Ukrainian parliament, after ousting president, tries to consolidate power, frees prisoners
Ukrainian parliament, after ousting president, tries to consolidate power, frees prisoners
(about 2 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian parliament, now dominated by foes of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, took bold measures Sunday to remake the government, sacking ministers, freeing jailed protesters and announcing investigations and detentions of former officials.
KIEV, Ukraine — The foes of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych took swift, bold action Sunday to consolidate power and transform the government, sacking ministers, freeing jailed protesters and announcing detentions of former officials, even as ordinary Ukrainians confessed they weren’t really sure who was running the country or where it was headed.
By decree, the parliament gave interim presidential authority to the speaker of parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, himself a leader of the opposition.
By decree, the parliament gave interim presidential authority to the speaker, Oleksandr Turchynov, a leader of the opposition.
But even as demonstrators in Kiev celebrated their victory over the pro-Russian Yanukovych, there were signs of trouble in parts of the Ukraine that still lean more toward Russia than Europe. In the Crimea to the south, men gathered to volunteer for militias to oppose the decrees announced in the capital.
Turchynov quickly delivered some sobering news: The economy was in a shambles, and the government coffers empty. Ukraine’s pension fund, currency and banking system were facing “immense problems,” he said, according to the news agency RIA Novosti.
In Kiev, the parliamentarian and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko urged the thousands of demonstrators in Independence Square to remain where they are in order to protect the advances won by the opposition. Klitschko also said that the “self-defense” militias organized to defend the barricades at the square against riot police should remain on the streets to provide security. “There are no police on the streets right now,” Klitschko told reporters. “The police will be reorganized, and we will try to do this as fast as possible.”
Sunday’s actions brought the latest dramatic changes to a country convulsed by protests since Yanukovych reversed course on a trade agreement with the European Union three months ago and turned to Russia for economic aid. Since then, 88 people have died in demonstrations and clashes with riot police and security forces, which culminated in the president’s removal in a parliamentary vote on Saturday .
Another member of parliament warned his colleagues that they needed to move quickly to bring security forces back to work, saying that some of the nation’s vital infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, were unguarded.
Even as demonstrators in Kiev celebrated Sunday, there were signs of trouble in parts of Ukraine that lean more toward Russia than Europe. In the southern Crimean region, men gathered to volunteer for militias to oppose the decrees announced in the capital.
Maintaining security wasn’t the only issue. Turchynov, the new interim president, said Ukraine’s pension fund, national currency and banking system were facing “immense problems,” according to the news group RIA Novosti.
Yanukovych hasn’t been heard from since a short prerecorded interview aired on Ukrainian television on Saturday afternoon, in which he blasted his removal as “illegal” and refused to resign. Border police said they stopped his plane in Donetsk on Saturday as he was trying to leave the country.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Moscow would delay a planned purchase of $2 billion in Ukrainian eurobonds until Kiev formed a new government. In December, Russia had signed a deal with President Yanukovych promising a $15 billion support package. The move toward Russian aid, and away from a trade agreement with the European Union, was one of the sparks that began three months of protest in Kiev.
Yanukovych’s whereabouts remain unknown, even to members of his party.
Independence Square was filled with thousands of Ukrainians Sunday who piled heaps of flowers at makeshift shrines beside photographs of some of the 82 protesters who have been killed by riot police in the recent clashes. In western Ukraine, large crowds assembled to mourn the protesters.
Legislators said Sunday that they urgently needed to form an interim unity government, leading up to elections they called for May 25. But in their rush, they got ahead of themselves.
Members of the opposition, which now controls Kiev and the central government, also announced that protesters arrested during demonstrations would be freed immediately, while they also sought to detain and prosecute the dismissed prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka. The interim interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said the new government would open an inquiry into lethal force used by riot police and security forces during the protests.
The lawmakers put forth the name of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko as a possible candidate for the premiership. But she quickly said she was not interested in the job and hadn’t been consulted.
The whereabouts of Yanukovych remain unknown.
Even Yanukovych’s allies began to turn against their former boss on Sunday, blaming him for the crisis.
Parliament turns out president
Oleksandr Yefremov, a leader of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, said he “strongly condemns the criminal orders that led to human victims, an empty state treasury, huge debts and the shame before the eyes of the Ukrainian people and the entire world."
In a single climactic day, the political order of Ukraine was overturned Saturday when the Ukrainian parliament voted to dismiss Yanukovych from office and to free jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who went directly from a prison hospital bed to a stage at Independence Square to address an audience of tens of thousands.
Vitali Klitschko, an opposition leader in parliament, said, “Millions of Ukrainians want to know where is the president. He’s disappeared. So we have a new one.”
“A day for the history books,” tweeted Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
The White House found itself in the dark, as well. “He’s gone,” national security adviser Susan E. Rice said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “He took his stuff, his furniture with him. . . . Yesterday we knew where he was; today we’re not so sure.”
Still unknown is whether a defiant Yanukovych and a bitterly divided Ukraine will accept any of parliament’s decrees. Leaders of the ousted government, especially those from Ukraine’s east and south, said they would oppose new measures.
Rice said that the Ukrainian economy was “very, very fragile” and that U.S. government would work with the International Monetary Fund on assistance. E.U. officials also have indicated that they are ready to offer financial aid to the new government.
Yanukovych, whose exact whereabouts have been unknown since Friday evening, appeared on television Saturday in a prerecorded interview to say: “I am not planning to leave the country. I am the legitimate president, and I am not going to resign.”
Ukraine’s interim government faces huge problems, even beyond the teetering economy.
“What we witness now resembles Nazi occupation,” Yanukovych said. “My car was shot at. But I am not afraid for my life, I am afraid for my country.”
“There are no police on the streets right now,” Klitschko told reporters. “The police will be reorganized, and we will try to do this as fast as possible.”
Yanukovych said Russian President Vladimir Putin told him that he had spoken with President Obama and promised that “we will negotiate.”
Another member of parliament warned his colleagues that they needed to work quickly to bring Ukraine’s security forces back to work, saying that some of the nation’s vital infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, were unguarded.
But the White House released a statement that praised the “constructive work” done by the Ukrainian parliament and urged “the prompt formation of a broad, technocratic government of national unity.”
Opposition leaders urged thousands of demonstrators still in Kiev’s Independence Square to remain where they are to guarantee that the government changes wouldn’t be reversed.
On Sunday, U.S. national security adviser Susan E. Rice warned that Russian troop intervention in Ukraine would be a “grave mistake.”
They called upon the “self-defense” militias organized to defend the barricades at the square to remain on the streets to provide security. Groups of men in mismatched military uniforms, wielding baseball bats and homemade shields, were directing traffic at intersections and standing guard in front of government offices.
“This is not about the U.S. and Russia,” Rice said during a wide-ranging interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “This is about whether the people of Ukraine have the opportunity to fulfill their aspirations and be democratic and be part of Europe, which they choose to be.”
On Sunday, Independence Square was filled with Ukrainians who piled heaps of flowers at makeshift shrines beside photographs of protesters killed in the most recent clashes. In western Ukraine, which is fervently pro-Europe, large crowds assembled to mourn protesters slain in the past week.
William Hague, the British foreign secretary, told the BBC on Sunday: “We don’t know, of course, what Russia’s next reaction will be.”
Members of the opposition announced that protesters arrested during the demonstrations would be freed immediately, while they also sought to detain and prosecute the dismissed prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka.
He noted that Russia had supported a compromise with Yanukovych last week that would have allowed him to stay in power for another 10 months.
The interim interior minister, Arsen Avakov, promised that the government would open an inquiry into the lethal use of force by riot police and security forces.
“We do know that Russia, as well as the United States, has said a few days ago that they would get behind a deal that had been made, that deal has now been overtaken by events and this is the importance of us continuing a dialogue with Russia,” Hague said.
Tymoshenko was released from a prison hospital Saturday, after serving 30 months in jail for what her supporters — and Western governments — say were politically motivated charges of embezzlement and abuse of power surrounding a deal to buy natural gas from Russia.
The European Union’s foreign-policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is scheduled to come to Kiev on Monday.
Many Ukrainians had assumed that she would be a candidate in the May elections. She lost to Yanukovych in the presidential race in 2010.
Just hours after parliament voted to remove the president on Saturday, his arch rival Tymoshenko, a key figure in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, was released from prison after serving 30 months.
Among the unknowns Sunday was how Russia would react to the swift change in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that Moscow regards as a vital strategic interest. In December, Russia had signed a deal with Yanukovych promising a $15 billion support package for Ukraine. The move toward Russian aid was one of the sparks that set off the protests in Kiev.
Tymoshenko, suffering from a back injury, was rolled onstage in a pink wheelchair. She gave an emotional, forceful speech, honoring the 82 Ukrainians killed in street fighting and by riot police since Tuesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by telephone Sunday about the developments in Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency. The E.U. foreign-affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, is scheduled to arrive in Kiev on Monday. William Hague, the British foreign secretary, told the BBC on Sunday, “We don’t know, of course, what Russia’s next reaction will be.”
The opposition leader, who still has her trademark blond braid, said that Ukraine would not be truly free until “everyone bears a responsibility for what they have done,” a clear reference to the president and his ousted interior minister, who controlled the riot police forces that used live ammunition against protesters. “If we don’t prosecute, we should be ashamed.”
Russian officials have criticized the Ukrainian opposition for signing and then reneging on a compromise deal reached last week with Yanukovych that would have allowed him to stay in power for 10 more months and then shoved him aside.
Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, was sentenced to seven years in prison in a 2011 trial on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement over her role in a deal to purchase natural gas from Russia. Her supporters and many Western countries said the trial and conviction were politically motivated.
“We do know that Russia, as well as the United States, has said a few days ago that they would get behind a deal that had been made. That deal has now been overtaken by events, and this is the importance of us continuing a dialogue with Russia,” Hague said.
In an emergency session, the Ukrainian parliament voted 380 to 0 on Saturday to remove Yanukovych from office, saying he was guilty of gross human rights violations and dereliction of duty. Many of Yanukovych’s allies were absent or abstained from voting.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Moscow would delay a planned purchase of $2 billion in Ukrainian eurobonds until Kiev formed a new government.
Then the parliament, now dominated by opposition politicians, declared that early presidential elections would be held May 25.
Ukraine’s parliament delighted many citizens by announcing Sunday that the government would confiscate the ousted president’s opulent estate on the outskirts of Kiev.
Tymoshenko, who blinked back tears several times, promised: “I am coming back to work. I won’t waste a minute to make sure you are happy in your own land.”
On Sunday, thousands of Ukrainians continued to tour the grounds, ogling at Yanukovych’s classic car collection, a restaurant in the shape of a full-sized Spanish galleon, zoo animals and golf course.
She ran for president in 2010 but lost to Yanukovych, and most people here assume Tymoshenko will run in the May contest.
Meanwhile, journalists were pouring over a trove of documents found dumped in the Dnieper River that flows past the estate compound.
“We have been monitoring the situation very closely,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because conditions remained so fluid. “What the United States and our European partners have been advocating for consistently this week is a de-escalation of violence, constitutional change, a coalition government and early elections. The developments we are seeing on the ground are . . . moving us closer to those goals.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Russia’s reaction
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that the opposition in Ukraine was “pushing new demands, submitting itself to armed extremists and looters whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order of Ukraine,” according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
The new speaker of parliament, Turchynov, told his fellow deputies Saturday that Yanukovych had attempted to flee the country.
“He tried to get on a plane that was bound for the Russian Federation but was stopped by border guards. At the moment, he’s hiding somewhere in the Donetsk region,” Turchynov said, according to Interfax. The Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine, is home to Yanukovych’s Russian-speaking political base.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Ukrainians poured onto the grounds of Yanukovych’s abandoned presidential compound, 12 miles from downtown Kiev, to gawk at the manicured lawns, small zoo, golf course, botanical gardens and classic cars.
Museum officials were working with militias to guard the presidential mansion and inventory possessions and works of art they say were probably borrowed or stolen by Yanukovych from state museums and institutions. Journalists and others began to pore over a stack of documents left behind.
“Who knows what he has stashed in there,” said Ihor Lihovy, a consultant for the Ukrainian national committee for the preservation of national treasures. “We have been told he hoarded masterpieces. It is a scandal.”
Yanukovych built his mansion and its outbuildings after he was elected president in 2010. None of the Ukrainian public or media had seen the inside of the compound before Saturday. An elderly pensioner with a mouth full of metal teeth shouted, “What a thief!” as he took in the marble statuary.
The crowds were orderly and polite. There was no looting, few were allowed to enter the houses or outbuildings, and opposition protesters warned visitors to keep off the grass.
A group of young people, however, found their way into Yanukovych’s clubhouse and brought out golf balls and clubs and whacked a few drives down the long fairways.
