UKRAINIAN police arrested over 50 people yesterday as neonazis attacked those celebrating the victory over fascism in the second world war.

Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Yarovoy said 25 of those were detained in the capital Kiev.

There far-right thugs attacked a march commemorating the Immortal Regiment — Soviet service personnel who fought in WWII — as it approached the Eternal Flame memorial in the Park of Eternal Glory, Russia’s Sputnik reported.

Earlier police arrested a man carrying a banner in the colours of the banned St George’s ribbon.

Mr Yarovoy said 30,000 police were deployed for the marches, which 50,000 people joined.

Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko said eight police officers had been injured in clashes, along with 15 “participants of campaigns.”

In the western city of Kharkiv — a neonazi stronghold — police had to intervene after militants attacked Victory Day celebrants chanting: “Fascism will not pass” and singing Soviet-era songs.

Last week the Transcarpathian Cossack C14 group — linked to the neonazi Right Sector gang that was prominent in the 2014 Maidan Square coup — threatened to “knife” aged war heroes.

Meanwhile in Crimea, which voted to secede from Ukraine and reunite with Russia after the 2014 coup, 30,000 gathered for the Victory Day parade in Sevastopol.

And the Crimean city of Simferopol had its own military parade for the first time.