Hundreds of people came by car with demands for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outside Kyiv’s Feofaniya Clinical Hospital, where he’s undergoing treatment after testing positive for COVID-19.
The protest took place on Nov. 21, marking the 7th anniversary of the EuroMaidan Revolution. The rally started at Kyiv’s central Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the main venue of the revolution.
Besides regular citizens and war veterans, the rally was attended by the members of the Capitulation Resistance Movement of servicepersons, volunteers, diplomats and scientists. According to the Hromadske news website, there were also representatives of political parties: the pro-European and liberal Demokratychna Sokyra, nationalistic Svoboda and far-right National Corps.
Most of the protester’s demands were expressions of displeasure with the stalled anti-corruption drive in Ukraine, further damaged by the Constitutional Court’s decision to dismantle the online asset declaration system for state officials. The decision eliminated a crucial pillar of the country’s anti-corruption system and took away the tools from Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies. So the protesters demanded that Zelensky and the government return powers to the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).
The activists also demanded complete judicial reform and greater progress in overhauling the Security Service of Ukraine, the powerful law enforcement agencies with 40,000 people.
The protesters called on Zelensky to liquidate the Kyiv District Administrative Court that ordered the dismissal of Artem Sytnyk, head of the NABU. The Kyiv District Administrative Court is headed by discredited Judge Pavlo Vovk, a suspect in a high-profile NABU case.
At the same time, the rally’s attendees demanded that the president withdraw his bill on restarting the Constitutional Court and the bill on democracy through a referendum. They also opposed Zelensky’s Election Day opinion poll, demanding to punish its organizers because it “created an unlawful political advantage in the election for the ruling party.”
The protesters also called on Zelensky to release Andriy Antonenko, a former serviceman suspected of organizing the 2016 murder of Ukrainian-Belorussian journalist Pavel Sheremet. The case against Antonenko has been criticized as weak. The protesters demanded that Zelensky stop persecution and fire law enforcement officers involved.
Another set of demands concerned Ukraine’s participation in the Trilateral Contact Group negotiations on resolving the war in the Donbas region that Russia started in 2014 with its invasion of Crimea and later eastern Ukraine. The protesters demanded that Ukraine recalls the controversial plan to enter into direct negotiations with Russian-led militants and prohibits the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the contact line.
Lastly, the protesters criticized the “incompetence” of the authorities in the fight against the coronavirus. They demanded the resignation of the entire government and an investigation into the distribution of money from Ukraine’s COVID-19 fund.
Zelensky announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 9, followed by his chief of staff Andriy Yermak. They are among numerous top officials and members of parliament to have become infected. Both have had mild symptoms of the disease and are being treated in separate rooms at Kyiv’s Feofaniya Clinical Hospital, designated to treat Ukrainian officials.
EuroMaidan Revolution was a nationwide uprising that ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014. It started as a small student rally on Nov. 21, 2013 on Maidan Nezalezhnosti.
For more about the revolution, read the Kyiv Post’s e-book, “Witness to Revolution” or read our coverage under the hot topic EuroMaidan Revolution.
