Last night the crowd, headed by Yuschenko and the firebrand female head of his campaign, Yulia Timoshenko, made their way to the Administration of the President building. This was around 9 or 10. There were reported to be tens of thousands but a hundred thousand is not unlikely.
When they got to the building, troops in riot gear stood in front of the building, it looked like twenty deep that I could see from the TV picture. Some people from the crowd put flowers on the shields of the troops.
They, of course, did not get in. (There were rumors passed on on the radio that Yuschenko got in. I don’t think that happened. There is no news of it this morning.) They made demands of the government and then asked for volunteers to put up tents and stay the night. Around thirty of them were put up.
The video shown on TV last night was interesting. The camera was on a couple of the troops in the front line and after a few seconds, the trooper on the right, put his shield up to cover his face. That was an odd thing to do because his face could not be seen all that well on screen. It could be argued that he simply did not want his picture to be taken. That is possible. But I think it was more than that. I think it was some evidence of a bit of guilt for being there.
This, though a little thing, might be evidence of good things for the protestors and for the people of Ukraine. We will have to wait and see.
There were no clashes from this at all. That is remarkable. It could have easily happened with all the people and with skittish troops. But nothing did happen.
UPDATE: More on this from Yuschenko's website here.
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