This thing stinks to high heaven! The west is standing by doing “nothing” as the country and its people are encouraged to protest against its own Sovereignty. Also at stake is Russia’s influence and who will control the Ukraine’s natural crucial gas supply. – JB
Protesters in Kiev Topple Lenin Statue as Rallies Grow
Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press
Ukrainians on Sunday toppled and decapitated a statue of Lenin in Kiev.
NYT
KIEV, Ukraine — In the biggest demonstration yet after weeks of growing momentum, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians filled the streets of Kiev on Sunday, tearing down and breaking up a monument to Lenin in the city center and intensifying their outcry over President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s turn away from Europe.
Sergei Grits/Associated Press
A teenager waved a national flag over a crowd of pro-Europe activists gathered at a rally in Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, on Sunday.
Carrying blue-and-yellow Ukrainian and European Union flags, the teeming crowd here filled Independence Square, which has been transformed by a vast and growing tent encampment, and where demonstrators have occupied public buildings, including City Hall.
“Resignation! Resignation!” members of the crowd chanted, reiterating their call for the ouster of Mr. Yanukovich and the government led by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. Thousands more people gathered in other cities across the country.
The giant rally reflected just how deeply roiled this nation of 46 million people has become in the weeks since Mr. Yanukovich said he would not complete political and free-trade agreements with the European Union that he had been promising to sign for more than a year.
With Western governments urging a peaceful and lawful solution, but no indication of any possibility of a compromise, the continuing unrest seemed likely to confront Mr. Yanukovich with several unpalatable choices, including a crackdown by security officers that many demonstrators say they fear but believe was inevitable.
The president could wait, hoping that increasingly cold weather and demoralization will eventually thin the crowds, but the continuing occupation of a large swath of the capital has already added a patina of weakness and indecision to the government’s growing unpopularity.
Heightening the tension is a severe and urgent economic crisis, along with Ukraine’s need to secure a financial aid package worth $18 billion or more. At the moment, that help seems most likely to come from Russia, but any agreement with the Kremlin is likely to spur further public fury.
Many Ukrainians view the accords with the European Union as crucial to a brighter future, with Western-style rule of law that could combat what many view as deeply entrenched public corruption and cronyism among the country’s wealthy elite. They also see the agreements as eventually offering better economic opportunities.
The accords were also viewed as a way to break free of the grip of Russia, which nearly a quarter-century after the collapse of the Soviet Union continues to exert heavy sway here, including complete control over Ukraine’s natural crucial gas supply.
Mr. Yanukovich’s comments that in retreating from Europe, he planned to restore relations with Russia — where he met on Friday with President Vladimir V. Putin — have only further inflamed the crowds.
On Sunday, the sky over Kiev was gray, but temperatures were comfortably above freezing.
The demonstrators were old and young and middle-aged, from Lviv in the west to Odessa in the south, and from Dnipropetrovsk in the east to the country’s heart, Kiev itself. Parents held children onto their shoulders, students wore blue-and-yellow striped face paint, and volunteers handed out steaming cups of tea and other refreshments. They sang the national anthem and were blessed from the stage by representatives of all of branches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, save for the Moscow Patriarchate, which is loyal to Russia.
“I think the people have dignity,” said Svitlana Zalishchuk, one of a small coalition of civic organizers who have been leading the protest movement from behind the scenes. “This is why they are here: not because they are against Yanukovich, not because they are for the European Union, but because they have dignity, and they want to live with dignity.”
The protest movement accelerated drastically after a violent and ill-conceived crackdown by the riot police on a small group of demonstrators more than a week ago. Scenes of young protesters being beaten and bloodied with truncheons, some as they lay on the ground offering no resistance, enraged a country that views itself as inherently peaceful.
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