RUSSIAN POET PUSHKIN UNWELCOME IN UKRAINE

A group of vandals, presumably Ukrainian nationalists, threw solar oil on the bust of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin mounted on the building of Russian Cultural Centre in Lvov and set fire to it. They also smashed all the windows in the building and tried to set fire on the staircase going up to the attic. The Russian Centre in Lvov had often been a target of violent outbursts by unknown attackers. Police had never made any arrests. Many Russians in Lvov believe that the city officials are either in connivance with the local radicals or simply close the eyes on their deeds. The bust of Pushkin made out of synthetic matters was burnt down. It cannot be restored. The incident happened two days before the Nazi march in Kiev. Saturday, veterans of the Galicia SS Division are planning to walk down the central Kreshchatik street in full uniform accompanied by their admirers. Chief of the Presidential Administration Victor Baloga called on the head of the secret police and the home minister to provide security of the marchers. Volunteers from the Crimea and other Russian speaking areas are heading for Kiev to stage counter-rallies. Western democracies are not reacting to the revival of Nazi rituals in the Ukraine.

SEVASTOPOL MOTHERS ON HUNGER STRIKE

A group of Mother-Heroines from Sevastopol has spent a week trying to get attention of president Yushchenko to their plight. They came to the Ukrainian capital with their numerous families. In daytime they picket the Secretariat of Yushchenko. At nights they sleep in the hall of the main railroad station. The women live in squalid conditions in Sevastopol. The authorities promised them apartments back in the nineties but did not deliver on their promises. One of the protesters Antonina Kolobova said that during her first trip to Kiev a year ago, she had been received by Mr. Yushchenko. The president ticked off his men and gave to Kolobova the number of his cell phone. The woman have dialed it many times to hear only the message: “the customer is unavailable”. The protesters are holding a hunger strike. Some of their children who joined their parents passed out and were hospitalized. Ukrainian officials going in and out of the Secretariat either ignore the strikers or shout abuse at the. City official from Sevastopol Baziv insulted the striking mothers. He called one of them a parasite and said that she should sweep the streets instead of complaining.