Rival parades underscore deep divide in Ukraine

As armoured vehicles rumbled through downtown Kiev in an ostentatious celebration of Ukraine’s independence, pro-Russian rebels who are battling government forces in the east paraded captured soldiers down the besieged streets of Donetsk and displayed charred wreckages of destroyed Ukrainian tanks.

Yesterday’s rival demonstrations on Ukraine’s 23rd anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union underscored the bitter divide in a country already five months into warfare and making plans for potentially years more of tensions.

President Petro Poroshenko, addressing a highly militarised independence rally in Kiev, vowed to defeat the rebels and safeguard Ukraine’s border with Russia by sharply raising defence spending for the coming three years. He warned that Ukraine too often in history had been caught by surprise from eastern invasions.