State Duma speaker calls May 2 events in Odesa "act of genocide"
BELGRADE. May 6 (Interfax) - Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin has described the May 2 events in Odesa, southern Ukraine, as an "act of genocide" against the Russian and Ukrainian people.
"All of us were shocked by the death of dozens of Odesa residents at the hands of disorderly radicals. We are in mourning together with the families and friends of the people who died on May 2 by burning alive in the Trade Unions House in Odesa," Naryshkin said at a forum in Belgrade on Tuesday.
"We are facing an act of true genocide targeting both the Russian and Ukrainian people in the 21st century," he added.
The speaker of the lower chamber of Russia's parliament also suggested that the few "political adventurists who seized power in Kyiv" were not the only ones to blame for the ongoing events in Ukraine.
"They themselves are not worth much and will eventually be punished by their own people for that they have done," Naryshkin said.
"The main problem is that this terrible truth has been hidden from the rest of the world for several months," he said.
One of the possible reasons behind the Odesa "tragedy", which is being referred by people as "Odesa's Khatyn", is that the "policy of the persons who seized power in Kyiv, has always openly relied on the logic of civil confrontation and even civil war logic," Naryshkin said.