National strike starts in Ukraine (updated)

Head of the central headquarters of Batkivshchyna Alexander Turchinov announced it. “We will be struggling until they (the government and the President – Euroradio) resign,” he said. According to Turchinov, national resistance headquarters have been created in all the provinces. “The authorities are planning provocations but they will fail,” Radio Liberty quotes him.

As of 8 a.m. today, a column of 5 or 6 thousand people has blocked the building of the Ukrainian Cabinet and the National Bank. The opposition demands early presidential and parliamentary elections.

Mass protest actions started in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities after the Ukrainian government had refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. Special forces Berkut dispersed European Maidan on the night of November 30 – it was an indefinite meeting of European integration adherents.

Clashes continued on Sunday. Protesters won back Maidan Nezalezhnosti from the police on December 1. A column of many thousand people headed by opposition leaders Arseni Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klichko and Oleg Tsegnibok came there from Shevchenko Park. The police retreated hastily. European politicians also joined the action– vice President of the European Parliament Jacek Protasiewicz, ex-chairperson of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek and Polish ex-PM Jarosław Kociński. Hundreds of thousands people gathered there.