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Ukraine’s Leader Flees Palace as Protesters Widen Control Ukraine’s Leader Flees Palace as Protesters Widen Control
(about 1 hour later)
KIEV, Ukraine — Opposition leaders took control of the presidential palace outside Kiev on Saturday, as Ukraine’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, fled the capital and Parliament, beginning to chart what appeared to be a new course for the former Soviet republic, called for elections to replace him. KIEV, Ukraine — Abandoned by his own guards and reviled across the Ukrainian capital but still determined to recover his shredded authority, President Viktor F. Yanukovych fled Kiev on Saturday to denounce what he called a violent coup, as his official residence, his vast, colonnaded office complex and other once impregnable centers of power fell without a fight to throngs of joyous citizens stunned by their triumph.
Members of an opposition group from Lviv called the 31st Hundred — carrying clubs and some of them wearing masks — were in control of the entryways to the palace Saturday morning. They watched as thousands of citizens strolled through the grounds during the day, gazing in wonder at the mansions, zoo, golf course, enclosure for rare pheasants and other luxuries, set in a birch forest on a bluff soaring above the Dnepr River. As President Yanukovych’s nemesis, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was released from a penitentiary hospital, Parliament found the president unable to fulfill his duties and exercised its constitutional powers to set an election for May 25 to select his replacement. But with both President Yanukovych and his Russian patrons speaking of a “coup” carried out by “bandits” and “hooligans,” it was far from clear that the day’s lightning-quick events were the last act in a struggle that has not just convulsed Ukraine but expanded into an East-West confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War.
“This commences a new life for Ukraine,” said Roman Dakus, a protester-turned-guard, who was wearing a ski helmet and carrying a length of pipe as he blocked a doorway. “This is only a start,” he added. “We need now to make a new structure and a new system, a foundation for our future, with rights for everybody, and we need to investigate who ordered the violence.” In the capital, protesters carrying clubs and some wearing masks were in control of the entryways to the presidential palace Saturday morning, and watched as thousands of citizens strolled through the grounds, gazing in wonder at the mansions, zoo, golf course and enclosure for rare pheasants, set in a birch forest on a bluff soaring above the Dnieper River.
Mr. Yanukovych appeared on television Saturday afternoon, saying that he had been forced to leave the capital because of a “coup,” and that he had not resigned, and did not plan to. He said he understood that people had suffered in recent days. “I feel pain for my country,” he said. “I feel responsibility. I will keep you informed of what we will do further, every day.” “This commences a new life for Ukraine,” said Roman Dakus, a protester-turned-guard, who was wearing a ski helmet and carrying a length of pipe as he blocked a doorway at the palace. “This is only a start,” he added. “We need now to make a new structure and a new system, a foundation for our future, with rights for everybody, and we need to investigate who ordered the violence.”
He also said that he was traveling to the southeastern part of the country to talk to his supporters — a move that carried potentially ominous overtones, in that the southeast is the location, among other things, of the Crimea, the historically Russian section of the country where a Russian naval base is located. A pugnacious Mr. Yanukovych surfaced on television Saturday afternoon, apparently from the eastern city of Kharkiv, near Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, saying he had been forced to leave the capital because of a “coup,” and that he had not resigned, and had no plans to. He said that his car had been fired upon as he drove away.
But Parliament subsequently declared Mr. Yanukovych unable to carry out his duties and set a date of May 25 to elect his replacement. “I don’t plan to leave the country. I don’t plan to resign,” he said. “I am a legitimately elected president.” He added: “What is happening today, mostly, it is vandalism, banditism and a coup d’état. This is my assessment and I am deeply convinced of this. I will remain on the territory of Ukraine.”
A spokeswoman for the imprisoned opposition leader and former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, said Ms. Tymoshenko would be released within hours from the prison hospital in eastern Ukraine where she was being held. He said he was traveling to the southeastern part of Ukraine to talk to his supporters — a plan that carried potentially ominous overtones, in that the southeast is the location, among other things, of the Crimea, the historically Russian section of the country that is the site of a Russian naval base.
Protesters said they had seen helicopters and cars leaving the palace compound Friday night and Saturday morning, and Mr. Yanukovych said that his car had been fired upon. The president’s departure from Kiev, just a day after a peace deal with the opposition that he had hoped would keep him in office until at least December, climaxed three months of streets protests and a week of frenzied violence in Kiev that left more than 75 protesters dead. It turned what began in November as a street protest driven by pro-Europe chants and nationalist songs into a momentous but still ill-defined revolution.
With political authority having collapsed, protesters claimed to have established control over Kiev. By Saturday morning they had secured key intersections of the city and the government district of the capital, which police officers had fled, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months. With nobody clearly in charge, other than the so far remarkably disciplined fighting squads set up to protect a protest encampment in Independence Square, the Ukrainian capital and even the whole country faced a potentially dangerous power vacuum. Adding to the combustible mix was uncertainty over the intentions of Russia, which now faces the loss of a key ally in a former Soviet republic and the prospect of a new government led by people it scorned as terrorists and fascists in what it considers a critical part of its own sphere of influence.
In Parliamentopposition members began laying the groundwork for a change in leadership, electing Oleksander Turchynov, an ally of Ms. Tymoshenko, as speaker. Ms. Tymoshenko, who was jailed by Mr. Yanukovych after losing the presidential election in 2010, was released Saturday evening from the penitentiary hospital in eastern Ukraine where she had been held, her representatives said. Many Ukrainians — and virtually all of the pro-Western protesters — believe her conviction was politically motivated and regard her as something of a martyr to their cause. She is widely expected to run for president in the coming election.
Underscoring the volatility of the situation and the potential power vacuum, Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, asked the country’s interior minister and “forces on the side of the people” to patrol the capital to prevent looting. With security officers having disappeared from the streets, protesters claimed to have established control over Kiev. By Saturday morning they had secured key intersections of the city and the government district of the capital, which riot police officers had fled, leaving behind burned military trucks, mattresses and heaps of garbage at the positions they had occupied for months. There was no sign of looting, either in the city or in the presidential compound.
On Friday Mr. Yanukovych and opposition leaders, with the help of France, Germany, Poland and Russia, ,had reached an accord that reduced the power of Mr. Yanukovych, an ally of Moscow. But Russia then refused to sign the accord, stirring fears that Moscow might now work to undo the deal through economic and other pressures, as it did last year to subvert a proposed trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union. But American officials said that President Vladimir V. Puton told Mr. Obama in a telephone call on Friday that he would work toward resolving the crisis. In Parliament, members of the opposition began laying the groundwork for a change in leadership, electing Oleksander Turchynov, an ally of Ms. Tymoshenko, as speaker. Underscoring the volatility of the situation and the potential power vacuum, Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the nationalist Svoboda party, asked the country’s interior minister and “forces on the side of the people” to patrol the capital to prevent looting.
The developments cast a shadow over the hard-fought accord reached that also mandates early presidential elections by December, a swift return to a 2004 Constitution that sharply limited the president’s powers and the establishment within 10 days of a “government of national trust.” Russia, which joined France, Germany and Poland in mediating the settlement Mr. Yanukovych and opposition leaders reached on Friday, introduced a further element of uncertainty by declining to sign the accord, which reduced the power of Mr. Yanukovych. This stirred fears that Moscow might work to undo the deal through economic and other pressures, as it did last year to subvert a proposed trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union.
American officials said Mr. Putin told Mr. Obama in a telephone call on Friday that he would work toward resolving the crisis, but his foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, did not sound as conciliatory. In a telephone call, he told the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland, “The opposition not only has failed to fulfill a single one of its obligations but is already presenting new demands all the time, following the lead of armed extremists and pogromists whose actions pose a direct threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and constitutional order.”
With Mr. Yanukovych gone, abandoned by many members of his own ruling Party of Regions, and also apparently the military, one of the president’s oldest and most stalwart allies, the billionaire businessman Rinat Akhmetov, issued a statement stressing the need to keep Ukraine “united,” an apparent rebuff to any schemes to establish a new power center in the east.
“My position remains unchanged: I am for a strong, independent and united Ukraine,” said Mr. Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. “Today I place a special focus on the word ‘united’ as this has never been more important.” Mr. Akhmetov and most other wealthy businessmen, who are known as oligarchs, have infuriated protesters by declining throughout months of protest to come out clearly against the president. Having amassed huge wealth under a deeply corrupt system headed since his election in 2010 by Mr. Yanukovych, Ukraine’s oligarchs could now face an angry backlash from the street.
The developments cast a shadow over the accord, which mandates early presidential elections by December, a swift return to a 2004 Constitution that sharply limited the president’s powers and the establishment within 10 days of a “government of national trust.”
In a series of votes that followed the accord and reflected Parliament’s determination to make the settlement work, lawmakers moved to free Ms. Tymoshenko; grant blanket amnesty to all antigovernment protesters; and provide financial aid to the hundreds of wounded and families of the dead.In a series of votes that followed the accord and reflected Parliament’s determination to make the settlement work, lawmakers moved to free Ms. Tymoshenko; grant blanket amnesty to all antigovernment protesters; and provide financial aid to the hundreds of wounded and families of the dead.
Except for a series of loud explosions on Friday night and angry chants in the protest encampment, Kiev was generally quiet with the streets largely calm on Saturday. And the authorities, although previously divided about how to handle the crisis, seemed eager to avoid more confrontations. When the opposition leaders who signed the deal spoke in its defense on Friday, people screamed “shame!” and a coffin was then hauled on a stage in Independence Square as a reminder of the more than 70 people who died in violence on Thursday, the deadliest day of political mayhem in Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union more than two decades ago.
In Independence Square, the focal point of the protest movement, however, the mood was one of deep anger and determination, not triumph. “Get out criminal! Death to the criminal!” the crowd chanted, reaffirming what, after a week of bloody violence, has become a nonnegotiable demand for many protesters: the immediate departure of Mr. Yanukovych.
When Vitali Klitschko, one of three opposition leaderswho signed the deal to end the violence, spoke in its defense, people screamed “shame!” A coffin was then hauled on a stage in the square to remind Mr. Klitschko of the more than 70 people who died in violence on Thursday, the deadliest day of political mayhem in Ukraine since independence from the Soviet Union more than two decades ago.
The violence escalated the urgency of the crisis, which began with protests in late November after a decision by Mr. Yanukovych to spurn a trade and political deal with the European Union and tilt his nation toward Russia instead.The violence escalated the urgency of the crisis, which began with protests in late November after a decision by Mr. Yanukovych to spurn a trade and political deal with the European Union and tilt his nation toward Russia instead.
It was difficult to know how much of the fury voiced on Friday night in Independence Square was fiery bravado, a final cry of anger before the three-month-long protest movement winds down or the harbinger of yet more and possibly worse violence to come.
Vividly clear, however, was the wide gulf that had opened up between the opposition’s political leadership and a street movement that has radicalized and slipped far from the already tenuous control of politicians.
Mr. Klitschko was interrupted by an angry radical who did not give his name but said he was the leader of a group of fighters, known as a hundred.
“We gave chances to politicians to become future ministers, presidents, but they don’t want to fulfill one condition — that the criminal go away!” he said, vowing to lead an armed attack if Mr. Yanukovych did not announce his resignation by 10 a.m. on Saturday. The crowd shouted: “Yes! Yes!”
Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a coalition of hard-line nationalist groups, reacted defiantly to news of the settlement, drawing more cheers from the crowd.
“The agreements that were reached do not correspond to our aspirations,” he said. “Right Sector will not lay down arms. Right Sector will not lift the blockade of a single administrative building until our main demand is met — the resignation of Yanukovych.”
He added that he and his supporters were “ready to take responsibility for the further development of the revolution.” The crowd shouted: “Good! Good!”
By early afternoon, the presidential compound of brick paved pathways, beautifully landscaped in hedges, and all set in a birch forest on a bluff overlooking the Dnepr River, was filled with hundreds of people. Some outbuildings were open; men carrying ax handles and other clubs guarded the entrances to others, lest looting begin. Around noon gunshots or explosions rang out but it was unclear what had happened.
One member of the Lviv Hundred walked onto a gazebo decorated with plastic urns, removed his green military helmet and gazed out at the park and the river below.
Another pair in soot-smeared clothing and carrying baseball bats walked into an outbuilding apparently used for summer barbecues, and sat in chairs of plush blue and gold upholstery decorated in a floral print. They pulled large yellow drinking glasses from a cabinet and photographed one another on their cellphones as if saying toasts.
“We hoped for this but didn’t expect it,” said Roman Dakus, wearing a ski helmet and carrying a length of pipe, who guarding one doorway. He had been in Independence Square, known as Maidan, off and on for three months, he said. “It was very, very difficult to stay on the square in the cold at night,” he said. “But we warmed one another with our hearts and our souls.”
“This commences a new life for Ukraine,” he said, waving his pipe to take in the overrun presidential residence. “People really changed their mind-set because of these events. Before, people thought, ‘Nothing really depends on me.’ They preferred to say that and to think like that. But after this situation, they think differently. They believe in their struggle when they are all together.”