Demonstrators on the main downtown avenue of Ukraine’s capital set piles of tires ablaze on Saturday to protest authorities’ call to end the encampment that began six months ago.
A few hundred meters away, workers in hard hats cleared debris from torn-down barricades.
The contrasting scenes on Kreshchatik Street in Kiev highlighted just one of the many uncertainties facing Ukraine.
Photo: EPA
Even after the election on Sunday last week for a president to replace the interim leader who took power amid chaos in February, many Ukrainians remain deeply suspicious of the government, and several hundred are still holding out at a vast protest camp.
Three months of protests during the winter eventually drove pro-Russia former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country.
Yet the extensive protest tent camp and the barricades of wooden pallets, tires and trash that protected the camp remained even after interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed.
The holdouts say they want to keep up the encampment until the new government and Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko carry out important reforms in a country long riddled by corruption.
“Personally, I have no plans to leave. They need to show the people that the new laws are working — they are where they are thanks to us,” demonstrator Anna Chaikovska said.
Newly elected Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight boxing champion, has called on the demonstrators to fold up their tents and go home.
Yet aside from removing some of the barricades, Ukrainian authorities have taken little action.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the Ukrainian authorities for failing to clear out the encampment and free buildings occupied by demonstrators, which was among the terms stated in an agreement reached between Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU in April aimed at cooling tensions in Ukraine’s crisis.
In Ukraine’s east, where separatists have declared two provinces independent and are fighting government forces, many are deeply suspicious of the Kiev demonstrations and the new government they have propelled to power.
The conflict between government forces and the insurgents in the east escalated markedly in the past week, including rebels’ attempt to seize the airport in the city of Donetsk on Monday last week and the shooting down of a Ukrainian military helicopter on Thursday.
Twelve people, including a general, died in that incident.
On Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized a suggestion by an official from the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Europe that it could withdraw its observer mission from Ukraine because of safety concerns, as shooting between government troops and pro-Russian rebels continued in the region.
The international monitoring body says it lost contact on Thursday with a group of five monitors in separatist eastern Ukraine.
Another four-member team has been held by eastern rebels since Monday last week.
Wolfgang Ischinger, the OSCE’s negotiator on national dialogue in Ukraine, told German broadcaster ZDF last week that the monitor mission might have to withdraw if the organization fears for its employees’ lives.
Yet the Russian ministry said in a statement on Saturday that “amid Kiev’s intentionally intensified punitive operation in the east of the country, it is essential to step up the work of international observers.”
Confrontations continued on Saturday between government troops and the rebels, who have seized administrative and police buildings across the east and want to join the region to Russia.
At a government-controlled checkpoint in the city of Slovyansk, which has been the epicenter of the conflict, troops came under fire but repelled the attack.
No casualties were reported in the latest attempt to break the army’s ring of checkpoints around the city.
Vladislav Seleznev, press secretary for Ukraine’s anti-insurgent operation in the east, said on Saturday that the army had successfully destroyed a cannon in Slovyansk, which he said rebels had been using to shell civilian buildings in the town.
As violence escalated in the region, the Ukrainian and pro-Russian sides have blamed each other for the rising number of civilian casualties in the conflict.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was