(Newswire.net — July 22, 2015) — Up to 6,000 supporters of Ukraine’s ultranationalist Right Sector movement, known for its Nazi symbols, gathered in central Kiev on Tuesday, Russia Today reported.
Led by the right wing extremist Dmitry Yarosh, the protesters called on authorities to resign. Yarosh announced at Kiev’s Maidan (independence) Square that the rally marks a “new stage of Ukrainian revolution.”
Protesters in military camouflage uniforms, were chanting “death to enemies,“ waving the red and black flags of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), news agency TASS reported.
The group is “showing that we are a disciplined revolutionary force,” opening a “new stage of Ukrainian revolution” Yarosh said Tuesday at the peaceful rally.
UPA leader Yarosh announced plans to initiate a vote for the resignation of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, while the “right sector will act as revolutionary committees.”
“People must voice their attitude to what’s happening in the country … the government should know that if the people are not pleased with it, then it must go,” Yarosh said, as quoted by TASS.
According to Yarosh, if the right to organize referendum is denied to his movement, then they “will vote independently on the whole territory of Ukraine,” which suggests that right militant movement is not under Kiev’s control.
Reportedly, rally was not attended only by nationalists, according to RT News ordinary people were seen joining the demonstrators, protesting the poor living standards in the country.
“Ukraine is in an absolutely terrible state at the moment, the economic situation is much worse than it was two years ago under Yanukovich,” journalist and broadcaster from London Neil Clark told RT. “It’s quite predictable” that people have taken to the streets, he added.
According to Clark, the situation is going to get worse in the future, because ordinary people are beginning to understand that there are motives other than patriotic ones that pushed the country in the state of the civil war. Clark added that ultranationalists might contribute to destabilizing the situation further, after President Poroshenko is now “attacking the very people who helped bring him to power.”
More people are gathering around the idea of impeaching President Poroshenko. More than 2000 people protested Sunday demanding reforms. Among banners which call on Poroshenko and his government to resign, there were ones demanding reforms and read “we are dying of hunger.”
A similar rally happened in the city of Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine, where dozens of demonstrators, mainly people of older age, blocked one of the roads in the city, demanding the resignation of President Poroshenko.