Viktor Yanukovych takes sick leave as Kiev protests continue

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych has taken sick leave amid violent protests in the country.

The presidential website said 63-year-old Viktor Yanukovych had a respiratory illness and a high fever.

The protests began in November after Viktor Yanukovych reversed a decision to sign a trade deal with the European Union, instead favoring a bailout deal with Russia to underpin Ukraine’s ailing economy.

Anti-government protesters demanding the president’s resignation are still occupying government buildings and manning barricades in freezing temperatures in the centre of the capital.

The past week has seen President Yanukovych accept the resignation of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and his cabinet, and offer senior jobs to the opposition – offers that were rejected.

Ukraine’s parliament has also voted to annul a recently enacted law restricting protests – which appeared to be inflaming the situation – and passed a law giving amnesty to detained protesters, under the condition that occupied buildings were vacated.

Some opposition figures expressed skepticism about Viktor Yanukovych’s reported illness, saying he might be trying to buy time after being forced into concessions in an attempt to calm unrest on the streets.

“This smacks of a diplomatic illness,” Rostislav Pavlenko, a member of boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko’s Udar (Punch) party, told Reuters news agency.

“It allows Yanukovych not to sign laws, not to meet the opposition, absent himself from decisions to solve the political crisis.”

Mykhailo Chechetov, from Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, said the president had told supporters in parliament on Wednesday night that he had come to support the passage of the amnesty bill directly from hospital.

“He looked ill,” Mykhailo Chechetov added.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is in Kiev for talks with both sides. On Wednesday she said she was “shocked” by the violence in the capital and across the country in recent weeks that has left several protesters and police officers dead.