Battalions of Ukrainian riot police withdrew yesterday from a protest camp after moving against demonstrators overnight in the authorities’ biggest attempt yet to reclaim streets after weeks of protests against President Viktor Yanukovych.
Columns of police abandoned positions around a protest camp and state buildings occupied by demonstrators enraged at Yanukovych’s decision to spurn an EU trade deal and move Ukraine further into Russia’s orbit.
Within hours, after meetings with US and EU officials who had urged him to compromise, Yanukovych asked his opponents to meet him to negotiate a way out of the impasse.
Protest leaders say ‘No’ until demands are met
“I invite representatives of all political parties, priests, representatives of civil society to national talks,” he said in a statement that also called on the opposition not to “go down the road of confrontation and ultimatums”.
However, Ukrainian protest leaders later yesterday said they would not hold talks with the President until their demands, including that he resign, were met.
Oleh Tyahnibok called an invitation earlier yesterday by Yanukovych to dialogue “a farce and a comedy.”
He and fellow protest leader Arseny Yatsenyuk said they would not hold talks with the President to end a political crisis after more than two weeks of protests until their demands had been met.
Opposition leaders are calling for Yanukovych and his government to resign, for the release of what they say are political prisoners and for riot police suspected of violence against protesters to be punished.
At stake is the future of a country of 46 million people, torn between popular hope of joining the European mainstream and the demands of former Soviet master Russia, which controls the flow of cheap natural gas needed to stave off bankruptcy.
At the main protest camp on Independence Square, pop stars, politicians and priests pleaded with police not to shed blood. Opposition politicians called for mass demonstrations to protect the square and predicted that Yanukovych would soon be toppled.
The interior minister called for calm and promised the square would not be stormed. But even after the police left the streets, Vitaly Klitschko, a world boxing champion who has emerged as one of the main figures of the opposition, said the overnight action had “closed off the path to compromise”.
“We had planned to have talks with Yanukovych. We understand he has no wish to talk to the people and only understands physical force,” he told a news conference. Police had been bussed in to the city centre under darkness to shouts of “Get out, criminal” – a reference to Yanukovych, who suspended plans to sign a trade pact with the EU last month and embraced closer ties with Russia.
Riot police packed roads to Independence Square, where thousands have maintained a vigil in bitter cold. Helmeted officers bulldozed tents and barricades with tractors mounted with shovels. Dozens of demonstrators and police were hurt in scuffles.