Ousted Ukrainian president promises to return to Kiev

Moscow, Feb 21 (IANS/TASS) Ukraine's former president Viktor Yanukovich Saturday promised to return to Kiev "as soon as it becomes possible", as thousands of his supporters gathered here for a rally to mark the anniversary of his ouster.

"If we speak about the present day, I will return as soon as it becomes possible and will do all to make the life for the Ukrainian people easier," he said, adding that "the main task at the moment is to stop warfare".

"I regret that I could not do anything," the former president told Russian television Channel One, recalling the tragic events one year ago.

"No regime is worth the losses Ukraine has suffered after the events of Feb 21-22, 2014," he said. "The country is destroyed, we see territorial losses, casualties, the destruction of whole regions."

Yanukovich said he did not want to be an outsider in Ukraine's events. "But I had no possibility to return, and I won't conceal that I was sending people to Ukraine to monitor the situation. We keep monitoring it," he added.

He said he had kept thinking about "getting back and leading the protest movement, and then assist in some way in protecting the people who had got into this situation".

"But everybody was coming to the opinion that our opponents, our enemies, they will do all to destroy me, and all my allies were categorically against my going to Ukraine," he said.

Some 35,000 of Yanukovich's supporters took part in the rally with the motto of 'We Won't Forget, We Won't Forgive', police said.

The participants marched from Petrovka Street to central Revolution Square, where a meeting was held.

Yanukovich had to leave the country after nearly 100 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers in central Kiev Feb 18-21, 2014.

--IANS/TASS

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