Radicals storm Zaporizhia City Council, demand mayor’s resignation

About 200 protestors led by Radical Party MP Oleh Liashko held a protest at the City Council of Zaporizhia, Ukraine’s sixth-largest city and a top industrial center, during which they stormed the session hall and blocked its work. They forced Zaporizhia Mayor Oleksandr Sin and City Council Secretary Roman Taran to write resignation letters, the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency reported.

Sin’s supporters in the Council gradually abandoned the session hall, undermining the needed quorum to approve the resignation. The protesters accused Sin of supporting the government’s attempt to suppress the EuroMaidan and failing to address corruption in the city since. The same day, assailants fired at the City Council building from an SUV and were arrested.

The Zaporizhia City Council submitted a letter later that day asking President Petro Poroshenko, the Prosecutor General and parliament to offer an assessment of the actions committed by the protesters led by Liashko, which reportedly included other MPs. They also accused the regional head of prosecutor being involved. Two days earlier, Sin asked the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Interior Ministry to investigate information about plans for a Dec. 10 takeover of the City Council.

Zenon Zawada: The Zaporizhia City Council now joins another legislative body in a regional center, Vinnytsia, in being recently stormed by protesters. The Dec. 6 incident in Vinnytsia was more violent, resulting in arrests and injured police. To us, it reflects a disturbing rift between the radical and moderate pro-Western political forces, which we had expectedwould occur (though not so quickly, admittedly).

Both the leaderships of the Freedom nationalist party, which led Dec. 6 storming in Vinnytsia, and the Radical Party are widely believed to cooperate with pro-Russian forces. We believe it’s possible these leaders are staging these events to destabilize the current pro-Western government for various aims, which may include acting on behalf of rival business clans.

Zaporizhia is a key city in Russia’s attempt to ruin the Ukrainian state. Located about 225 km from separatist-controlled Donetsk, it has a large Russophile population and its core enterprises are controlled by businessmen who are loyal to the Kremlin. At the same time, these same magnates – represented by Sin – are interested in stability above all and don’t want the military conflict to approach the region.

We don’t see anything positive coming from protests against the Zaporizhia local government, which may indulge in its fair share of corruption but has otherwise done a good job in defending the city against pro-Russian separatism. Yet these protests have strong potential to gain momentum amid deteriorating economic conditions.