KIEV, June 23. /TASS/. The Equality March in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev started on Sunday with clashes with nationalists.

According to a TASS correspondent, shortly after the LGBT representatives began marching, they were attacked by the opponents of this demonstration. Police pushed the radicals back, but one of the nationalists tried to attack the march’s participants. The man was detained by the law enforcement officers.

Several thousand people took to the streets to take part in the march. Meanwhile, more than 70 opponents blocked a street near the Taras Shevchenko National University, forcing the event’s organizers to change the route.

The radicals are holding posters with slogans against homosexuality and its propaganda, which they call a threat to national security. The law enforcement personnel have formed a human chain to separate the protesters from the march’s participants.

Earlier on Sunday, police detained nine people, who had been planning provocations at the Equality March. These persons, aged between 18 and 48, were holding weapons for staging the provocations. If found guilty of "planning to carry out an act of hooliganism" they face up to seven years behind bars.