Kiev: Controversial laws designed to leave Ukraine`s Soviet past behind could stoke fresh tension in the war-divided country as rebels in the east voice outrage and analysts dub the bills "crude" or even "asinine".
"In the West, friends of Ukraine will have a difficult time accepting both the wisdom and timing of such a facile and asinine decree," said historian David Marples of Canada`s Alberta University.
Rushed through parliament Thursday in just days with little or no debate, the package of laws bans Communist and Nazi names and symbols, meaning Soviet-era Lenin statues will have to be knocked down and town squares renamed across the country of some 45 million.
With Nazi symbols almost nowhere to be seen, the legislation mainly aims to wipe away signs of the Soviet history.
"The all-encompassing rejection of any facets of the Soviet legacy is troublesome," Marples wrote. "The Red Army after all removed the Nazi occupation regime from Ukraine in alliance with the Western Powers."
Soviet WWII veterans in a country once one of the USSR`s largest, most economically powerful republics, will be entitled to continue to wear their medals however, and graves will be left in peace, even if they are inscribed with the hammer-and-sickle or other Soviet insignia.
Possibly the most controversial law passed was one to officially name as "patriots" a notorious nationalist group reviled as fascists in neighbouring Russia and Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, but popular in western Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), one of several groups of independence fighters rubberstamped by the bill, were active in the 1940s and 1950s when they supported German Nazis for a time during World War II, before fighting them as well as the Soviet Union.
The parliament`s recognition of the group "will lead to the complete disintegration of the country," warned pro-Russian separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko.
"The attempt to make heroes of warriors is no more than a farce. It causes disgust and revulsion. It formalises the victory of fascism," said the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People`s Republic.As fears mount of a resumption of fighting that has left more than 6,000 dead in a year, Marples said "it is hard to escape the conclusion that this acceptance into law is a major error, even akin to a death wish vis-a-vis the Donbas," the name of the Russian-speaking industrial east.
Kiev sociologist Andriy Bychenko said the parliament`s anti-Soviet drive was a direct response to accusations that Russia had fuelled the pro-Moscow uprising in east Ukraine.
"Feelings towards the symbols of the Soviet Union have become sharply more negative since the beginning of the Russian aggression," he told AFP.
"A shining example" of that, he said, was the Communist Party`s flop at elections last year when it failed to win a single seat for the first time in the more than 20 years since independence in 1991.
The many statues of Communist leader Lenin were a focus of debate during the Maidan protests that led to the ouster of then pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and sparked events that led to the war in the east.
As pro-Western protesters toppled Lenin effigies in rage, pro-Russian separatists in the east gathered at their feet.
"This law embodies the mood after the Maidan, but it`s too radical," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta Centre for Political Studies. "Not everyone will like it."
The legislation condemns "totalitarian Communist and Nazi regimes in Ukraine" and bans "all public denial" of their "criminal character" as well as the "production", "circulation" or "public utilisation" of their symbols, except for educational or scientific purposes -- or found in a cemetery.
Banned items include the Soviet flag and anthem as well as monuments and historical plaques commemorating Communist leaders. Penalties for violating the law range from five to 10 years.
"You can like Communists, but only at home, quietly and without imposing it on anyone," lawyer Valentina Telichenko told AFP.
