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.
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