Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 6 – Few events
are more likely to divide people along national or ethnic lines than
international football matches, and that makes what happened in Lviv yesterday
utterly remarkable and especially important: In a display of unity against a
common Russian threat, Ukrainian and Belarusian fans marched under a banner “for
your freedom and ours.”
Prior to the match, fans of both
national teams marched from the center of the western Ukrainian city to the
arena where the competition took place.
They sang anti-Putin songs and carried banners declaring “a brotherhood
of conscience” as well as their commitment of mutual support (grani.ru/Politics/World/Europe/Ukraine/m.244087.html).
Earlier in the morning, fans from
the two countries gave blood for wounded Ukrainian soldiers. Grani reported
that “the Belarusian fans called their action, “’We are united with you by
common blood’” and said that they wanted to demonstrate their support for
Ukraine’s struggle to maintain its independence and territorial integrity.
The march and the game itself were
orderly and no arrests were reported. Ukraine won by a score of three to one,
and its victory was greeted by President Petro Poroshenko who thanked the fans
of both teams “for the unbelievably warm and friendly atmosphere at the
stadium. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Belarus!” (charter97.org/ru/news/2015/9/6/167716/).
The last time the two teams met, in
the Belarusian city of Borisov in October 2014, the fans behaved in much the
same way, expressing mutual support and opposition to Russian aggression; but
the Belarusian authorities behaved very differently. They arrested
approximately 100 Ukrainian fans and 30 Belarusian ones, the latter because
they wore Ukrainian symbols and displayed the white-red-white Belarusian flag
Alyaksandr Lukashenka has dispensed with.
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