A Tense Calm In Kiev As Rally Overshadows Peace Talks

(Vatican Radio) A tense calm has returned to the streets of Kiev after thousands of Ukrainian nationalists marched through the streets Thursday to honour a 1940s anti-Soviet rebel leader, who Moscow has called a Nazi collaborator. The protests came while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pledged to crush a pro-Russian insurgency in the east, though he did not rule out peace talks with his Russian counterpart and French and German leaders.

Listen to the report by correspondent Stefan Bos:

Shouting “Glory to Stepan Bandera” Ukrainian nationalists honored the man they consider a hero. Armed with torchlights they marched on what would have been Bandera's 106th birthday. 

Russia has condemned Bandera as he fought in Ukraine alongside invading German forces during World War II. In fact, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s,  caused by policies of Soviet-leader Joseph Stalin, had turned many against Moscow and for independence from the Soviet Union. 

Bandera was eventually detained by Germans for trying to set up a Ukrainian government and spent years in a concentration camp. He was eventually poisoned by an agent of the Soviet-era KGB secret service in Munich in 1959. 

NATIONALIST PROTESTERS

Decades later, nationalist protesters have made Bandera a symbol of current fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east. 

"During those times Stepan Bandera used to talk about Moscoviya [old Western name for Russia] and about Moscow being our enemy,” said economist and Svoboda party member Valentina Barchiuk. “Today it turns out to be exactly that way. Now Russia has attacked independent Ukraine and the words of Stepan Bandera proved to be true.”

The demonstrations have overshadowed a planned meeting by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin later this month.

That gathering, expected in Kazakhstan on January 15, will mark their first face-to-face talks on the crisis in eastern Ukraine since a brief October encounter in Milan.

GERMANY, FRANCE

Poroshenko said their talks will also be attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

Whatever the outcome of the negotiations, Poroshenko vowed in his New Year's address to defeat what he called the "cruel-hearted enemy" attacking government forces in the Russian-speaking east.

It was a reference to Russia, though Moscow denies supporting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine with weapons and troops.

Poroshenko, a 49-year-old chocolate baron, won early elections in May on a pledge crush the pro-Russian mutiny that erupted in Ukraine's industrial east in April and has since claimed more than 4,700 lives.