Maryana Bezuglaya blocked the parliamentary rostrum to demand the sacking of Ukraine’s top general, prompting a violent response from fellow MPs
The Ukrainian parliament descended into chaos on Tuesday after MP Maryana Bezuglaya blocked its rostrum and engaged in scuffles with lawmakers.
Bezuglaya declared a “strike” last week, demanding the dismissal of the country’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, over frontline failures. On Tuesday, the lawmaker blocked the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, plastering it with red sticky tape and several placards reading “Syrsky out,” “Frontline lying kills,” and “Military reform!”
The stunt prompted a violent response from a group of MPs led by Sergey Taruta, a lawmaker with the Batkivshchyna party headed by former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko.
The lawmakers clashed with Bezuglaya, managing to take down some of her placards, chaotic footage from the floor shows.
Bezuglaya, however, held her ground, fending Taruta off twice. Less than half of the lawmakers were present in the parliament, with some of them singing Ukraine’s anthem during the scuffle, footage from the scene shows.
The incident has prompted a motion to suspend Bezuglaya from taking part in parliamentary hearings, the lawmaker revealed on her Telegram channel.
The MP pointed out that her stunt did not actually disrupt the work of the legislature. She also lamented the fact that Taruta did not face any consequences for “assaulting her twice” and questioning whether her fellow lawmakers care about “what is happening in the military.”
Bezuglaya has long criticized her country’s military leadership for failed tactics and lack of any coherent defense plan amid the conflict with Russia. The lawmaker has repeatedly accused the top command of “lying to itself” and to the public, wasting soldiers’ lives in futile assaults instead of building solid defensive lines in the rear, and failing to fall back in an orderly way to hold them.
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