Zoryan Kis and Tymur Levchuk were attacked by group of 15-20 young men after deciding to test people’s reactions to them holding hands

A gay couple in Kiev have replicated a viral video filmed earlier this month in Moscow to test how Ukrainians would react to two men holding hands.

In the original video, which was inspired by the supreme court’s decision in late June to legalise gay marriage in the US, two men from the prank-loving YouTube channel ChebuRussia TV walked around downtown Moscow holding hands.

Zoryan Kis and Tymur Levchuk adopted the same format in their video for Bird in Flight magazine, but had a generally more positive experience in the Ukrainian capital. Most passersby simply went about their business, although some stopped and stared. One group of giggling girls joked they should kiss each other and took a photo of the pair on a smartphone.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ChebuRussia video of reaction to a gay couple holding hands in Moscow.

The couple then decided “to be a little more provocative”, and Levchuk sat on Kis’s lap on a bench on Khreshchatyk street, downtown Kiev’s main thoroughfare, with a bouquet of flowers. They were approached by a group of between 10 and 15 young men with far-right views, Kis said, who told them they had mistaken Ukraine for the US and asked if they were “patriots”.

After a nearby police patrol moved on, the young men pepper-sprayed Kis and Levchuk and three of them kicked the couple before bystanders intervened and the attackers ran off.

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Kis told the Guardian that although violence against LGBT people has always existed in Ukraine, the video showed most Ukrainians are tolerant and the main cause of the problem is a small, aggressive far-right minority. He said he hoped it would raise awareness of discrimination and encourage the president, Petro Poroshenko, to include protections for LGBT people in the new constitution that is being drafted.

Referring to conservative policies in Russia, including a law against so-called gay propaganda, he said: “Ukraine has definitely made some progress, and the fact that there isn’t state homophobia in Ukraine is probably the reason why ordinary people weren’t aggressive towards us. But if Ukraine wants to move on and get closer to Europe, the government must act to protect us from people like those attackers.”

The Ukrainian far-right has grown in influence after playing a key role in the Euromaidan demonstrations that brought the current pro-Western government to power, and in the conflict with Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Earlier this month, a shootout involving the ultra-nationalist militia Right Sector left two dead in western Ukraine and led to a standoff with the authorities. Right Sector’s leader, Dmytro Yarosh, called for a referendum to impeach Poroshenko as supporters rallied in the capital on Tuesday.

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Maxim Eristavi, a Kiev-based journalist and a member of the LGBT community, said the Mukacheve attack and the assault on Kis and Levchuk were the results of the government’s passive stance towards rightwing extremism. He said top officials failed to condemn an attack by dozens of assailants on a gay pride parade in the capital last month.

Eristavi said: “There’s a culture of impunity among Ukrainian far-right extremists that is flourishing on the local governing and political elite’s inability to issue a condemnation of violent paramilitaries.”