Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will leave behind huge anti-government rallies today to hold a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin that protesters fear will lead to a pro-Moscow deal ruining their EU integration dreams.
The high-stakes Kremlin meeting comes two days after the European Union suspended partnership talks with Ukraine for a pact that had been aimed at pulling the ex-Soviet country out of Russia's orbit for the first time.
Brussels officials cited Yanukovych's continued courtship of Russia for their decision and demanded a firmer commitment to EU standards on political freedoms and economic reforms.
"If there's a clear message from Kiev, we are ready to sign (a partnership deal) tomorrow," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said last day.
But Yanukovych will instead be hoping to win a multi-billion-dollar loan from Russia that his critics view as Putin's reward for Kiev's U-turn on the EU pact.
"I have the feeling Yanukovych does not hear the people and does not hear the European Union and all the attention the European Union pays us," said a 32-year-old builder named Bogdan Baran as he braved freezing temperatures along with thousands of other protesters on Kiev's iconic Independence Square.
Yanukovych's abrupt decision last month to spurn the EU Association Agreement with Brussels sparked the fiercest anti-government rallies since the 2004 Orange Revolution that first nudged Ukraine on a westward path.
But it has also exposed the ancient cultural fault lines that run in the nation of 46 million between the nationalist and Ukrainian-speaking west of the country and the more Russified east aligned with Moscow.
The Ukrainian government has attempted to organise counter-rallies in Kiev by bussing in thousands of people from eastern regions where Yanukovych enjoys broader support.
But those demonstrations have been dwarfed by the pro-EU protest -- a festive gathering that runs around the clock and features rock concerts on the same square that was at the heart of the 2004 pro-democracy revolt.
Events in recent days suggest Yanukovych is cracking under the pressure and looking for a way out of the deepest political crisis of his nearly four-year rule.
