Pressure on Kolomoyskyi is U.S. attempt to create centralized Ukraine with strong anti-Russian govt – Duma deputy

MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) – The events around Ukrainian governor Ihor Kolomoyskyi attest that he is not among the people the West is planning to build relations with, says Mikhail Yemelyanov, first deputy leader of A Just Russia Party faction.

“It is clear that Kolomoyskyi is not the politician with whom the U.S. and Europeans would like to deal, hence the pressure that was organized against him. Our analysts think that Kolomoyskyi lost this battle,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“To overthrow the Yanukovych government so as to bring overtly anti-Russian forces into power, Western countries, primarily the U.S., had no qualms about (using) any method and were ready for alliances with any people, be they right-wing nationalists, fascists or wicked oligarchs,” Yemelyanov said.

“The U.S. surely understands that if it wants to make Ukraine a successful state, everything that is marginal, fascist, including oligarchic forces, must be removed from the political stage,” the parliamentarian said.

“First they pushed Oleh Tyahnybok out of parliament, now there is this other extension of a purge of Ukraine’s political field, exploiting the eastern truce and the Minsk agreements to that end,” he said.

“The goal of the U.S. is to create a totalitarian Ukraine, a centralized Ukraine with a very strong anti-Russian government, armed to the teeth,” the politician said.

The anti-Russian natural of the current Ukrainian government “manifests in that they want to change the Ukrainian people’s system of values, as evidenced by the V-Day celebration bill submitted in Verkhovna Rada,” changing the date from May 9 to May 8, he said.

“For decades, May 9 has been the sacred Victory Day for Ukrainians, for Russians and Belarusians, and such a demonstrative change of date on the eve of the 70th V-Day anniversary shows that the forces which came to power are by no means sharing the Ukrainian values relating to the Victory,” the Russian Duma member said.

“If Rada makes such a decision, it will do so against the will of its own people,” Yemelyanov said.