Ukrainian veterans of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster clean-up demonstrated around the country on Wednesday against cuts to their benefits, the latest in a string of protests.
In the eastern industrial city of Donetsk, a stronghold of President Victor Yanukovych, some 80 Chernobyl "liquidators" said they were going on a hunger strike in two dozen tents pitched outside the pension fund building.
In the capital Kiev, several hundred Chernobyl veterans staged a demonstration, while in the western city of Lviv, dozens entered the pension fund building.
Wednesday's protests marked the latest in a series of demonstrations against the austerity measures.
Hundreds of Chernobyl "liquidators" tried to storm parliament in Kiev in outrage at the benefit cuts on September 20 and then again on November 1.
In September, Ukrainian lawmakers gave initial approval last week to a bill cutting benefits paid to those who helped clean up the April 1986 nuclear disaster and to those who still live on the affected lands.
The measure also slashed spending for war veterans and some other groups of citizens as part of new austerity measures aimed at steering Ukraine away from the economic turmoil rocking Europe.
The Soviet Union ordered thousands of people to Ukraine following the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986, to work without protection on containing the effects of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
