First Pride Parade Outside of Kiev Goes Ahead Despite Threats

Close to one hundred LGBTQ activists marched in the Black Sea port city Odessa in the first-ever pride parade to take place outside of the capital Kiev. The march was preceded by threats of violence from nationalist groups prompting local authorities to ban the event on security grounds. But activists who took to the streets anyway on the morning of the march reached an agreement with the police and hundreds of police officers were deployed to protect them. Authorities detained around twenty people who tried to disrupt the march, but the fact that it happened at all is seen as a huge milestone for the country’s LGBTQ community. As one LGBTQ activist put it to Coda, it cemented the success of Kiev Pride just two months earlier—a big deal for a country where violence against the LGBTQ community is common. Prior to the Kiev march, a pride parade in the western city Lviv was banned by court order.