ODESA – Several hundred people visited the commemoration events in the center of Odesa on Monday to honor those who died on May 2, 2014 during clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists, heroes of the Heavenly Hundreds and those killed in the anti-terrorist operation zone.
The commemoration was held under Ukrainian flags, those present laid out a the trident using grave lights in the Hretska Square and laid flowers at the pictures of the victims, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
Two commemoration services for those killed in the events of May 2, 2014, were to be held in Odesa on May 2 – one at 14:00 on the Kulykove Pole Square and another at 20:00 on the Hretska Square. The event on the Kulykove Pole Square was not held because of the anonymous reports of a bomb being planted there. Subsequently, the report about the bomb was not confirmed, but three grenades were found in an underground passage in the vicinity of the Kulykove Pole Square.
Large-scale clashes involving pro-Russian activists, the Antimaidan movement, and pro-Ukrainian activists erupted in Odesa on May 2, 2014. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry put the death toll from those events at 48, with most of these people killed in a fire at the Trade Unions House, to which participants of the Antimaidan movement fled for cover after the clashes. However, these were pro-Ukrainian activists who became the first victims of the clashes on the Hretska Square.
