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 Higher up the hill stood the seats of Ukrainian government,
defended by thousands of police. Below lay Independence Square, or
Maidan, covered in protesters’ camps and scarred with barricades and
the detritus of battle.
In fierce clashes that morning scores of protesters and government
forces had been killed. Calm now prevailed, and Melnychuk, a
handyman who helped build barricades at the protests, had arranged
to meet a friend at the palace’s white portico.
A bullet hit him as he stood next to his partner of 13 years, Maria
Kvyatkovska. The shot entered Melnychuk’s left cheek and exited near
the back of his neck, felling him instantly.
“He was chatting on the phone, just standing there. The sun was
shining,” recalled Kvyatkovska, an accountant. “It was calm in the
Maidan. Nobody expected it.” Melnychuk, 39, was declared dead that
night.
Like many Ukrainians, Melnychuk and Kvyatkovska had first gone to
the Maidan late last year because they wanted their country to forge
closer ties with the European Union. They were angry that President
Viktor Yanukovich had rejected a Ukraine-EU treaty and pursued
closer links with Russia instead.
When police beat protesters soon after the demonstrations started,
Kvyatkovska’s views had hardened. “It wasn’t about the EU” after the
beatings, she said. “It was anger about power.” She realized that
real change would require a complete overthrow of a corrupt system
that favored a small elite and wealthy oligarchs.
Eight months on, she and millions of other Ukrainians are still
waiting for their revolution.
Though Yanukovich fled in the face of the protests, and Russia
seized Crimea, Ukraine’s political system remains largely unchanged.
This weekend voters will get a chance to elect new lawmakers, but
many are dismayed that the electoral system itself has not been
reformed. Half the parliamentary seats remain open only to party
candidates, and parties give limited information about who their
candidates are.
Interviews with protesters, Ukrainian and European politicians, and
police, many detailing their roles for the first time, show how
Ukraine’s unexpected revolution has left people divided and
dissatisfied.
Many Ukrainians are mindful of the Orange Revolution of 2004. That
uprising, too, targeted Yanukovich after a presidential election
rigged in his favor. His fall generated initial optimism but did not
deliver lasting change. His successors failed to tackle corruption
or heal the country’s east-west divisions, and Yanukovich was
elected president in 2010.
A survey conducted early last month by USAID, a U.S. government
agency, found that 74 percent of Ukrainians have little or no
confidence in their parliament. Even outside Yanukovich’s former
stronghold in the troubled eastern Donbass region, only 39 percent
think the political system is democratic.
Vitaly Klitschko, mayor of Kiev and leader of the anti-Yanukovich
Udar party, feels the frustration. “Right now people have a big
expectation of reform ... and many of them are very unhappy because
they know the faces have changed, but the system is still the same,”
he told Reuters.
How could the hopes of February have turned so quickly to
disillusion and anger? The following account of the last days of the
uprising shows that the seeds of today’s disappointment were there
all along: in the chaotic nature of the protests, in the conflicting
goals of different protesters, and in the sudden toppling of
Yanukovich.
His overthrow caught the West unprepared. EU foreign ministers had
planned on a slow transition in Ukraine, with Yanukovich staying in
power for almost a year.
Opposition politicians also misread the mood of the Maidan. Coming
largely from the country’s Western-leaning and Ukrainian-speaking
areas, they did little to win over Yanukovich’s supporters in the
Russian-speaking east. They now hold power, but have yet to deliver
the reforms for which ordinary protesters fought and died. Without
fundamental change, some protesters say, there could be another
Maidan.
TURNING VIOLENT
In late 2013, students gathered in central Kiev’s European Square to
protest against Yanukovich’s rejection of closer ties to the EU. The
police moved in and beat them. Thousands more people occupied nearby
Independence Square.
The protesters all wanted change, but unanimity stopped there. Some
Ukrainians came because they wanted Kiev to forge ties with the EU;
others wanted an end to the corruption endemic among Yanukovich’s
cronies; still others wanted to reverse changes that had boosted the
president’s powers and diminished parliament.
Protesters formed a makeshift, crowded encampment in the square.
There was no single leader. Instead, various groups with their own
commanders acted in loose alliance against the common enemy. The
protesters ranged from ordinary professionals such as Kvyatkovska to
hard-bitten anti-Russian nationalists in paramilitary uniforms.
FEB 18: SHOOTING BREAKS OUT IN KIEV
In mid-February, opposition politicians pressed Yanukovich to curb
his powers. The state security service threatened “tough measures”
if street disturbances did not end. This toxic brew boiled over on
Feb. 18 when protesters confronted police near Ukraine’s parliament,
the Verkhovna Rada.
As clashes spread, shooting broke out. Protesters blame the police.
Taras Talmonychuk, a 32-year-old who works in digital advertising,
was on the Maidan at the time, bringing supplies to people at the
barricades. “I helped carry a man who was shot but alive, and I
watched as his pulse stopped. It was the first time I had seen a
death.”
Talmonychuk had joined the protests because he opposed closer ties
with Russia. “I am not for the EU or for Russia. Ukraine is another
thing. It’s independent,” he said. As with others, his experience of
violence against protesters made him more determined to act. After
helping to carry the shot man, Talmonychuk told his boss at work he
would be away for a few days, bought a helmet and protective goggles
and joined the front line.
The police saw matters differently. Oleh, a former officer in the
Berkut riot police who was on the streets of Kiev that day, said in
an email interview that the police had simply tried to stop people
entering the parliament building. Protesters, he said, had attacked
with stones, Molotov cocktails, sticks and metal pipes, and then
begun shooting.
“Just from our unit, more than 10 officers were wounded, two badly,”
he said. “My comrade was standing right next to me, all of two
meters away, and was shot – the bullet went straight through his
body armor.” That evening, a policeman died on Instytutska Street
when he was hit by a firework set off by protesters, he said.
The police deployed two armored personnel carriers to push into the
square. Protesters set barricades alight and hurled paving stones
and Molotov cocktails; 25 people died, including nine police, the
health ministry said at the time.
Yanukovich posted a message online accusing his rivals of trying to
“seize power” by means of “arson and murder.” He agreed a truce to
allow negotiations “in the interests of social peace.”
But even as the president posted his appeal, the Maidan began to
receive reinforcements from sympathizers outside Kiev. Some brought
guns, according to police and one protest leader.
FEB 18-19: LVIV’S NIGHT OF WRATH
Pro-European Ukrainians outside the capital had been protesting for
months, particularly in Lviv in the west of the country where
support for the EU and ties to Poland are prevalent. One prominent
figure was Andriy Porodko, who worked for an organization helping
children with special needs. Porodko organized a blockade against a
Lviv Interior Ministry compound, complete with tents and kitchens.
On the night of Feb. 18 to 19 – the Night of Wrath, as it became
known in Lviv – tensions erupted. Police stations and the Interior
Ministry building were set on fire. Some police removed weapons from
the stations before they were overrun, said Porodko; others were
looted. His team sent to Kiev three mini-buses loaded with armored
vests, helmets and shields for the protesters.
“We didn’t have weapons or arms” to send because the arms depot had
burned, he said. “But there were widespread cases of sending arms to
Kiev.”
Several protesters in Kiev said the only guns they saw on the
protesters’ side were air rifles. How policemen came to be shot,
they said, was unclear.
But Oleh, the Berkut officer, said he is sure the protesters had
weapons. On Feb. 19, “lots of weapons were delivered to the Maidan,”
he said. The deliveries “did not go unnoticed by the police.”
FEB 19: LAST-DITCH DIPLOMACY
In Europe, politicians still thought Ukraine’s woes could be settled
through negotiation. They believed their best hope was to strike a
compromise with Yanukovich.
Watching events from afar was Radoslaw Sikorksi, then Poland’s
foreign minister, who was with his family skiing in the Alps.
Sikorski grew up in Poland. A graduate of Oxford University, he has
a deep antipathy to communism and the autocratic rule of Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
Aghast at the violence in Kiev and at Yanukovich’s cosying up to
Putin, Sikorski rang Poland’s cabinet secretary on Feb. 19 to get a
green-light to visit the Ukrainian capital to help broker a truce.
He then called Brussels to get backing from the EU’s high
representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, he said in an
interview. Ashton was non-committal.
Walking along a cross country ski trail, Sikorski rang Frank Walter
Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, who agreed to go to Kiev.
Sikorski suggested Steinmeier try to get French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius on board. Then Sikorski rang Ashton again and told
her that Steinmeier and perhaps Fabius would come. “She said,
‘Alright, go.’”
By that evening Sikorski was in Kiev, where rumors circulated about
the Ukrainian authorities contemplating military force. Like other
diplomats, the Pole thought Yanukovich would do anything to stay in
power. “It gelled with our information about at least one brigade
being moved from the army to the Interior Ministry, presumably with
the wish to use it in what Yanukovich ... was calling an
‘anti-terrorist operation,’” said Sikorski.
The government did contemplate using the army against protesters,
according to General Volodymyr Zamana, former chief of staff of
Ukraine’s armed forces. Though the Interior Ministry had deployed
riot police – the Berkut – the government had also been laying plans
to use the army, Zamana said in an interview.
Yanukovich did not personally give him orders to use the army, he
said, but senior officials in Yanukovich’s government wanted to.
“Personally from him (Yanukovich), I didn’t get such tasks. But I
think that such proposals went to Yanukovich,” he said.
Battalions from Crimea and southern Ukraine came to Kiev, Zamana
said. But he refused to countenance an army intervention and was
sacked on Feb. 19. “I lost any right to give orders,” Zamana said. A
directive allowing the use of the army was then signed, though never
implemented, he said.
FEB 20: A BLOODY MORNING
In Kiev ahead of his EU colleagues, Sikorski planned to visit the
Maidan early on Feb. 20 before talks with Yanukovich and opposition
leaders. But as he ate breakfast, his Ukrainian security detail said
it was too dangerous to go to the square. It was a measure of how
events on the street were moving ahead of those in political
circles.
Sikorski changed plans and met protest leader Andriy Parubiy at a
church a few hundred meters from the Maidan. That morning shooting
started again.
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The main body of protesters was to the west of a barricade that ran
diagonally across one end of the square. Government forces were
concentrated in the east, towards the Presidential Palace. “There
were stun grenades, loud bangs” and the sound of shots, said
Talmonychuk, the protester who had bought a helmet and goggles for
protection. Police, he alleged, tried to set a building on fire with
Molotov cocktails. The protesters put out the fire and started to
push the police back.
Something, possibly a rubber bullet, smashed into Talmonychuk’s
goggles and made him pause. He did not want his young son growing up
without a father and so stayed inside the barricade. That, he said,
“was the thing that saved my life.”
Oleh, the Berkut officer, said police officers near the square’s
monument came under fire at about 8 a.m. “The officers began
reporting on the radio that they were being shot at and needed help,
but none of our commanders answered them,” he said. The officers
fell back, “but this only provoked those so-called ‘peaceful’
protesters – it appeared as if the police officers were retreating.”
Official investigations into the shootings have made little
progress. Three Berkut officers have been charged with killing 39
protesters. This month, Reuters detailed major flaws with the case
against the three men. Witnesses say Yanukovich’s police were not
solely to blame. Video footage shows police officers firing weapons;
some protesters believe a special sniper squad was operating on the
government side. At the same time, supporters of Yanukovich believe
provocateurs intent on inflaming the situation were shooting from
the protesters’ side. Talmonychuk said that one of his friends found
a used cartridge on the protesters’ side of the barricades; he said
it was possible it came from someone firing at the police.
FEB 20: “PUTIN IS CALLING”
It was against this chaotic backdrop that the EU foreign ministers
gathered to negotiate with Yanukovich. As accounts of those involved
show, the ministers and the rival political leaders who eventually
took over from Yanukovich set out to get the president to
compromise, rather than force bigger changes.
When German Foreign Minister Steinmeier arrived at the German
embassy in Kiev that morning, he met Sikorski and Fabius, the French
foreign minister, and three Ukrainian opposition leaders. The three
Ukrainians were Klitschko, head of Udar, a pro-EU and
anti-corruption party that lacked experience; Arseny Yatseniuk of
the pro-European and liberal-leaning Batkivshchyna, or Fatherland
party, headed by Yulia Tymoshenko, who was in jail and who had lost
much of her previous popularity; and Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the
far-right nationalist Svoboda party.
All drew most of their support from central and west Ukraine. They
offered little cohesion in a fractured country.
Nevertheless, Sikorski recalled, “they were quite reasonable. They
wanted the old, more democratic constitution back, and they wanted
an end to the killing, obviously.”
After the meeting, the EU foreign ministers discussed how to
approach Yanukovich about stepping down. Sikorski had negotiated
with him before and guessed what would happen. “He would start
talking and ... it would be impossible to break in,” Sikorski said.
“So we pre-agreed that Steinmeier would quite quickly interrupt him
and tell him to get real.”
At the presidential palace, guarded by ranks of helmeted police with
metal shields, Yanukovich began sounding off about how bad his
political opponents were and how reasonable he was, Sikorski said.
Steinmeier interrupted and said Yanukovich had to strike a deal with
the opposition.
“And he didn’t question that,” said Sikorski. “His idea was yes,
there needs to be a deal and yes, we need to change the
constitution. But he refused to talk about dates.”
Sikorski thought Yanukovich was playing for time and told him he had
to declare a resignation date.
An aide entered the room and passed a piece of paper to Yanukovich.
“He said, ‘Putin is calling, I have to go,’” recalled Sikorski. The
president was gone about 40 minutes. When he returned he said
nothing of his call, but said: “Alright, I will go, I’ll go before
my time is up.”
That evening the EU ministers and Ukrainian opposition leaders
returned to the presidential building to thrash out details with
Yanukovich and his aides. They met in a rococo paneled room, and
were joined by Vladimir Lukin, a representative sent by Putin. Food
and drinks were served. Out on the Maidan, the barricades smoldered.
Sikorski was struck by the contrast between the brutality in the
square and the easy familiarity of the Ukrainian politicians as they
talked with Yanukovich: “These guys were sort of on first name terms
and quite familiar with each other.” It was a hint of how
significant change in the political system was unlikely to happen
quickly no matter who was in charge.
As discussions dragged on, Yanukovich appeared undefeated. He was
“living in an illusion,” said Klitschko, who sat across the table.
“I tried to explain to him about the situation in the street, in the
country ... I have a feeling he did not realize what was happening.”
FEB 21: THE DOWNFALL
By 7 a.m. the two sides had a draft. Yanukovich would agree to
constitutional reform and an early presidential election. But he
would remain president for almost a year.
The participants left to grab a few hours sleep, agreeing to regroup
for a formal signing ceremony at 11 a.m. As the time approached,
Klitschko and the other opposition leaders were absent. The
politicians had struck a deal to keep the country together – but
they had misjudged the protesters in the square.
A former heavyweight boxer who won 45 of 47 pro fights, Klitschko is
6 feet 7-1/2 inches (2 meters) tall and once had the nickname Dr
Ironfist. That morning he and other opposition leaders faced a
verbal onslaught from Maidan representatives in a meeting at the
Kiev Hotel.
The protesters thought the draft deal was weak and unacceptable.
Klitschko called the EU ministers. When they arrived, Steinmeier
made an emotional appeal: “You have the fate of Ukraine in your
hands,” he told the protest leaders. “Ukraine is standing at the
abyss and about to tumble into chaos and civil war.”
Sikorski said the draft deal was the best they could hope for, and
if it was rejected Yanukovich would clamp down even harder. “It
wasn’t an easy deal for them to accept,” he said. “Basically, what
we were proposing was that the person who had just killed 100 people
was staying as their president for almost a year.”
The Maidan representatives voted to accept the deal. The formal
signing took place in the Blue Hall of the presidential palace at 3
p.m. Folders containing the text were set out on a table set with
nameplates. Klitschko saw that he was seated next to Yanukovich and
promptly switched his nameplate with that of another man, grinning
at a Reuters reporter who spotted the move.
Nevertheless, Klitschko shook hands with the president after the
deal was signed. Photographers and cameramen captured the moment.
Sikorski noted it, too, fearing the gesture would send the wrong
message.
Thinking their job done, the EU ministers headed for home. In the
Maidan, however, the protesters were not finished. When Klitschko
arrived with other opposition leaders, the reception was hostile.
“Everybody said, ‘How can you shake his (Yanukovich’s) bloody hands?
He killed people in the street,’” Klitschko recalled. “If I’d
punched him, everybody would have been happy – but it doesn’t help
talks. At that moment, emotion ruled.”
One of those in the crowd was Talmonychuk, the protester. He made
his dissatisfaction known to Yatseniuk, the opposition leader who is
now Ukraine’s prime minister.
“Yatseniuk came onto the Maidan and I stood next to him,”
Talmonychuk said. “We told him, ‘We’re watching you.’ Some people
said to him, ‘Fuck you.’”
The deal was unraveling. Later that evening Sikorski received a call
from the Ukrainian foreign minister. “He said the president’s
cavalcade was shot upon and that he was leaving Kiev,” Sikorski
said. Yanukovich traveled to Kharkiv, and later on to Donetsk and
then Russia. In a television interview at the time he said his car
had been shot at, but that he had not left Kiev out of fear.
Though Yanukovich, who could not be contacted for comment, never
resigned, his parliamentary support crumbled. On Feb. 22, lawmakers
voted to oust him.
The suddenness of the overthrow backfired on Yanukovich’s foes. It
allowed the Kremlin and pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s east to
play up earlier suggestions that neo-Nazi groups were behind the
protests. Exploiting a supposed threat to Russian-speakers in the
east, Putin moved over the ensuing weeks to take control of Crimea,
where people voted in a referendum to support the change. And in the
Donbass region of Ukraine, separatists declared autonomy.
OCTOBER: “MAIDAN STOOD FOR MANY THINGS”
Under pressure from lobby groups representing Maidan protesters, a
law of “lustration” – the screening of officials to root out
corruption and purge the system of closet Yanukovich sympathizers -
has now come into force. The new president, Poroshenko, has promised
reforms aimed at strengthening law enforcement and decentralizing
power. Whether he can deliver remains to be seen.
In an interview, Klitschko acknowledged that many popular demands
remained unaddressed. Reform of politics and police were important,
he said, but his priority as Kiev mayor was security. “If we have
instability in ... the capital of Ukraine, we have instability in
the whole country.”
Andriy Porodko, the Lviv protester, complains that bribery continues
to thrive. The revolution, he said, “changed the face of the
authorities, but not the system itself.” Talmonychuk, the protester
in the Maidan, says power and money are still too concentrated in
Kiev. “Maidan stood for many things, but it won only one: it got rid
of Yanukovich,” he said. “All the rest are still open.”
General Zamana, the former chief of staff, says he is disappointed
the new leaders have not pursued reconciliation with troops and
police; they should not have been painted as criminals when they
were following orders, he said. Oleh, the Berkut officer, denounces
the new government for letting Russia seize Crimea and fan war in
the east.
Kvyatkovska hopes the Maidan will lead to a better future, but
mourns her loss. Late one afternoon in August, she stood where her
partner, the handyman Melnychuk, had been shot. The spot was marked
by a small shrine with flowers and a photograph. “I don’t understand
why they shot a man who was just talking on the telephone,” she
said.
(Additional reporting by Jack Stubbs, Sabine Siebold, Oleksandr
Akymenko and Steve Stecklow; Editing By Simon Robinson)
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