UKRAINIAN LEADERS LAY FLOWERS TO MONUMENT TO TARAS SHEVCHENKO








KIEV, March 9. /From RIA Novosti correspondent Viktor Demidenko/. Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko, respective President and Prime Minister of Ukraine, laid, Friday, flowers at the monument to famed Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.


	On the day of the poet's 187th birth anniversary, the approaches to the monument were cordoned off by reinforced police details.


	Those engaged in the "Ukraine Without Kuchma" protest action attempted to prevent the country's top functionaries from paying tribute to the poet but failed thanks to the police's counteraction.


	Three protesters were arrested and taken to a Kiev police office following a clash.


	Protests against the Kuchma regime will be gaining momentum, Taras Chernovil, Ukrainian people's deputy, told reporters. "We are determined to make president Leonid Kuchma, interior minister Yury Kravchenko and prosecutor general Mikhail Potebenko step down", the deputy said.


	Protesters, people from all over Ukraine, keep arriving at the place of the monument to Taras Shevchenko.


	After laying the flowers the president left for the Carpathian region, western Ukraine, currently in dire straits following recent heavy floods.