Thanks Evgueny. I had a look at these. Of course there is concern about the presence of far right groups in the Rada. You could find people with similar attitudes belonging to organized neo-nazi groups in Russia, Germany and elsewhere. These are turbulent times in Ukraine and they have more influence than in peaceful times. We will have to wait and see.
However, there has been no anti-Russian violence. Cohen says in his interview that the new government banned Russian and banned the two major parties representing the East and South in Ukraine.
Both statements are false. Initially the new government passed a motion to undo the law enacted by the Yanukovch government allowing minority languages official status in areas where these languages are spoken by more than 10% of the population. This unwise move to undo this legislation was quickly quashed. The official status of Russian in those regions remains.
The Party of Regions is not banned, although it was banned in some districts in the Western Ukraine. Yes there are hot heads in some areas of the Western Ukraine, but not in Kiev. Neither Yatseniuk, present premier, nor Petro Proshenko, who leads opinion polls as most popular presidential candidate, are fascists.
Below I show the present make up of the Rada. (parliament)
Cohen or one of the other journalists suggests that Jews are threatened but the Chief Rabbi in the Ukraine refutes this.
In other words, the spectre portrayed hysterically by the Russian state controlled media, and reported on by various Western media or commentators, is grossly overblown, and no justification for Russia’s anti-Ukrainian campaign.
Faction summary[edit]
Council Party standings (January 3, 2013)
134 Regions
117 Non-affiliated
88 Fatherland
42 UDAR
36 Freedom
32 Communists
Party
(Shading indicates majority caucus)
Total Vacant
Party of Regions Fatherland UDAR Svoboda Communists Economic Development Sovereign European Ukraine Non-affiliated
End of previous convocation[33][34] 195 97 DNP DNP 25 DNP DNP 31 348 102
Begin[35] 185 101 40 37 32 - - 43 438 12
December 12, 2012[33] 208 99 42 36 32 - - 27 444 6
June 11, 2013[33] 207 93 42 36 32 - - 34 444 6
December 31, 2013[33] 204 90 42 36 32 - - 38 442 8
February 21, 2014[36] 177 90 42 36 32 - - 55 442 8
February 22, 2014[33][37] 134 88 42 36 32 - - 115 447 3
February 23, 2014[33] 131 88 42 36 32 - - 118 447 3
February 24, 2014[33] 128 88 42 36 32 - - 123 449 1
February 25, 2014[33] 127 88 42 36 32 33 - 91 449 1
February 27, 2014[33] 122 88 42 36 32 32 37 60 449 1
February 28, 2014[33] 122 88 42 36 32 36 36 57 449 1
March 4, 2014[33] 119 87 42 33 32 36 36 60 445 5
March 15, 2014[33] 120 88 42 35 32 37 36 58 448 2
March 18, 2014[33] 120 82 41 33 32 37 36 58 439 11
Latest voting share 30.2% 19.8% 9.5% 8.1% 7.2% N/A N/A 25.9%
Note: The parties United Centre (3 seats), People’s Party (2 seats), Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko (1 seat) and Union (1 seat) did not form their own faction. Their deputies did not join any faction besides 1 deputy of People’s Party who became a member of the Party of Regions faction in December 2012.[33]