UKRAINE-KYIV-SEXUAL-MINORITIES

Kyiv, July 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Six young men who called themselves nationalists stopped about 15 members of sexual minorities from holding a demonstration in the center of Kyiv on Friday.

The demonstration had barely started on Mykhailivska Square, not far from the Foreign Ministry building, when the six men showed up, two of them wearing T-shirts with symbols of the Svoboda far-right nationalist party and the others T-shirts with “Fighter Club” written on them. Four of the six were wearing masks as well.

The six men introduced themselves as nationalists and said they were planning to stop the demonstrators from propagandizing a way of life that, they claimed, ran against traditional Ukrainian values.

After a verbal spat between the two groups, the supposed nationalists seized banners from the demonstrators and tore them up.

Police who were posted nearby told Interfax the demonstration had been legal.

[UA EUROPE EEU EMRG POL PRO]

21:02:31 EET-2