Over the weekend and amid escalating tensions in Ukraine's eastern regions, the port-city of Odessa bore witness to harrowing scenes of anarchy which culminated in the death of 42 people in a blaze at the Trades Unions House.
The mass media has portrayed this chaotic event as a post-football-match altercation between 'pro-Moscow' and 'pro-Kiev' factions sparked by Molotov cocktails and aided by an inert and ineffective local police force.