You're reading: Business New Europe: Ukraine opposition is failing to deliver fatal blow

Standing over 2 metres tall and weighing in at whopping 112 kilograms, the PhD-holding world heavyweight champion is known as Dr Ironfist and has never been knocked down in a professional boxing bout. But with deep winter settling over Ukraine and anti-government protests dragging into the new year, the leader of opposition party United Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR, which means "punch" in Ukrainian), appears to have failed in bringing his famously pugilistic powers to the political arena as the latest polls suggest

Large-scale demonstrations in Kyiv were sparked in late November when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russia Party of the Regions announced an 11th hour withdrawal from the long-negotiated free trade and association agreement with the EU – a deal that would have brought Ukraine into the European fold and, more to the point, prevented it from returning to the Russian fold. 

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