Several British football fans enjoying a meal at the Rooster restaurant in Kiev on Thursday evening were suddenly attacked by a group of some 20 masked hooligans.
One of the Britons, a 50-year-old Liverpool fan named Jason Frost, said they were minding their own business and having dinner when the attackers came at them "like a pack of dogs."
For some unclear reasons the police officers who arrived at the scene detained only three people, including one of the Britons, while the rest of the attackers managed to escape.
Zoryan Shkiryak, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister, claimed that there was nothing “ultraordinary” about this altercation, describing the attackers as “idiots” who can only express themselves by doing “such shameful deeds.”
"This is a standard situation which from time to time happens everywhere,” the 112 Ukraine TV channel quoted Shkiryak as saying.
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Interestingly, the Spanish newspaper Marca titled an article about this incident: "A group of Russian ultras attack Liverpool supporters in Kiev," claiming that that the attackers were allegedly "of Russian origin."
A group of Russian ultras attack Liverpool supporters in Kiev
Un grupo de ultras rusos agreden a seguidores del Liverpool en Kiev https://t.co/1I4z1aRQWa pic.twitter.com/voYMux3DeV
— MARCA (@marca) 24 мая 2018 г.
The newspaper, however, didn’t explain exactly how the ethnicity of the attackers was determined and what a group of nearly two score Russians might be doing in the middle of the Ukrainian capital.
At the same time, a Ukrainian football fan collective called Trouble Company, which supports FC CSKA Kyiv, claimed responsibility for the attack via a post on its Instagram page.