This gesture rejecting Moscow's historic influence over Ukraine came after opposition leaders told hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square to keep up pressure on Yanukovich to sack his government, Reuters says
The protesters are furious that the government decided last month to ditch a landmark pact with the European Union in favour of closer economic cooperation with Moscow, Ukraine's Soviet-era overlord.
Yanukovich's sudden tack towards Russia has provoked the biggest street protests since the 2004-5 Orange Revolution, when people power forced a re-run of a fraud-tainted election and thwarted his first run for the presidency.
"Yanukovich, you are next!" read a poster stuck on the plinth where the red granite statue of Lenin had stood. People hacked off chunks of the prostrate – and now headless – leader of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution to take home as souvenirs.
