Hundreds of people on May 9 came to the Glory Park in central Kyiv to celebrate the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 despite the national lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The police said about 9,000 people had attended Victory Day events all over Ukraine on May 9.
The police also opened four criminal cases and 20 administrative cases into the use of symbols banned by Ukraine’s decommunization laws and violations of quarantine requirements by the participants of the celebrations.
The May 9 holiday has been surrounded by controversy in the past few years as it is often seen as the Soviet way to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany. In 2014, Ukraine established another holiday, the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, celebrated on May 8, as an alternative to the Victory Day of May 9.
