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Massive protest rocks Ukraine's capital
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, Dec. 1 – Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on Sunday angered by the government’s decision to postpone integration with the European Union.

The massive protest comes a day after riot police moved to brutally disperse a peaceful rally of students in the downtown Maidan Nezalezhnosti square in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The mass Sunday rally, which was estimated by opposition groups to have at least 500,000 protesters, defied a government ban on protests on the square.

This was the biggest show of anger over President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign a political and economic agreement with the European Union on Friday.

"Our plan is clear: It's not a demonstration, it's not a reaction. It's a revolution," said Yuriy Lutsenko, a former interior minister who is now an opposition leader, who spoke from the roof of a bus before the crowds.

Chants of "revolution" resounded across a sea of yellow and blue Ukrainian and EU flags on the square, where the government had prohibited rallies starting Sunday.


Thousands of protesters remained late into the evening and some were preparing to spend the night on the square.

The demonstration was by far the largest since the protests began more than a week ago and it carried echoes of the 2004 Orange Revolution, when tens of thousands came to the square nightly for weeks and set up a tent camp along the main street leading to the square.

The opposition leaders urged Ukrainians from all over the country to join the protests in the capital.

"Our future is being decided here in Kiev," world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, the leader of the opposition Udar party, said.

Ukrainian lawmakers meet Monday for consultations and planned to hold a parliament session Tuesday. The opposition is hoping to muster enough votes to oust Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's Cabinet after several lawmakers quit Yanukovych's Party of Regions in protest.

The U.S. Embassy issued a joint statement from U.S. and EU ambassadors encouraging Ukrainians to resolve their differences peacefully and urging "all stakeholders in the political process to establish immediate dialogue to facilitate a mutually acceptable resolution to the current discord," The Associated Press reported.

Protests have been held daily in Kiev since Yanukovych backed away from an agreement that would have established free trade and deepened political cooperation between Ukraine and the EU. He justified the decision by saying that Ukraine couldn't afford to break trade ties with Russia.

The EU agreement was to have been signed Friday and since then the protests have gained strength.

"We are furious," said 62-year-old retired businessman Mykola Sapronov, who was among the protesters Sunday. "The leaders must resign. We want Europe and freedom."

As the demonstrators approached Independence Square and swept away metal barriers from around a large Christmas tree set up in the center, all police left the square. About a dozen people then climbed the tree to hang EU and Ukrainian flags from its branches.

Several hundred demonstrators never made it to the square. Along the way they burst into the Kiev city administration building and occupied it, in defiance of police, who tried unsuccessfully to drive them away by using tear gas.

The EU agreement had been eagerly anticipated by Ukrainians who want their country of 45 million people to break out of Moscow's orbit. Opinion surveys in recent months showed about 45 percent of Ukrainians supporting closer integration with the EU and a third or less favoring closer ties with Russia.

Moscow tried to block the deal with the EU by banning some Ukrainian imports and threatening more trade sanctions. A 2009 dispute between Kiev and Moscow on gas prices resulted in a three-week cutoff of gas to Ukraine.
Yanukovych was traveling to China for a state visit this week. Afterward, the president planned to visit Russia and reach agreement on normalizing trade relations, Azarov said Sunday. (ap/ez)




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