MOSCOW, May 2. /TASS/. Odessa residents are laying flowers at the Trade Union House to commemorate the victims of the tragic events of May 2, 2014, when a mob of radical Ukrainian nationalists burned 48 people alive inside the downtown building, local media outlet Dumskaya reported.

Those wishing to lay flowers can access the area through an entrance organized at a tram terminus. People are entering one-by-one after going through identity checks.

The Ukrainian National Police’s Main Directorate for the Odessa Region said that reinforced police units were being deployed to the city center.

On May 2, 2014, in Odessa radicals from the Right Sector organization (outlawed in Russia) and the so-called Maidan self-defense forces attacked a tent encampment at Odessa’s Kulikovo Field public park, where city residents had been gathering signatures for a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine and granting Russian official language status. Some supporters of federalization took refuge inside the adjacent Trade Union House but the mob of radicals surrounded the building and set it on fire, blocking the exits. According to official data from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, 48 people died and more than 240 others were injured in the tragic events of that day. The authorities blamed the unrest entirely on "anti-Maidan" activists. However, the investigation, which lasted several years, was unable to prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those initially detained were ultimately acquitted.