Up with the European Union ANATOLY HRYTSENKO, a leading member of Batkivshchyna, a Ukrainian opposition party, was expelled from a party meeting for “participating in an information war against his own faction” on January 13th. His offence? Mr Hrytsenko had noted in a blog that there seemed to be fewer protesters camped out on Kiev’s Maidan than in previous weeks. The numbers protesting against the government have, indeed, fallen since President Viktor Yanukovych signed a series of deals with Russia instead of the European Union in mid-December. Yet, as Mr Hrytsenko also noted, the Maidan lives on: the turnout on January 12th was a respectable 50,000, according to Reuters, despite the driving rain.Not for the first time, the authorities cack-handedly gave the protesters a new reason to come out into the square. Yury Lutsenko, a former interior minister who is now an opposition leader, ended up in intensive care after riot police beat him round the head during the night of January 10th. He was among a dozen people who were injured in clashes between police and protesters after a court had sentenced three nationalists to six years in…
