Odessa hails protesters as heroes after police station stormed

A man lays flowers inside the burned trade union building in Odessa where at least 32 people lost their lives. Photo / AP

They left in groups of threes and fours, soaked in the pouring rain and punching the air victoriously.

The pro-Russian protesters were greeted as heroes by the throngs of people gathered outside Odessa's police headquarters yesterday. In scenes that could herald the arrival of eastern-style building takeovers in Ukraine's south, a mob surrounded the building, smashing their way in to free the prisoners.

"We came because we believe they were unjustly arrested. The people had to turn to radical means," said Maxim, a masked fighter in the police station courtyard.

Storming police stations has become a trademark of the pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine, but this historic port on the southwestern coast had been spared similar unrest. Not any more.

Since Saturday's street fighting between pro-Government and anti-Kiev protesters and the horrific building fire that followed, Odessa has been a city in shock. At least 42 people died on Saturday - more than 30 of them in a fire inside a local government building where pro-Russian activists took refuge after being surrounded by a pro-Government crowd.

Around 150 of the pro-Russians who escaped the blaze were arrested and jailed - of these, up to 100 walked free yesterday.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters, many already enraged by police inaction on the day of the fire, descended on the police headquarters yesterday.

A growing crowd was already starting to get agitated when someone plucked a yellow and blue Ukrainian flag from its bracket outside the regional police headquarters and replaced it with the city's coat of arms.

The crowd chanted, "Let them out!", "Fascists!", "Russia!" and "Freedom!"

The protesters, carrying improvised weapons, tore two nearby security cameras from their sockets. Many of them wore the black and orange St George's ribbon - a Russian military insignia that has become a symbol of the revolt.

Meanwhile, a handful of young men with clubs smashed windows, forced open a side door, and somehow managed to raise the security gate guarding the police station's secure courtyard.

Police offered almost no resistance, and the police chief gave in and released the prisoners, who were greeted by cheering crowds. Authorities yesterday also gave in to demands to allow the public access to the charred trade union building.

Hundreds of mourners and curious locals wandered through blackened corridors and picked their way through broken glass and charred furniture in a fruitless search for evidence of how at least 32 people died.

The deadly fire appears to have been relatively isolated, destroying the ground floor lobby, with smoke damage on the first three floors. Signs of other, isolated fires could be found near upper-storey windows. Horrifyingly, it seems that many died from burns or asphyxiation just metres from safety in other parts of the building. Bloodstains spattered windowsills next to broken glass, and the personal effects of some of the occupiers were all that remained of those who died.

In the attic, which appeared entirely untouched by fire, a home-made wooden shield and improvised clubs lay in what looked to be a Molotov cocktail factory.

Whatever happened here, the shock, suspicion and anger it has generated has turned Odessa into a fearful place.

"Civil confrontation has already started. And in the east, it is already a civil war," said Maxim, who said he was involved in the fighting before the fire on Friday.

Asked about allegations that the pro-Russian demonstrators used firearms on Saturday, he was evasive.

"I'm against shooting, because I think everything should be settled by negotiation," he said. "But if the police can't maintain order, the people have to do it."

And after the past three days, it is rapidly looking as though the authorities are starting to lose control.