Protests in Ukraine Sunday Dec 08,2013

Several hundred thousand Ukrainians occupied a central square in the capital on Sunday Dec 08,2013 denouncing President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to turn away from Europe and align this former Soviet republic with Russia

World heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko and his brother, Vladimir, offered their support during a visit to the square. “We are doing this so that President Yanukovych finally hears our demands,” Vitaly Klitschko said.

His party, Udar (Punch) -- the smaller opposition faction in parliament -- called supporters to come the square.

Ukrainian protesters stand atop the monument after the statue of Vladimir Lenin was toppled by protesters in Kiev, Ukraine, on Sunday Dec 08,2013

On Sunday, some 200,000 people gathered in the square to demand the government’s resignation, making it one of the largest demonstrations in the country’s stormy post-Soviet history

Hundreds of activists braved freezing temperatures and spent the night on the square. 

Protesters rest in the Kiev city council building which they occupied in downtown Kiev, Ukraine  

On Monday, small groups of protesters were huddling under barricades, which included razor wire, cars and at least one lorry and a small bus. 

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Monday Dec 09,2013 offered talks with the opposition amid growing fears that the so far peaceful anti-government protests might turn violent.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said in a statement that he supported a proposal by former president Leonid Kravchuk, saying it “can become a platform for understanding.” Kravchuk was Ukraine’s first post-Soviet president from 1991 to 1994

According to Kravchuk’s proposal,Viktor Yanukovych would meet his three predecessors -- Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko -- on Tuesday to discuss the country’s most important issues

Ukrainian riot police guard the Ukrainian Government buildings in Kiev, Ukraine, early Tuesday Dec 10,2013

Note

The protests, in their third week, started after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from signing an agreement on deepening ties with the European Union, a pact that many Ukrainians desired in order to tilt West and lessen Russia’s influence on the former Soviet republic

Police violence against those demonstrations outraged many and drove hundreds of thousands of people into the streets the past two Sundays, turnouts perhaps larger even than the mass protests of the 2004 Orange Revolution that forced a rerun of a fraudulent presidential election

Three of the Ukraine’s former presidents gave support to the demonstrators and warned the tensions could be spinning into an uncontainable crisis

In a statement released to Ukrainian news agencies, Ukraine’s first three post-Soviet leaders said “we express solidarity with the peaceful civil actions of hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians.”

“However, a solution to the crisis has not been found. The crisis is deepening and we see risks of losing control over the situation,” said the statement from Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko.