The onlookers were watching the US ambassador, who had come to Kherson to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the induction into the Cossacks of the founder of the US navy - John Paul Jones. John Paul Jones was a Scottish sailor.
So the US Navy was founded, bizarrely enough, by a Scottish Cossack from Kirkcudbrightshire. That fact has to come in useful at some point in life.
http://usembassykyiv.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/john-paul-jones-american-cossack/
Kherson