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 The gesture rejecting Moscow's historic influence over Ukraine
came after opposition leaders told hundreds of thousands of
demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square to keep up pressure on
Yanukovich to sack his government.
The protesters are furious that the government decided last month to
ditch a landmark pact with the European Union in favour of closer
economic cooperation with Moscow, Ukraine's Soviet-era overlord.
Yanukovich's sudden tack towards Russia has provoked the biggest
street protests since the 2004-5 Orange Revolution, when people
power forced a re-run of a fraud-tainted election and thwarted his
first run for the presidency.
"Yanukovich, you are next!" read a poster stuck on the plinth where
the red granite statue of Lenin had stood. People hacked off chunks
of the prostrate — and now headless — leader of the 1917 Bolshevik
revolution to take home as souvenirs.
Cheered by the crowd, a woman planted an EU flag on the pedestal
where the 3-1/2 metre (11 feet, 6 inch)-high statue had stood since
1946.
Opposition leaders denied any link to its removal, clearly concerned
that such an act could harm their cause. The spokesman of Ukrainian
Prime Minister Mykola Azarov called the felling of the statue
"barbarism," Interfax news agency reported.
The authorities and protesters have confronted each other for weeks,
raising fears for political and economic stability in the former
Soviet republic of 46 million people.
The demonstrators have erected blockades to defend the central
Independence Square — now transformed into a tent village, sustained
by donations of food and clothing — from any police attempt to
retake it. They are occuping key public buildings and on Sunday
erected blockades and tents on roads in the government district.
"This is a decisive moment when all Ukrainians have gathered here
because they don't want to live in a country where corruption rules
and where there is no justice," said Vitaly Klitschko, a reigning
world heavyweight boxing champion and leader of the opposition Udar
(Punch) party.
Ukraine's opposition accuses Yanukovich, who met Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Friday, of preparing to take the country into a
Moscow-led customs union, which they see as an attempt to recreate
the Soviet Union.
"RAZOR'S EDGE"
Yanukovich has said he decided to shelve the EU trade deal because
it would have been too costly for Ukraine's struggling economy and
the country needs more time to prepare. He says he is preparing a
"strategic partnership" with Russia, but has not committed to
joining the customs union.
"We are on a razor's edge between a final plunge into cruel
dictatorship and a return home to the European community," jailed
opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said in a message to Sunday's
rally, read out by her daughter Yevgenia.
"Don't give in, not a step back, don't give up, the future of
Ukraine is in your hands," the message read.
Last weekend, riot police beat protesters and journalists, drawing
EU condemnation and swelling protesters' ranks.
Klitschko, increasingly seen as a national leader-in-waiting, told
Sunday's crowd that their protests must remain peaceful, adding: "We
do not want to be kept quiet by a policeman's truncheon."
He demanded the release of political prisoners, punishment of those
responsible for last weekend's crackdown, the resignation of Prime
Minister Azarov's government and early presidential and
parliamentary elections.
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European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged Yanukovich
by phone on Sunday to seek a dialogue with his opponents and to
respect civil freedoms, the EU executive said. EU foreign policy
chief Catherine Ashton will visit Kiev this week to help to find a
way out of the crisis, it said.
Interfax news agency said Yanukovich also discussed the situation
with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Kiev and Moscow have both denied that Putin and Yanukovich discussed
the customs union when they met in the Russian Black Sea resort of
Sochi, but further talks are planned for December 17.
Yanukovich and Putin, who regards Ukraine as strategically vital to
Moscow's interests, are widely believed to have struck a bargain
whereby Ukraine will get cheaper Russian gas and possibly credits in
exchange for backing away from the EU.
PROTEST NUCLEUS
A group of protesters, chanting "revolution", started erecting tents
and barricades near the government building after Sunday's rally,
apparently aiming to halt normal government activity next week. Riot
police stood guard nearby.
"We will stay till our demands are met and there is a change of
government," said a 22-year-old man draped in a Ukrainian flag who
gave his name as Sergei. "We don't want to be under Russia's thumb."
Independence Square, nucleus of the protest movement, is festooned
with blue and yellow national flags and EU flags. People huddle
around braziers to keep warm.
In a gesture sure to annoy Yanukovich, protesters hoisted a huge
portrait of Tymoshenko onto a New Year tree, plastered with
anti-government placards, that towers over the square.
The protest camp has been swelled by huge numbers arriving from
Ukrainian-speaking western and central regions, where the opposition
enjoys strong support.
A Tymoshenko ally, former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko, urged
people in eastern Russian-speaking areas — the bedrock of
Yanukovich's power — to join them. "We are the same people as you
are, except they stole from you earlier," he said.
Sales worker Sviatislav Zaporozhit, 26, said the demonstrators were
united by the desire for a change of government. "I don't want to go
back to what my parents lived under the Soviet Union," he said.
"When I am old, I want to live like people in Europe. I want to live
in a normal country."
(Additional reporting by Richard Balmforth, Pavel Polityuk and
Natalia Zinets; writing by Gareth Jones; editing by Mark Trevelyan
and David Stamp)
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