Students at Madrid’s Complutense University ejected fascist thugs who attempted to disrupt a lecture about the May 2 attack on the Trade Union building in Odessa in Ukraine during which some 42 people lost their lives and 170 were injured. The Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid is implicated in the provocation at the university.

The lecture was part of a series of talks, “roundtables” and discussion groups, due to end on October 23, around the theme of “The humanitarian crisis in south-eastern Ukraine and its consequences for Europe.” It was organised by the university’s Political Science and Sociology department with the help of the Ukrainian Anti-Fascist Support Committee and the Global Platform against War.

In addition, an exhibition, “The Tragedy of Odessa,” has been on display at the university, featuring photographs from Odessa, Donetsk and Luhansk, organised by the “Remember Odessa. Stop Fascism” group, which has already travelled to a dozen European countries and India.

A Youtube video shows how, on October 8, just before the lecture was due to begin, members from the neo-Nazi Svoboda (Freedom) Party stormed into the lecture hall carrying Ukrainian flags and banners. They chanted “Stepan Bandera” (the Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis in World War II) while assaulting and threatening students.

In response to the disturbance, outraged students responded by chanting “Fascists, get out of here!” and drove them off the campus, where they were spotted beside a white van that was registered with diplomatic corps of the Ukrainian Embassy.

An RIA Novosti report states that the Ukrainian Embassy “confirmed” that an embassy representative was attending as a member of the public. El Pais revealed that the Ukrainian ambassador, Serhii Pohoreltsev, had met with the University dean José Carrillo Menéndez expressing “deep concern” over the photographic exhibition and asking the university to cancel it because it was “Russian propaganda” and of “obvious anti-Ukrainian nature.”

According to News Rin, this is not the first attempt by “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” to disrupt the photographic display about the Odessa Massacre. Similar provocations have taken place in Warsaw, Brussels, Vienna and Graz, Austria.

The Madrid students should be congratulated for resisting the violent provocation and driving the fascists off the campus. The country has had a bitter experience with dictatorship and brutality suffered under the regime of General Francisco Franco.

The consequences of the massacre and the role of the Svoboda Party as shock troops in ousting the previous Ukrainian government should be discussed openly. The aim of the provocation in Odessa, followed by the Ukrainian military offensive in eastern Ukraine, was to intimidate all opposition to the coup regime in Kiev, which has pledged to implement the program of drastic austerity dictated by the IMF and European Union.

Because of this, the governments of Washington and Berlin were prepared to collaborate with the murderous forces responsible for the atrocity of May 2 and even risk military conflict with Russia.

Since then there has been a virtual blackout of the events by the Western media and numerous pseudo-left groups to cover for the reactionary far-right regime in Kiev and even blame the massacre on the pro-Russian forces that were its victims. The Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, who has longstanding links to neo-conservative US think tanks, posted on Twitter on the same day of the massacre, noting, “Horrible with at least 38 dead in Odessa. Seems to have started with pro-Russian attempt to get control of buildings.”

However, free discussion about the massacre should not be confused with lending any political support or credence to the organisers of the photographic exhibition, Sergey Marchel and Oleg Muzyka. Both are members of the Rodina (Motherland) party of Russia, a far-right nationalist formation.

On May 9, 2011, Rodina marched together with the Russian Unit through Lviv in Ukraine chanting, “Chochly are filth, we will win!” (“Chochly” is a Russian epithet for Ukrainians) and has called for a monument to be built to the Empress Catherine the Great. YouTube videos show Muzyka speaking at a rally of Rodina and railing against “homosexual Europe.”