UKRAINE-CRISIS/MAIDAIN RALLY-POROSHENKO Ukraine President pays tribute to victims of Maidan uprising on first anniversary

Record ID: 214995

  • Title: UKRAINE-CRISIS/MAIDAIN RALLY-POROSHENKO Ukraine President pays tribute to victims of Maidan uprising on first anniversary
  • Date: 21st February 2015
  • Summary: MAN CARRYING FLOWERS YOUNG WOMAN LOOKING INTO THE SKY LIGHT RAYS IN THE SKY
  • Embargoed: 8th March 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8CBQFAF6HS0W4VMKJPTQ4SQ7X
  • Story Text: Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko vowed his country would remain unified in the face of a rebellion from pro-Russian separatist fighters in the east.
    Poroshenko made the comments while addressing thousands gathered in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Friday (February 20) to mark the first anniversary of the uprising that toppled the Moscow-leaning president Viktor Yanukovich but culminated in a 10-month-old war.
    "We will be able to preserve the country only in if we preserve unity, if we avoid any internal arguments, if any fifth column will not be able to split our unity. And I am sure that this will be this way," he said.
    Flag waving demonstrators gathered to observe the anniversary at Independence Square in the heart of the capital, known locally as "the Maidan" and revered by Ukrainians as platform of a revolution that turned the country away from Russia and towards Europe.
    Earlier on Friday Kiev accused Russia of sending more tanks and troops into eastern Ukraine and said they were heading towards the rebel-held town of Novoazovsk on the southern coast, expanding their presence on what it fears could be the next battlefront.
    Russia did not immediately respond to the accusation which, if confirmed, would go further to kill off a European-brokered truce that was met by relentless rebel advances after it came into force on Sunday. Moscow has always denied accusations in the past that its forces are fighting in Ukraine.
    Kiev's biggest worry is that rebels will continue their advance to threaten Mariupol, a highly strategic port of 500,000 people that is the biggest city still under government control in the two rebellious eastern provinces. Novoazovsk, where Kiev said Russia was reinforcing, lies 40 km (25 miles) to the east along the coast near the Russian border.
    Speaking at a separate event for relatives of those killed in conflict in 2014 Poroshenko accused a top aide to Russia's Vladimir Putin of being behind the sniper killings of 100 Ukrainian protesters on the streets of Kiev during the uprising a year ago.
    Russia's Foreign Ministry called the accusation "madness".
    The mood in the square was somber late on Friday. Memorial candles were glowing in the growing dusk, laid out in the shape of a giant trident, Ukraine's national emblem.
    National flags were waving above the crowd, while here and there people dressed in blue and yellow could be seen.
    Some people wore combat fatigues showing allegiance to pro-government militias that have fought alongside Kiev's troops against pro-Russian separatists. The mood was sombre.
    Western nations have held out hope they can revive a peace deal brokered by France and Germany in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Feb. 12, even though rebels have ignored it to seize Debaltseve, a town on a strategic railway hub, inflicting one of the worst defeats of the war on Kiev.
    More than 5,600 people have been killed in fighting since mid-April last year, soon after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine following Yanukovich's overthrow.
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