At noon on March 30, thousands and thousands of Odesa residents started to gather for a demonstration dedicated to celebrating the unity of Ukraine. It was a joyful, peaceful, warm, and talented initiative whose members carried a kilometer-long Ukrainian flag down the streets of Odesa. Video footage of this event has been shown by a number of global companies. With pride and pleasure, the Odessites themselves have been uploading it to social networking websites. Oleksiy Els, one of the participants, has made ​​a short clip about it.

The demonstration ended an hour and a half later, but it ended badly, on an ugly note: when the procession reached the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Shevchenko Park, the UDAR Party press secretary abruptly threw St. George’s ribbon into the Eternal Flame. (At that time, only a few people noticed it, but the ugly escapade became widely known the next day…