Lyovochkin, Yanukovych’s chief of staff, resigns

One source told Interfax-Ukraine news agency that Lyovochkin quit, without elaborating. Another source confirmed to the Kyiv Post that he resigned because of disagreement with the policy of some influential groups around the president. His resignation is yet to be accepted by the president.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, citing its own anonymous source, that Lyvochkin might be replaced by Vitaliy Zakharchenko, the interior minister whose special unit attacked the crowd in the early hours of the morning.

Lyovochkin’s wife, Zinaida Ligacheva, a designer, posted on her Facebook page that “every thinking person cannot help but react when this happens in the country.”

She said she came out to Maidan to support European integration through both her civic position and her art. “After the violent breakup of Maidan, the authorities will feel a blockade and non-acceptance on every level,” she said.

Inter TV channel, co-owned by Lyovochkin, has been covering extensively pro-European demonstrations on Maidan Nezalezhnosti since their inception on Nov.21, when the government took a decision to halt preparations for signing a deal with the European Union. Some interpreted it as a sign of dissent.

Telekritika, a media watchdog, reported that a live show with opposition leaders, which was suddenly interrupted on the night of Nov.29, was renewed and went back on air after Lyovochkin’s personal intervention.

Mykhailo Pogrebynskiy, a political consultant working with the government, urged the president to dismiss his chief of staff because his TV channel conducts an “information policy that hurts” the president.