The FINANCIAL — Ukrainian protesters in Kyiv who are demanding that President Petro Poroshenko enact anticorruption reforms or step down have blocked a main street near parliament with dozens of tents.
The tents were set up on Hrushevska Street and in Mariyinskyy Park outside the Verkhovna Rada, where some 4,500 protesters demonstrated on October 17, according to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service.
With hundreds of protesters at the site on October 18 saying they will stay until their demands are met, National Police chief Serhiy Knyazev told reporters that the authorities did not plan to forcefully remove the tents.
“We do not want to repeat old mistakes. We want to secure the citizens’ right to express their will,” Knyazev said.
“Old mistakes” may have been a reference to deadly attempts to crack down on the Euromaidan protests that pushed Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.
A tent camp set up on Kyiv’s Independence Square was a prominent feature of the 2013-14 protest movement.
The rally on October 17 was spurred by disappointment in Poroshenko and his pro-Western government, which came to power after Yanukovych’s ouster and is accused by critics of failing to root out high-level corruption.
At the rally, former Georgian President and Odesa region Governor Mikheil Saakashvili urged Ukrainians to press for Poroshenko to step down if he does not heed their demands.
Knyazev said that two police officers were hospitalized after scuffles that broke out when demonstrators started bringing tents to the site without police screening.
Knyazev’s spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo said earlier that three protesters were also injured but did not need hospitalization.
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