Ukraine: Police Called on to Guard Odessa Pride Marchers

A small 100-people strong, mostly successful LGBT march, was held in the Ukraine under the watchful eyes of the police amid contrasting events elsewhere. Several anti-LGBT marchers carried out minor attacks on members of the group before the march.

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Two men who “committed hooligan actions in the city center,” by striking a passerby, were arrested. According to an Odessa Pride 2018 social media page, the event's aim was to draw attention to the discrimination of LGBT people in Ukraine.

According to rights groups, though homosexual sex is legal in Ukraine, since 1991, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people still face stigma, discrimination and sometimes violent attacks.

The group marched from the Vorontsov Palace to the Odessa City Council, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported. The march took place in the center of the city, the regional Police Department confirmed on Facebook. 

The Pride's theme was “Our families is our value.”

According to the head of the preventive activities department of the Ukrainian National Police’s Odessa regional branch, Ivan Ischenko, some 800 officers were dispatched for the Pride event.