Ukraine’s president open to early vote, Polish leader says; scores reported killed in clashes
Ukraine’s president open to early vote, Polish leader says; scores reported killed in clashes
(about 3 hours later)
The Post's Will Englund gives a first-person account of what it's like on the ground for protesters and citizens in Kiev. (The Washington Post)
The Post's Will Englund gives a first-person account of what it's like on the ground for protesters and citizens in Kiev. (The Washington Post)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has told European foreign ministers that he is open to early presidential and parliamentary elections as a way of resolving Ukraine’s deepening and increasingly violent crisis, the Polish prime minister said Thursday evening in Warsaw, according to news services.
KIEV, Ukraine — As the bloodiest day in Ukraine’s long-running crisis drew to a close with protesters unbowed, President Viktor Yanukovych told European foreign ministers Thursday he would be open to early elections if that would restore peace.
Yanukovych met with the top diplomats of Poland, France and Germany for four hours in the afternoon, after which his visitors left to confer with opposition leaders.
One of those ministers tweeted that the mood in the presidential offices when he arrived, with detonations occurring nearby and black smoke swirling in the air outside, was “panicky.”
Radislaw Sikorski, of Poland, tweeted that they went to “test a proposed agreement” with the heads of the three main political parties opposing Yanukovych. Afterward, as it grew late, the three returned to the presidential offices and met with Yanukovych again.
With an official death toll for the day of 75 and several dozen Interior Ministry troops captured by protesters after Wednesday night’s truce lasted only a few hours, shocked members of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions began deserting him during a hastily called extraordinary session of parliament. They joined with others in passing a resolution calling on the police to pull back and not to use firearms.
Sikorski tweeted that the mood in Yanukovych’s executive office building when they arrived for the initial meeting was “panicky,” with detonations nearby and black smoke swirling outside. He said they moved their meeting to another building.
A bigger desertion may be taking place in Moscow. President Vladimir Putin, who has steadfastly tried to bind Ukraine and Yanukovych to Russia with economic ties, talked with European leaders about the need to work with them and the United States to find a resolution to Ukraine’s unraveling.
[Watch live video from Kiev.]
This was an abrupt change in tone from the fault-finding that has characterized Russian and Western dialogues on Ukraine. If Putin follows up — which is not at all certain — it would spell tremendous difficulty for Yanukovych.
He has not released details of the proposed agreement, but it was clearly what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in Warsaw, was referring to. The three foreign ministers decided to spend the night in Kiev to continue their talks.
There was no triumphalism on the Maidan, as Independence Square — the protest movement’s epicenter — is called. Rather, there was deep dismay over the bloodshed. Hotel lobbies were turned into emergency rooms and morgues. Soot-stained, exhausted protesters tended to the wounded, said farewell to the dead, assiduously dug up more paving stones for use as missiles and showed no signs of debilitating fear.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s parliament, in a vote that will be challenged on grounds that a proper quorum hadn’t been achieved, approved a resolution Thursday night to pull back Interior Ministry troops and stop the use of force against protesters.
Medics said it was clear that a number of those killed had been targeted by snipers. At least two were over age 50, according to a partial list of victims. Videos showed police using automatic weapons, and at least one protester was photographed aiming a rifle. Molotov cocktails were employed, as they have been previously.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and later with President Obama, about the situation in Ukraine, and the three agreed that they would explore taking joint action, according to reports from Berlin and Moscow. Putin also spoke with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
At one tent on the Maidan, volunteers had collected hundreds of bottles, as if on a recycling drive. But they were to be filled with gasoline for use as weapons.
The Ukrainian crisis erupted after Yanukovych spurned a deal with the European Union and turned to Putin for help instead. Russian and Western officials have staked out sharply opposing positions on who is responsible for the violence in Ukraine — but it appears that all sides have started to recognize a danger in its continuing.
“A horrible tragedy has been happening on the streets in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine,” Valeria Lutkovska, human rights commissioner of the Ukrainian parliament, said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
Fierce fighting broke out in the capital early Thursday, shattering a truce declared hours earlier and leaving scores of people dead.
Russian analysts said Thursday that the Ukrainian president has shown he cannot defeat the opposition and that the past two days of street fighting, coupled with defiance throughout western Ukraine, have exposed his weakness. If that thinking now extends to the Kremlin, Putin might try to cut the best deal he can.
A top human rights official said that at least 50 people were killed in the clashes that erupted Thursday morning in the streets around Kiev’s Independence Square. Other estimates of the death toll were considerably higher.
The Kremlin also announced that Putin was sending the well-regarded presidential ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, to Ukraine to offer his services as a mediator.
Protesters threw molotov cocktails at police and captured dozens of them, parading them to a makeshift detention center with their hands held high. Government snipers fired at the protesters, killing or wounding hundreds, according to an opposition doctor.
An opposition political leader, Vitali Klitschko, said he wouldn’t trust Yanukovych to arrange early elections until the president actually does so.
“I’m dying,” tweeted volunteer medic Olesya Zhukovskaya after being shot in the neck while trying to aid fallen protesters. She was later reported to be in serious condition while undergoing an operation.
President is undermined
“A horrible tragedy has been happening on the streets in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine,” Valeria Lutkovska, human rights commissioner of the Ukrainian parliament, said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “Information that I have indicates that about 50 people have been killed as of today, but there have been reports that there are many more victims. Hundreds of people have been hospitalized.”
The resolution passed by the parliament, or Verkhovna Rada, won’t take effect without the signatures of the speaker, who was absent, and Yanukovych. But it is a significant sign of growing disenchantment within the president’s own ranks. Those who deserted him are seen as having ties to various business oligarchs who have been Yanukovych’s lukewarm allies up to now.
Oleh Musiy, coordinator for the protesters’ medical team, said at least 70 protesters were killed and more than 500 wounded in Thursday’s clashes with police, and he warned that the death toll could rise, the Associated Press reported.
[READ: Olympian leaves Sochi due to violence at home]
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which fields the country’s riot police, said three policemen were killed Thursday and 28 sustained gunshot wounds, AP reported.
The resolution is likely to be challenged on the grounds that there wasn’t a proper quorum, because many of Yanukovych’s remaining loyalists stayed away. Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador, released a video statement in which he said that members who were absent were part of the problem — not, as the saying goes, part of the solution.
In Brussels, the 28-nation European Union decided unanimously Thursday in an emergency meeting to impose sanctions against Ukrainian officials deemed responsible for the violence, including a ban on travel to E.U. countries and the freezing of foreign assets. It said the targeted officials were “those responsible for human rights violations, violence and use of excessive force,” but it did not immediately name them.
Early Friday morning, Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who unequivocally supports the protests, arranged for a busload of captured troops to be released. The crowd on the Maidan brought the bus to a halt, and Poroshenko exhorted them to let it through. Earlier, the hard-line demonstrators who took the hostages had said they would be released when the police pull back from the areas surrounding the Maidan.
The E.U. also announced a suspension of arms sales to Ukraine and called for “the formation of a new inclusive government and the creation of the conditions for democratic elections.”
The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that it had issued combat-level weapons to police officers and suggested that they had the right to use them in order to recover their captured comrades. By early Friday morning, there had been no general assault on the protesters’ position.
Lutkovska said she had visited a number of Kiev hospitals, which she said are “packed” with gunshot wound victims.
At a meeting in Brussels, European Union leaders agreed on a series of targeted sanctions against certain Ukrainian officials, one day after the United States revoked visas for 20 unidentified officials. In Washington, a White House statement on the violence in Ukraine was unusually stern.
She spoke after police and demonstrators battled each other in the latest escalation of the political crisis that has gripped Ukraine for the past three months. More than 100 people have been killed in the clashes in Kiev this week, AP said. Authorities said that as of Wednesday, 800 people had been injured and that 10 of the 26 people killed were Interior Ministry troops.
“We are outraged by the images of Ukrainian security forces firing automatic weapons on their own people,” it said. “We urge President Yanukovych to immediately withdraw his security forces from downtown Kyiv and to respect the right of peaceful protest, and we urge protesters to express themselves peacefully.”
[See dramatic photos of Ukraine’s priests in the protests]
It called on the Ukrainian military not to take part in the conflict because “the use of force will not resolve the crisis.”
The Interior Ministry said 67 of its troops were captured Thursday by demonstrators. The captives were taken to a government building occupied by the opposition, news agencies reported. On a hill south of Independence Square, the protest movement’s epicenter, also known as the Maidan, the parliament and cabinet buildings were evacuated.
It promised that the United States would “hold those responsible for violence accountable.”
Videos indicated that some protesters have sniper rifles, and police were shown firing automatic weapons.
Late in the day, Vice President Biden called Yanukovych. He condemned the violence against civilians in Kiev, according to a White House statement, and called on Yanukovych to pull back police, snipers, military and paramilitary units and irregular forces. The United States, he said, is prepared to sanction those officials responsible for the violence.
The Interior Ministry announced that it was issuing military-grade weapons to the police, while saying that they were to be used only in accordance with the law.
Foreign ministers negotiate
“We are outraged by the images of Ukrainian security forces firing automatic weapons on their own people,” the White House said Thursday. “We urge the Ukrainian military not to get involved in a conflict that can and should be resolved by political means,” it added. “The use of force will not resolve the crisis — clear steps must be taken to stop the violence and initiate meaningful dialogue that reduces tension and addresses the grievances of the Ukrainian people.” The statement vowed that the United States would “hold those responsible for violence accountable.”
Yanukovych met with the foreign ministers of Poland, France and Germany. The meeting, held away from the presidential office building, lasted four hours. Then, as Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland put it, the ministers went to “test a proposed agreement” with the heads of the three main political parties opposing Yanukovych.
The truce reached late Wednesday between Yanukovych and the three main opposition political leaders has not been formally renounced, but the fighting demonstrated how neither side appears to have control over its armed contingents.
Afterward, as the evening grew late, the three ministers returned to the presidential offices and met with Yanukovych again. They decided to spend the night in Kiev and resume their talks Friday.
As U.S. and European leaders condemned the violence and the United States said it was imposing visa sanctions on 20 Ukrainian officials, Russia condemned the opposition.
Klitschko’s UDAR party said that he and the other two main opposition leaders, Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Fatherland Party and Oleh Tiahnybok of the nationalist Svoboda party, want to join the ministers and Yanukovych in Friday’s negotiations.
The pressure on Ukraine — internal and external — has only increased, and the two sides are so far apart that reconciliation appears impossible. They are now faced with the challenge of getting the country back on track even without reconciling politically.
Word of Yanukovych’s stated willingness to consider early elections was first reported by the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, in Warsaw. He said part of the plan was the formation of a transitional government within 10 days and the adoption of a new constitution by summer. The next scheduled presidential elections would be in 2015 and the next parliamentary elections in 2017.
[See stark before-and-after images from Kiev’s Independence Square]
The morning fighting, the worst in Ukraine since World War II, raised again the question of whether the hard-line militants from a nationalist group called Pravy Sektor would follow the lead of the mainstream opposition politicians if a deal could be reached. The Russian Foreign Ministry called on those politicians to repudiate the radicals.
The hostility between Yanukovych and the political opposition is deep and intense, and now has been paid for in blood. Regional differences are flaring, with governors in the east near the Russian border denouncing the protesters and demanding a crackdown, while in the west, cities are declaring virtual autonomy from the central government. Opposition leaders, for their part, are leading a movement that includes hard-line militants who are not keen on political compromise.
But with at least 10 Interior Ministry troops now killed, there’s also the question of whether Yanukovych is fully in control of his forces. It’s not certain what set off the day’s fighting, but the police are sure to want to avenge the deaths of their colleagues.
Abroad, the Western nations and Russia blamed each other for supporting one of the two sides in Ukraine’s long-running political crisis.
The country, which has experienced regular bouts of political turmoil since the downfall of the Soviet Union two decades ago — but never the sort of violence seen Tuesday — appears to be at a point of fracture.
That may now be extending to the government itself.
The faces of the protest
Demonstrators have been gathering to speak against the government since November; here are photos from throughout the demonstrations of those who have protested in Kiev.
As fires continued to burn Wednesday on the Maidan, forming a buffer of flame and thick greasy smoke between protesters and police, the state security service announced that it was launching an “anti-terrorist operation.” A little while later, the Defense Ministry said it might join in.
It appeared as though a serious escalation was in the works. But then Yanukovych fired his chief military commander Wednesday evening.
Col. Gen. Volodymyr Zamana was quoted a month ago as saying that the armed forces should never be used against Ukrainian civilians, and this may have been the reason for his ouster.
The Ukrainian army is not as well-funded or powerful a force as the Interior Ministry. Nonetheless, it wields heavy weaponry that the opposition fears may come into play.
U.S. military leaders have been unable for the past several days to reach their Ukrainian counterparts to warn them against getting involved in the crisis, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday night, and this is a matter of some concern.
Ukraine’s military has joined with NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan and has particularly close relations with the Polish military. But Poland has been Yanukovych’s most vocal critic, and that may leave him uncertain of his own army’s loyalty in a fight portrayed as East vs. West.
Small but violent protests Wednesday left several people wounded and one reported dead in the Black Sea port of Odessa and in the western city of Khmelnytskyy.
In the east — in Donetsk, Yanukovych’s home town, and Kharkov — governors talked tough about defeating the protests.
But the city of Lviv in western Ukraine effectively declared itself autonomous of the central government. In nearby Ivano-Frankivsk, the local commander of the security forces pledged not to carry out or give any illegal orders.
William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.
Max Fisher breaks down the deadliest clashes in Kiev's Independence Square since protests began three months ago.
