Push Comes to Shove, and Punch, in Ukraine Parliament

MOSCOW — What began as a legislative debate over Ukraine’s official language policy escalated into a fist-swinging, clothes-ripping brawl between screaming, sweaty lawmakers that reverberated around the Internet on Friday, embellishing the country’s standing in the pantheon of parliamentary punchfests that are captured on camera.

In what the BBC called the “Rumble in the Rada,” parliamentarians tumbled over their desks in the parliamentary chamber in Kiev, the capital, on Thursday night, trading blows, tearing shirts and choking one another as reporters and spectators in the balconies whistled and cheered. One deputy, thrown headfirst into a chair, turned and stumbled back into the melee. Another was flipped over a banister, feet flailing.

The 450-deputy Verkhovna Rada, as Parliament is called in Ukraine, was debating a measure that would elevate the status of Russian to a second language, equal to Ukrainian, in about half the regions of the country, including Kiev. The proposal’s passionate advocates and foes reflect the deep political divisions in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic where some regions harbor deep-seated resentment of Russians.