Fist fight breaks out at Ukraine parliament
A fierce fist fight broke out at Ukraine’s parliament when a lawmaker tried to drag Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk away from the podium as he was briefing the chamber on his administration’s performance.
Video footage from Friday’s parliamentary session shows Oleh Barna, a deputy from President Petro Poroshenko’s faction (PPB), approaches Yatsenyuk from the People’s Front (PF) with a bouquet of red roses.
Barna handed the roses to Yatsenyuk, but when the premier accepted the flowers, the PPB deputy grabbed him by the arm and tried to push him out of the podium. The prime minister resisted by clutching on to the rostrum as several lawmakers from Yatsenyuk’s party rushed to his aid.
For several minutes, members from both parties engaged in a scuffle. Shortly after, things calmed down and both sides apologized to one another.
Yatsenyuk attempted to downplay the incident by saying, “I’m not upset, so there are lots of morons.”
MP Barna was asked to leave the parliament building, with his party saying he had been expelled from the parliamentary faction over the incident. Prior to the incident, however, Barna had been collecting signatures demanding the resignation of the prime minister.
The prime minister has been at odds with the president’s party amid growing concern and public discontent over Ukraine's still-rampant levels of corruption.
Yatsenyuk claimed his administration does not have the power to prosecute corruption cases because the prosecutor general is appointed by the president.
The president's party members in the parliament have called for Yatsenyuk's resignation.
The prime minister said he would only resign if the parliament voted unanimously to remove him from his post.
Furthermore, outside the parliament building up to 1,000 protesters had gathered to demand the resignation of Yatsenyuk.
The Ukrainian parliament is notorious for its frequent fisticuffs.
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