Two very different parades were held in Kiev and Donetsk to mark Ukraine's independence, with separatists marching captive Ukrainian soldiers through a hostile crowd In Kiev, the celebration of 23 years since Ukraine split from Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union was marked with a military parade and the announcement by President Petro Poroshenko that the country will spend an extra $3 billion on the armed forces. Dozens of Ukrainian prisoners dressed in ragged military uniforms and civilian clothes were marched past jeering crowds around Lenin Square to shouts of "fascists" and thrown bottles and eggs. The separatists also displayed war-damaged Ukrainian military equipment including tanks and armored personnel carriers, which civilians used as a background for souvenir photographs.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine, which began in April when the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk announced their intention to split from the rest of Ukraine, has seen around 2,000 civilians killed and more than 330,000 forced out of their homes, according to the United Nations.