KIEV, October 18. /TASS/. The Opposition Bloc’s faction in Ukraine’s parliament is against any new revolutions in the country, head of the faction Yuri Boyko said on Wednesday.
"This country won’t survive a third Maidan, we are strongly against such revolutions," Boyko told the 112 Ukraine TV Channel.
Any revolution would result in a depreciation of the national currency and would make people poorer, and "given the current tensions in society, this may trigger the country’s breakup," he cautioned.
On Tuesday, more than 5,000 protesters from across the political spectrum gathered for a rally in front of the parliament’s building demanding, among other things, to establish an anti-corruption tribunal and to strip lawmakers of their immunity. One of the protest leaders, Georgian ex-President and former Governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Region, Mikhail Saakashvili, demanded the resignation of President Pyotr Poroshenko.
The protest turned violent as demonstrators clashed with police on Tuesday afternoon. As a result, one officer and three protesters were injured.
The protesters put up more than 40 tents on Grushevsky Street in downtown Kiev, blocking traffic, and 200 people are squatting in the tent camp. The organizers decided to resume active protests on Thursday.
Ukraine saw two series of Maidan protests, named after the square where the events took place: the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005, which helped bring to power Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-Western president, and the so-called Euromaidan rallies which began in late November 2013, culminating in the February 2014 coup d’etat.