MOSCOW, May 6 (RIA Novosti) – Odessa regional councilman Vadim Savenko has told RIA Novosti in an exclusive interview that the city’s resolve to protest against the coup-imposed regime in Kiev has not been shaken by the carnage in the city that left dozens dead on Friday.
“They think they have scared us, but they have strengthened us. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” Savenko said.
The councilman vowed to continue protests despite threats to the lives of anti-coup activists.
He told RIA Novosti that the regional office of the Interior Ministry now had a new chief, a graduate of the FBI academy in Budapest whose first words on coming to Odessa were “Hail Ukraine!”
“Lists of [anti-coup] activists with their photos and addresses have been handed over to Right Sector radicals at the Interior Ministry so that they could pressure their families,” Vadim Savenko said.
“At the moment, many activists … who are anti-fascists in their conviction and not for money, are forced to hide in their friends’ and relatives’ homes, flee Odessa, the region or even Ukraine,” he said.
Savenko confirmed that federalists were planning new protest marches in Odessa, but refused to name the place or date. “Let it stay our secret. We will take them by surprise and act decisively until we win.”
Last Friday, Ukraine saw the bloodiest violence since the February overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, with dozens burnt to death inside the blockaded House of Trade Unions in the southern port city of Odessa.
The clashes in the city broke out between federalization activists on one side and fans of the Odessa and Kharkiv football teams on the other, joined by Euromaidan activists. The anti-government protesters sought refuge inside the building that was then set on fire by pro-Kiev radicals.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the events a result of the “criminal irresponsibility of the Kiev leadership indulging insolent nationalist radicals, including Right Sector, who are staging a campaign of physical terror against supporters of federalization and real constitutional changes in Ukrainian society."
