Ukrainian opposition leaders yesterday called for President Viktor Yanukovich and his government to resign at a rally of about 350,000 people, the biggest protest in the capital Kiev since the Orange Revolution of nine years ago.
On a day of huge emotion, which also marked the anniversary of Ukraine’s 1991 referendum on independence from the Soviet Union, opposition leaders denounced Yanukovich for walking away from a pact offered by the EU and swinging trade policy back towards Russia.
I want my children to live in a state that differs from Soviet past
“They stole the dream,” heavyweight boxer-turned-opposition politician Vitaly Klitschko told the crowds on Independence Square.
“If this government does not want to fulfil the will of the people, then there will be no such government, there will be no such president. There will be a new government and a new president,” declared Klitschko, himself a contender for the next presidential election due in 2015.
After months of pressure from Russia, Yanukovich suddenly back-pedalled last week from signing the deal on closer relations with the EU in favour of renewed economic dialogue with Moscow, Ukraine’s former Soviet master.
Far-right nationalist leader Oleh Tyahniboh called for a national strike to start from yesterday, and members of his Svoboda (Freedom) party occupied Kiev’s city hall along with followers of former economy minister Arseny Yatsenuk’s Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party.
All three opposition leaders also occupied a trade union building, turning it into temporary headquarters.
The events, evoking memories of the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution that overturned the established political order, took place against the background of an apparent attempt by protesters to storm the main presidential office.
Interior Ministry forces and riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to repel the protesters, who used an earth excavator in an attempt to break through police lines.
Police said 100 officers had been injured in violence during the day, news agencies reported.
But opposition politicians, who had been urging protesters all day to remain peaceful, denounced the violence at the headquarters of Yanukovich’s administration as a stage-managed “provocation” to justify a security clampdown.
They sent officials to appeal to supporters to return to the main protest on Independence Square.
“We know that the President wants to declare a state of emergency in the country,” Yatsenyuk told reporters.
Klitschko, who heads a separate pro-Europe party, also urged his supporters to stay away from the area near the presidential offices. “The authorities are trying to turn our peaceful demonstration into a place of blood,” he said.
Police said some protesters had been detained and 22 had sought medical help, the Russian state-owned agency RIA reported.
Yanukovich’s U-turn has highlighted an old East-West tug-of-war over Ukraine, which is the cradle of eastern Slavic tradition while today sharing borders with four EU countries.
Yanukovich, a native Russian-speaker, represents a constituency in the industrial east which has close cultural and linguistic kinship with Russia. In Ukrainian-speaking areas, particularly in the west, people have a more Western outlook.
Yanukovich says he has taken only a strategic pause in moves closer to Europe but the opposition accuses him of doing a deal with Russia that will ultimately harm national sovereignty.
Trying to defuse tensions before yesterday’s rally, Yanukovich said he would do everything in his power to speed up moves towards the EU. But he repeated the need to balance European integration with national interests.
The protesters, shouting “Down with the gang!”, swept through the streets of Kiev in a sea of blue and gold – the colours of both the EU and Ukrainian flags – before arriving at Independence Square.
The crowd had been additionally inflamed by a crackdown early on Saturday when riot police broke up an encampment of mainly young protesters using batons and stun grenades, injuring an undisclosed number of people.