A SECOND STATEMENT FROM VACLAV HAVEL to protesters in the Ukraine: “‘All respected domestic and international organisations agree that your demands are justified. Therefore I wish you strength, endurance, courage and fortunate decisions,’ Havel said in a statement from Taipei where he was travelling.”

UPDATE: More developments, including an appearance by Lech Walesa:

Deputy economy minister Oleh Hayduk resigned in protest of the fraudulent vote count in the Ukrainian election, Ukrainian News reported.

“When the European Union doesn’t recognize the election results, what kind of European integration can we talk about?” Hayduk said Nov. 25 on the Channel 5 television station.

“That’s my position as a citizen. I wrote a declaration of my resignation yesterday, and now I’m confirming it,” he said.

Hayduk, 39, has been a deputy economy minister since April 21 of this year.

The news was read to the hundreds of thousands of protestors thronging Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) on this third full day of protests against Ukraine’s Nov. 21 run-off presidential vote, which has been widely condemned as fraudulent. Solidarity leader and the first post-communist Polish president Lech Walesa also addressed the crowd, which was in high spirits as it gathered under blue skies on this clear, windless day.

Much of central Kyiv is now a solid block of protestors, most bedecked in orange, the signature color of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. A carnival atmosphere predominates.

Estimates place the crowd at up to a million.

Stay tuned.