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Barricades are everywhere. The air is thick with smoke and the smell of fuel, as hundreds of braziers warm tired crowds camped in the streets. What you are reading is not a scene from a sci-fi movie about apost-nuclear, holocaust world. This is Kyiv and the new Maidan.

For the second time in a decade, ViktorYanukovych has united his fellow Ukrainians against him in thousands of protestactions across the country. The first time he managed such a feat was back in 2004, when thethen-PM was presented as the candidate from Ukraine’s largest oligarchic clan(this despite his two convictions of violent robbery). A rigged ‘victory’ inthe run-off with opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko triggered the eventsthat came to be known as the Orange Revolution. 

A re-run of 2004? The scenes on Kyiv's main square are reminiscent of the Orange Revolution of ten years ago. Photo cc Ivan Bandura

These events should have scuppered Yanukovych’s political career for good. Constant infighting in the Yushchenko team,however, allowed Yanukovych back in. After victory at the next presidentialelection in 2010, it took him only a few months to turn his country into anauthoritarian state (and make his son one of its wealthiest citizens in theprocess). Less than four years later, Ukrainians had had enough; the U-turn on the Association Agreement was the last straw.

Protests calling for Yanukovych to sign the EU association Agreement began two weeks ago, onthe eve of the Vilnius summit. After the debacle of Vilnius,the number of demonstrators actually began to tail off as expectations gave way to disillusionment. It was only when riot police used brutal violence to disperse demonstrators on 30 November that the protests were given a real lease of life. Photos of youngpeople with blood pouring from their wounds, and video footage of riot policekicking journalists lying down on the road, brought half a million Kyivites outonto the streets. Tens of thousands occupied the city’s centralIndependence Square to demand Yanukovych’s resignation. Tents appeared in the square and the protestersseized the City Hall and Trade Unions House — another government building —where they set up first aid posts, canteens and dormitories.

Thescenes are like a re-run of the Orange revolution in 2004.

Today’s scenes are unquestionably reminiscent of the Orangerevolution in 2004. You can see young women moving through the demonstrators with trays ofsandwiches, and cries of ‘hot tea’ ring piercing through the air as the ‘revolutionaries’ line up for awarming drink. The protest has no lack of support from Kyivites. Thousands ofpeople are turning up at the protest encampment with money, food, warm clothingand fuel.

Images of young people with blood pouring from their wounds galvanised ordinary Kyivites, who set up first aid posts, canteens and dormitories in Kyiv's main square. Photo cc Ivan Bandura

The chat is friendly, but inevitably turns tothe topic of how to overthrow the president. From time to time, someone callsfor the storming of his luxury residence in Mezhyhirya — I reported aboout it on these pages — which remains one of the most enduring symbols of blatant government corruption (not every president needs an ostrich sanctury and eighteen hole golf course, after all).The only things stopping the protesters are the distance from central Kyiv andthe thousands of troops stationed there.

Visitorsto Ukraine’s top online media resource reached 800,000 a day.

On a positive note, the 2013 Maidan protest hasbeen an absolute triumph for Ukraine’s internet and social media. Euromaidan’s Facebook pagehas made 130,000 new ‘friends’ in the last two weeks. An online TV channel,hromadske.tv, staffed by journalists fired by the officialmedia for their independent views, has provided areliable 24-hour alternative to the pro-government news stations. At the peakof the events, the number of visitors to ‘Ukrainskaya Pravda’, Ukraine’s top onlinemedia resource, reached 800,000 a day. This came despite constantDDoS attacks and thecreation of clone sites.

A short-lived mutiny? 

Whether he understands it or not, Yanukovych is clearly living through the deepest political crisis ofhis presidency. A short while after the police violence on Saturday, SerhiyLevochkin, his head of his administration and a leading figure in the rulingParty of Regions, tendered his resignation. Levochkin's wife even posted a drawing of aChristmas tree covered in blood on social networks, in apparent the explanationof the attack offered by the authorities, i.e. the need to install a hugefestive tree in a square occupied by protestors. 

Themutiny in the Yanukovych ranks proved short-lived.

The opposition in turn forced a parliamentary vote ofno confidence in the present administration, which is led by pro-Russianreactionary Mykola Azarov. The authorities took no risks, stationing more than athousand special forces troops around the parliament building and blocking accesspoints with dozens of police buses. In the end, there was no storming of the building byprotestors; and since only 186 MPs out of a necessary 226 voted for thedissolution of parliament, there was no political breakthrough happen either. The mutiny in the Yanukovychranks also proved short-lived: Levochkin remained in post, and the faction hecontrols did not cross the floor to support the opposition. His ‘brave protest’was, in effect, reduced to little more than a PR stunt designed to deflect the increasing waves ofhostility from the west.

The leading opposition figure and reigning worldheavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klychko meanwhile pinned the responsibilityof ‘blood spilt on the Maidan’ on Yanukovych and the Communist Party. As a fairlyinexperienced politician, Klychko sometimes has difficulties with public speaking,but the Euromaidan has provided him with an ideal opportunity to declare hiscandidature for the next presidential election in 2015. He’s already ahead ofYanukovych in the polls, although the government has put a spanner in the worksby hastily passing a law to disqualify him from standing since his main countryof residence is now Germany, not Ukraine.

Another opposition leader, Arseny Yatseniuk, iscalling for a snap election. Yatseniuk, an ex- Bank of Ukraine head and ForeignAffairs Minister, leads the party bloc formerly led by Yulia Tymoshenko, who isserving a seven year prison sentence on charges initiated by Yanukovych soonafter he came to power. For many years Yatseniuk was regarded as a man with afuture, but his popularity with the public isn’t helped by a total lackof charisma. 

A unitedopposition front candidate is bound to beat Yanukovych.

The only effective strategy for the oppositionwould be to agree on a single presidential candidate, whether that electionshould take place now or in 2015. The strategy worked in 2004, when the OrangeRevolution brought to power a democratic government under the presidency ofYushchenko. And it is what the present government fears most, since a unitedopposition front candidate is bound to beat Yanukovych.

The other thing about the Maidan now is thatthe political opposition is not in complete control of the popular protest, andin fact is often unclear about what to do next. The latest example of this wasYatseniuk’s call to the opposition to block the presidential administration’s operationsafter the unsuccessful no confidence vote, when in fact it was well known thatYanukovych had left the country on a visit to China. 

Who was to blame? And what is to be done?

The question that still bothers many people in Kyivis why the regime resorted to a police attack on protestors lastSaturday. A lot of people believe that the man behind it was the secretary ofUkraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Andriy Klyuyev, who isclose to the Kremlin’s behind-the-scenes man in Kyiv, ViktorMedvedchuk. One popular theory suggests that the bloodyviolence was a KGB-style ‘special operation’ to make the west droptheir designs on Yanukovych and leave him a hostage to Russia. But givenUkraine’s Putinesque power vertical, it’s highly unlikely thatthe police would have behaved as they did without Yanukovych’s explicitblessing.

It’s highly unlikelythat the police would have behaved as they did withoutYanukovych’s explicit blessing.

One prominent politician who has kept very quietduring all this popular unrest is another Party of Regions leader and formerbusiness partner of Yanukovych, the Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. This man,whose fortune is estimated at $18 billion, controls a third of the PoR factionin parliament. On the other hand, none of his associates have condemned thepolice violence at the Euromaidan or expressed any support for the opposition. As the second unspoken shareholder ofthe ruling party, Akhmetov received many privileges after Yanukovych’s victory in2010, putting his managers into important government posts and acquiring anumber energy companies on dodgy tenders during privatisation.

In an act of defiance, protesters seized control of the Kyiv council HQ (above). Photo cc Ivan Bandura

[Rinat]Akhmetov exercises no less influence of the Party of Regions and is much more susceptible to internationalsanctions.

Akhmetov is persona non grata in the USA, buthas put down roots in the UK. His family lives in London, and he himself ownsthe most expensive apartment in the world at No.1 Hyde Park. Here he receivescredit for the development of his businesses, and spends enormous sums onshoring up his reputation. So the west, which hasn’t been able to persuadeYanukovych to play by the rules, should start to work with Akhmetov as well: heexercises no less influence of the Party of Regions and is much moresusceptible to the international sanctions that the head of Freedom House DavidKramer is openly calling for.

Today, with the Euromaidan gathering strengthbut the regime still deaf to the public’s demands, it’s the right moment forthe west to take the initiative to find the way out of this impasse. Just as in2004, the president and the opposition need to sit down together for talks,with European and American politicians in the role of guarantors.

A similar role has recently been played byformer Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and ex-European ParliamentPresident Pat Cox, who visited Kyiv 25 times in the last eighteen months.Unfortunately they are now weakened and discredited by the failure of theirattempts to have Yulia Tymoshenko released and have the EU Associationagreement signed.

A new mission should consist of activepoliticians and should work to a much shorter timeframe, and their mandateshould include not just a peaceful solution to the present crisis but a guarantee of a fair and free presidentialelection in 2015. It will probably only be after this election that Ukrainewill be able to sign its Association Agreement with the European Union.    

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