You're reading: Activists marching in protest against renaming Vatutin Avenue in Kyiv in honor of Shukhevych

Activists in Kyiv have started a flash-mob under the motto ‘Vatutin Avenue Welcomes You!’ against the idea of renaming the avenue in honor of Roman Shukhevych, former ‘commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army’.

About 200 elderly people carrying pink flags with the inscription ‘Socialists,’ accompanied by about 50 young and athletically-built men, marched along Vatutin Avenue toward Moscow Bridge on the sidewalk, not impeding traffic, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported from the scene.

At the same time, about 100 members of the Ukrainian nationalist organization National Corps have also arrived at the scene.

The atmosphere at the venue is calm at the moment, and there are no law enforcement officials.

The march was earlier announced along the entire length of Vatutin Avenue, from Moscow Bridge to the Troyeschyna Market.

It was reported earlier that a toponymy commission at Kyiv City Council recommended in June 2016 that the Kyiv mayor submit a motion to the City Council on renaming a number of city toponyms, including renaming Vatutin Avenue Roman Shukhevych Avenue, in line with a proposal by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. However, Kyiv City Council did not support this proposal in December 2016.

On June 1, 2017, Kyiv City Council voted to rename Gen. Vatutin Avenue Roman Shukhevych Avenue. However, the Kyiv District Administrative Court banned the City Council from signing and publishing this resolution.

Shukhevych is a controversial figure in Ukraine, with some seeing him as a national hero and freedom fighter and others as a Nazi collaborator and war criminal.

Roman Shukhevych was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and later, after 1943, its leader. From January 1944 until his death in 1950, Shukhevych was commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Gen. of the Army Nikolai Vatutin, a Hero of the Soviet Union, was commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front that took part in liberating Kyiv and Ukraine from the Nazis. Vatutin was badly wounded when his automobile was attacked by Ukrainian Insurgent Army members near Rivne in February 1944 and later died in hospital.