Ukrainians protest gov't abandoning EU free trade agreement over Russian pressure

The truce has not held.

At least 17 corpses lie in the lobby of the Hotel Ukraine in Kiev, where all the foreign journalists are housed.

President Yanukovych is in a meeting with EU foreign ministers.

There is video footage which appears to show government snipers firing on protesters and bodies have shown up with single gunshot wounds consistent with sniper fire.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26268620

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26299670

President Yanukovych, all members of his administration, and the police have abandoned the Presidential complex in Kiev, which has been left empty for the protesters to enter.

Speaker of Parliament Volodymyr Robak resigned this morning. Oleksander Tyrkynov, a close ally of former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed years ago under peculiar circumstances, was rapidly elected speaker.

Yanukovych is said to be in Kharkiv in the far east of Ukraine, close to the Russian border, but there is no confirmation of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26302572

Yanukovych's house and estate outside of Kiev also appear to have been abandoned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26304842

The Ukrainian parliament has voted 387-1 to restore the Ukrainian Constitutional amendments of 2004, which were passed during the Orange Revolution in light of memories of Soviet-influenced despotism and which limited Ukrainian Presidential powers.

(In a highly controversial move in 2010, the Constitutional Court, under severe pressure from President Yanukovych (four judges resigned) nullified the 2004 amendments to the constitution.)

Yanukovych has released a prerecorded statement declaring the actions of the parliament "illegitimate." He said he will not resign and compared the protesters to Nazis.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26306511

The Ukrainian parliament has voted to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail. It is widely believed that she was falsely imprisoned for purely political reasons by Yanukovych under direction from Russia.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26304842

Yulia Tymoshenko has been released from the hospital in Kharkiv where she was held and is in Kiev.

The Ukrainian parliament has voted to oust Yanukovych and hold elections on May 25th. Yanukovych released a statement calling this a "coup."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26302572

Ms. Tymoshenko is in a wheelchair from having chronic back troubles and chronic pain while in prison.

Reportedly a precipitating act of this current crisis was the Ukrainian parliament voting against allowing Ms. Tymoshenko to travel to Germany for medical treatment last November.

One condition of the EU trade agreement that had been carefully hammered out over previous months and years was that Ms. Tymoshenko be allowed medical treatment for her pain.

The Ukrainian government reneged on that and everything fell apart.

I have been trying to be relatively objective in this thread, but I must say it looks like the Yanukovych administration has demonstrated a firm commitment to petty cruelty, blatant and capricious selfishness, and brutal sadism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26312008

The Ukrainian parliament has appointed speaker Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president until the elections are held May 25th.

The whereabouts of dismissed President Viktor Yanukovych are unknown.

Yanukovych is said to have support in Russian-influenced areas of Ukraine in the east and south.

It is reported that many of the demonstrators have expressed mistrust of all the political class, so it is unclear what will happen.

Russia's government has announced it is suspending its financial bailout of the Ukrainian economy.

It suggests Ukraine turn to the International Monetary Fund for aid.

The Ukrainian economy has been teetering on the edge of default for some long while.

The US has warned Russia to keep Russian troops out of Ukraine.

Russia has a lease on the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula, which is its only deep water port with access to the Mediterranean. Apparently there is deep resentment in Russia about this and a feeling that Crimea should be a part of Russia again. Meanwhile there is resentment in Ukraine about the massive Russian naval presence in Sevastopol.

And it looks like the White House is taking seriously the possibility that Russia is considering taking advantage of the instability in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, by the way, there is a fraught history between Ukraine and Russia, including a lot of Ukrainian unhappiness about Chernobyl (which is in Ukraine), mass starvation caused by Soviet Russia in decades past, and historical attempts by Russia to eliminate the Ukrainian language and culture in favor of the Russian language and culture.

The Crimea is problematic because, while it was historically Russian, it was transferred to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, and went with it into independence in 1991. Many Russians still resent this, and over half of them surveyed consider the Crimea to be a part of Russia.

Crimea has many ethnic Russians who are loyal to Russia and are agitating for some kind of alliance. However, it also has many ethnic Muslim Tartars who have no love for Russia and no interest in joining it, particularly after Stalin tried to eliminate them from their historic lands.

It could become a big mess.

Russia has recalled its ambassador to Ukraine.

Mikhail Zurabov has been called back to Moscow for consultation.

Interim Ukrainian president Olexander Turchynov has said that Ukraine will focus on closer integration with the EU.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the protesters' use of violence and condemned that they had not stuck with the agreement made with Yanukovych last week.

The New York Times has a page one analysis of what happened this week:

As His Grip on Ukraine Failed, A President Clung to Illusions (by Andrew Higgins, Andrew E. Kramer, and Steven Erlanger)

Here's a quick run-down.

Monday, February 17th
Russia announced a new bailout aid package to the Ukrainian government. (This has since been yanked.)

President Yanukovych fired Col. Gen. Volodymyr Zamana, the armed forces chief of staff who was reportedly not sanguine about the military shooting Ukrainian civilians.

Tuesday, February 18th
Yanukovych ordered riot police to destroy the encampment of protesters who have been occupying the center of Kiev since the EU agreement fell apart last November.

That's when the number of protester deaths shot up into the dozens.

The square was set on fire and the situation looked very bad.

Squads of riot police overpowered the outer ring of defenses protesters had set up and advanced to within 25 yards of a stage in the center of the square, called the Maidan.

Running out of options, the protesters mounted a final, desperate defense, a so-called ring of fire stoked with tires, firewood and even their own sleeping bags and pads.

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Wednesday, February 19th
But by Early Wednesday protesters had quietly seized a garrison of the hated Interior Ministry in the western city of Lviv and were heading towards Kiev with captured military weapons.

The protesters in Maidan Square in Kiev knew this and decided to hold the square as long as possible in hope of reinforcements.

Andrei Levus, the deputy head of the Maidan protesters, started quiet talks with an unnamed Ukrainian government official.

Thursday, February 20th
Early the next morning some protesters on the barricades reported they saw police officers leaving their positions. Other protesters started shooting and the police lines basically disintegrated.

Around midday Mr. Levus and the anonymous government official agreed to a cease-fire to allow the police to leave the city.

Parliament voted at 3 PM to support the protester's demand that the police leave.

Meanwhile Yanukovych was meeting with German, Polish, and French diplomats as the West began exerting more pressure for a peaceful solution. Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, reports that Yanukovych denied all responsibility for the crisis and refused to even consider stepping down. But after a private phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin with unknown content Yanukovych agreed to resign next December and hold an early election.

Friday, February 21st
On the morning of Friday the 21st the Ukrainian Parliament voted to dismiss Vitaly Zakharchenko, Yanukovych's interior minister, for using violence against the protesters.

Protesters and the police commanders held talks about how to allow the police out of Kiev.

President Yanukovych signed the agreement to step down in December and the European diplomats began to disperse.

But when the protesters in Maidan Square heard the details of the agreement, they demanded Yanukovych's immediate resignation.

Smewhere in here Yanukovych vanished, probably heading towards Russian-friendly eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine.

Saturday, February 22nd
As the protesters advanced towards the government headquarters in the predawn Saturday hours, they found them empty and unguarded. Yanukovych's luxurious estates were deserted. The police were gone, as was Yanukovych.

Yanukovych released a prerecorded video on Saturday. He decried the protesters, called the parliament illegitemate, insisted that he would stay in power, and complained that paying attention to Kiev had prevented him from attending a Soviet-style congress in Kharkiv.

Yanukovych has not been reported seen since.

Xelebes said:

Correction: Khrushchev was not Ukrainian. His family is from the Kursk Oblast and moved into the Donbas with other Russians when that region's coal industry was developing.

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Thank you. Fixed.