Protesters in Kyiv storm the government quarter

On January 19, after the completion of the People’s Veche on the Maidan of Nezalevniy in Kyiv, in which, according to various estimates, it took from 15 to 500 thousand people, a group of protesters in about 500 people attacked the police cordons guarding the Cabinet of Ministers on the street. Grushevsky. The police launched vodtetes and tear gas. The investigative administration of the Kyiv Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case under an article on riots. What stirred the Maidan after a long lull and what to wait further

Member of the protest campaign near the burning truck in the government quarter of Kyiv January 19, 2014

“Today's thousands of thousands occurred due to the fact that the Ukrainian authorities adopted a package of laws that were tracing paper from the Russian,” the director of the Ukrainian consulting company Berta Communications, political scientist Tarazovets, told The New Times. Ukraine. But now the opposition is obviously diverging with the protesters. The former try to act with political methods, and the latter understand that such methods no longer work. Power has strengthened, it no longer needs a dialogue with the opposition. The provocateurs penetrated the ranks of the protesters, they set fire to the bus today, beat the police. ”

On January 16, Viktor Yanukovych signed laws that the European Union has already called the limiting democratic rights and freedoms of citizens. Among the innovations are the return of criminal prosecution for slander, amendments to the law on the procedure for conducting public-mass events, the introduction of an article on extremist activities into the Criminal Code, as well as the introduction of the concept of “foreign agent”, which, as in Russia, will be applied to NGOs receiving financial support from abroad.

The birch man also noted that the provocateurs deliberately introduced the security forces to justify the subsequent overclocking of the Maidan, which, according to his assessment, could take place tonight.

Clash of protesters with the police near the administration building in Kyiv January 19, 2014

“The meaning of protests has been exhausted,” says Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the Kyiv Center for Political Research and Conflictology (KCPIK), in an interview with The New Times. - Today a good reason turned up - adopting a package of restrictive laws. The leaders of the opposition called the people, but there were already much fewer people than before they came to the Maidan - about 15 thousand. The reason is simple - the protesters want to see the leader of the opposition, and opposition politicians continue to say that their leader is the Ukrainian people. There are two ways to end the protests: either with a smaller number of broken heads, or with a large one, the victory of the Maidan is impossible. ”

Protesters in Kyiv doused Vitaly Klitschko with foam from the fire extinguisher on January 19, 2014

The number of victims among protesters is unknown, but the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has already reported on the injured law enforcement services. The department said that 20 people were injured: ten of them were hospitalized, four are in serious condition. Most victims diagnosed closed head injuries, fractures, bruises and “poisoning by unknown substances”.

Photos: Reuters/Gleb Garanich