Ukrainian Protest Leader: 'We Demand The Resignation Of The President

Our Nov. 4 hour on the burst of protests in Ukraine covered a lot of territory, but we were lucky to get a hold of Alisa Ruban, a protest organizer in Kiev, Ukraine's capital city. She's also the International Secretary for the Democratic Alliance, a main opposition party in the Ukrainian parliament. She told us that the protests are continuing, and their main goal now is for President Victor Yanokovich to resign.

"The protests are still on and will continue indefinitely.

Actually, when we first came out to the streets on the 21^st of November, our main goal was to support the European choice of Ukrainian citizens. when our government adopted the decision to stoop negotiations with the EU.

But after Yanokovich didn’t sign the agreement, and after the police used brutal force against peaceful protesters, against students, against journalists, now we are standing not only for the European choice but standing for the future, for Ukraine, because we are alive. If we will leave the streets now, if we would just go home and just take this situation. probably it will be like the death of democracy and actually we don’t really see our future in this country anymore."

Ruban said the protesters demands have changed, but their main aim is for closer integration with the European Union.

"What do we want? We want the signature of the association agreement with the EU. We want the European way of development for our country, which means European values, which means a fight against corruption which is everywhere in our country, which needs the dues of European, not the customs union with Russia.

When the government adopts some decision they think about things that can help personally to themselves not to the country or the people so I think there are some personal reasons for Mr. Yanokovich to be closer to Russia, not to the EU."

I believe yes that now, the main goal of these protests is the resignation of Yanokovich.

I hope his advisers and people who tell him are listening. But now we understand it’s not only about choice of foreign policy, the choice of our future is that first of all, we need to change this situation, we need to change the authorities. And with the new people in power, we can move closer to Europe, or whatever we chose. But now we need the resignation of Yanokovich."

What do you make of the Ukrainian protests? Do you understand their calls for European integration? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook and @OnPointRadio.