Ukrainian street violence escalated between police and anti-government demonstrators, who called for a nationwide strike today to protest President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign a European Union trade agreement.
A throng estimated by the opposition at about half a million, angered by an earlier police crackdown, converged on central Kiev yesterday to hear boxing champion Vitali Klitschko call for a new government. They seized the mayor’s office and a group stormed the headquarters of the presidential administration. The clashes left at least 265 people hurt. The opposition plans to block government buildings from 6 a.m. today and urged workers to walk off the job.
“Our first and main political demand for tomorrow: the government’s resignation,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a lawmaker from jailed ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, said yesterday. “Our main task is Yanukovych’s resignation. But the first step is the resignation of Azarov’s government.”
As in the Orange Revolution in 2004, emotions are flaring in the debate whether Ukraine should tie its future to Russia or the EU, which each buy a quarter of its exports. The protests gripping the country from Lviv to Kharkiv are the biggest political crisis since the events nine years ago, when a group including Tymoshenko overturned a presidential election initially won by Yanukovych.
[h=2]EU Snub[/h] Demonstrations began on Nov. 21 when Yanukovych suspended progress toward an association agreement with the EU, opting instead to strengthen ties with Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s gas. The protests grew over the weekend after the president failed to reconsider the deal at an Nov. 28-29 EU summit in Vilnius and the first clashes broke out.
Ukraine’s 2023 government bonds fell on Nov. 29, sending the yield up 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, to to 9.966 percent, the highest level since Nov. 14, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The cost to insure the country’s debt against non-payment using credit-default swaps was unchanged at 987 basis points, leaving the Black Sea state the world’s fourth-riskiest nation behind Argentina, Venezuela and Cyprus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month he doesn’t oppose the EU deal and suggested three-way negotiations. European Commission President Jose Barroso reiterated that the idea of such talks is unacceptable. The two sides accused each other of pressuring the Ukrainian government.
Putin’s government may have offered Ukraine $15 billion in loans, debt restructuring and asset purchases to persuade it not to proceed with the EU deal, the Ukrainian magazine Zerkalo Nedeli said. Azarov also said yesterday on Inter television he wanted to agree a new price of gas in two weeks.
[h=2]Cheaper Gas[/h] Russia will offer cheaper natural gas to Ukraine if the government in Kiev opts to join the Moscow-led economic bloc, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview.
“A gas agreement could help relieve Ukraine of a huge problem,” Shuvalov said said in comments cleared Nov. 30 for publication. “We can also give them a loan, but we will not help them without commitments on their part.”
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged protesters and police to remain peaceful, according to a statement on the military alliance’s website. U.S. and EU ambassadors to Ukraine did the same.
“We condemn today’s violence near Bankova and attacks on public buildings and call on all sides to avoid confrontation,” the latter said in a statement on the Facebook page of the EU’s delegation to Ukraine.
[h=2]‘Bidding War’[/h] In a joint statement, Radek Sikorski and Carl Bildt, the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, repeated that the EU remains prepared to sign the accord and said Ukraine itself must press ahead with transforming its economy to grow closer to the 28-member bloc.
“In the absence of any evidence of economic reform, we will not be drawn into a meaningless bidding war over Ukraine’s future,” they said in the statement.
Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Rybak called politicians to hold talks today. Yanukovych said yesterday he still favors “moving toward the EU,” as long as that doesn’t hurt the country economically.
“Our country should integrate with the European nations as an equal partner,” Yanukovych said in yesterday’s speech to mark the 22nd anniversary of a referendum that clinched Ukraine’s independence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “I will not allow any serious economic losses and decline of living standards.”
[h=2]Violence Erupts[/h] Violence started on the night of Nov. 29. About 40 people were injured when Ukrainian police broke up a rally on Independence Square after midnight on Nov. 30. In the 24 hours to midnight, 165 people sought urgent medical aid and 109 of them were admitted to hospital care, the city government said in a statement. Crowds dwindled to a few thousand by 9:30 p.m.
Authorities want protesters to leave public buildings and have begun criminal proceedings against those occupying the mayor’s office and a trade union headquarters in central Kiev, the Interfax news service reported, citing a police statement.
Police spokeswoman Olha Bilyk, who declined to estimate the crowd size, said 100 police officers were injured when they clashed with the group that stormed the presidential administration building.
Those leading demonstrations urged people to keep rallies peaceful and is convinced that violence by protesters yesterday was orchestrated by the government to justify a crackdown, Yatsenyuk said on television.
Some protesters forced their way inside the mayor’s office in Kiev after requests for a meeting were ignored. They set up temporary headquarters for the demonstrations at the trade union building, television channel 1+1 reported.
Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko said the police won’t allow Ukraine to become another Libya or Tunisia, where uprisings toppled governments in recent years.
“If there is call for public disorder, we will react,” the minister said in televised comments yesterday.
Oleksandr Sidorov, 56, an entrepreneur from the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya who’s been protesting in Kiev for eight days, said Yanukovych promised to take Ukraine closer to the EU, then “outrageously cheated” the nation.
“His place is to be hanged on a Christmas tree,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at [email protected]; Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at [email protected]
A throng estimated by the opposition at about half a million, angered by an earlier police crackdown, converged on central Kiev yesterday to hear boxing champion Vitali Klitschko call for a new government. They seized the mayor’s office and a group stormed the headquarters of the presidential administration. The clashes left at least 265 people hurt. The opposition plans to block government buildings from 6 a.m. today and urged workers to walk off the job.
“Our first and main political demand for tomorrow: the government’s resignation,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a lawmaker from jailed ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, said yesterday. “Our main task is Yanukovych’s resignation. But the first step is the resignation of Azarov’s government.”
As in the Orange Revolution in 2004, emotions are flaring in the debate whether Ukraine should tie its future to Russia or the EU, which each buy a quarter of its exports. The protests gripping the country from Lviv to Kharkiv are the biggest political crisis since the events nine years ago, when a group including Tymoshenko overturned a presidential election initially won by Yanukovych.
[h=2]EU Snub[/h] Demonstrations began on Nov. 21 when Yanukovych suspended progress toward an association agreement with the EU, opting instead to strengthen ties with Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s gas. The protests grew over the weekend after the president failed to reconsider the deal at an Nov. 28-29 EU summit in Vilnius and the first clashes broke out.
Ukraine’s 2023 government bonds fell on Nov. 29, sending the yield up 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, to to 9.966 percent, the highest level since Nov. 14, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The cost to insure the country’s debt against non-payment using credit-default swaps was unchanged at 987 basis points, leaving the Black Sea state the world’s fourth-riskiest nation behind Argentina, Venezuela and Cyprus.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month he doesn’t oppose the EU deal and suggested three-way negotiations. European Commission President Jose Barroso reiterated that the idea of such talks is unacceptable. The two sides accused each other of pressuring the Ukrainian government.
Putin’s government may have offered Ukraine $15 billion in loans, debt restructuring and asset purchases to persuade it not to proceed with the EU deal, the Ukrainian magazine Zerkalo Nedeli said. Azarov also said yesterday on Inter television he wanted to agree a new price of gas in two weeks.
[h=2]Cheaper Gas[/h] Russia will offer cheaper natural gas to Ukraine if the government in Kiev opts to join the Moscow-led economic bloc, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview.
“A gas agreement could help relieve Ukraine of a huge problem,” Shuvalov said said in comments cleared Nov. 30 for publication. “We can also give them a loan, but we will not help them without commitments on their part.”
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged protesters and police to remain peaceful, according to a statement on the military alliance’s website. U.S. and EU ambassadors to Ukraine did the same.
“We condemn today’s violence near Bankova and attacks on public buildings and call on all sides to avoid confrontation,” the latter said in a statement on the Facebook page of the EU’s delegation to Ukraine.
[h=2]‘Bidding War’[/h] In a joint statement, Radek Sikorski and Carl Bildt, the foreign ministers of Poland and Sweden, repeated that the EU remains prepared to sign the accord and said Ukraine itself must press ahead with transforming its economy to grow closer to the 28-member bloc.
“In the absence of any evidence of economic reform, we will not be drawn into a meaningless bidding war over Ukraine’s future,” they said in the statement.
Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Rybak called politicians to hold talks today. Yanukovych said yesterday he still favors “moving toward the EU,” as long as that doesn’t hurt the country economically.
“Our country should integrate with the European nations as an equal partner,” Yanukovych said in yesterday’s speech to mark the 22nd anniversary of a referendum that clinched Ukraine’s independence after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “I will not allow any serious economic losses and decline of living standards.”
[h=2]Violence Erupts[/h] Violence started on the night of Nov. 29. About 40 people were injured when Ukrainian police broke up a rally on Independence Square after midnight on Nov. 30. In the 24 hours to midnight, 165 people sought urgent medical aid and 109 of them were admitted to hospital care, the city government said in a statement. Crowds dwindled to a few thousand by 9:30 p.m.
Authorities want protesters to leave public buildings and have begun criminal proceedings against those occupying the mayor’s office and a trade union headquarters in central Kiev, the Interfax news service reported, citing a police statement.
Police spokeswoman Olha Bilyk, who declined to estimate the crowd size, said 100 police officers were injured when they clashed with the group that stormed the presidential administration building.
Those leading demonstrations urged people to keep rallies peaceful and is convinced that violence by protesters yesterday was orchestrated by the government to justify a crackdown, Yatsenyuk said on television.
Some protesters forced their way inside the mayor’s office in Kiev after requests for a meeting were ignored. They set up temporary headquarters for the demonstrations at the trade union building, television channel 1+1 reported.
Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko said the police won’t allow Ukraine to become another Libya or Tunisia, where uprisings toppled governments in recent years.
“If there is call for public disorder, we will react,” the minister said in televised comments yesterday.
Oleksandr Sidorov, 56, an entrepreneur from the eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya who’s been protesting in Kiev for eight days, said Yanukovych promised to take Ukraine closer to the EU, then “outrageously cheated” the nation.
“His place is to be hanged on a Christmas tree,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at [email protected]; Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at [email protected]