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Acting Officials in Ukraine Seek Stability and Ousted Leader Multiple Challenges Facing Ukraine Include Looming Economic Peril
(about 4 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s acting interior minister said on Monday that the authorities were in pursuit of the ousted president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was believed to be in Crimea in the south of the country, and that he would be arrested on charges of mass murder in the killings of dozens of antigovernment protesters last week. KIEV, Ukraine — With a manhunt underway for the deposed Ukrainian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was charged on Monday with mass murder, officials in Parliament pushed ahead with the monumental task of rebuilding the collapsed government. The country’s most pressing problem, however, is largely out of their control: a fast-approaching economic disaster that they cannot solve without international assistance.
The minister, Arsen Avakov, who was appointed by Parliament on Saturday, wrote on his Facebook page that he was personally involved in the manhunt and had traveled to the Crimean city of Sevastopol on Sunday night hoping to intercept Mr. Yanukovych at the airport there, but that the deposed president had not turned up as expected. The new speaker, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, admitted as much, warning in an open letter to the Ukrainian people on Sunday that “Ukraine is now in a pre-default condition and sliding into the abyss.”
He said Mr. Yanukovych had then fled in an unknown direction, traveling by car, and with a diminished security detail. On Monday, the Parliament accepted the surprise resignation of Ihor Sorkin, the head of the Ukrainian National Bank, and approved a replacement, Stepan Kubiv, who said one of his top priorities would be to secure aid from the International Monetary Fund.
The pursuit of Mr. Yanukovych, a man now widely despised even by many of his former supporters, gripped the nation on Monday, as Parliament continued its efforts to rebuild the government, with hopes of appointing an acting prime minister and having the rest of a provisional government in place on Tuesday. Russia had extended a lifeline of $15 billion in loans and cheap gas, but the Kremlin has suspended that aid in response to the political uncertainty in Ukraine. Russian officials continued their saber rattling on Monday, with Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev dismissing the current government as backed by “Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks” and saying that the leaders in Parliament were not legitimate.
Former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, freed from prison on Saturday, has said she does not want to be considered for the post. So speculation on the premiership is now focusing on her ally Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, who has been a leader of the anti-Yanukovych street protests since they began in late November. It was not clear when or if financial assistance promised by Europe and the United States would arrive. Though the West is claiming victory in the tug of war with Russia over Ukraine, neither the European Union nor the United States has done anything more than make promises.
Western officials on Monday continued to praise the developments in Ukraine, saying that Parliament had successfully filled a power vacuum, and that democratic institutions had functioned successfully. They urged the interim authorities to quickly address the enormous economic problems confronting the country and suggested a willingness to provide assistance. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, was in Kiev on Monday, visiting the Parliament and meeting throughout the day with lawmakers and others. For the moment, though, it seemed that all she was able to offer was moral support.
Russia, however, stepped up its criticism after recalling its ambassador from Kiev on Sunday. Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the International Monetary Fund, which would have to provide the billions of dollars in urgently needed credit, issued a statement on Monday saying only, “We are talking to all interested parties.”
“Today, I see no legitimate Ukrainian partners for dialogue,” the Russian prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said in Sochi, a day after the close of the Winter Olympics, according to the Interfax news service. “If people crossing Kiev in black masks with Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government.” The Obama administration said it was prepared to provide financial assistance beyond that from the I.M.F., but did not say how much.
In fact, the security situation in the Ukrainian capital seemed to improve on Monday, with regular law enforcement bodies and some antigovernment fighters sharing responsibility for guarding government buildings and directing traffic. A sense of workaday calm seemed to return to the city, even as barricades still surrounded the main protest sites. “This support can complement an I.M.F. program by helping to make reforms easier and by putting Ukraine in a position to invest more in health and education to help develop Ukraine’s human capital and strengthen its social safety net,” the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, told reporters in Washington.
As Mr. Yanukovych’s public persona morphed from feared strongman to detested fugitive, any last vestiges of support for him seemed to vanish even in the pro-Russia eastern and southern parts of the country, which had historically provided his base of political support. The International Monetary Fund has made clear it is unwilling to help Ukraine without a commitment from the country to undertake painful austerity measures and other restructurings. Mr. Yanukovych’s resistance to those demands was a principal reason he backed away from a trade deal with Europe and sought help from Russia instead.
Ukraine’s United Nations ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, who has represented the country since 2007, also sought to distance himself on Monday from any ties to Mr. Yanukovych, saying he had no idea where the ousted president and his dwindling entourage might be hiding. He also cast doubt on whether they would even be welcomed in Russia. “Who will host these crooks?,” he said. In a statement on Monday, the acting finance minister, Yuriy Kolobov, said Ukraine would need a staggering $35 billion in assistance between now and the end of next year, as well as an emergency loan within the next two weeks that he said was expected from Poland or the United States.
Mr. Yanukovych’s own Party of Regions, which had supported him until lawmakers began defecting over last week’s mass killings in Kiev, issued a statement on Sunday saying the country had been deceived, robbed and betrayed. “All responsibility for this lies with Yanukovych,” the party wrote. “We condemn the flight and cowardice of Yanukovych. We condemn the betrayal.” In his statement, Mr. Kolobov said he hoped to organize a conference with international donors. “The situation in the financial sector as a whole is complex but controlled,” he said.
Mr. Yanukovych and his family were known to have accumulated vast wealth during his time in office, and he was believed to have access to at least one yacht that might ferry him out of Ukraine. That could change at any moment, however, should Russia decide to follow through on previous threats of devastating trade sanctions if Ukraine moves closer to Europe.
On Facebook, Mr. Avakov said that after abandoning his residence near the capital, Mr. Yanukovych had flown by helicopter to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, where he prepared a video statement on Saturday declaring that he remained president. Then he went to the airport in Donetsk, where he and several companions sought to flee the country on Falcon airplanes. Mr. Turchynov and other officials have said that the new government will revive the political and trade deals with Europe that Mr. Yanukovych scuttled in the fall, setting off the unrest.
Border police officers at the airport prevented the planes from flying, Mr. Avakov said, and Mr. Yanukovych then departed in a motorcade for the south. After learning that Parliament had voted to strip him of power, Mr. Yanukovych began avoiding government residences, including a presidential country house in Crimea where he had been expected to seek shelter. Given the animosity of the new Ukrainian government toward Russia, Ivan  Tchakarov, an analyst with Citibank, said that Ukraine could only turn West for help, and would inevitably face demands for tough reforms and a near-certain recession as a result. 
In addition to the murder charges, there have been calls for the prosecution of Mr. Yanukovych on corruption charges after the discovery of astonishing trappings of wealth at his abandoned presidential residence in a national park outside Kiev. Throughout the weekend, curious and angry members of the public streamed to the compound to gawk at the collections of expensive modern and antique cars, the private zoo and other gauche accouterments. “Assuming that Russia will pass, it will be up to the I.M.F. and E.U. to pick up the tab,” Mr. Tchakarov said. "The I.M.F. will impose hard constraints on the economy, and these will most probably mean a recession in 2014.”
As journalists scoured the compound, sorting through a trove of documents that had been partly burned or dumped in a river, local news media began reporting allegations of embezzlement and corruption, and new details about Mr. Yanukovych’s personal life emerged. Still, Mr. Tchakarov noted that there would be long-term benefits to Ukraine undertaking desperately needed measures, like ending subsidies of gas prices and cutting the thickets of business regulations that weigh down the economy. These actions could potentially allow it to emerge far stronger, like its neighbors in Poland and the Baltics, he said.
The Kyiv Post, a newspaper here, said that it had found evidence that Mr. Yanukovych, 63, was living at the residence with a 39-year-old girlfriend and her 12-year-old daughter from a prior relationship. Mr. Yanukovych has been married for 42 years, but his wife, Lyudmila, has long lived in Donetsk and typically has not performed the duties of first lady. At the moment, however, there is not even a Ukrainian government to request the help. A prime minister is expected to be named on Tuesday, perhaps along with the rest of a provisional government. Speculation on Monday focused on Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, a former head of the central bank and one of the leaders of the protest movement since its inception, and on Petro Poroshenko, a lawmaker who is also one of the country’s richest men.
It was not clear whether the girlfriend, identified as Lyubov Plezhay, was traveling with Mr. Yanukovych. Mr. Avakov said that the ousted president was accompanied by Andriy Klyuyev, a close political ally whom he had recently named as chief of the presidential administration. Until the government is in place, Ukraine cannot even make a formal request for the assistance.
As the Western world considered the extent of Ukraine’s gaping economic needs, the White House announced that Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew had conferred on Monday with the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, on how best to provide assistance. Lesya Orobets, a member of the Fatherland Party in Parliament, said that if there were ever a moment to ask Ukraine for painful sacrifice, this was it: Things could hardly get any worse.
A White House statement said that Mr. Lew, while en route to Washington from a Group of 20 meeting in Sydney, Australia, had telephoned Ms. Lagarde to say he had spoken with Mr. Yatsenyuk, a former economy minister, to assure him of “the broad support for an international assistance package centered on the I.M.F.” “We are already on the bottom,” Ms. Orobets said in an interview just outside the Parliament chamber. “This was already very shaky for most of the population. It’s not only about the low salaries, it’s about finding jobs, which was a huge problem. People are starving for some concrete steps. The demand for that is huge.”
The statement twice made clear that such assistance could go only to a “fully established” government in Ukraine. Ukraine’s troubles run deep.
It said that Mr. Lew had urged Mr. Yatsenyuk to “quickly begin implementing economic reforms” and enter talks with the I.M.F. once a transitional government is established. Before the last three months of civil unrest, before the clashes that left more than 80 people dead, before the prime minister was fired, the police vanished and the president fled, and before teetering at the edge of chaos and civil war, Ukraine was beset by corruption, plagued by political and fiscal mismanagement, hopelessly dependent on Russian gas and beholden to the Kremlin’s whims, nearly broke and hurtling toward bankruptcy.
The leader of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 57-nation group that includes Ukraine, said it had sent a team to the country to conduct a “needs-assessment mission.” The leader, Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter of Switzerland, also said he plans to establish a group responsible for helping provide “support of Ukraine in its transition period.” Mr. Burkhalter was speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting on cooperation with the O.S.C.E., which is headquartered in Vienna. It still is.
Inna Bohoslovska, a lawmaker who defected from Mr. Yanukovych’s Party of Regions shortly after the street protests began, said that safeguards would need to be put in place to make sure any international aid money is not wasted or stolen. 
“We will have to create a special body to control the international financial aid and loans,” Ms. Bohoslovska said. “Today, this ugliness remains, political corruption remains, thievery remains,” she said. “If we let even one cent of the financial aid, which in fact will be a real Marshall Plan for Ukraine, get stolen again, then no one will believe us anymore.”
 For much of its post-Soviet history, Ukraine has often been its own worst enemy, with a string of corrupt leaders on the left and right. Even Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who was released from a prison hospital and went straight to address the crowd in Independence Square on Saturday, is regarded with suspicion by most Ukrainians, who would rather have a new face in the presidency.  
Standing outside the Parliament building on Monday, Irina Nikanchuk, a 25-year-old economist, waved a banner calling for early elections to a new Parliament, and heaped scorn on lawmakers and opposition politicians who are the principal beneficiaries of a revolution driven by passions on the street.
“We need new people who can say no to the oligarchs, not just the old faces,” said Ms. Nikanchuk, referring to the billionaires who control blocks of votes in the Parliament.
“Tymoshenko is just Putin in a skirt,” she added, comparing the former prime minister and, until Saturday, jailed opposition leader with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
As if to underscore the point, Ms. Tymoshenko arrived at the Parliament building on Monday evening in a black Mercedes sedan, part of an entourage of at least three cars.