MOSCOW, May 16 (RIA Novosti) – Italian peace activists will gather in Rome to protest against the EU support for the Kiev government which they see as neo-Nazist, Italian antiwar activist Marinella Correggia from the No-War Network told RIA Novosti Friday.
“Several Italian organizations are concerned about the behavior of the European Union and US which supported coup d’état in Ukraine and then closed the eyes on the neo-Nazist and fascist organizations which are collateral to the new so-called government of Kiev,” Correggia said. “The EU and US criticized Crimea for its referendum on independence, but they closed eyes on the criminal act of the neo-Nazist groups in Odessa.”
Thousands of people are expected to join the demonstration in Rome starting at 6:00 pm local time (4:00 pm GMT). Similar demonstrations were held in Naples last Friday and in Rome earlier this week. May 17 demonstration however is expected to be the largest.
Correggia said Italian peace organizations, trade unions and social organizations will be part of the Saturday event, as well as members of the Russian community in Italy.
“The media did not speak enough about that criminal act and the fire in that building of Trade Union in Odessa, at the same time EU and US criticize Moscow for I don’t know exactly what,” Marinella Correggia told RIA Novosti. “In spite of negative information in the Italian media, different groups understood what was happening,” she added.
May 2 saw the bloodiest skirmishes in Ukraine since the ousting of President Yanukovich in February. Pro-federalization activists clashed with the fans of the Odessa and Kharkiv football teams joined by Euromaidan activists. At least 46 people died, three went missing and 214 were injured, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Most of them died in a fire in the building of the city’s trade union. The interim government in Kiev has been accused by local officials of covering up the actual death toll of at least 116.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the events a result of the «criminal irresponsibility of the Kiev leadership indulging insolent nationalist radicals, including Right Sector, who are staging a campaign of physical terror against supporters of federalization and real constitutional changes in Ukrainian society."
