Situationen i Ukraina just nu.

Ukrainian presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko called on the German authorities to boycott deliveries of the Russian natural gas in the wake of Russian energy giant Gazprom’s announcement of upping gas prices for Ukraine.

In an interview with Die Bild daily, Poroshenko, the founder of Roshen Confectionery Corporation, one of the biggest confectionery producers in the world, said the boycott of the Russian gas supplies would economically bring “Russia down on its knees.”

The Ukrainian tycoon said it would be a real sanction in regard to Russia, while Germany and the rest of Europe could use alternative energy sources.

At the separatist rally known as Kulikovo Field, named after a field in Russia's Tula Oblast, where Russian the army defeated the Mongol "golden hordes" back in 1380, many people shouted “Odessa is a Russian city!”

They also chanted “Glory to Berkut!,” after the disbanded special police uni whose representatives are accused of killings of dozens of protesters in Kyiv on Feb. 18-20. The activists, many of whom wore black-and-yellow George stripes, a symbol of Soviet victory in World War II, promoted Kremlin ideas about the need to change Ukraine into federal state -- the Kremlin code word for dismemberment and partition of Ukraine.

“We are not against Ukraine, but we don’t want to live together with Halytchyna (the historic name of western Ukrainian Lviv Oblast),” said Vera Butuk, a 57-year-old pensioner. “So federalization is a normal way for us.”

Another pensioner, Vera Yatsenko, 76, said that Ukraine needs friendship with Russia and should accept the loss of its Crimean peninsula. “We should not go to Europe and anger Russia. Ukraine needs to join the (Rusisan-led) Customs Union instead,” she said.

Activists of EuroMaidan believe that the participants of Kulikovo Field, where even some parties hailing Soviet dictator Josef Stalin were seen, mostly turned out for money, getting paid either by the mayor’s team or Russia directly.

“I’ve heard that they receive money through the Russian consulate and (local Orthodox Church metropolitan) Agafangel,” Nasadiuk said. Other pro-European activists also admitted seeing Russian citizens there who traveled to Odessa from Transnistria, the breakaway region of neighboring Moldova.