MOSCOW — A crusading antigovernment journalist and activist in Ukraine, who became famous last year after documenting the opulence of the heavily guarded residential compound of President Viktor F. Yanukovich, was savagely beaten early Wednesday morning.
The assault on the activist, Tetyana Chornovol, 34, just outside the capital of Kiev, was the latest attack on government opponents who have been participating in sustained protests that have shaken the country.
On Tuesday evening, Dmitri Pylypets, an organizer of antigovernment protests in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, was beaten and stabbed four times while walking on the street near his apartment, local media reported. Just hours before she was ambushed, Ms. Chornovol published a blog item about a “country manor” being constructed for Ukraine’s embattled interior minister, Vitaly Zakharchenko, in the village of Pidhirtsi, near Kiev.
The assaults have occurred as protesters continue to occupy Independence Square in Kiev, where they first gathered last month in anger at Mr. Yanukovich’s decision to back away from sweeping political and free trade agreements with the European Union.
There were also ominous signs that the Ukrainian government was turning inward. The Ukrainian Security Service confirmed this week that it has blocked an unspecified number of foreigners, including several Americans, from entering the country, on suspicion that they were colluding with protest leaders and trying to destabilize Ukraine.
more: theNewYorkTimes
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