UKRAINE Maidan protesters are still waiting for real change in Ukraine, despite ousting the former president. The roots of their frustration lie in the events of February Ukraine’s unfinished revolution BY RICHARD WOODS SPECIAL REPORT 1 UKRAINE AN UNFINISHED REVOLUTION KIEV, OCTOBER 23, 2014 MAIDAN VICTIM: Volodymyr Melnychuk n the afternoon of February 20, after the was one of scores of morning’s dead had been cleared away, people shot in Kiev on IVolodymyr Melnychuk arrived outside Feb. 20. Flowers and Kiev’s October palace. a photograph of him Higher up the hill stood the seats of mark the spot where Ukrainian government, defended by thou- he fell. Similar shrines sands of police. Below lay Independence pay tribute to others Square, or Maidan, covered in protesters’ killed in the protests. camps and scarred with barricades and the REUTERS/RICHARD detritus of battle. WOODS In fierce clashes that morning scores of protesters and government forces had COVER: A protester been killed. Calm now prevailed, and with a Ukrainian Melnychuk, a handyman who helped build flag during clashes barricades at the protests, had arranged to on Feb.20 in Kiev’s meet a friend at the palace’s white portico. Independence Square. A bullet hit him as he stood next to his REUTERS/YANNIS partner of 13 years, Maria Kvyatkovska. BERHAKIS 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,” re- called Kvyatkovska, an accountant. “It was calm in the Maidan. Nobody expected it.” Melnychuk, 39, was declared dead that Though Yanukovich fled in the face of tackle corruption or heal the country’s east- night. the protests, and Russia seized Crimea, west divisions, and Yanukovich was elected Like many Ukrainians, Melnychuk Ukraine’s political system remains largely president in 2010. and Kvyatkovska had first gone to the unchanged. This weekend voters will get a A survey conducted early last month by Maidan late last year because they wanted chance to elect new lawmakers, but many USAID, a U.S. government agency, found their country to forge closer ties with the are dismayed that the electoral system itself that 74 percent of Ukrainians have little European Union. They were angry that has not been reformed. Half the parliamen- or no confidence in their parliament. Even President Viktor Yanukovich had rejected tary seats remain open only to party candi- outside Yanukovich’s former stronghold in a Ukraine-EU treaty and pursued closer dates, and parties give limited information the troubled eastern Donbass region, only links with Russia instead. about who their candidates are. 39 percent think the political system is When police beat protesters soon after Interviews with protesters, Ukrainian democratic. the demonstrations started, Kvyatkovska’s and European politicians, and police, many Vitaly Klitschko, mayor of Kiev and views had hardened. “It wasn’t about the detailing their roles for the first time, show leader of the anti-Yanukovich Udar party, EU” after the beatings, she said. “It was how Ukraine’s unexpected revolution has feels the frustration. “Right now people anger about power.” She realised that real left people divided and dissatisfied. have a big expectation of reform ... and change would require a complete over- Many Ukrainians are mindful of the many of them are very unhappy because throw of a corrupt system that favoured a Orange Revolution of 2004. That uprising, they know the faces have changed, but the small elite and wealthy oligarchs. too, targeted Yanukovich after a presiden- system is still the same,” he told Reuters. Eight months on, she and millions of tial election rigged in his favour. His fall How could the hopes of February have other Ukrainians are still waiting for their generated initial optimism but did not de- turned so quickly to disillusion and anger? revolution. liver lasting change. His successors failed to Text continues on page 4 SPECIAL REPORT 2 UKRAINE AN UNFINISHED REVOLUTION CHRONOLOGY The Maidan’s RUSSIA Kiev Unexpected 1 Nov 2013: Protests begin in UKRAINE Kiev’s Independence Square Victory aer Yanukovich rejects deal with EU and turns to Russia. How Ukraine’s former president ROMANIA Viktor Yanukovich was suddenly Feb 18, 2014: Tensions boil MOLDOVA Crimea over, shooting starts. ousted aer months of stalemate. Protesters and police killed. 2 Feb 20: EU foreign ministers go Dnieper to Kiev to broker deal with River Yanukovich. Scores shot during Maidan clashes, including CENTRAL KIEV Volodymyr Melnychuk outside October Palace. 1 3 Feb 20-21: All-night talks in the Presidential Administration building. 2 Mariyinsky Palace Independence Square October Feb 21, aernoon: Yanukovich Up to 100,000 gathered Ins and opposition leaders sign ty Palace at the square. tu deal for Yanukovich to step t sk down at end of year. a 3 4 S tre et Feb 21, evening: Protesters in Presidential Maidan reject deal, saying City Hall Administration Yanukovich must quit Parliament immediately. He leaves Kiev. building 4 Feb 22: Yanukovich support crumbles, parliament votes to oust him. The following account of the last days of Ukrainian-speaking areas, they did little Independence Square. the uprising shows that the seeds of today’s to win over Yanukovich’s supporters in the The protesters all wanted change, but disappointment were there all along: in the Russian-speaking east. They now hold pow- unanimity stopped there. Some Ukrainians chaotic nature of the protests, in the con- er, but have yet to deliver the reforms for came because they wanted Kiev to forge ties flicting goals of different protesters, and in which ordinary protesters fought and died. with the EU; others wanted an end to the the sudden toppling of Yanukovich. Without fundamental change, some pro- corruption endemic among Yanukovich’s His overthrow caught the West unpre- testers say, there could be another Maidan. cronies; still others wanted to reverse pared. EU foreign ministers had planned changes that had boosted the president’s TURNING VIOLENT on a slow transition in Ukraine, with powers and diminished parliament. Yanukovich staying in power for almost a In late 2013, students gathered in central Protesters formed a makeshift, crowded year. Kiev’s European Square to protest against encampment in the square. There was no Opposition politicians also misread Yanukovich’s rejection of closer ties to the single leader. Instead, various groups with the mood of the Maidan. Coming largely EU. The police moved in and beat them. their own commanders acted in loose al- from the country’s Western-leaning and Thousands more people occupied nearby liance against the common enemy. The SPECIAL REPORT 3 UKRAINE AN UNFINISHED REVOLUTION protesters ranged from ordinary profes- sionals 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 Talimonchuk, a 32-year-old who works in digital advertising, was on the Maidan at the time, bringing supplies to people at the bar- TURNING POINT: After months of stalemate, the Maidan demonstration erupted into lethal violence ricades. “I helped carry a man who was shot in late February. Here injured protesters are carried away in Independence Square on Feb. 20. but alive, and I watched as his pulse stopped. REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS/DAVID MDZINARISHVILI It was the first time I had seen a death.” Talimonchuk 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 deter- mined to act. After helping to carry the shot man, Talimonchuk told his boss at work he would be away for a few days, bought a hel- met 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 of- firework set off by protesters, he said. Yanukovich posted a message online ac- ficers were wounded, two badly,” he said. The police deployed two armoured per- cusing his rivals of trying to “seize power” “My comrade was standing right next to sonnel carriers to push into the square. by means of “arson and murder.” He agreed me, all of two metres away, and was shot Protesters set barricades alight and hurled a truce to allow negotiations “in the inter- – the bullet went straight through his body paving stones and Molotov cocktails; 25 ests of social peace.” armour.” That evening, a policeman died people died, including nine police, the But even as the president posted his on Instytutska Street when he was hit by a health ministry said at the time. appeal, the Maidan began to receive SPECIAL REPORT 4 UKRAINE AN UNFINISHED REVOLUTION DONE DEAL: Key negotiators after signing an agreement with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich: Frank Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister; Vitaly Klitschko, Udar party leader and now mayor of Kiev; Radoslaw Sikorski, then Poland’s foreign minister; and Arseny Yatseniuk of the Fatherland party and now prime minister of Ukraine.