Removal of riot police boost for protesters

The withdrawal of riot police from two areas in Ukraine’s capital is raising opposition hopes that three weeks of escalating protests have begun to erode police support for President Viktor Yanukovych and his government.

Yuri Lutsenko, a former interior minister who is now an opposition leader, declared that the police retreat shows that “basically only some units remain at the service of the regime.”

“This is a great victory,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the largest opposition party in parliament, said from the stage at Kiev’s central Independence Square, where protesters have set up an extensive protest tent camp manned around the clock.