KIEV, April 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Several hundreds of people have assembled Sunday on the central square in the eastern Ukrainian major city of Kharkov with a demand to hold a referendum on federalisation of Ukraine. Local media reported that women from the so-called women’s movement of Kharkov are participating in the rally, prepared to go to the eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk to support people’s militia.

Meanwhile, protesters said they were in solidarity with other south-eastern regions of Ukraine which also came out against current Kiev authorities.

Lenin Square where the rally goes on is blocked almost completely, but the central Sumskaya Street passing through the square is opened for traffic.

Demonstrators said that they plan to stage a multi-thousand protest action against current Kiev authorities on May 1.

Meanwhile, around three thousand people are participating in a rally on Lenin Square in the centre of another big eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, local media reported on Sunday.

The action began with a minute of silence in commemoration of Berkut police commandoes who perished in the clashes between law enforcers and radicals on Independence Square in central Kiev and in memory of activists who were killed by Right Sector radical ultranationalists on the Easter night at a checkpoint near another eastern Ukrainian city of Slavyansk.

Protesters demand a referendum on federalisation, chanting slogans “No to bloody Kiev junta!” and “Stop the occupation of Donbas [a large Ukrainian coalmining region]!”

Activists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic who fenced off the square ensure law and order at the rally.