Скачать или смотреть Riot police surround Independence Square as protests continue into night

(30 Nov 2013) An estimated 2,000 police in helmets and riot gear surrounded demonstrators on Ukraine's Independence Square on Friday night as thousands of protesters continued to crowd into the centre of Ukraine's capital Kiev to demand the president's resignation after he shelved a landmark agreement with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Around 10,000 protesters joined in the demonstration on Kiev's Independence Square on Friday, including opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
There were several small scuffles with police, but no major clashes into the evening.
Protests have been held in Kiev for the past week since President Viktor Yanukovych backed away from the agreement.
"I can for sure tell you that after (Ukrainian) President Yanukovych rejected to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, we started to live in an absolutely another country which more resembles Belarussia rather than Ukraine," declared Arseniy Yatsenyuk, an ally of Yanukovych's arch-foe, the jailed former premier Yulia Tymoshenko.
Across town on Friday, another rally brought out thousands of people in support of the decision.
It was unclear how long the protests against Yanukovych would be allowed to continue.
The square has symbolic weight as the iconic epicentre of the 2004 mass protests known as the Orange Revolution, which forced the rerun of a fraud-tainted presidential election. Yanukovych, the focus of those protests, is unlikely to risk allowing another such huge demonstration of discontent.
Opposition leaders who spoke to the crowd called for protests to grow and called for a presidential election before its scheduled date in 2015.
They also called for a new mass gathering on Sunday. Tents housing some protesters have been on the square for days.
Many protesters holding Ukrainian and EU flags tore pictures of Yanukovych, who ditched the free trade pact with the EU at Friday's summit in Vilnius.
Yanukovych abruptly changed course for integration with the EU last week when his government announced it was suspending preparations for signing the agreement.
The move angered many in Ukraine, where nearly half the population of around 45 (m) million favours closer ties with the EU.
Yanukovych argued that Ukraine can't afford to sacrifice trade with Russia, which has tried to block the deal by banning some of Ukraine's imports and threatening more trade sanctions.
Eariler on Friday, about 10,000 Yanukovych supporters rallied at another central square just a few hundred metres (yards) from the site of the protests to voice support of his move.

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