I just checked and Party of Regions was never forbidden, many people just left it and joined other parties (e.g. party of the 2014 elected president Poroszenko)

I just checked and Party of Regions was never forbidden, many people just left it and joined other parties (e.g. party of the 2014 elected president Poroszenko) BTW. If your president runs to another country and that country comes back with and army, what do you do? Oh, and before that that same president begs that other country to invade and bring peace. (and prime minister also fleds to that invading country, just before the invasion). Even Party of Regions removed Yanukovych from his members. For westerners: in Ukraine one could have a special "note" that allowed voting in any "voting office" - this should be used only in special cases when you are not sure where you will be during the voting (normally you are assigned to vote in your home region). As one might guess it was used to do some shenanigans, like a bunch of miners from eastern parts where being driven to many votes with those special notes. No one checked if given person voted once, or ten times. And there were many buses with such people. And Russia really cares about Russophiles, they made two regions separate from Georgia in 2008, and they did the same in Ukraine in 2014. Coincidentally it was at the time both of those countries started taking a Western turn (speaking about EU and NATO membership).