The Maidan has called on the US Senate to impose sanctions against Ukrainian officials, including Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko.
“I’m asking you to vote, make a decision and instruct [Batkivschyna MP and former Ukrainian Foreign Minister] Borys Tarasiuk to submit such a statement to the Senate of the United States: impose sanctions against Interior Minister Zakharchenko and a gang that violates the law and the constitution,” Batkivschyna faction leader Arseniy Yatseniuk said at a weekly people’s assembly on Independence Square in Kyiv on Sunday.
Yatseniuk recalled that on January 15, Washington would host a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate, which will be attended by Tarasiuk.
“We’re sending Borys Tarasiuk to the United States. He will speak on behalf of the Maidan and on behalf of the Ukrainian people,” he said.
Yatseniuk also said that the opposition was insisting on the revision of the figures of the draft state budget for 2014.
“Our task in parliament is to insist on the revision of the law on the budget,” he said.
He said that the opposition considers it unacceptable when funding for law enforcement agencies had grown by more than UAH 20 billion. In addition, it is unacceptable when the residences of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych are maintained at the expense of taxes paid by Ukrainian citizens, he added.
“We’re demanding a reduction in expenditures on the maintenance of the state apparatus,” Yatseniuk said, adding that the UAH 20 billion should have been spent on education and healthcare.
He also recalled the opposition’s demands to the Ukrainian authorities to release all political prisoners.
“I’m asking the Maidan to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights so that this influential institution could consider in the shortest period under the accelerated procedure a shameful trumped-up case against [former Ukrainian Prime Minister] Yulia Tymoshenko and make a legal fair European decision to release Yulia Tymoshenko,” Yatseniuk said.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported that several thousand people who gathered for the people’s assembly had voted for such a decision.
UDAR Party leader Vitali Klitschko, in turn, said from the stage that preparations for an all-Ukrainian strike were currently ongoing.
“We are now organizing a Ukrainian strike. Initially it will be a warning strike, and then it will continue for a much longer period,” he said.
Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok said in his speech that the protesters had been standing on Independence Square for over 50 days, but their demands were still not met.
“The Maidan has been standing for 53 days, but they [the authorities] don’t hear the Maidan and the voices of the Ukrainian people. If they don’t hear us, then they have to feel us, not only the voices, but also the strength, the strength of spirit, the strength of energy of Ukrainian patriots,” he said.
Tiahnybok also noted that people involved in protests on Independence Square would stand until the victory: “We began to fight against this regime, and we won’t retreat until we win.”
Batkivschyna MP Iryna Lutsenko, the wife of former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko who was beaten by Berkut police officers and hospitalized, also delivered a speech from the stage.
