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Mayor of Kharkov fails to persuade crowd to unblock regional government building

KHARKOV, February 24 (Itar-Tass) - The Mayor of Kharkov, Gennady Kernes, arrived in the city’s Independence Square on Sunday evening, where thousands of supporters and opponents of the current authorities were demonstrating, in an attempt to persuade the opposition protesters blocking the regional administration building to leave for home. After a brief dialogue the attempt failed.

After that Kernes had a word with his supporters standing several dozen meters away from the anti-government protesters. He said that the crowd surrounding the government building was pursuing a clear aim of destabilizing the situation. He called for avoiding an escalation of the conflict and warned against yielding to provocations.

At the same time he did not rule out that “if something begins in Kharkov, we (the authorities) will stop that.”

Kernes added he had no intention of leaving the city.

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