David R. Marples - Ukraines Euromaidan: Analyses of a Civil Revolution

The editors owe a great debt to the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Stu d ies, University of Alberta, which helped to sponsor the project and provided critical funding. For most of the period under study, it was also the home of the Stasiuk blog site " Current Politics in Ukraine, " which provided regular analyses of the situation during Euromaidan and subsequently, with CIUS funding. CIUS held a number of seminars and conferences on events in Ukraine in 2013 14, organized chiefly by Bohdan Harasymiw, head of the Centre for Regional and Political Studies. We owe a great debt to CIUS director Volodymyr Kravchenko for his enthusiasm and support for this pr o ject, which continued, one should add, after David Marples formally left CIUS at the end of August 2014.

Much of the editorial work undertaken by Dr. Marples took place while he was a Visiting Scholar with the Slavic and Eurasian Research Center (SRC) at the University of Hokkaido, Sapporo, Japan, during the summer of 2014. That work was facilitated and enhanced by the members of SRC, and in particular its director Osamu Ieda. Aya Fujiwara, one of the co n tributors to this book, presented a version of her paper at SRC in August 2014. We are also grateful to Marta Dyczok for providing photographs and to The King's Review , an online magazine publishing academic journalism based in King's College, University of Cambridge, for permitting us to r e publish a new version of Tanya Zaharchenko ' s paper. We would like to thank Sofia Dyak, for alerting us to the work of Natalia Otrischenko and Anna Chebotariova of the Lviv Center for Urban History in East-Central Europe, who agreed to contribute to this volume.

Lastly, we are grateful to ibidem- Verlag for their patience and helpfu l ness at various stages, especially to Valerie Lange , Florian Boelter, and Chris Schoen. Having a cooperative publisher is a tremendous asset for any project and this one has been exemplary.

David R. Marples

Frederick V. Mills

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

January 2015

David R. Marples

From November 2013 to the end of February 2014, protesters gathered on Kyiv ' s central square, in a series of demonstrations known as the Eur o maidan. These protests involved several distinct stages, culminating in what some analysts have called a national revolution that removed the government and presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. As a historian who has followed Ukraine since Soviet times, I recall in particular two earlier civic protests of importance. The first was the occupation of the Maidan by K y iv ' s university students in 1990, demanding the resignation of then Prime Minister Vital ii Masol. Though widely condemned by Communist officials, it ended with the removal of the unpopular figure. The second was known as the Orange Revolution, and arose as a protest against the doctored results of the 2004 presidential election. Ironically, this event served to prevent the same Yanukovych from winning the presidency. He did, however return as Prime Minister under the Yushchenko presidency, and then won the 2010 elections, narrowly defeating Yulia Tymoshenko.

In late November 2013, Yanukovych had signaled his willingness to commit Ukraine to signing an Association Agreement with the European Union at the EU summit in Vilnius, an event that represented the culmin a tion of an agreement made in 2012, and the high point to date of the Eas t ern Partnership initiative of 2008. [1] The Europeans had demanded in return that he release Tymoshenko from captivity (she had served 2.5 years of a 7-year jail sentence for signing an agreement with Russia on energy prices in 2009, when she was Prime Minister), and start constitutional and legal reforms. After a visit to Moscow, where he spoke with President Vladimir Putin, Yanukovych made the decision to postpone the signing of the agreement and seek better terms. It seemed once again that Ukraine would remain within the Russian orbit, and would most likely commit itself to future membership in the Eurasian Economic Union, which was to come into force on January 1, 2015, and currently involves Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, with Armenia a likely additional member.

On November 24, protesters came to the streets, motivated by anger at the change of direction. They were mainly youth, alerted by social ne t works and text messages. What occurred was essentially a civil protest on the future of Ukraine and it took the authorities completely by surprise. Though the daily numbers would dwindle, every weekend saw masses come out on the streets. At its peak, the numbers were so vast that it was impossible to count them. In several cities of Ukraine, especially in the western regions, the events in Kyiv were replicated. On the whole, the a u thorities reacted cautiously, deploying the Berkut riot police but without any serious confrontations. But on the night of November 30 and the morning of December 1, the order was given for the Berkut to clear the square by force. The Berkut descended on the Maidan, clubbing and beating demo n strators.

The protests were re-energized by this clumsy and thoughtless a s sault. The numbers rose sharply again. On December 16, Putin offered Ukraine $15 billion in loans and reduced gas prices to offset Ukraine ' s f i nancial crisis, sparked by the near depletion of its hard currency reserves. [2] More than anything the offer seemed to emphasize that without Russia, Ukraine could not survive. Moreover, the sum was far more than the EU or the IMF was prepared to consider. In truth it was probably more than Ru s sia could afford. The situation was exacerbated further by the quasi-legal rushing through parliament of draconian lawsthe so-called " anti-protest laws " on January 16. [3] Their goal appeared to be to curb freedom of speech and assembly, the outlawing of NGOs and the establishment of a dictatorship under Yanukovych. The laws were the brainchild of two dep u ties from the Party of Regions, Vadym Kolesnychenko and Volodymyr Oliinyk. Though repealed only twelve days later, these laws heralded the culmination of the Euromaidan protests.

The protests were now less about the EU and more about the future of Ukraine. More attention was paid to the innate and grotesque corruption of the ruling regime, of the prevalence of oligarchs who had enriched the m selves at the expense of the state, and the lack of legal reforms. These protests had two immediate results. One was the agreement of Yan u kovych to sacrifice his Prime Minister, Nikola y Azarov (who promptly fled to Vienna on an Austrian passport) and try to make a compromise with opp o sition leaders by bringing them into the ruling administration. [4]

On January 25, the Prime Minister ' s position was offered to Arsenii Yatsen y uk, the former Economy and Foreign Minister of Ukraine and lea d er of the Batkivshchyna [Fatherland] Party following the incarceration of Tymoshenko. That of Deputy Prime Minister for " humanitarian questions " was offered to Vitalii Klychko (Vitaly Klitschko), the former world champion boxer and leader of the party U DAR [the Fist], which ran third in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Both refused to take up these posts, possibly b e cause they could detect the growing weakness of the government, but more likely because to have done so would have cost them influence on the square. Moreover, Yatsenyuk was insistent that the new government should be formed through the parliament rather than the presidency. [5]

In reality, these leaders, and to some extent the third opposition leader Oleh Ty ahnybok of Svoboda , had never led the protests. Rather they r e acted to the moves on the Maidan. As the situation polarized, both sides changed character and personnel. On the government side, gangs of thugs were bussed into Kyiv from other cities, principally Kharkiv and D o netsk, simply to cause mayhem. Batkivshchyna formed its own self-defense group. The average protesterif one can deduce such a thingwas no longer the 20-something student, but more hardened 30 and 40-year olds, not only ready for a fight but unprepared to compromise. Many were from western Ukraine. In their local regions, the government of Yan u kovych no longer existed. Elsewhere the government deployed gangs to carry out drastic actions. They set fire to cars, beat up protesters, ki d napped people, and targeted prominent journalists.