KIEV, May 14 (RAPSI) – The District Administrative Court in Kiev has banned the pro-Russian Russian Bloc party, the UNIAN news agency reports. Russian Bloc supported Viktor Yanukovich at the 2004 presidential election and the Party of Regions at the 2006 parliamentary election.

Five members of that party were elected to the Sevastopol City Council in 2006. At the 2012 parliamentary election, Russian Bloc won 0.31% of the vote, which was not enough to get any seats in the Verkhovna Rada. Its largest electorate was in Crimea. The party planned to support Oleh Tsarev in the 2014 presidential election, but Tsarev has withdrawn from the race.

Valery Kaurov, the leader of the Russian Bloc’s Odessa branch and an active member of pro-Russian actions in the city, was detained in Odessa on March 20 on charges of “infringing on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian Justice Ministry filed a motion to ban Russian Bloc on April 23.

Ukraine went through a regime change on February 22, when President Viktor Yanukovich fled the country and Western-backed ultranationalist activists rose to power in Kiev. The Verkhovna Rada changed the constitution and set an early presidential election for May 25. Moscow has not acknowledged the legitimacy of the parliament’s decisions.