KIEV, May 20 – President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday signed into law controversial legislation that honors the Soviet Union’s Red Flag, the hoisting of which earlier this month triggered massive clashes and a shooting incident in Lviv.

The legislation calls for raising the Red Flag, along with the national flag, on holidays such as Victory Day, May 9, celebrating the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

The legislation may provoke further regional splits within Ukraine as western regions of the country vehemently refuse to honor the Red Flag, while it may generate some support in eastern and southern regions.

For many in western and central regions the Red Flag is associated with Communist crimes committed against the people, including Holodomor, when up to six million Ukrainians were starved to death in 1932-1933 to weaken their resistance to the Communist regime.

“The Red Flag is a symbol of those times,” Cardinal Lyubomyr Husar, a former head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, said in an interview with Channel 5. “This is not a symbol of Ukraine. This is not a symbol of freedom. This is a symbol of torture. This is a symbol of very hard times for our people.”

Following the clashes in Lviv, Yanukovych had pledged to takes steps to ensure there is no more escalation over the issue, and some hopes the president would refuse to sign the legislation into law.

But the move on Friday shows that further escalation is possible, especially after the Communist Party has pledged to send more activists to Lviv on June 22, the anniversary of the Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.

“Yanukovych, by signing the law on the Red Flag, has just rejected his second presidential term,” Volodymyr Tsybulko, a political strategist who once worked for then President Viktor Yushchenko.

The signing of the controversial legislation by Yanukovych was celebrated by the Communist Party in Odessa by public ripping of the Black-and-Red flag that had been carried by Ukrainian nationalist organizations.

Pictures, available on the Internet, show a young man wearing a red T-shirt saying “Russia,” tearing and stomping the flag that has been honored by the nationalist groups OUN-UPA that had fought the Communists in 1940-1955.

The Yanukovych move was also praised by the governor of the Kharkiv region, Mykhaylo Dobkin, who had earlier promised to visit Lviv on June 22 in response to the violence on May 9.

“By signing the law, the president had confirmed his vision of the Great Victory in our history,” Dobkin said in a statement.

The law was also welcomed by Vasyl Dzharty, the prime minister of Crimea and a close Yanukovych ally. Two thirds of Crimea’s population are ethnic Russians.

The Ukrainian People’s Party, a nationalist and conservative group, pledged to submit an appeal to the Constitutional Court seeking to cancel the law.

“The president must not sign, but veto shameful laws that are aimed at weakening the statehood and sovereignty of the country,” Yury Kostenko, the leader of the UPP, said in a statement.

The clashes in Lviv erupted after a group of about 10 pro-Russian youths have suddenly unwrapped a huge red flag near the monument for the fallen Soviet troops in 1941-1945 at the Hill of Glory, provoking an angry reaction from mostly a nationalist crowd.

This has quickly escalated to a point that one of the pro-Russian activists pulling out a gun and shooting at the crowd, seriously injuring a 23-year old Ukrainian identified by police as Oleh Kovpak, an assistant to a local lawmaker.

“It seems that the action in Lviv has been very carefully orchestrated,” Huzar said. (tl/ez)