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Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has vowed Ukraine would not give “an inch” of its territory to Russia, at a rally of thousands of people in Kiev in honour of 19th-century national hero Taras Shevchenko.
“This is our land. We will not give an inch of it. Russia and its president should know that,” Yatsenyuk said on Sunday after Russian forces and pro-Kremlin gunmen seized control of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in the Black Sea. It comes as clashes erupted between pro-Ukrainians and pro-Russians at Sevastopol, AFP news agency reported.
In Simferopol, hundreds gathered at a pro-Russia rally in front of a statue of Lenin. Protester Vasiliy Bulahov told said he did not think Ukraine’s government was legitimate. “We are Russian and . . . Russia and Crimea are together forever,” he said.
Trouble in the ex-Soviet state has continued as the government struggles to contain upheaval amid a standoff between Russia and the West over Crimea that shows no sign of easing. Yesterday marked 200 years since the birth of Ukraine’s national hero, the poet Taras Shevchenko, and patriotic rallies were held in Kiev and — in a show of defiance of Russia’s de facto control over Crimea — the peninsula’s key cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol. — AP
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