As many as 2,000 protesters in Kyiv on Aug. 28 went to the General Staff building, where Ukraine's military headquarters is located, to urge the authorities to help Donbas Battalion soldiers surrounded by separatists and Russian troops in the city of Illovaisk in Donetsk Oblast.
The demonstrators also called on the government to introduce martial law, appoint Donbas Battalion commander Semen Semenchenko as defense minister, provide volunteer battalions with heavy weaponry, as well as to fire and punish incompetent and corrupt generals. The protesters blocked a street near the General Staff building and subsequently marched to the Presidential Administration to present their demands to President Petro Poroshenko.
