Protesters Burn Portraits of Ukraine Leader

Thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of President Leonid D. Kuchma over a scandal involving a missing journalist burned portraits of the leader Tuesday and chanted for a “Ukraine without Kuchma.”

Many of the approximately 5,000 demonstrators had marched to Kiev, the capital, from provincial towns and carried banners inscribed with their hometowns along with huge pictures of the president with his face crossed out.

Watched by police, the protesters gathered at a tent camp and then made their way through snowy streets to the parliament building, chanting all the way.

The protest followed the scandal over accusations that Kuchma played a role in the disappearance of Georgi Gongadze, an Internet journalist who criticized alleged high-level corruption. Gongadze disappeared in September, and authorities say a headless body found in woods outside Kiev is probably his.

Kuchma has fiercely denied he issued orders to silence the journalist.