As Soviet war veterans in Lvov, the capital of Galicia, attempted to lay flowers at the graves of Red Army soldiers who died fighting to liberate this part of Ukraine from Nazi tyranny, Ukrainian nationalists attacked them. Elsewhere in the city, nationalists burnt Soviet flags and desecrated a wreath the Russian consul general had been planning to lay at a Soviet war memorial.
Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych ovowed to punish those responsible for the violence while Russian parliamentarians referred to the Lvov disturbances as “dirty provocations” on the day when people “celebrate the victory over absolute and unquestionable evil.”
Ukrainian nationalism is largely confined to the westernmost regions, principally Galicia and Volhynia, which were annexed by the Soviet Union from Poland in September 1939.
This year’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow involved a military parade on Red Square which matched the size of those from the Soviet-era as 20,000 soldiers, with tanks and mobile ICBMs, paraded before the Russian leadership.
