Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko has stressed the need to ban the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine and noted that local branches of the Communist Party are providing assistance to militants.

"It is very important for national security to ban the Communist Party and its branches in our state," he told the 1+1 television channel late on Sunday.

Nalyvaichenko also added: "We clearly say and show based on evidence that LPR and DPR are military terrorists from Russia and mercenaries, but there is always a local Communist Party cell, where party officials very actively assist terrorists... and falsify the elections."

Hanna Onischenko, the head of Ukraine's State Registration Service, said in July that 308 criminal cases had been opened against members of the Ukrainian Communist Party. She said there was evidence that the party's administration had openly supported the inclusion of Crimea into the Russian Federation and the creation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and financed the Donbas militia.

On September 4, the Kyiv District Administrative Court again indefinitely postponed the hearing of the lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry and the State Register seeking a ban on the Communist Party.

On September 5, Petrenko said the Justice Ministry might have initiated the recusal of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, which is trying the lawsuit seeking a ban on the Ukrainian Communist Party, because the Communist Party was trying to the delay the proceedings.