New Worker Banner

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

We will not forget Odessa!

by New Worker correspondent

Activists from International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS) and members of the Workers Party of Brit ain held a vigil outside the Ukrainian Embassy in London on Saturday 2nd May to remember the Anti-Maidan heroes who died at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa on 2nd May 2014.

On 2nd May 2014, a fascist-led mob torched the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, preventing fire fighters from intervening and attacking anyone who tried to escape. According to the Kiev regime, 42 people who were de fending democratic rights and the rights of Russian speakers died on that day, but this figure is widely disbelieved. According to local investigators the true number of fatalities is well over 300.

For the first time since the formation of IUAFS in 2017, a pro-Zelensky counter-protest was held in front of the embassy, including people wearing fascist Azov emblems – one of whom held a sign saying “We killed the protesters in Odessa”. However, there were around three times as many anti-fascist protestors as the Ukrainian fascist Banderites. People came out of the embassy to join the Banderite protestors. So the embassy was clearly involved, and that may be as a result of the repeated IUAFS protests there.

There was a large police presence in order to avoid any conflict breaking out in front of the embassy, which is located in one of the most expensive areas in central London. Members of the IUAFS approached the Bandera supporters to tell them that we wanted to lay flowers at the embassy gate but were told “it is forbidden”. We consulted the police who advised that this may lead to trouble breaking out, so it was decided to lay flowers under a tree across the road. The policy of IUAFS is that its campaigns are purely political, firstly calling on the British government to end all support and collaboration with the Kiev junta, and secondly to extend solidarity and support to all Ukrainian democrats and anti-fascists in Ukraine or living in exile abroad.

The Ukrainian protestors, holding Ukrainian, Romanian and British flags, shouted to the anti-fascist protestors “Are you Russian? Do you support Hamas terrorists?”, and a man apparently from Ukrainian TV filmed the IUAFS activists and asked “where are you from?”.

IUAFS will continue its campaign until democracy, freedom of the media and the right for all peaceful, democratic political parties to operate freely in Ukraine are restored. We look forward to the day when Ukraine is free of NATO personnel and provocations and all the national communities in Ukraine can live side-by side together peacefully.