Violent clashes erupt in Kharkiv City Council building

Violent clashes erupted on June 20 in the city council
building of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Dozens of athletic men
stormed the building ahead of the council session, destroyed property such as
potted plants and windows, set off smoke bombs and clashed with security
guards, according to news reports. Tear gas was also dispersed, though it
remains unclear who released it. Four city council employees were hospitalized
as a result of the clashes, Interfax-Ukraine reported, during which the
assailants grabbed Deputy Mayor Andriy Rudenko and threw him in a garbage bin
outdoors. Some reports identified the assailants as being aligned with a political
rival to the mayor, while others alleged them to be civic activists or even
hired thugs.

Conflicting news reports make it unclear what
organization the marauders represented and what they were opposing. Kharkiv
Mayor Hennadiy Kernes didn’t identify the culprits but said the incident worked
to the benefit of the regional officials of the Security Service of Ukraine
(SBU) and Prosecutor General’s Office in discrediting his government. “The
reason is very simple – to show that there’s some kind of corruption here,
which can’t be proven on paper,” he said in a television interview. To find
compromise with his opponents, a proposal to construct a residential building
has been removed from the council’s agenda, he said. The SBU had no involvement
in the day’s events, a local SBU spokesman said that day. 

Zenon Zawada: Regardless of who was involved and what their motivations were, the
incident offers more evidence of a lack of rule of law in Ukraine amid mounting
social tensions and violent political competition. It demonstrates just how
unstable the overall situation is in Ukraine, with tensions sure to intensify,
and possibly erupting eventually, as the 2019 elections draw nearer.