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November 7: Communists celebrate, nationalists burn flags

November 7: Communists celebrate, nationalists burn flags
District administrative court of Kyiv decreed to forbid mass actions in Kyiv on November 7. Those who violate the decision will be fined, press secretary of Kyiv main police department Volodymyr Polishchuk told the press this morning.

Nevertheless, both communists and nationalists' political parties filed applications to the Kyiv city administration to hold mass actions on the occasion of the 94th anniversary of October socialist revolution.



"We intend to hold the march and to speak to the people despite the prohibition by the court," Communist party leader Petro Symonenko said, laying flowers to the monument to Lenin and adding he was ready to pay the fine for violating court decision.



Communists, numbering 4 thousand people, planed to hold a march along Khreshchatyk, while Ukrainian national party and Congress of Ukrainian nationalists, numbering 1 thousand participants, planed to protest on Mykhailovska square.

Though no conflicts or collisions were expected, police forces still placed seven buses with law enforcement officers inside near the mentioned placed.

At first the actions were peaceful, but then the opponents met on Maydan.



Communists and nationalists started fighting. Nationalists were even throwing eggs into communists.

Meanwhile, police formed a cordon on the pavement from Khreschatyk Subway Station to Independence Square and at first prevented Svoboda activists from approaching the square.



Nationalists tried to break through forcefully. Some of them have managed, but suffered cuts during clashes with the police.



Tension was rising, and activists of Ukrainian NGO Coalition of Orange Revolution Participants tore to pieces and then burned a red flag of the Communist Party of Ukraine on Khreschatyk Street.