Around 2,000 people attended a rally in Donetsk to mark the 96th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
An Interfax-Ukraine reporter said that the communists, led by Head of the Communist Party of Ukraine Petro Symonenko, marched from the N. Krupska Regional Library down Artema Street to Lenin Square. The participants of the rally carried posters reading “The USSR Is Our Motherland,” “Say No to the Closure of Schools and Hospitals,” and “Socialism Is Our Future.”
Symonenko told journalists that the Communist Party opposes the signing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which is to be signed during the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius on November 28-29, as the signing of the document will result in the economic collapse of the country.
“Today we have the right to speak about the real situation in Ukraine’s foreign policy and about the European integration vector. Look at the conditions Ukraine has to fulfill in order to sign the agreement: set free one oligarch [former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko], raise the prices of gas and electricity, cut the funding of all benefits for veterans, and make the exchange rate practically free. I’m not even speaking about the technical regulations, which will eventually destroy the economy,” Symonenko said.
