Pride, uncertainty greet fall of Yanukovych

LVIV - “Yanukovych kaput! Wow,” Ola, 18, shouted when her friend ran over to show the news on his phone that Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had fled Kiev.

She jumped up and down, pumped her fist in the air, and spun around.

It was about 3pm local time on Saturday (22 February) and she was standing in the rain outside a large, burnt out, military building on the outskirts of the city centre in Lviv, western Ukraine.

She had been making soup and sandwiches in a tent for a handful of cadets guarding the compound.

Misha, one of the guards, smiled. When asked whether he is loyal to Yanukovych, he told EUobserver that he is loyal to “the army.” When asked who the army is loyal to, he said “the generals.” When asked who the generals are loyal to, he walked away.

He had no gun because the guns, an estimated 12,000 small arms, had been looted by protesters three days ago.

Nobody in Lviv can say where they are.

Ola was cooking for him because local military units are not hated in Lviv. When they got the order last week to go to Kiev, soldiers sent SMS-es to their parents, who came with crowds to block the gates. They did not resist when the barricades went up, or the guns were taken away. The building caught fire by accident from burning tyres by the gate.

People in the city centre also reacted to the Yanukovych news with pride.

Valentyna, 40, an economist, spoke to this website outside an abandoned police headquarters.

“The people who fought and died on the Maidan [the central square in Kiev] are idealists. Nobody believed that Ukraine is a country of people who are ready to die for ideals. Who in Europe would be willing to do this? Slava [glore be to] Ukraina!” she said.

She added that Europe “insulted” the Ukrainian opposition.

“They stood at the Maidan for three months and Europe did nothing. Now it should block their bank accounts. It should work with the new authorities on this, because most of them have put their stolen money in Europe,” she noted, referring to the Yanukovych nomenklatura.

At a square in Lviv’s old town, people gave speeches on a stage and milled around.

Here, the news coming in from Kiev was more confusing. Some reports said Yanukovych had formally resigned and fled to Dubai. Others said he had gone to Sochi, in Russia, to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin i to plan a Russian military intervention after the Olympic games end on Sunday. Others still said he had gone to Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, to meet jailed former PM Yulia Tymoshenko to make a power-sharing deal.

For his part, Artem, 41, a former scientist and businessman, who is now a local commander for the Right Sector, a militant opposition wing, said he will not support Tymoshenko or any other opposition MPs, such as Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko, or Oleh Tiahnybok.

“They are all part of the same corrupt system that we are trying to ovethrow. They all co-operated with the bandits. This is not about euro-integration. This is about ending the system of banditry,” he noted.

Stepan, 71, a retired engineer, agreed.

When asked who he would support, he pointed to the teenage boys in military-type clothes outside the Right Sector’s tent. “Only the young people can build something new,” he said.

Stepan also voiced anger at EU politicians: “They don’t care about us. They didn’t care about us when the Soviets were carting us off to Siberia in meat wagons and they don’t care about us now.”

In other parts of the country, people tore down statues of Lenin.

But in Crimea, some members of the local assembly called for Russian troops to come and protect Russian passport holders from disorder.

Meanwhile, in Kiev itself, events galloped forward.

Earlier on Friday, a trio of EU foreign ministers had brokered a deal between Yanukovych and opposition MPs to restore the 2004 constitution, limiting presidential powers, and to hold early elections by December.

But the Maidan crowd rejected the offer and vowed to march on Yanukovych’s palace.

On Saturday, Yanukovych left the capital and his security forces published statements they would no longer intervene.

Protesters occupied the presidential palace and Yanukovych’s private mansion, the so-called Mezhyhirya compound, outside Kiev.

MPs from his ruling Party of Regions also defected en masse. At an extraordinary session of the parliament, the Verkhovana Rada, MPs installed Oleksandr Turchynov, a Tymoshenko loyalist, as interim leader. They restored the 2004 constitution and called elections in May.

Tymoshenko freed

They also freed Tymoshenko, who immediately left her prison hospital in Kharkiv, after two and a half years in detention, and who flew to Kiev to speak at the Maidan from a wheelchair.

"Until you finish this job and until we travel all the way, nobody has the right to leave … You have a right to rule this country and decide for this country. Ukraine has an opportunity to build its own future today,” she said, as people cheered and cried.

For his part, Yanukovych, in a TV statement recorded and broadcast from an undisclosed location, described the events as a “coup d’etat … a repeat of the 1930s when Nazis came to power in Germany and Austria.”

He added, in Russian: “They are trying to scare me. I have no intention of leaving the country. I am not going to resign, I'm the legitimately elected president … I will do everything to protect my country from breakup, to stop bloodshed.”

The Russian foreign ministry echoed his words.

It said the opposition is "submitting itself to armed extremists and looters whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order of Ukraine."

Amid fears that Ukraine, a country of 46 million people which transits Russian gas to the EU, could break into two or three parts, the EU issued a statement.

“The European Union expects everyone in Ukraine to behave responsibly with a view to protect the unity, sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the country. I call on everyone to abide by the rule of the law and the constitution,” its foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton i, said.

The British, German, and Swedish foreign ministries said they will work on a financial aid package to stop Ukraine from a state default.

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister who took part in Friday’s talks in Kiev, tweeted: “No coup in Kiev. Gov. buildings got abandoned.” Sweden’s Carl Bildt said: “Now confirmed that President Yanukovych tried to get the army as well to move against protesters … but was stopped.”

Strange calm

Back in Lviv, the city, of some 800,000 people, settled down to a quiet night on Saturday.

Sales of alcohol have been banned after 6pm to help prevent public disorder, causing many bars and restaurants to close early.

With no police, the streets are patrolled by groups of five or six men, some wearing yellow vests or carrying self-made ID badges which bear their photos and the title “Samoobrona”, or “self-defence” - the name of the volunteer squads formed in the past few days.

On the roads leading into town, informal checkpoints, made from burning tyres and manned largely by teenage boys, stop and check cars. They say they are looking for “titushki,” hired thugs who attacked people, cars, and buildings in both Lviv and Kyiv in recent weeks.

Lviv shops have put posters in the windows which show an open palm against a balaklava-cloaked face and which say “Anarchists. Stop! Do not destroy your own city.”

But they also prefer to close before dark.

On Sunday morning, thousands of people plan get free busses to drive to a nearby village, Staryj Sambir, for the funeral of Bohdan Solchanyk, a university lecturer of modern history, who was shot dead in Kiev last Thursday.

Asked by EUobserver if she is scared about the future, Svitlana, 23, a children’s entertainer and a Solchanyk family friend, said: “I am optimistic. Maybe it’s just my nature. Or maybe it’s because I’m from Lviv. Everybody knows everybody else here and we will take care of each other no matter what happens.”

She added: “So many people have died, so it can’t be for nothing. Things must change now.”