Ukraine slams Russia's 'crusade' against Kiev on battle of Kruty centennial
KIEV: Ukraine on Monday marked 100 years since a symbolic battle against Soviet forces, which Ukraine's president said was an example of Moscow's "crusade" against its neighbour, drawing parallels to the ongoing conflict in the east.
The January 29, 1918 clash between several hundred Ukrainian People's Republic's troops -- military students among them -- and 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers of the Red Guard took place as the newly-emerged Soviet Russia sought to absorb the then Ukrainian state.
"A century has passed since the day when the brave heroes gave battle to the superior forces of the enemy and for a few days delayed the advance of the Red Russians to Kiev," President Petro Poroshenko said.
"The battle of Kruty is one of the many clashes in the eternal 'crusade' of Russia against Ukraine," Poroshenko said in a speech to students at a military university in Kiev.
Today "our enemy is the same", he added urging the audience to observe a minute of silence in memory of the Ukrainians killed "in the war against the Russian aggressor".
In the aftermath of the fight in Kruty that claimed dozens Ukrainian troops and hundreds of Russian ones, peace treaties in February and March 1918 between German-led World War I coalition, Kiev and Russia saw Ukraine independent for more than a year.
Ukraine, which regained its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been fighting a Russia-backed insurgency in the east since 2014.
More than 10,000 people have died in the war Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of orchestrating by smuggling weapons and troops across the border, which Russia has denied despite evidence.