"Certain political forces" paid for May 9 clashes in Lvov - police

KIEV, May 14 (Itar-Tass) - Ukrainian Interior Minister Anatoly
Mogilyov said "certain political forces" had paid radicals for their
participation in mass actions in Lvov on May 9.
"Taking action in Lvov were the persons whom certain political forces
had paid. So many people could not have come (to Lvov) merely for
ideological reasons," the minister said live on Ukraine's "Inter" channel.
He said a legal evaluation would be given to everybody's action there.
Mogilyov said police had coped with its main task during the incident.
"The main talks with which police coped was to prevent people from being
injured, and bloodshed in Lvov streets. We enlisted enough forces for it
and ensured the protection of people's life and health," he noted.
Not a single veteran was hurt. "Of course, veterans suffered not
physically, but morally," Mogilyov added.
Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, in an interview to Channel 5, said the
authorities had enough opportunities to prevent a split in the society.
Azarov earlier condemned the extremists' actions in Lvov.
"I'm deeply convinced: Lvov is Ukraine's pride, a remarkable and
hospitable town, and we must not allow the extremists to cause damage to
its reputation," he told a Cabinet meeting.
"I don't and never will accept that our citizens cannot feel
themselves protected wherever they find themselves in this country. The
authorities must prevent violence or criminal manifestations related to
human rights violations."
Several incidents involving nationalists had occurred in Lvov on May
9. In the Marsovoye field they started a fight with World War II veterans.
On the Hill of Glory, the nationalists did not allow the people wearing St
George's ribbons, come up to the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, and tried to
break through the police cordon to prevent the hoisting of the red flag.
They also stamped up the wreath which Russian consul general in Lvov
Oleg Astakhov was to have laid in the military cemetery.
Ukraine's ruling Party of Regions condemned the May 9 provocation in
Lvov, too.
"The Party of Regions expresses a categorical protest against the
provocative actions by the unbridled political extremists, who dared
encroach with their dirty actions on the blessed memory about millions of
war victims, the heroic feat of the victors, who liberated the world from
the Nazism and saved mankind from mortal danger," it said in a statement.
Russian lawmakers demanded immediate punishment of the organizers of
and participants in the Lvov disturbances.
They said they assumed the May 9 events in Lvov had nothing to do with
Kiev's official policy and that they would not mar the positive
development of Russian-Ukrainian relations.