KIEV: Pro-Western Ukrainians yesterday held the biggest protest rally in Kiev since the 2004 Orange Revolution, urging the government to sign a historic pact with the European Union and clashing with police.
Tens of thousands filled the Square of Europe in central Kiev to demonstrate against the decision of President Viktor Yanukovych’s government to scrap a plan to sign an Association Agreement that would have deepened ties with the European Union.
Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm the government building, letting off smoke bombs. Some used the sticks from their protest signs against policemen and shouted “Revolution!”.
But riot police forced them back with batons and tear gas, an AFP correspondent said. Police said that one member of the security forces was injured.
Police put attendance at the main rally at 23,000 people. The opposition gave a higher estimate, saying more than 100,000 turned out. The centre of Kiev was covered in a sea of protesters waving EU and Ukrainian flags who marched on the Square of Europe from the statue of Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko.
The rally was by far the biggest in Kiev since the Orange Revolution nine years ago, which resulted in the annulment of presidential election results initially claimed by Yanukovych.
Opposition leaders vowed to keep a continuous protest in the square to force the government to sign the EU deal at a summit in Vilnius next week.
Even as most started dispersing by the evening, a hard core of a few hundred protesters pitched around three dozen tents on the Square of Europe to stay the night.
The Kremlin, which wants Ukraine to join a Russia-led Customs Union, had threatened trade retaliation if Ukraine signed the deal. Yanukovych made a trip to Moscow earlier this month for secret talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Some at the rally held posters saying “We are not the Soviet Union, we are the European Union” and “I Love EU”. The crowd also chanted calls for releasing ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko from jail.
Tymoshenko, still a symbolic leader for the opposition, issued a statement read at the rally by her daughter Eugenia urging people to stay on central squares and “force Yanukovych to change his humiliating decision and sign”.
Tymoshenko has been in jail since 2011 on an abuse of power conviction seen by the West as politically motivated. She says the charges were ordered by Yanukovych as part of a vendetta against her. Her release for medical treatment abroad was a core condition set by the EU for Ukraine to be able to sign the agreement. AFP
