violence once it had started and to ensure timely rescue measures. In addition, it was stated that Kiev failed to conduct a proper investigation into the events.