Some Kiev barricades come down; protesters balky
Source: AP-Excite
By LAURA MILLS and JIM HEINTZ
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) Demonstrators on the main downtown avenue of Ukraine's capital set piles of tires ablaze on Saturday to protest authorities' call to end the encampment that began six months ago. A few hundred meters away, workers in hard hats cleared debris from torn-down barricades.
The contrasting scenes on Kreshchatik Street in Kiev highlighted just one of the many uncertainties facing Ukraine. Even after the May 25 election for a president to replace the interim leader who took power amid chaos in February, many Ukrainians remain deeply suspicious of the government, and several hundred are still holding out at a vast protest camp.
Three months of protests during the winter eventually drove pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country. But the extensive protest tent camp and the barricades of wooden pallets, tires and trash that protected the camp remained even after interim president Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed.
The holdouts say they want to keep up the encampment until the new government and president-elect Petro Poroshenko carry out important reforms in a country long riddled by corruption.
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Ukrainian army paratroopers move to position in Slovyansk, Ukraine, Saturday, May 31, 2014.The Ukrainian Acting Defence Minister said on Friday that troops had ousted separatists from southern and western parts of the Donetsk region and north of the Luhansk region. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)