KIEV, November 25 (RIA Novosti) – Hundreds of pro-European integration demonstrators are preparing to stage a picket at Ukraine’s cabinet building in downtown Kiev to protest against last week's move to suspend an association deal with the EU.
Between 50,000 and 100,000 people backing EU integration protested last night in the Ukrainian capital and in the regions against the government’s decision last week to suspend signing of landmark trade and association agreements with Brussels and turn to Russia instead.
The organizers of Sunday's rally on Kiev’s European Square - where protesters built barricades, prompting police to use tear gas against them - said the protest would be “indefinite.”
Two police officers were injured in scuffles as the protesters, who were surrounded by riot police, pelted them with stones and tried to rip off their helmets.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told Channel One Russia his government was not afraid of the protests, the largest since the 2004 Orange Revolution, and it would check whether the actions were funded legally.
Azarov said 1 billion euros starter aid that the EU has offered to Ukraine would be nothing more than “helping a beggar on the porch. What is one billion euro?" he said. The Ukrainian premier also dismissed as rumor allegations by the opposition that Russia promised Kiev to pay $20 billion in compensation for derailing the EU deal, Ukrainian TV channel ICTV reported.
The Ukrainian government announced November 21 it was halting plans to sign long-discussed trade and association deals with the EU, because of the damage it would do to trade with Russia. It said it would seek closer cooperation with Russia and the Moscow-led Customs Union that includes Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The EU blamed unprecedented Russian pressure on Kiev for the Ukrainian decision to suspend the deals, but Moscow denied any strong-arm tactics and accused the EU in turn of using blackmail to pressure Kiev to sign up. Earlier this year, Moscow suspended imports of some Ukrainian goods and warned that preferential trade agreements with Ukraine would end if it signed the EU deals.
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