"On April 22, the leader of the Union of Left Forces (Союз Лівих Сил) of Ukraine, Vasyl Volga, was attacked in Zaporizhia, southern Ukraine by ‘activists’ – extreme nationalists – of the Azov Battalion and Syla Natsii (Force of the Nation). Volga and his colleagues came to Zaporizhia to present the program of their party which fights for the cessation of war in Ukraine, the restoration of peace and integration of Donbass back into Ukraine.
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Ukrainian democracy indeed. People who do not agree with the current Kyiv regime are being intimidated into silence – jailed, attacked physically or, like journalist Oleh Buzyna, killed. Freedom of opinion is crushed. Vasyl Volga said that the puppeteers of the far-right extremists who attacked him in Zaporizhia want to discredit him by labeling him a “separatist”. These puppeteers are making huge profits by sending young Ukrainians to war.
The Union of Left Forces led by Vasyl Volga was founded in 2008. The party advocates a neutral status for Ukraine, the restoration of close ties with Russia and the creation of a common space of security and cooperation which would include Russia and the European Union (from the Atlantic Ocean to the Kuril Islands in the Pacific.
In domestic policy, the party defends the idea of the socialization of the economy; the decentralization of political power into a “soft” federalization which would grant regions of Ukraine autonomy in defining cultural policy; the introduction of Russian as a second official language of Ukraine; and implementation of the European Charter of regional and minority languages.
The Union of Left Forces is one of the courageous voices in Ukraine fighting the nationalistic oligarchic regime that has driven the country into an economic abyss and a fratricidal civil war."
Please read the rest of the article at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/26/left-wing-antiwar-voice-in-ukraine-assaulted-by-rightist-extremists/
