Top Ukrainian opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko, center, US Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt, left, and EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski during their meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014. An ally of the long-jailed Tymoshenko took presidential powers Sunday, plunging Ukraine into new uncertainty after a deadly political standoff—and boosting her chances at a return to power. AP
KIEV—A new era dawned in Ukraine on Sunday as parliament appointed a pro-Western interim leader after ousted president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev to escape retribution for a week of deadly carnage.
The ex-Soviet state’s tumultuous three-month crisis culminated in a dizzying flurry of historic changes over the weekend that saw parliament sideline the pro-Russian head of state and call a new presidential poll for May 25.
Lawmakers then went a step further by approving the release from her seven-year jail sentence of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko—a star of the 2004 Orange Revolution who was thrown behind bars less than a year after Yanukovych came to power in 2010.
The constitutional legitimacy of parliament’s actions remains an open question and Yanukovych vowed in a taped interview to fight the “bandits” who now claimed to rule Ukraine.
But Yanukovych’s authority was nowhere in evidence in Kiev on Sunday. The city’s police presence had vanished and protesters were in control of everything from traffic management to protection of government buildings after a week of bloodshed that claimed nearly 100 lives.
Both Washington and European leaders vowed to drum up financial help that could pull Ukraine out of a crisis sparked in November when Yanukovych spurned a historic EU deal and later secured a $15-billion bailout for the struggling nation from its old master Russia.
‘Government of the people’
Lawmakers voted on Sunday to name close Tymoshenko ally Oleksandr Turchynov—himself only appointed parliament speaker on Saturday in place of a veteran Yanukovych supporter—as interim president tasked with forming a new government by Tuesday.
Turchynov immediately vowed to draw up a “government of the people” and warned Russia that he expected the Kremlin to respect his country’s pivot.
“We are ready for a dialogue with Russia… that recognizes and takes into account Ukraine’s European choice,” the 49-year-old said in a television address.
New interior minister Arsen Aviakov announced the launch of a probe into police killings of protesters in a week of carnage that turned Kiev’s heart into a war zone.
Yanukovych was dealt another blow when his own Regions Party condemned him for issuing “criminal orders” that led to so many deaths.
Parliament also voted to dismiss Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara after sacking the federal police chief and prosecutor general on Saturday.
West offers help
Western countries gave cautious but vital backing to the sweeping changes in Ukraine, while Russia once again warned that payment of its huge bailout package was on hold.
Ukraine stands on the precipice of a default. It owes nearly $13 billion in debt payments this year—money it cannot drum up on financial markets because of prohibitively expensive borrowing costs.
Turchynov warned on Sunday that Ukraine was “rolling toward an (economic) abyss”.
US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told a G20 meeting in Sydney that Washington “stands ready to assist Ukraine as it implements reforms”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin also tried to calm some of the Cold War-style jousting that had erupted between the West and Moscow over Ukraine’s future in the past weeks.
A Merkel spokesman said the two leaders agreed on the need to preserve Ukraine territorial integrity—a reference to the deep cultural fissure that runs between the pro-European west of the country and its far more Russified east.
European concern about the vast country’s breakup also resurfaced when French President Francois Hollande issued a statement stressing that Ukraine’s territorial integrity “must be respected”.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will fly to Kiev on Monday to ensure Kiev’s new leaders uphold that, and do not reconsider their tilt towards the West. Her office said the two-day visit would work out “measures to stabilise the economic situation” in Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said a “bankrupt Ukraine was too much of a weight” for the European Union and “terms and possibilities of stabilizing Ukraine economically” needed to be nutted out.
But Russia does not appear to be willing to stump up from its end. It has confirmed that the remaining $12 billion in Moscow’s assistance package is on hold until the political situation in Kiev clears up.
And Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told US Secretary of State John Kerry that Moscow was increasingly uneasy about “the seizure of power” by the opposition in Ukraine.
Tymoshenko for president?
The whereabouts of Yanukovych himself, meanwhile, remained a mystery amid speculation that he was hiding out in the pro-Russian east.
Turchynov and Ukraine’s border service both said Yanukovych had been prevented from fleeing the country out of the eastern city of Donetsk because his charter plane did not have the required paperwork.
Yanukovych claimed in his taped video message on Saturday that he would never leave Ukraine or relinquish the presidency to opponents he compared to “Nazis.”
But attention of world leaders was quickly shifting to Tymoshenko amid mounting speculation that the former premier had the best chance of uniting the opposition for a presidential bid.
Tymoshenko—who had appeared before the crowd in a wheelchair on Saturday because of back problems—held telephone talks with Merkel and also met Western ambassadors in Kiev.
Her spokeswoman stressed that the 53-year-old—charismatic but also dogged by allegations of corruption and self-interest from when she was twice prime minister— had made no decision about running in May.
“This is not the right time for this,” spokeswoman Natalia Lysova told AFP.
Tymoshenko has rejected consideration for the post of prime minister in the new interim cabinet—a comment that reignited speculation she was intent on nothing less than head of state.
The opposition’s main presidential challenge had until this weekend been primarily expected to come from boxer-turned-lawmaker Vitali Klitschko.
The popular UDAR (Punch) party leader had initially announced his presidential ambitions in October. But he backtracked from those comments on Sunday in an apparent concession to Tymoshenko’s continued public appeal.
“My main goal is not to take the chair of president,” Klitschko told the BBC.—Dmitry Zaks