Posted on 12/08/2013 11:50:45 AM PST by 1rudeboy
Anti-government protesters toppled a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine's capital and attacked it with hammers on Sunday in a symbolic challenge to President Viktor Yanukovich and his plans for closer ties with Russia.
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!" chanted protesters as they took turns to hack at the prostrate - and now headless - red granite statue of Lenin, leader of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.
Cheered by the crowd, a young woman planted an EU flag on the pedestal where the 3-1/2 metre high statue had stood since 1946. Opposition leaders denied any link to its removal.
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.
"This is a decisive moment when all Ukrainians have gathered here because they do not want to live in a country where corruption rules and where there is no justice," said Vitaly Klitschko, a world heavyweight boxing champion-turned-politician.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
love it!
Perhaps they just misunderstand Lenin. /s
Perhaps they just misunderstand Putin. He’s anti-homo and loves his country. I heard it on FR.
About the only thing John McCain said that I agree with, “When I looked into Putin’s eyes I saw ‘K-G-B’.”
Putin is not our friend and he is not a friend to the citizens of Ukraine.
....Meanwhile, back in the USSA, Obama raises a monument to Lenin in Obamacare.
What? People who don’t want to live in close proximity with Putin? I smell a rat. /s
Most Ukrainians live in the NovoRossiya and Russian-speakers feel like they live in another country.
The protests have revealed the gulf between Donetsk, which wants closer ties to Moscow and Lvov, that looks to Brussels.
Two decades after both parts of the country voted for independence, Ukraine is split down the middle - and the protestors’ rejection of Russia is anathema in places like the Crimea, that are overwhelmingly ethnic Russian in composition.
Maybe Putin can stick to loving his own country, and stop molesting other countries (in a non-homo way, not that there’s anything wrong with that).
The connection between Ukraine and Russia goes back to the baptism of Rus’ in 988, NOT to the anti-Orthodox mass-murderer Lenin!!!!
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Baptism_of_Rus';
Ukies on the Rampage!!!
MY PEOPLE!!! I love them!!! Hahah!
There is a large Ukrainian diaspora in Russia and the two peoples often intermarry. And millions of ethnic Ukrainians do speak Russian.
Those deep and close ties in the Slavic family will not be dissolved by the current protests.
And then some of the FR Borscht Brigade will try to convince us that W. Ukrainians are Muslim.
The opposition wants to cut the east off from its traditional Russian market if Ukraine joins the EU.
That is a sure recipe for continued instability. In an ideal world, Ukraine could join both of the rival trading blocs and every one would be happy.
But since the EU has vetoed it, the turmoil will go on with no real resolution to what amounts to the classic Mexican standoff.
Iexpect the Ukes know where to get weapons, however, and I wouldn’t expect a one -sided fight if it comes to that. It’s probly asking too much to expect Yano to get his head on right and treat people fairly-—bbbbuuuuttttt we have the same problem right here in river city.
How do they even have statues of this guy still standing?
I wish someone would do that to the Lenin statue in Seattle.
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