Ukraine’s opposition vowed to keep up street protests against President Viktor Yanukovych after he sought to calm anger at a $15 billion Russian bailout by pledging to raise wages before his 2015 re-election bid.
Thousands of pro-European Union demonstrators spent the evening listening to anti-Yanukovych speeches on Independence Square, also called Maidan, urging them not to back down. Barricades were fortified to prevent a repeat crackdown, while protesters cooked on the central square in open fires, sang songs and tried to stay warm in near-freezing temperatures. Vitali Klitschko, a former boxing champion, called for a massive New Year’s Eve celebration to be held on the square.
“We should not leave Maidan,” said Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the head of jailed ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party. “He wants us to leave badly. Victory will not happen soon. But we will have victory because we are following the right path.”
Ukrainians are staging the biggest protests in almost a decade after Yanukovych rejected an EU integration accord last month and instead chose deeper ties with Russia, which had opposed the deal. The ex-Soviet state, a key east-west pipeline transit nation, is struggling with its third recession since 2008 and dwindling foreign reserves.
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