(AP) – Hundreds of leftists waving Russian flags rallied in Ukraine’s capital on Nov. 20 to condemn the country’s plans to celebrate last year’s Orange Revolution as an annual holiday.
The rally’s organizer, the radical Progressive Socialist Party, supports warm ties with Russia and is wary of closer relations with the West.
“There is nothing to be proud of, we sold out our country,” said Viktoriya Vasilenko, 20, as she shook wet snowflakes off her hat. President Viktor Yushchenko “is a traitor,” she said.
On Nov. 22, Ukraine holds official celebrations marking the beginning of last year’s Orange Revolution mass protests, which helped usher the pro-Western Yushchenko into power. Yushchenko said Nov. 19 that he hopes to make Nov. 22 an annual holiday called Freedom Day.
“Yushchenko out!,” shouted hundreds of protesters. Some carried portraits of Russian czars and of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Representatives of losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych handed out leaflets condemning the Freedom Day holiday plans.
Vasilenko and her grandmother, Margarita, said they came to the Nov. 20 protest because of their anger over last month’s sale of a Ukrainian steel mill to the world’s largest steel producer, Mittal Steel.
Mittal bought the Kryvorizhstal mill for 24.2 billion hryvna – about $4.8 billion or 4.02 billion euros – in an open auction that Yushchenko hailed as one of the biggest economic successes of his first year in office.
“Why should we be selling our birthright to foreigners,” the grandmother asked.
The Progressive Socialists had promised that the rally would attract some 25,000 people, but at its peak only a couple thousand gathered.
