Five Ukrainian members of the parliament, including two with serious injuries, were hospitalized following a brawl in the country's Supreme Rada, an opposition party member said.
The Ukrainian parliament was paralyzed on Thursday as pro-government and opposition lawmakers had a fistfight over the criminal charges brought against former prime minister and current opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
Hospitalized opposition MP Vladimir Bondarenko said in a telephone interview with Channel Five television channel that besides him the other four MPs in a hospital are Mikhailo Volynets, Vasyl Kravchuk, Yuriy Gnatkevich and Yevheniy Suslov.
The incident, he said, was planned in advance with some 100 members of the ruling Party of Regions participating in the fight.
"It was a pre-planned action as everything happened in a moment of a flash," Bondarenko said.
Deputies from the Party of Region attacked members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc-Batskivshchyna alliance that staged a protest in the chamber, including by hanging banners saying "Stop political reprisals!"
Tymoshenko said on Wednesday that a criminal case had been opened against her over alleged misuse of public funds, adding she was ordered not to leave the city and to reappear at the Prosecutor's Office on Monday.
Tymoshenko moved to the opposition after her government was dissolved in March following presidential elections narrowly won by her rival Viktor Yanukovych. The opposition has strongly criticized the Yanukovych government over its "anti-Ukrainian" and "pro-Russian" policies.
KIEV, December 17 (RIA Novosti)
