Kiev: Anti-government protesters in Kiev readied for a new, mass demonstration today, amid expectations that the capital`s occupied city hall could soon be vacated in what would be a highly symbolic move.
The protest on Kiev`s central Independence Square is the 11th since demonstrators first rose up against President Viktor Yanukovych in November when he rejected a key EU pact in favour of closer ties with Russia.
And while the opposition had promised to prepare a mysterious "peaceful offensive" at the rally, both protesters and authorities have since made concessions in a bid to ease tensions.
On Friday, authorities announced they had freed all 234 protesters detained in the movement, adding that charges against them would also be dropped if conditions of a recent amnesty law were met.
Yanukovych approved the law at the beginning of February after protests in Kiev turned deadly, shocking the country and prompting the shaken president to start negotiating with the opposition.
The evacuation of city hall is one of the conditions set by the law, which stipulates all detained protesters will be freed if some occupied parts of the Ukrainian capital are vacated.
In another concession yesterday -- this time by the opposition -- the number two of the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party that controls the occupied city hall said protesters stood "ready" to evacuate, and could do so rapidly if the green light was given.
Demonstrators stormed city hall, on the main Khreshchatyk avenue in central Kiev, on December 1 following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators the previous night.
The building has since become the "headquarters of the revolution" and houses 600 to 700 protesters who sleep there to escape the cold and also gather for meetings, English lessons and other activities.
They have decorated the walls with scores of their own photos and satirical pictures, but the occupation is otherwise clean and orderly, with volunteers working in the kitchen, doling out medicine at a makeshift pharmacy or seeing patients.
