Crisis in Ukraine

Thousands of Ukrainian protesters on Monday blocked entrances to the government building and called for the ouster of the prime minister and his cabinet, as anger at the president's decision to ditch a deal for closer ties with the European Union gripped other parts of the country and threatened his rule.

The besieging of the building follows a huge rally in the capital by hundreds of thousands Ukrainians on Sunday. The rally was mostly peaceful, until a group of protesters tried to storm President Viktor Yanukovych's office. After hours of scuffles, police chased protesters away with tear gas and truncheons.

It was a violent police action against protesters early Saturday that galvanized the latest round of protests whose aim is to bring down the president and his government.

At least three lawmakers of the governing Party of Regions have quit in protest, and the opposition wants to oust the Cabinet of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov during a confidence vote in Parliament on Tuesday. But the opposition, which now controls some 170 seats, would need 226 votes in the 450-seat Parliament to oust the government.

Azarov's spokesman Vitaly Lukyanenko on Monday said the government was not planning to impose a state of emergency. He would not say whether the prime minister and his ministers were able to enter the Cabinet building, according to the Interfax news agency. Lukyanenko did not pick up the phone when The Associated Press tried to reach him.

In parts of western Ukraine, where most speak Ukrainian and lean toward the EU, some local officials seem to be in open revolt.

The mayor of Lviv called on the people there to protest and warned that police would take off their uniforms and defend the city if the central government sends reinforcements. Scores of protesters from Lviv and elsewhere in western Ukraine headed to Kiev by train and cars to take part in the rallies.

"Yanukovych is - both, as president and as a politician - done," said Andreas Umland, assistant professor of European studies at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.

In Kiev, thousands returned to Independence Square, where several hundred core protesters had spent the night in a tent camp. Hundreds of others were holding ground inside the Kiev city hall and a labor union building, where they had barricaded themselves Sunday.

"Our goal is to oust the authorities through strikes," said Serhiy Korchinsky, 35, an engineer from Lviv who spent the night in the protest camp. "The government will be paralyzed until Yanukovych and Azarov resign."

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.


Source : Sapa-AP /sdv
Date : 02 Dec 2013 11:06

Yanukovych: The man who provokes Ukraine's wrath

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was in 2004 one of the villains of the country's Orange Revolution uprising that forced the annulment of rigged elections he claimed to have won.

A decade later he seems to be cast as the bad guy again.

Yanukovych, who defeated Orange Revolution leader Yulia Tymoshenko in a poll in 2010 and then saw her sentenced to seven years in prison, risks losing power to huge protests sparked by the scrapping of a landmark cooperation deal with the EU.

"Yanukovych risks going down in history as a man who over the past 10 years has twice been deprived of power by the square," said Russia's liberal Vedomosti daily, referring to mass protests in the capital Kiev.

In a matter of weeks, ex-Soviet Ukraine's fourth president has gone from a statesman seeking to guide Kiev closer toward EU membership to an autocratic leader brutally dispersing protests.

Hours after Yanukovych refused to sign an agreement that would have marked a historic break from Soviet-era master Moscow, riot police used batons, stun grenades and tear gas to break up an opposition rally calling for the president's resignation.

Outraged by the use of violence, more than 100,000 poured out into the streets in Kiev and western Ukraine, in the largest demonstration since the Orange Revolution. Three main opposition parties announced the establishment of a "resistance task force" and demanded Yanukovych's resignation.

The barrel-chested leader, 63, put his last-minute U-turn down to Ukraine's precarious economic situation, pressure from the Kremlin and a lack of economic support from the bloc.

"I've been by myself for three-and-a-half years," Yanukovych complained to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the summit in Vilnius, speaking Russian.

"I've been one-on-one in very unequal conditions with a very strong Russia."

But many say Yanukovych's fears for his personal future trumped his concerns over the country's direction.

Analysts have pointed out that Yanukovych could not afford to release his arch rival Tymoshenko ahead of 2015 presidential elections, a key EU condition for the agreement.

Traditionally seen as a representative of Ukraine's Russian-speaking east that leans toward Moscow, Yanukovych has over the past years sought to broaden his appeal and has vastly improved his skills in Ukrainian, the country's sole official language.

Formed as a politician in the rough-and-tough surroundings of his heavily industrial native Donetsk region, the burly Yanukovych is no stranger to the art of political survival and re-invention.

Hoping to defuse the current political crisis, Yanukovych condemned the violence against demonstrators and pledged to continue working toward EU integration.

"We are a European people, and our path has been predetermined historically," he said.

Yanukovych prides himself as a political streetfighter who can claw his way out of any corner in life and in politics.

But whether he will be able to hold on to power in the face of nationwide protests is now anyone's guess.

He has been dogged by allegations of an excessive penchant for luxury at a time of economic trouble, with critical journalists focusing on his personal riverside residence of Mezhygirya outside Kiev.

In recent years a so-called family of influential officials and relatives has also grown around him, including Yanukovych's increasingly affluent businessman son Olexander.

Equally important is a group of billionaire oligarchs who are believed to have a huge say in decision-making, including the owner of the Shakhtar Donetsk football club Rinat Akhmetov and energy tycoon Dmytro Firtash.

Orphaned just two years into his life, Yanukovych has related how he ran around the streets barefooted and was brought up in abject poverty by his grandmother.

He fell in with a local street gang in the late 1960s under the Soviet Union and was convicted of robbery in 1967 and assault in 1970. He served jail terms on both occasions but his record was much later mysteriously cleared.

He then worked for two decades as a transport manager in Donetsk before moving into politics in the late 1990s. He became the region's governor in 1997 and rose to become prime minister under president Leonid Kuchma in 2002.

His wife Lyudmila, who Yanukovych married in 1972, has kept the lowest of low profiles during his presidency and has virtually disappeared from public life.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ge
Date : 02 Dec 2013 13:05

Putin slams Ukraine protests as 'pogrom', not revolution

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on Monday slammed street protests in Ukraine against the government's decision not to sign a key agreement with the European Union and seek closer ties with the Kremlin.

"The events in Ukraine seem more like a pogrom than a revolution," Putin said during a visit to Armenia.

"It has little to do with Ukraine's relations with the European Union," he said.

Putin said that the demonstrations were linked to internal political struggles inside Ukraine and called them a "false start" ahead of presidential elections in 2015.

"These actions were prepared from outside. We see how well-organised groups of fighters are involved."

"It is an attempt to rattle the legitimate government," Putin said.

Ukrainian protesters Monday blockaded administrative buildings and camped on Kiev's central square in a bid to oust the government after police brutality and a row over a key political and free trade agreement with the EU plunged the nation into its worst political crisis in a decade.

Incensed by a crackdown on an opposition rally calling for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych and his government, more than 100,000 led by politicians including world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko poured into the streets of Kiev and other Ukrainian cities on Sunday.

Ex-soviet Ukraine was meant to sign an agreement to bring closer ties with the EU at a summit last month but Yanukovych backed out at the last minute citing pressure from Moscow.


Source : Sapa-AFP /avb
Date : 02 Dec 2013 19:20

Kiev protestors shout "revolution" at Parliament

Thousands of demonstrators are outside the Ukrainian parliament shouting "revolution" as the legislature opens a session that could bring a vote of no-confidence in the government.

The parliament is to start its session discussing the violence and chaos of the past several days stemming from massive demonstration denouncing President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to shelve signing an agreement with the European Union deepening economic and political ties. Riot police have reacted harshly against demonstrators several times in previous days, beating some with truncheons.

After the general discussion, the parliament on Tuesday is to consider whether to put an opposition-backed no-confidence motion to a vote.

If it does come to a vote, it is unclear if the opposition has enough support to pass it. Several lawmakers from the governing party have defected.


Source : Sapa-AP /bm
Date : 03 Dec 2013 10:43

Ukraine Parliament rejects government no confidence motion

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday rejected an opposition no-confidence motion in Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's government after the ruling party abstained from the vote.

The measure gathered 186 out of the required 226 votes in the Verkhovna Rada parliament with support from the three main opposition parties that sought Azarov's resignation over Ukraine's refusal to sign a historic EU trade and political pact.


Source : Sapa-AFP /sdv
Date : 03 Dec 2013 13:47

I see you are enjoying this thread

Pakka said:

I see you are enjoying this thread

Click to expand...

Ja... this is how you protest for a change of government!

Ukraine has the same population as us!

And here we are meekly buying our e-tags and complaining about how corrupt our government is....

Meanwhile they are having a full on revolution.

What a bunch of pansies we are.

Garyvdh said:

Ja... this is how you protest for a change of government!

Ukraine has the same population as us!

And here we are meekly buying our e-tags and complaining about how corrupt our government is....

Meanwhile they are having a full on revolution.

What a bunch of pansies we are.

Click to expand...

The difference is that the majority in Ukraine don't support their govt, while the majority in SA do support the ANC.

The_Assimilator said:

The difference is that the majority in Ukraine don't support their govt, while the majority in SA do support the ANC.

Click to expand...

No, actually they are in a similar position to us.

Only about a third are protesting. The government holds a near two thirds majority.

And free the milf while they're at it.

Rocket Raccoon said:

And free the milf while they're at it.

Click to expand...

Definitely!

US stands with Pro-EU demonstrators

The United States stands with the Ukrainians protesting for a future in Europe and the government should listen to the aspirations of its people, a senior US diplomat said in Kiev Thursday.

"We stand with the people of Ukraine who see their future in Europe," Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said at the opening of an OSCE meeting in Kiev. She said the United States urges "the Ukrainian government to listen to the voice of its people."


Source : Sapa-AFP /sdv
Date : 05 Dec 2013 11:58

Outraged Ukrainians protest leader's Russia overture

by Olexander SAVOCHENKO

Outraged Ukrainians rallied in central Kiev on Saturday after President Viktor Yanukovych discussed a new strategic partnership agreement with Russia's Vladimir Putin upon rejecting a historic EU deal.

Nearly 1,000 supporters of Western integration braved swirling winds and a heavy snowfall early Saturday as they maintained control of the capital's iconic Independence Square for the seventh successive day.

Some volunteers were wrapped in blankets as they handed out breakfast from a makeshift kitchen, while others swept up garbage around a few dozen tents set up on the sprawling square.

Protest organisers expect up to 300,000 to turn out on Sunday for the largest demonstration since the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution first nudged the former Soviet nation of 46 million closer to the West.

The embattled Ukrainian president held unannounced talks with Putin in Russia on Friday after completing a mission to China aimed at drumming up backing for his cash-strapped government.

Yanukovych's official website said the meeting at Putin's Black Sea retreat in Sochi focused on "trade and economic cooperation ... and preparation for the future treaty on strategic partnership".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks -- the fourth between the pair in less than two months -- concerned "current bilateral issues".

But some reports said the two also talked about Russia providing Ukraine with billions of dollars in loans and gas in return for its decision to spurn an EU trade agreement that would have opened the way to its membership in the 28-nation bloc.

The political crisis has dealt a heavy blow to Ukraine's already struggling economy amid growing speculation that Kiev may fail to service billions of dollars in debt and other payments that come due by the end of 2014.

Ukraine, its economy in recession, rejected the EU deal last month citing both the threat of Russian trade sanctions and the EU's failure to deliver billions of dollars in compensatory aid.

Putin for his part is keen to pull Ukraine into a Moscow-led Customs Union that already includes Belarus and Kazakhstan and which he hopes to build into a rival to the Brussels-based bloc.

Kiev's respected Zerkalo Nedeli weekly cited a Russian source as saying Putin had offered Yanukovych a loan of at least $12 billion aimed at propping up Ukraine's economy and making sure it does not seek help in the West.

The report also said Russia was willing to provide discounted natural gas shipments to a Ukrainian energy firm run by a powerful tycoon whose support is vital to Yanukovych.

The Economist's senior editor Edward Lucas for his part tweeted that his sources said Yanukovych had actually signed a firm agreement with Putin providing Ukraine with up to $15 billion (nine billion euros) in assistance and confirming Kiev's "strategic" alliance with Moscow.

A top Ukrainian government source firmly rejected reports that anything specific had been agreed in Sochi.

"There was only a discussion," the senior source told AFP.

But rumours of a possible deal spread quickly across Kiev and prompted top opposition leaders to warn of grave consequences if they proved to be true.

"Sunday's protest can result in a very tragic ending for our country if (Yanukovych) really did sell out Ukraine," parliament's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) opposition party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk said early Saturday.

Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has called on Washington and the European Union to impose sanctions against both Yanukovych and his family for rejecting protesters' EU integration demands.

The 2004 Orange Revolution co-leader on Friday ended an 11-day hunger strike launched in protest at the rejection of the EU deal on November 25.

"She said that today, on the people's request, she would end the hunger strike," her daughter Yevgenia Tymoshenko said.

Tymoshenko's party chief Yatsenyuk and his two opposition protest co-leaders -- the nationalist Oleg Tyagnybok and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko -- have made the government's resignation and snap presidential elections their main demands.


Source : Sapa-AFP /aw
Date : 07 Dec 2013 10:38

Really hope the people of Ukraine take control of their government.

Garyvdh said:

Ja... this is how you protest for a change of government!

Ukraine has the same population as us!

And here we are meekly buying our e-tags and complaining about how corrupt our government is....

Meanwhile they are having a full on revolution.

What a bunch of pansies we are.

Click to expand...

Well lead the way the privileged will join you in protest.

Ukrainians up ressure on president with new Pro-EU protest

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flooded Kiev for a protest against President Viktor Yanukovych on Sunday as authorities opened a criminal probe into attempts to seize power in an increasingly tense standoff with the opposition.

Waving EU and Ukrainian flags, the protesters filled Kiev's iconic Independence Square and surrounding streets to bursting point to denounce Yanukovych's rejection of an EU pact under Kremlin pressure.

Significantly upping the stakes in the confrontation, demonstrators marched on the government headquarters and erected one-and-a-half metre (five feet) high barricades outside which would make it impossible for ministers to go to their offices.

Jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko said the opposition was demanding the "immediate" resignation of Yanukovych, in a no-holds-barred statement read by her daughter that was met with chants of "Resign!" from the crowds.

"He is no longer the president of our state, he is a tyrant who must answer for every drop of blood that has been shed," Yevgenia Tymoshenko quoted her mother as saying, a giant portrait of the former prime minister sitting next to the stage.

Soon after the speeches at the rally ended, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said it had opened an investigation into alleged attempts by politicians to seize power, in an apparent bid by the state to target key opposition figures.

The size of the protest, the third mass rally in successive weekends, increased the pressure on Yanukovych who further galvanised his opponents by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in almost total secrecy on Friday.

The party UDAR (Punch) of world boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko claimed "nearly a million" had turned out in Kiev.

Police estimated the turnout at more than 60,000 and AFP correspondents said there were several hundred thousand.

In contrast to a similar rally which descended into unprecedented clashes with riot police and saw hundreds injured a week ago, the Sunday rally was peaceful and police looked on passively as protesters put up the barricades outside the government.

Putin has slammed the protests in Ukraine, saying they looked more "like a pogrom than a revolution" but the West has urged the Ukrainian authorities to heed the demands of the protest movement.

In a sign of the West's growing support for the opposition, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he would meet Klitschko for talks in Paris on Wednesday.

Der Spiegel reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a group of European conservative parties planned to step up support for the pugilist, including through joint public appearances.

Polls show that Yanukovych would lose to Klitschko in a 2015 presidential poll if that election went into a second round run-off.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is expected to travel to Ukraine this week "to support a way out of the political crisis," the European Commission said in a statement.

The protests in Ukraine have raged for over two weeks after the government announced it was halting the work on political and free trade agreements with the European Union.

Protesters have seized control of Independence Square, setting up a tent city, and persisted with a blockade of key government buildings. The action is dubbed "EuroMaidan" after the Ukrainian name for the square.

The leader of Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, claimed that the Yanukovych administration was working now on imposing a state of emergency.

"The blame for, God forbid, any bloodshed will lie personally on Viktor Yanukovych," he said.

The opposition threatened to also blockade Yanukovych's luxurious Mezhygirya residence on the banks of the Dnipro River outside Kiev if he did not dismiss the government within the next 48 hours.

Yanukovych's decision to drop the EU agreements in favour of closer Russian ties and a crackdown last week on protesters plunged the ex-Soviet nation into its worst political crisis since the pro-government Orange Revolution in 2004.

The president on Friday incensed protesters further by discussing a strategic partnership treaty with Putin, who wants Ukraine to join a Moscow-led Customs Union.

Economists have said the protests risk exacerbating an already serious economic crisis and causing a crash in the value of its currency.

The Ukrainian government rejected the pact with the EU, citing Russian threats of sanctions and the bloc's failure to deliver financial support.

Analysts believe Russia may have offered Ukraine cheaper gas and billions of dollars in aid in exchange for joining the Customs Union at Yanukovych's closed-door meeting with Putin on Friday in Sochi.


Source : Sapa-AFP /sdv
Date : 08 Dec 2013 18:14

Ukraine sees largest anti-govt protests yet

Angry anti-government protesters toppled a statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in the center of Kiev on Sunday and blockaded key government buildings amid huge street protests, raising the stakes in an escalating standoff with President Viktor Yanukovych.

The biggest protest in the former Soviet republic since Ukraine's pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004 led the government to fire back. It announced an investigation of opposition leaders for an alleged attempt to seize power and warned the demonstrators they could face criminal charges.

The West pressed for a peaceful settlement.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flooded the center of Kiev, the capital, to demand Yanukovych's ouster after he ditched ties with the EU in favor of Russia and sent police to break up an earlier protest in the nearly three-week standoff.

"Ukraine is tired of Yanukovych. We need new rules. We need to completely change those in power," said protester Kostyantyn Meselyuk, 42. "Europe can help us."

Packing Independence Square as far as the eye could see, Ukrainians waving European Union flags sang the national anthem and shouted "Resignation!" and "Down the with Gang!" in a reference to Yanukovych's regime.

"I am convinced that after these events, dictatorship will never survive in our country," world boxing champion and top opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told reporters. "People will not tolerate when they are beaten, when their mouths are shut, when their principles and values are ignored."

As darkness fell, the conflict escalated further with protesters blockading key government buildings in Kiev with cars, barricades and tents.

The protests have had an anti-Russian component because Russia had worked aggressively to derail the EU deal with threats of trade retaliation against Ukraine.

About a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the main square, one group of anti-government protesters toppled the city's landmark statue of Lenin and decapitated it Sunday evening.

Protesters then took turns beating on the torso of the fallen statue, while others lined up to collect a piece of the stone. The crowd chanted "Glory to Ukraine!"

"Goodbye, Communist legacy," Andriy Shevchenko, an opposition lawmaker, wrote on Twitter.

The demonstrations erupted last month after Yanukovych shelved a long-planned treaty with the 28-nation European Union to focus on ties with Russia. They were also galvanized by police violence and fears that Yanukovych was on the verge of bringing his country into a Russian-led economic alliance, which critics say could end Ukraine's sovereignty.

"It's not just a simple revolution," Oleh Tyahnybok, an opposition leader with the national Svoboda party, told the crowd in a fiery speech from a giant stage. "It's a revolution of dignity."

Yet a solution to the crisis appeared elusive, with the government making no concessions and the opposition issuing contradictory statements on how to proceed.

Heeding the opposition's calls, thousands of protesters blocked the approach to key government buildings in Kiev by erecting barricades, setting up tents and parking vehicles, including a giant dump truck.

"We are extending our demonstration. We are going to fight until victory. We will fight for what we believe in," opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk told protesters on Independence Square, which was drowning in a sea of flags.

The West, meanwhile, scrambled to avoid violence and urged dialogue.

In a phone conversation with Yanukovych, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso stressed "the need for a political" solution and dispatched EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to Kiev next week to mediate a solution. Yanukovych also discussed the crisis with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Valery Chaliy, head of the Razumkov Center think tank in Kiev, said the West must help resolve the crisis and prevent more violence. "It is evident that without international mediation this will not be solved in a peaceful way," Chaliy said in a telephone interview.

The protest Sunday in sub-zero December temperatures took place on Independence Square, known as the Maidan, in an echo of the Orange Revolution. Those protests annulled Yanukovych's fraud-tainted presidential victory in 2004, and ushered his pro-Western opponents into power. Yanukovych returned to the presidency in the 2010 vote.

During a huge demonstration a week ago, several hundred radical protesters hurled stones and attacked police as they tried to storm the presidential office. That prompted a violent breakup by the authorities in which dozens were beaten and injured, including peaceful protesters, passers-by and journalists.


Source : Sapa-AP /sdv
Date : 08 Dec 2013 21:07

Ukrainians keep up protests after Lenin statue toppled

Pro-EU Ukrainian demonstrators on Monday kept up their protest against President Viktor Yanukovych after symbolically toppling the statue of the Soviet Union's founder Vladimir Lenin during a gigantic rally in central Kiev.

Hundreds of protestors braved early morning sub-freezing temperatures to maintain the open-ended demonstration on Independence Square in Kiev while others staffed barricades thrown up the day earlier around key government buildings.

"It is impossible now to make a step backwards," said protestor Volodymyr Kiblyk from the central town of Znamenka who has been at the Kiev protests for two weeks.

Hundreds of thousands had on Sunday filled Independence Square to bursting point to denounce Yanukovych's rejection of an EU pact under Kremlin pressure, in the biggest protests since the 2004 Orange Revolution.

In a hugely symbolic denouement to the rally, dozens of masked protesters, some brandishing flags of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, tore down a 3.4 metre (11 feet) high statue of Lenin after putting a rope noose round his neck.

They then hacked away with axes at the remnants of the monument lying flat on the ground. Parts of the statue including one of its hands were afterwards triumphantly brandished at the main demonstration on Independence Square.

Police opened a criminal probe into "mass riots" over the felling of the monument but said Monday that so far no-one has been arrested over the incident.

Upping the stakes in the confrontation, demonstrators have erected one-and-a-half metre (five feet) high barricades outside the seat of government, making it impossible for ministers to go to their offices by car.

Jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko told Sunday's rally the opposition was demanding the "immediate" resignation of Yanukovych, in a no-holds-barred statement read by her daughter.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Yanukovych by phone on Sunday to urge for dialogue with his rivals as large-scale protests gripped Kiev, the UN said.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel to Ukraine this week to find a way out of the crisis, the EU Commission said. The Interfax news agency said her visit would take place Tuesday.

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said it had opened an investigation into alleged attempts by politicians to seize power, in an apparent bid by the state to target key opposition figures.

The size of the protest, the third mass rally in successive weekends, increased the pressure on Yanukovych who further galvanised his opponents by meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in almost total secrecy on Friday.

The opposition is calling another major rally for Monday in a bid to sustain the momentum and force concessions from Yanukovych.

"The whole of Kiev is Maidan now," said opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk, referring to Independence Square by its local name. He claimed the Yanukovych administration planned to impose a state of emergency.

The protests in Ukraine have raged for over two weeks after the government announced it was halting the work on political and free trade agreements with the European Union.

Protesters have seized control of Independence Square for over a week, setting up a tent city. The protesters have also occupied Kiev city hall with dozens again sleeping there overnight on Sunday.

The opposition threatened to also blockade Yanukovych's luxurious Mezhygirya residence on the banks of the Dnipro River outside Kiev if he did not dismiss the government within the next 48 hours.

The president on Friday incensed protesters further by discussing a strategic partnership treaty with Putin, who wants Ukraine to join a Moscow-led Customs Union.

Analysts believe Russia may have offered Ukraine cheaper gas and billions of dollars in aid in exchange for joining the Customs Union at Yanukovych's closed-door meeting with Putin on Friday in Sochi.


Source : Sapa-AFP /aa
Date : 09 Dec 2013 10:35 OrigID : LP057205