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by Our Foreign Desk
MOSCOW police detained Ukrainian MP Alexei Goncharenko on Sunday as he took part in a march mourning slain Russian oppositionist Boris Nemtsov.
Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee said Mr Goncharenko had been questioned about his involvement in a fire at a trade union centre in his home city Odessa.
Ukraine parliament speaker Volodymyr Groisman claimed the detention of the ruling party MP was illegal because Mr Goncharenko had diplomatic immunity.
For Russians, the Odessa fire remains one of the most painful episodes of the Ukraine conflict.
On May 2 2014 clashes between right-wing and anti-Kiev groups in Odessa culminated in a fight outside the Trade Union House in the city centre.
The building was set alight by pro-Kiev right-wingers, resulting in the death of 31 progressive activists, who were burned to death in the fire.
Firefighters arrived an hour after the fire began, but were prevented from operating by the mob gathered around the building, some of whom were heard chanting “burn, burn” at the victims and seen attacking those who escaped the blazing building.
Elsewhere, the United Nations said yesterday that more than 6,000 people have now died in eastern Ukraine since the start of the conflict almost a year ago.
Hundreds of civilians and military personnel have been killed in recent weeks alone after fighting near Donetsk airport and in the Debaltseve area, the Geneva-based body said in a report covering the period from December to February.
The strategic railroad town of Debaltseve was captured from Kiev government forces last month by independence fighters.
Although Russia denies its troops are fighting in Ukraine, the UN claimed “credible reports indicated a continuing flow of heavy weaponry and foreign fighters” from Russia.
“This has sustained and enhanced the capacity of armed groups of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic to resist government armed forces and to launch new offensives,” it alleged.
The report cited “allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances, committed mostly by the armed groups but in some instances by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.”
