Khatyn massacre

2014 Odessa Massacre / Odessa Khatyn

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• published: 04 May 2014
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The fire in the Trade Union House in Odessa on Friday night May 2, 2014 became a tragic finale of Kievan authorities'appeasement to ultranationalist. The unauthorized street march arranged by militants from nationalist groups and local football ultras under the slogan of 'a united Ukraine' resulted in a confrontation with supporters of federalization of the country who had put up a tent camp in Kulikovo Pole Square some time before. According to the latest Ukrainian 'revolutionary tradition', the participants used rocks, baseball bats and Molotov cocktails. As a result, nationalist radicals from the so-called Right Sector first set on fire the tent camp and then the Trade Union House where opponents to the current government's policy found refuge. According to latest data, 46 people were burned alive and died of smoke poisoning. In an attempt to escape from fire people jumped out of the windows. The survivors were violently beaten and mutilated by the nationalist mobs surrounding the building. The tragedy in Odessa reminds one of the most cruel and shocking episodes of the WWII in Khatyn village (Belorussia). On 22 March 1943 the Dirlewanger Brigade, a Nazi unit mostly composed of Ukrainian collaborationists recruited for anti-partisan duties, entered the village and drove the inhabitants from their houses and into a shed, which was then covered with straw and set on fire. The trapped people managed to break down the front doors, but in trying to escape, were killed by machine gun fire. 149 people, including 75 children, were killed. The village was then looted and burned to the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre