The brutal beating of a prominent journalist gave fresh energy to anti-government protests in Ukraine, bringing tens of thousands of demonstrators back to Kiev’s Independence Square.

Another group of protesters formed a motorcade and went 15 kilometers out of town to President Viktor Yanukoych’s Mezhygirya residence, one of the posh properties exposed by journalist Tetyana Chornovol.  She accused Yanukovych of corruption over his financing of the Mezhygirya residence in an expose.  Early on Christmas Day, a group of men in a Porsche Cayenne chased her, forced her to stop on a road, where they viciously beat her and left her in a ditch.

Vitali Klitschko, the leader of the opposition UDAR (Punch) party and world boxing champion, denounced the “corruption” of the elite in front of the crowds.

“The authorities should not think that they can hide behind fences and not hear the people. They see how many of us there are and we do not have fear,” Klitschko said.

But even though the protests are reinvigorated, it’s doubtful the Yanukovych will meet their demands to step down.  He’s already accepted the first tranche of a US$15 Billion aid package from Moscow, the very thing the protest movement was trying to stop.  And Presidential elections are not scheduled until 2015.