WATCH: Fight Breaks Out During Live Ukrainian Television Debate Over Russian Invasion
A Ukrainian journalist got in a fight with a pro-Russian politician on live TV recently, representing tensions in the country are boiling over now that Russia has sent “peacekeeping” forces into Ukraine.
The fight broke out on Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech talk show during a conversation on Friday over the possibility Russia would invade Ukraine. The panel consisted of former Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former President Petro Poroshenko, journalist Yuriy Butusov and Nestor Shufrych, a lawmaker from the pro-Russian party, Opposition Platform – For Life.
Reporter Glenn Kates posted clips of the scrap, saying the trouble started when Shufrych deflected when asked if Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a criminal.
“Let Ukraine’s authorities deal with that,” Shufrych said, which prompted Poroshenko to dismissively say: “There’s a Russian agent right here in the studio.”
Things got really wild, however, when Butusov punched Shufrych in the head over his refusal to condemn Putin. The two continued to fight and wound up on the floor as people in the studio tried to pull them off each other.
The conversation was eventually able to resume somehow, though Shufrych was looking worse for the wear.
Amazing thing is panel discussion continued pic.twitter.com/KAEPuKxe58
— Glenn Kates (@gkates) February 18, 2022
Clearly, people in Ukraine were on edge about Russia last week already, and this could very well sharply increase now that Putin is about to bear down on the country. Since the fight, Putin has called Ukraine a U.S. colony with a “puppet regime,” declared the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states, and announced his intent to violate Ukraine’s borders by moving troops into those breakaway regions.
Watch above.
