Ukraine opposition demands Yanukovych resignation

Ukrainian opposition at a mass rally in Kiev on Friday demanded that President Viktor Yanukovych step down after refusing to salvage a key deal with the European Union.

Speaking to around 10,000 supporters, opposition leaders said Yanukovych had until mid-March to sign a political and free trade deal with the bloc.

“We are demanding Yanukovych’s resignation,” said an opposition statement read out at the rally by activist and singer Ruslana Lyzhichko, in the presence of top leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.

“We declare that we are continuing to fight for a European Ukraine,” said the flamboyant singer, who won the Eurovision song contest in 2004.

“Failure to sign the Association Agreement is state treason,” Klitschko told the crowd from the stage to the cries of “shame”.

“Today they stole our hope, the hope to live in a modern European country,” said Klitschko, speaking shortly after returning from a summit with the EU in Vilnius, together with Yatsenyuk and ultra-nationalist leader Oleg Tyagnybok.

Yatsenyuk, a key ally of imprisoned former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, vowed to keep the protest alive across the entire country.

Yanukovych failed to rescue the deal at the summit in Lithuania, telling EU chiefs his government wanted to sign the pact “in the near future” but needed economic and financial aid.

Incensed by the snub, thousands of pro-EU protesters turned up on Kiev’s central Independence Square Friday evening, some chanting “Revolution” and others holding flags of the European Union, Ukraine and neighbouring Poland.

Ukrainian authorities deployed hundreds of riot police to the city centre, creating a tense atmosphere on a sixth day of mass protests.

A week before the summit the Ukrainian government suddenly halted all preparations for the deal that would have set the country on a path to EU integration, prompting thousands to take to the streets in the largest demonstrations since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.

A new protest is scheduled to take place on Sunday at which the opposition is expected to determine a further course of action.