Parliament speaker calls out MP for spreading Russian narratives on TikTok

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk reminded the head of the Platform for Life and Peace parliamentary group, Yuriy Boyko, ex-minister in the Viktor Yanukovych era, that it is Russian leader Vladimir Putin who is responsible for the violence in Ukraine.

Stefanchuk published the corresponding post on Facebook in response to public outrage caused by Boyko’s recent TikTok appearance where he condemned “desecration” of Soviet monuments, alleged persecution of the Orthodox Church, “radicals” spreading violence and “prohibiting” people from using Russian language, while failing to make a mention of Russia’s war of aggression.  

"We cannot talk about the ban on going to church without mentioning the destruction of more than 500 churches of various denominations by the Russians. We cannot talk about the desecration of monuments without mentioning the head of the Shevchenko monument in Borodyanka being shot at by Russian looters. And in general, we cannot talk about any violence against people without mentioning Putin – the only one who is guilty of all this," he wrote.

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As reported, the head of the Platform for Life and Peace parliamentary group, Yuriy Boyko, published a statement, full of pro-Russian narratives about Ukrainian "radicals" and "the ban on speaking people’s native language", implying Russian.

The Platform for Life and Peace parliamentary group was created from members of the former Platform for Life and Peace.

Boyko himself was Minister of Energy in the government of Mykola Azarov during the Viktor Yanukovych presidency. Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine (2010-2014) fled to Russia amid violence targeting protesters during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. He has remained in exile in the Russian Federation ever since.

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The Revolution of Dignity had been provoked by Yanukovych’s U-turn on the country’s closer integration with the European Union. He was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014 amid the ongoing mass protests, and at the time Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea, effectively unleashing the first phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the Platform for Life and Peace has been banned in Ukraine.