Fatima Popura and her husband Vadim watched the escalation of violence in Odessa through the TV screen, and when night fell, they went out to see what was happening in the union building, which was at the center of the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian groups.
When they arrived, the fire was almost out. Passing between the police and the protesters, they came across bloodied bodies lined up along the street.
As they approached, Fatima recognized her 17-year-old son among the dead. Vadim, who was named after his father, was wearing a tracksuit and a makeshift bulletproof vest. His face was covered in dried blood. Vadim was among those trapped in the burning building and died when he jumped from one of the upper floors to escape the fire, Fatima said, sobbing.
"We lost our son and we don't know how to grieve," she told the Observer reporter.
Clash in front of the trade union building yesterday in Odessa, Photo: Reuters
Fatima denied that Vadim was a separatist who wanted parts of Ukraine to join Russia or that he was aggressive. "This is war. Civil war. I can't describe it any other way," she said.
Her husband said that Vadim recently stopped participating in pro-Russian protests. "But for some reason he came today."
The story of the Popura couple is one of many similar tragedies that have unfolded in the Black Sea port after Friday's street fighting, which culminated in the burning of dozens of pro-Russian protesters at a trade union building.
37 people died in the fire. According to police data, a total of 42 people were killed in clashes in the city.
Events turned violent when a column of soccer fans, chanting slogans in support of Ukrainian leaders, clashed with men in black, some of whom fired pistols. TV footage showed police caught between the two sides.
The separatists fled from supporters of a united Ukraine into the union building, which was then engulfed in flames, probably from Molotov cocktails thrown at it.
It is the worst violence in Ukraine since February, when hundreds of people died in Kiev during protests against Viktor Yanukovych.
By yesterday morning, bodies had been removed from the streets around the union building, and people were bringing flowers and lighting candles outside the blackened doors.
By noon, a crowd of about a thousand mostly pro-Russian protesters had gathered, angry at the police for not preventing the murders. They shouted "shame", "Russia, Russia", "Putin, Putin" and "Odessa is a Russian city".
In order to calm the crowd, the policemen let a few people into the building. There were 32 corpses inside, pro-Russian activist Maurice Ibragimov said when he came out.
"They were all burned. It's impossible to recognize anyone - they look like they're made of plastic," he said.
Many pointed the finger at the Odessa police.
"People were burning for an hour before the police came," said Albina Lukina (43), who was in the crowd in front of the union building.
Odessa, a popular vacation destination known for its multiculturalism and laid-back atmosphere, was celebrating May Day when the violence erupted. In all likelihood, the police, activists and local journalists were caught off guard. Oleg Konstantinov, editor of the local portal dumskaya.net, who is being treated in hospital for gunshot wounds to his back and leg, said he had sent most of the journalists on a two-day vacation.
The bloodshed in Odessa happened on the same day that Kiev launched a military operation in an attempt to regain control of separatist areas in the east, especially in Slavyansk, which has become a stronghold of pro-Russian groups.
The Ukrainian Minister of the Interior said that these operations will continue. Until now, the Ukrainian army has repeatedly launched an offensive, then retreated. The government is afraid of giving Russia an excuse to send troops, which is that civilians - Russian-speaking citizens - are in danger and need protection.
Several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators in the eastern city of Donetsk broke into the office of the governor and the state security headquarters yesterday, where they ransacked and broke windows.
Pro-Russian protesters storm a building owned by the governor of Donetsk, Photo: Reuters
Yesterday, Ukrainian forces captured the television tower and the building of the security services in Kramatorsk.
The administration of the Donetsk region announced that snipers were shooting from rooftops in that city, that shops were closing and that panic had reigned. A Reuters reporter late in the afternoon, however, reported that the city was calm.
On Friday, rebels in Slavyansk shot down two Ukrainian helicopters and stopped the advance of Ukrainian soldiers in armored vehicles. The separatists announced that three of their fighters and two civilians were killed in an action by Ukrainian forces in that city.
Russia has blamed the government in Kiev and its Western backers for the victims in Odessa.
"Kiev and its Western sponsors are practically provoking the bloodshed and bear direct responsibility for it," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Many pro-Russian activists blame members of the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), on the other hand, claims that illegal military groups from Transnistria, a nearby pro-Russian region of Moldova where Moscow has a military garrison, worked together with Russian groups to incite riots in Odessa. She announced that most of the victims identified so far are from Transnistria.
The SBU spokeswoman also accused former top officials, once members of Yanukovych's inner circle, of financing "saboteurs" to provoke riots.
Ukraine's interior ministry blamed pro-Russian protesters, saying they attacked Kiev supporters before retreating to union headquarters, where they opened fire on the crowd and threw Molotov cocktails that started the fire.
Odessa is in southwestern Ukraine, far from rebel-held eastern areas and the Russian border, where Moscow has built up forces. But it is close to Transnistria, where Russia also has troops.
Regional police chief Petro Luciuk said yesterday that more than 130 people have been detained and that the charges against them could range from participation in riots to premeditated murder.
The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the deaths of 42 people.
Alexander Luhansky, carrying a cane and a jacket with medals from his service in the Soviet army during the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, came to the square in front of the trade union building in Odessa to lay five red carnations.
"Both Kiev and Moscow are to blame," he said. "Odessa will not forgive this.
OSCE observers were guests at the birthday celebration
Pro-Russian rebels in the east freed seven OSCE military observers yesterday, solving a major diplomatic problem for the West. Moscow said the release showed the "courage and humanity" of the rebels defending Slavyansk. Western officials welcomed the release but said Russia must do more to ease the crisis.
Separatists detained the monitoring team on April 25, describing them as prisoners of war. One Swede was released earlier for health reasons, and four Germans, a Czech, a Dane and a Pole were held until yesterday.
The leader of the separatists in Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomariov, said that the observers were released together with five Ukrainian prisoners, without any conditions. "As I promised, yesterday we celebrated my birthday and they left. They were my guests."
The leader of the OSCE team, German colonel Axel Schneider, said after the release: "Great relief. It was very difficult. The last two nights, when you see what's going on, every minute is getting longer."
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