Ukrainian veterans of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster cleanup, also known as liquidators, carry a mock coffin on November 29, 2011 during the symbolic burial of their peer Gennady Konoplyov during a protest in the eastern Ukrainian industrial city of Donetsk. Konoplyov died on November 27, 2011 shortly after police officers forcibly removed a tent camp set up by liquidators in Donetsk to protest cuts in their benefits. During the operation Konoplyov was shoved by police and died in an ambulance during his transfer to hospital. AFP PHOTO/ ALEXANDER KHUDOTEPLY Donetsk Chornobyl liquidators have brought a Christmas tree to the building of the Donetsk region's Pension Fund, decorating it with copies of unfulfilled court rulings.

Some of the copies say on their back "Yanukovych, you have betrayed your people," an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported. The Christmas tree was held by a protester in his hands during the protest.

One of the protesters, Volodymyr Derkach, said the December 27 Constitutional Court ruling, which gives the government a constitutional right to determine the procedures and amount of social payments depending on the available resources of the Pension Fund, was "illegal and historically wrong."

"The Constitutional Court's decision deprives people of the right to go to court. That's it. We can no longer go to court," Derkach said.

Derkach said he and his activists will now go to the European Court of Human Rights because there they no longer have lawful ways of defending their rights in Ukraine.

"The only way out is to go to the European Court. Europe should hear that something horrible is going on in Ukraine. This horrible thing is called dictatorship," Derkach said.