President Viktor Yanukovych remained defiant on Saturday despite the Ukrainian parliament declaring him constitutionally unable to carry out his duties and setting an early election for May 25.<br /><br />Yanukovych likened the opposition to Nazis who were staging a coup d’etat.<br /><br />He said: “I am absolutely confident that this is an example – which our country and the whole world has seen – an example of a coup d’etat.”<br /><br />“I’m not going to resign. I’m a legitimately-elected president. I remain in Ukraine. I will continue to call on all international observers, all mediators who took part in this political conflict so they can stop gangsters. They are not the opposition, they are gangsters.”<br /><br />‘‘We are witnessing the return of the Nazis, the time when in the 1930s the Nazis came to power in Germany and Austria. It is the same now.” he added.<br /><br />Leaders of mainly Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine gathered in Kharkiv to challenge the legitimacy of the national parliament.<br /><br />They also said they would take control of their territories in a move that appears to increase the possibility of a split in the former Soviet republic.<br /><br />Mykhailo Dobkin, head of Kharkiv Regional State Administration said: “Our task is to, without aggressive rhetoric and without allowing those who call us separatists to celebrate, to make a number of necessary decisions on how we can involve local governments, to prevent bloodshed and destruction.”<br /><br />Reports emerged soon after his speech at the convention that Dobkin and Kharkiv Mayor Hennadiy Kernes have now fled Ukraine with Russia being the most likely destination.
