Ukraine leader returns to crisis over ditched EU pact

Kiev (AFP) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was to return to Kiev from a China trip on Friday, to a country embroiled in its worst political crisis in a decade over his government's refusal to sign a pact for closer links to the EU.

During his three-day absence, pro-EU demonstrators have dug in, keeping up a blockade of top government buildings and occupying a central Kiev square, while US and EU officials have voiced support for their struggle.

At the same time, Russia -- which wants to draw Ukraine into a customs union for ex-Soviet states -- has hardened its tone, denouncing Western "hysteria" over the issue.

Verbal sparring intensified Thursday in Kiev, during a meeting there of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"We urge the Ukrainian government to listen to the voices of its people who want to live in freedom," US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said.

"This is Ukraine's moment: to meet the aspirations of the people, or to disappoint them and risk descending into chaos and violence."

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sought to portray the crisis as overblown.

"This situation is linked to the hysterics that certain Europeans went into over the fact that Ukraine, using its sovereign right, decided at this stage not to sign certain agreements that Ukrainian experts and authorities found disadvantageous," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in Kiev.

There was some suggestion Yanukovych could visit Moscow on his way back from China. His prime minister, Mykola Azarov, said last weekend such a stopover would happen "without a question".

But late Thursday neither Yanukovych's office nor Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman confirmed that would happen.

Yanukovych himself only issued a statement after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and signing $8 billion worth of bilateral deals that the two discussed "stepping up our strategic partnership."

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, while attending the Kiev OSCE meeting, made a thinly veiled jab at Russia, which had threatened Ukraine with retaliation if it signed the EU deal.

"The threats and the use of economic pressure which we have seen over the last year are simply unacceptable," he said.

Addressing the OSCE meeting, Ukraine's prime minister said the government was "ready for dialogue" with its opponents.

But Azarov stressed that EU leaders should discuss the agreements with the authorities, not the opposition.

"Nazis, extremists and criminals cannot be partners in Euro integration," he told Westerwelle.

Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko meanwhile called on the West to impose sanctions against Yanukovych and his family.

"Targeted sanctions against him and his family are the only language he understands," the former prime minister, who has launched a hunger strike in solidarity with the protesters, was quoted as saying by her lawyer.

The demonstrations are the biggest in Ukraine since the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution.

In Kiev, protesters have taken control of the iconic Independence Square and hoisted the flag of the EU and the red-and-black banner of the wartime anti-Communist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) over the city hall.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who cancelled his visit to Ukraine for the OSCE meeting, made a highly symbolic visit to neighbouring Moldova, which last month initialled the so-called Association Agreement with the European Union.

Nuland in Kiev met the coalition of opposition leaders heading the demonstrators: nationalist Oleg Tyagnybok, politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk and world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko who heads the UDAR (Punch) party.

They have demanded the resignation of the government and snap presidential elections.

"We are calling on the leadership of the EU and the US to decisively condemn the violent actions of Yanukovich's regime," Klitschko was quoted as saying by his press service.

"We are also asking them to refrain from official contacts and to apply personal sanctions against those who gave the illegal orders to use force against peaceful demonstrators."

Ukraine's former presidents Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday united in an unusual call of support for the protesters.

Yushchenko, who was elected as a result of the "Orange" revolt, and Kravchuk have always backed the opposition and are staunch supporters of closer ties with the EU bloc.

But the involvement of Kuchma, president from 1994-2005, may be crucial given his close ties to Ukraine's powerful oligarchs and continued political influence.