Our Land (Ukrainian: Наш край, romanized: Nash krai) is a political party in Ukraine, founded on 23 August 2011, under the name "Bloc Party". In 2014, it was renamed as "Our Land". In the October 2015 Ukrainian local elections the party was one of the winners.^[5] Our Land took third place with 4,375 seats^[6] and 156 seats as mayors, heads of towns and villages.^[7] In the 2020 Ukrainian local elections the party gained 1,694 seats.^[8]

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Quick Facts Founded, Merger of ...

Our Land Наш край
Founded	23 August 2011 as Block Party 20 December 2014 as Our Land
Merger of	Party of Regions
Headquarters	Kyiv
Ideology	Social democracy[1][2] Regionalism[3] Decentralization Russophilia[4]
Political position	Centre-left
Colours	Blue   White
Verkhovna Rada	2 / 450
Regions	1,894 / 42,501
Party flag
Website
nashkray.org
Politics of Ukraine Political parties Elections

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The party was established/registered on 23 August 2011 as "Block Party".^[9][10]

The party did not participate in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary elections;^[11] or the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary elections.^[12]

On 20 December 2014, the party changed its name to "Our Land".^[10]

By the summer of 2015 the majority of representatives of the party changed dramatically, encompassing individuals who still in 2014 were members of the Party of Regions.^[13][14] "Our Land" claimed in September 2015 that 62 mayors had joined the party,^[13] including the mayors of Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol.^[9] Another known member of the party is member of the Ukrainian parliament (for Kharkiv) Oleksandr Feldman, who joined the party in August 2015.^[15]

In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the party took part in only one single-mandate constituency.^[16] Its candidate Dmytro Khomiak received 0.10% of the vote in constituency 95 located in Irpin and was thus not elected to parliament.^[17]

In the 2020 Ukrainian local elections 1,694 Our Land candidates won seats on the local and regional level, about 5.13% of the total number of contested seats.^[8]

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many members of the Our Land party, including local politicians, cooperated with the Russian Armed Forces in the occupied territories.^{[18][19][20][21][22]}

In June 2022, the leaders of the Our Land party were detained by the SBU for attempting to sell places on the electoral list.^[23]

The party is headed by three party leaders, all of whom were members of the Party of Regions until 2014: Oleksandr Mazurchak, Anton Kisse, Andrii Derkach, and Serhii Shakhov.

The party claims its main interest is "defense of the interests of local communities" and claims this is necessary because "the central government takes into account the interests of the community last".^[9] The public image of the party has three components: a team of experienced professionals, primarily local managers; disinterest in political games and ideological disputes; party core - regional centers focused on the development of their "small homelands".^[24]

Maria Karmazina, a political scientist of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, IPIEND, believes that the existence of the "Our Land" party, which has become an ideological follower of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, is a serious challenge for Ukrainian statehood, since members of this party are prone to anti-Ukrainian or anti-state actions.^[25] Political analyst Denys Kazanskyi calls the party "Our Land", together with the Opposition Bloc, a conditionally anti-Maidan party,^[26] and political scientist Viktor Bobirenko identifies the party's orientation as pro-Russian, pointing out that their voters do not like Russia as an aggressor, nor the West and NATO.^[27] According to political scientist Vadym Karasyov, in fact, the "Our Land" party is not pro-Russian; instead, according to Karasyov, in 2020 the party became the object of undeserved criticism and accusations of pro-Russianness by political competitors in order to reduce its rating.^[28] Despite its roots from the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Our Land has supported Ukrainian military action against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[29]

• Party of Regions
• Opposition Bloc