7/27/2019 Ukraine MPs to meet after Vikor Yanukovych impeached

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Ukraine MPs to meet after Vikor Yanukovych impeached

Ukraine MPs vote speaker interim president âÃÂàlive updates | World news |theguardian.com

The whereabouts of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych were unclear on Sunday, a day after heleft the capital and his arch foe Yulia Tymoshenko was freed from prison and returned to Kiev toaddress a massive, adoring crowd.

 A plane with Yanukovych onboard was denied permission to take off Saturday evening from Donetsk,a city in eastern Ukraine that is the president"s base of support, en route to Russia, the State BorderGuard Service said. The president"s spokesman said Sunday morning that even he does not knowwhere Yanukovych is.

The Kiev protest camp at the center of the anti-Yanukovych movement was calm but still full of dedicated demonstrators Sunday morning, after a day that saw a stunning reversal of fortune in apolitical standoff that has worried the United States, Europe and Russia.

Ukraine is deeply divided between eastern regions that are largely pro-Russian and western areasthat widely detest Yanukovych and long for closer ties with the European Union. Yanukovych"sshelving of an agreement with the EU in November set off the wave of protests, but they quicklyexpanded their grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych"sresignation.

The political crisis in the nation of 46 million has changed with blinding speed repeatedly in the pastweek. First there were signs that tensions were easing, followed by horrifying violence and then adeal signed under Western pressure that aimed to resolve the conflict but left the unity of thecountry in question.Protester self-defense units who have taken control of the capital peacefully changed shifts Sunday.

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Helmeted and wearing makeshift shields, they have replaced police guarding the president"sadministration and parliament, and have sought to stop radical forces from inflicting damage orunleashing violence.

Thousands of curious and contemptuous Ukrainians roamed the suddenly open grounds of the lavishcompound outside Kiev where Yanukovych was believed to live.

Parliament, which he controlled the previous day but is now emboldened against him, voted to

remove him and set elections for May 25. But Yanukovych said in a televised address that he nowregards the parliament as illegitimate and he won"t respect its decisions.

Tymoshenko, whose diadem of blond peasant braids and stirring rhetoric attracted world attentionin the 2004 Orange Revolution was both sad and excited as she spoke to a crowd of about 50,000 onKiev"s Independence Square, where a sprawling protest tent camp was set up in December. Sittingin a wheelchair because of a back problem aggravated during imprisonment, her voice cracked andher face was careworn.

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But her words were vivid, praising the protesters who were killed this week in clashes with police

that included sniper fire and entreating the living to keep the camp going.

"You are heroes, you are the best thing in Ukraine!" she said of the victims. The Health Ministry saidthe death toll in clashes between protesters and police that included sniper attacks had reached 82dead over the last week. The protesters put that figure at over 100.

 And she urged the demonstrators not to yield their encampment in the square, known in Ukrainianas the Maidan.

"In no case do you have the right to leave the Maidan until you have concluded everything that youplanned to do," she said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/ukraine-crisis-yanukovych-tymoshenko-live-updates