Several Ukrainian websites who publish in Russian ( 112.ua, Ukrainskiye novosti, MIGnews) simultaneously published identical stories about German Bundestag member Inge Höger from the Die Linke party criticizing Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy.
Die Linke is Germany’s fourth largest party and its most far left. It was founded in 2007 on the basis of the East German Communist party, the Party of Democratic Socialism and the electoral Alternative for Labor and Social Justice.
Inge Höger published her views concerning Parubiy on her official web site in both German and English.
Linking to two Russian sites (Lenta.ru, Vesti) and not to a transcript of what Parubiy actually said, Höger writes that Parubiy differentiates between Ukrainians and no-Ukrainians and says that non-Ukrainians have no right to a say in national matters and internal policy debates.
These are Inge Hoger’s actual words:
“Andrij Parubij, Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament, made a very aggressive statement about the eastern part of Ukraine during a parliament session. He said, that his grandmother from Charkiw area, from Babaev told him that millions of Ukrainians were killed in the East of Ukraine, by Moscow’s occupants, by Kremlin itself. Then he continued analogously that they (the occupants) brought a lot of people from different parts of another state (Russia) and therefore they were no Ukrainians. He reasoned correspondingly that hence they should not have a right to say in national matters.”
By comparing the German MP’s claim with the official transcript of the Ukrainian parliamentary session, one sees that what Höger alleges in no way corresponds to what Parubiy actually said and is taken completely out of context.
The parliament was discussing changing names of cities in accordance to the country’s enacted decommunization law, aimed at removing remnants of communist rule from the country’s topography. Parubiy said that during the Holodomor, the artificial famine of 1932-33 parts of Ukraine were resettled, but despite these past demographic changes, each community had until February 18, 2016 to independently decide on new names for their cities, the speaker pointed out. This crucial part of what he said; was completely omitted by the Russian media cited by Inge Höger.
Contrary to what Höger claims, in no way did Parubiy question the right of eastern Ukrainians to make decisions concerning the names of their cities.
Then, citing the AG Friedensforschung, a university working group made up of leftist academics affiliated with the Die Linke party, Inge Höger goes on to say that she remembers the role Parubiy played in the tragic events in Odesa on May 2, 2014 during which nearly fifty people were killed in a fire.
The Friedensforschung article she refers to is about a film by pro-Russian German journalist Ulrich about the events in Odessa, and does not actually accuse Parubiy of anything. Using words and phrases like Kyiv fascists, Kyiv putsch, the article asks who had the most to gain from the tragic events in the port city.
