Pro-Russian activists and their Ukrainian nationalist opponents clashed Saturday in the capital, police said, highlighting divisions in this former Soviet nation.

Some 20 pro-Russian activists tried to hold a march in downtown Kiev as about 50 rival activists with Ukrainian flags gathered to protest against the rally, Kiev police spokesman Volodymyr Polishchuk is quoted by the AP.

Participants of the competing rallies clashed, but were separated by riot police. One person was seriously injured, and 30 were detained, Polishchuk said.

Also Saturday, hundreds of pro-Russian activists marched under Russian flags in the Crimean city of Simferopol and the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia have cooled since Western-leaning President Viktor Yushchenko came to power after the 2004 Orange Revolution, promising to take this ex-Soviet country into the European Union and NATO.

The countries have been in conflict over the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet, based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. Earlier this year, Ukraine and Russia engaged in a bitter dispute over natural gas prices, resulting in Russia temporarily turning off the taps until Kiev agreed to a twofold price increase. It was widely seen as punishment for Ukraine’s pro-Western policies.

Many Ukrainians hope that Viktor Yanukovych, named prime minister after his pro-Russian party won the March parliamentary elections, might help Kiev improve its frayed relations with Moscow.

He draws his support from the Russian-speaking east and south of Ukraine, while Yushchenko and other Western-leaning political leaders have their main base in the nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking west and in Kiev.

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