During a rally on the Day of the State Flag of Ukraine near the Lviv Regional State Administration, a conflict arose between a volunteer and an employee of the EMB. Lidiya Tokareva refused to get up from the bench during the performance of the anthem during the Flag Day celebrations, and gave the middle finger to the remarks of volunteer Lesya Menkush-Malkiv.
ZAXID.NET was informed by the Lviv Regional State Administration that the official had already been fired.
Lesya Menkush-Malkiv posted the video of the incident on 24 August in the Facebook group Varta-1. The video, filmed the day before, shows a woman sitting on a bench in a park near the Lviv Regional State Administration, giving her middle finger during the national anthem. Lesya Menkush-Malkiv said that the incident occurred during a rally on Flag Day, 23 August, in a park near the Lviv Regional Military Administration. In her post, the volunteer stated that during the national anthem, she and her fellow volunteers made a comment to a woman who did not get up from the bench.
“We were at an action organised by the families of prisoners and missing persons, and then we went to the Luhansk Regional State Administration, where we had a meeting with the leadership. I sat down on a bench because I was carrying a flag and was tired. This girl was sitting next to us, she was almost in the middle of everything. She was constantly looking at her phone and showing no interest. It was her business, I didn’t pay attention. They announced that there would be an anthem. Everyone stood up and started singing. She was sitting down. We were gesturing for her to stand up because it was the anthem. She started laughing in our faces. I was outraged by this and started filming, then she gave me the middle finger,” volunteer Lesya Menkush-Malkiv told ZAXID.NET.
The woman was outraged by such behaviour and disrespect for state symbols, so she went to the police to find out her identity. As it turned out, it was Lidia Tokareva (Danko), an employee of the Lviv Regional Electoral Commission. According to her declaration on the NACP website, she works as a leading specialist in the analytical work department of the information policy department. Lidiya Tokareva has been working at the Lviv Regional State Administration since 2017. Lidiya Tokareva’s declaration also states that she is a part-time assistant at the Department of Theory and History of Political Science, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. As it became known to ZAXID.NET, Lidia Tokareva has not worked at the university since 1 June 2023.
“There were police officers standing there. I went over and asked them to check her out, because I didn’t know who she was. We need to know who this person is who is sitting among us, constantly on the phone. They hesitated at first, and when they went to her, she was running away. My volunteer friends followed them and took her ID card. Later, I approached a policeman and he said that she was an employee of the Lviv Regional State Administration,” the volunteer said.
Lesya Menkush-Malkiv also told ZAXID.NET that she and the volunteers showed the video to the head of the Lviv Regional State Administration, Maksym Kozytskyi, but they were not sure that it was his subordinate. According to the volunteer, he replied that he “cannot know all the employees personally”.
The head of the internal policy department of the Lviv Regional State Administration, Yuriy Horun, told ZAXID.NET that the woman in the video did work at the LRSA, but was fired after the scandal on social media.
“Such actions are unacceptable not only for public officials, but for Ukrainians in general. I reacted quickly on Saturday. The employee wrote a letter of resignation and I signed the relevant order. Since 24 August, she has no longer been working in the regional administration,” said Yuriy Horun.