KIEV, November 26 (RIA Novosti) – Police and protesters in Kiev demonstrating in favor of the former Soviet nation's greater integration with Europe clashed again Monday evening, as the Ukrainian president sought to calm moods by vowing his country would eventually pursue a European model of development.
Riot police deployed tear gas in Yevropeiskaya Square in the capital, which has served as the gathering for Ukrainians angered by a government decision to suspend preparations for EU association agreements that had been due to be concluded this week.
Ratcheting up tensions even further, jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced she is going on hunger strike until the EU deal is unblocked.
According to eyewitness reports, demonstrators on Yevropeiskaya Square surrounded a van they believed to be carrying security service officers, precipitating a violent standoff with police.
Opposition politicians at the scene negotiated a halt to clashes, but this was the second incident of unrest in the capital in the space of one day.
In the morning, police used tear gas and batons to disperse a crowd around the government headquarters after numerous protesters hurled rocks and tried to tear off officers’ helmets.
Media reports said that up to 100,000 people had gathered in the capital, Kiev, in rallies that lasted throughout the weekend in the largest demonstrations since the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution, which was sparked by anger over a rigged presidential election.
Protests have also taken place in a number of towns and cities across Ukraine.
Seeking to strike a reassuring note, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said in a statement Monday evening that nobody could prevent his country from going along its Europe-bound destiny.
“No one will rob us of the dream of a Ukraine of equal opportunities – a European Ukraine,” Yanukovych said. “Just as no one will push us away from the righteous road that leads us to this dream.”
The Ukrainian government on Thursday said it was freezing 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 instead seek closer cooperation with Russia and the Moscow-led Customs Union that also comprises Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Ukraine has come under sustained pressure from the Kremlin in recent months as diplomatic negotiations over its alignment with the EU intensified.
Moscow threatened Kiev with the imposition of a strict new customs regime and ratcheted up pressure on the former Soviet state, which depends on Russia for its energy supplies, over payments for gas imports.
The Ukrainian government acknowledged last week that the country had already registered significant losses because of shrinking trade volumes with Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance of former Soviet countries.
“I want peace and quiet to be in our big Ukrainian family,” Yanukovych said in his statement Monday.
“Like a father cannot leave his family without bread, I have no right to leave people to the mercy of fate with the problems that may arise if production stops under the pressure we feel and millions of citizens are thrown out to the streets,” he said.
Noting that in that situation, he has to “resort to complex solutions,” Yanukovych said he would “never take a single step to the detriment of Ukraine and the people.”
Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara told reporters in Kiev that Ukraine had not altogether abandoned plans to sign landmark deals with the European Union.
“Ukraine is not rejecting the agreement on association [with the EU], we are simply talking about suspension of its signing,” Kozhara said. “Neither Ukraine nor the EU are ready for this deal.”
On Sunday, a few days after Ukraine suspended its deals with the EU, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said his country had secured Moscow’s pledge to review a gas contract Kiev believes to be unfavorable.
The gas contract was negotiated in 2009 between then prime minister Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Tymoshenko was in 2011 sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing of her power while serving as prime minister by overseeing the gas contract that prosecutors said was financially unfavorable for Ukraine. She says the charges were politically motivated.
On Monday, Tymoshenko announced through her lawyer that she was launching an indefinite hunger strike in demand for the EU deal to go ahead.
"I declare an indefinite hunger strike with a demand for Yanukovych to sign the association and free trade agreement with the European Union," Tymoshenko wrote in a statement read out on Yevropeiskaya Square by her lawyer, Sergei Vlasenko.
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