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Ukraine prisoner Yulia Tymoshenko freed as Lenin statues fall and president tries to flee
UKRAINE could split in two after a tumultuous day in the bloody East-West battle for the country which saw the President sacked, the citizens ragtag army take control of the capital and a revolutionary political prisoner freed.
But sacked President Viktor Yanukovych’s hopes to flee have failed after Ukraine’s border control service claimed that his aides tried to bribe border guards to let him fly out of the country. But he was prevented from leaving.
It is understood he is in hiding in the east of the country but still vowing to formally step down even though he was sacked by the parliament. His Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko also tried to flee the country and was caught by border guards. Both men have been accused of corruption among other things.
“A private plane due to fly out of Donetsk airport did not have the correct paperwork. When officials arrived to check the documentation they were met by armed people who offered them money to fly out urgently,” border service spokesman Serhiy Astahov told AFP, adding that border guards refused the offer.
“After some time two armoured vehicles pulled up at the plane and the president emerged and left the airport,” Astahov said.
INSIDE THE SACKED PRESIDENT’S PRIVATE, LUXURIOUS COMPOUND
He said officials did not know the planned destination of the plane. There was no independent confirmation of Astahov’s account.
His failed attempt to leave comes as freed Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko received a rapturous welcome as she arrived on Ukraine’s Independence Square, hours after being released from years of imprisonment.
In tears ... Yulia Tymoshenko speaks at Independence Square moments after parliament voted to hold early presidential elections in May. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
To chants of “Yulia, Yulia” an estimated 50,000-strong crowd cheered the 53-year-old as she was helped onto stage in a wheelchair, after suffering a chronic bad back, just hours after being released from jail here she has been for the past two years.
But she was also welcomed with whistles from some of the largely anti-government protestors such is her polarizing effect of the former prime minister and gas magnate who led the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
“Our homeland will from today on be able to see the sun and sky as a dictatorship has ended,” she declared emotional her hands shaking as much as her voice as she took to the stage at 9.30pm local time.
“This country is now free, you have given this country its freedom.
Ukraine's opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been released.
“You have removed this cancer from our country. I am convinced that any bullet shot through the heart of the people went through the heart of each Ukrainian.”
It was raining as she spoke but few were deterred as she recounted the horror of the past week in the very square she was speaking at where at least 88 people were killed. The official new death toll was released last night by he Ukrainian health ministry.
She confirmed she would again be running for parliament and urged protestors to maintain their presence in the square for a little longer and said she wanted to feel their strength so they could change Ukraine.
Supporters listen ... to former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko as she addresses the crowd in central Kiev. Picture: AP Source: AP
The White House welcomed her release, saying that the strife-hit country’s people “must determine their own future.” “We wish her a speedy recovery as she seeks the appropriate medical treatment that she has long needed and sought,” a statement said, adding: “The unshakeable principle guiding events must be that the people of Ukraine determine their own future.”
Protesters in Ukraine seized control of the capital Kiev and celebrated Tymoshenko’s release, but marginalised President Viktor Yanukovych defiantly declared he still wielded power.
Wanting change ... people in Independence Square, Kiev. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Corp Australia
Statues of Lenin were also brought down by protesters in Bila Tserkva, Khmelnitsky, Zhytomyr in western Ukraine who used ropes and crowbars.
The situation in the ex-Soviet nation -- deeply divided between aspirations towards the European Union and loyalty to Russia -- was still fluid and uncertainty reigned over whether the opposition had definitively triumphed over Yanukovych on a day of high drama, exactly three months into the country’s crisis.
While the atmosphere in Kiev remained tense, protesters in cities throughout Ukraine pulled down statues of Vladimir Lenin, which are seen as symbols of Moscow's rule over the former USSR. Photo: AP/CH5
Overnight there was an element of mob rule in Kiev as some look for recriminations for the bloodshed during the week. Some government ministers were abused and pegged with full drink bottles and ball bearings by a baying crowd as they attempted to clean out their offices.
One government police officer was also dragged by his hair through the crowd after it was alleged he was a sharp shooter and police responsible for the single shot killings of more than 20 last Thursday. His fate was not known.
Lighting candles... inside St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kiev, Ukraine that has been used as a hospital during the clashes between anti-government protesters and riot police. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Corp Australia
President Viktor Yanukovych claimed gangsters and terrorist had staged a coup, as he fled to the Russian-speaking east of the country prompting protestors armed with clubs and shields to take control of his presidential palace and the parliamentary compound.
He took to local TV to declare he had no intention of resigning but moments later his own Parliament voted him out of power to the cheers of jubilation and applause across the capital.
An anti-government activist ... reacts after the vote of the Ukrainian Parliament to hold early elections as people rally outside the parliament building in Kiev. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
The mood remained high when the Interior Ministry and the chief of the armed forces declared allegiance with the Opposition and its citizen army which for three months has occupied the central Maidan Independence Square. A new transitional coalition government was sworn in and immediately set fresh elections for May 25.
The events of today superceded the peace deal signed only 24 hours earlier which made no provision for the sacking of the president.
Cleaning up ... protesters Olya Omlukh, 21, and her mum Svetlana help cleaning up after a protest camp was burnt down in Independence Square. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Corp Australia
But the politically denuded president, who claimed his car had been shot at during the unrest of recent weeks, said he did not accept anything from parliament and compared the situation to the rise of Nazis in Germany in the 1930s.
“I will sign nothing with gangsters who are terrorising the whole country,” he said, adding he would not leave the country and could run it from his stronghold eastern city base of Kharkiv.
“Everything that is happening today is, to a greater degree, vandalism and bandits and a coup d’etat.”
Free at last ... Yulia Tymoshenko is greeted by supporters shortly after being freed from prison in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Source: AP
but he conceded for felt responsible for the collapse of geographically Europe’s largest country.
“I am overwhelmed by grief for our country, I feel responsibility,” he said.
The protest movement, which has seen 74 people shot dead and more than 500 injured, was sparked by the president’s reneging on a deal which would have shifted Ukraine closer to the EU and the West in favour of a deal with Russia.
Anti-government protesters ... in Kiev's Independence square on February 21. This has been ongoing for three violent months. Source: News Corp Australia
The country’s Russian-backed eastern provinces yesterday gathered legislators and top Russian lawmakers and later declared regional authorities will take control of their own provinces. Mikhaylo Dobkin, Governor of Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, said no-one wanted the country to break up but his region couldn’t accept the decisions made by the Ukraine parliament.
Ukraine broke peacefully from the Soviet Union in 1991 but many legislators and politicans believe the latest potential split could be more destructive and involve Russia to the East and the European Union and the United States from the West.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych looks down ... at his glasses before signing an agreement in Kiev to end the splintered country's worst crisis since independence after three days of carnage left nearly 100 protesters dead. Source: AFP
Crimea this week has already signaled it wanted to return to being a Russian territory nearly 60 years after the peninsula was redefined by the Kremlin to become part of the Ukraine.
“The revolution has been won in Kiev, in part of Ukraine, but not in the whole of Ukraine. We still have many risks,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst at the Kiev-based Penta think-tank.
“If Yanukovich appears and ... proclaims an alternative power in Kharkiv or in Donetsk - it will mean that we have two countries. The most serious risk now is the possible division of the country. The crisis is not yet over.”
President Viktor Yanukovych's dramatic decision to hold early elections and form a new unity government was met with caution by the tens of thousands gathered on central Kiev's main square. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: AFP
The past week saw the worst violence in Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also welcomed the apparent peace and said bloody scenes witnessed in past days were shocking “and have no place in 21st century Europe”.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague sounded an encouraging note about the “extraordinary developments” in Ukraine.
“Events in the last 24 hours show the will of Ukrainians to move towards a different future, and ensure that the voices of those who have protested courageously over several months are heard,” Hague said in a statement.
But the timetable for change extends to some nine months and does not include President Yanukovich stepping down and that to many in Maidan is unpalatable.
*with wires
Igor, 30, is one of the anti-government protesters in Independence Square. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Corp Australia
Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/ukraine-prisoner-yulia-tymoshenko-freed-as-lenin-statues-fall-and-president-tries-to-flee/story-fni0xs61-1226834819311
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