KYIV. Dec 3 (Interfax) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov claimed on Monday that neither he nor President Viktor Yanukovych had been aware of police plans to forcibly disperse pro-European Union demonstrations in Kyiv late on Friday and early on Saturday.
"I tell you absolutely frankly that neither the president nor the prime minister was aware of that operation," Azarov said at meeting in Kyiv with the ambassadors of EU member countries, Canada and the United States.
He said that for him the demonstrations "were of absolutely no significance."
"But there are people who solved that problem in this way. I think that if [the police] had merely ousted them - they had all the resources for that… But a standoff occurred, and something happened that both the president and I have condemned," the premier said.