It was to be a peaceful, small parade. On Sunday, a Pride event was hijacked by neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa just ten minutes after the start. Members of the goon squad are said to have carried banners of a nationalist, pro-Russian group called “Tradition and Order”. The organisers of Odessa Pride report in a Facebook post that the Nazis attacked the demonstrators with pepper spray and threw eggs and bottles at them.

The activists* accuse the police: Despite assurances that they wanted to protect the event, the officers reacted far too late. Not only that: the police completely ignored death threats and insults. For example, nobody intervened when a big, heavy man insulted a 17-year-old girl in the worst possible way. Only when several queer activists* were attacked with pepper spray did the police try to resolve the conflict by forming a barrier. Police officers were also injured.

“Ukrainian version of Stonewall!”

In the past few years, the organisers explained, there had never been such excesses of violence at any Ukrainian Pride Parade. The last time a parade in Kiev was stormed by right-wing extremists was in 2015. In the following Facebook posts, they call this year’s incidents the “Ukrainian version of Stonewall” and are accusing the police.

“Those who attacked the demonstrators should be punished for physical and psychological violence against citizens of Ukraine. The Odessa police should be punished for inaction during a crime”.

The Primorsky Police Headquarters in Odessa announced in a statement on its website that 12 people were arrested – for hooliganism and disregarding the instructions of police officers. Three youths had been handed over to their parents. In addition, two officers were reportedly hospitalised with injuries. It is unclear how many queeractivists* were really injured, according to the police.

The Ukrainian LGBTIQ+ organisation LIGA claimed on Facebook yesterday: In the end there were about two dozen injured, including police officers. While a 24-year-old, as the police confirmed, needed medical attention because of first-degree chemical burns to her eyes, face and neck, the ambulance did not even take another similarly seriously injured man with head injuries, Odessa Pride said. They accuse the police of deliberately trying to keep the number of victims low.

In the Spartacus Gay Travel Index 2020, Ukraine was ranked 103rd out of 202 on the global average.

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