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Ukrainian speaker Andriy Parubiy slammed for praising Hitler as history's ‘greatest democrat’

UKRAINIAN progressives called today for the immediate dismissal of parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy after he said on TV that Hitler had been history’s “greatest democrat.”

The demand came from Communist Party of Ukraine leader Petro Symonenko as well as the MP Vadim Rabinovich, leader of the For Life party, who added that he would file a lawsuit against Mr Parubiy for spreading “nazi propaganda.”

The speaker told chat show Freedom of Speech on the ICTV channel that he had “scientifically studied” democracy and cautioned his audience “not to forget the contributions of the fuhrer to the development of democracy.

“The greatest man who practised direct democracy was Adolf Hitler in the 1930s,” he said.

The founder of the Social National Party, now known as Svoboda, added that it was “necessary to introduce direct democracy to Ukraine, with Hitler as its torchbearer.”

Mr Symonenko said the remarks indicated the “neonazi essence” of the Ukrainian government following the Maidan coup of 2014.

“The meaning of Parubiy’s life is to continue the work of Hitler. The real threat to Ukraine is the existence of this regime in the persons of [President Petro] Poroshenko and Parubiy,” he stormed.

“This is what is destroying the territorial integrity and economic and political sovereignty of Ukraine, turning our country into a neocolony and the workers a slave force for transnational corporations.”

The post-coup regime quickly moved to ban the Communist Party for allegedly violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine because of its support for anti-fascists in Donetsk and Lugansk who broke away from the Kiev government.

Praise for Hitler, whose invasion of the Soviet Union killed 27 million Soviet citizens including millions of Ukrainians, was “a slap in the face for the Ukrainian people,” Mr Symonenko declared.

Mr Rabinovich called on “Europe, and Germany in particular, to evaluate the Ukrainian speaker’s actions.”

Mr Parubiy hit British headlines in June when Morning Star Scotland editor Conrad Landin exposed his being given an ovation in the Scottish Parliament as an honoured guest.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay told the presiding officer he would “prefer to know the next time I am asked to welcome a racist, fascist nazi to this parliament.” But the Herald claimed Mr Parubiy had moved “firmly into the mainstream in recent years” and SNP MP Chris Law claimed attacking him would “only serve the Kremlin.”

Nonetheless the Morning Star’s exposé led the Scottish Parliament to review its procedures for welcoming foreign guests.

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