On 21 November, a week before Yanukovych was expected to make his way to the summit in Lithuania, he informed the EU that he would not be signing the agreement. He said Ukraine could not afford to sacrifice its trade with Russia. It was a well-known fact that Russia was very much opposed to the EU treaty and had already threatened Ukraine with sanctions if it were to sign. Nonetheless, the EU was stunned. For the past six years the members of the European parliament had worked hard to establish a Brussels–Kiev pact, only to see it now dropped at the last moment.
At home, many Ukrainians were as much in shock as the astonished Euro parliamentarians. Was this the same man who had argued in favour of deepening trade with the European Union? Many voters felt betrayed by Yanukovych. They had been so sure that their president would, like his predecessors, look to the West for help in building a democracy. Now he was embracing the Russians and their president, Putin. Many voters felt Yanukovych’s sell-out to Russia was an act of betrayal; they could not come to terms with the U-turn their leader had suddenly taken. As the people of Ukraine poured onto the streets in protest, their chants of ‘He tricked us’ said it all.
But certainly not everyone in Ukraine felt that way. The peoples of western and eastern Ukraine appeared almost to be living in totally different worlds, and their views on why and how Yanukovych suddenly changed his course were as contrasting as their backgrounds. Some argued that Yanukovych’s initial desire to forge closer links with the EU may well have been genuine but that he became dismayed and discouraged when he felt the EU failed to acknowledge the scale of the financial difficulties he would face if he chose Brussels over Moscow. Offended when he discovered that Kiev would not be offered the firm prospect of full membership of the EU, he began to believe that Ukraine was being treated by the West as a country lesser ‘even to Poland’, its next-door neighbour, which was a full member of the EU. Yanukovych feared that Ukraine in the end would be left standing at the gateway to Europe, neither totally welcomed nor embraced in the way Poland had been by the EU.
There would be a cost whichever way Yanukovych turned, and Russia was now more than eager to offer help to its needy neighbour. Ukraine’s 46 million people occupied a strategic position between Europe and Russia. Although Brussels realised it was losing its ‘tug of love’ over Ukraine, now that this strategically important country was suddenly striking up a deal with Moscow it was surprisingly slow to respond. Perhaps it believed that Yanukovych would eventually turn around. The Russians, however, moved in quickly and generously promised to invest US$15 billion in the government’s debt and to reduce the price of its gas to Ukraine by a third.
Yanukovych’s volte-face sent a thunderbolt through the country. People felt that their president had sacrificed the hopes and wishes of most of his countrymen on the altar of Russian money and contracts. That same night, 21 November, several hundred people came to central Kiev in protest. The protests took place in Kiev’s central square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the same square that had been the focus of the 2004 Orange Revolution.
From her prison cell, Yulia Tymoshenko announced a hunger strike in protest at Kiev’s decision. Her release and departure to Germany, refused by the president, had become a central demand by Europe for the pact with the EU to go ahead, but Tymoshenko let Yanukovych know that she would renounce that right if he signed the EU agreement. ‘This is the only chance for you to survive as a politician,’ she pleaded with Yanukovych. ‘Because now, when you are killing the agreement, you are making the biggest mistake of your life.’
All through the week protesters set up camp in Maidan. The date of the protest was almost symbolic: it was exactly nine years from the days of the Orange Revolution, which had defeated what some voters believed was Yanukovych’s attempt to steal a presidential election. People busied themselves putting up tents and making fires in Kiev’s central square. Others brought in warm clothes and food for those who came to the Maidan from all over Ukraine. The cold night air was filled with the sound of voices singing Ukraine’s melancholic national anthem. To avoid trouble, alcohol was quickly banned. To keep warm, people danced or played football.
On Saturday 30 November 2013, around 2000 protesters gathered in Maidan to express their discontent. Over the next few days protests grew, with thousands of protesters arriving at the beginning of December. As the crowd increased, so did their desire to express their disappointment more forcibly. A small group tried to enter government buildings but was dispersed by the police. In the end students managed to occupy several municipal buildings, turning the city hall into their ‘revolutionary headquarters’.
That same day at about 4.30am, Ukraine’s riot police, the Berkut, moved into the square. They came to restore order, they warned the protesters; when the activists refused to leave Maidan, the police pummelled them with truncheons and sprayed them with tear gas. When many students fled, the Berkut chased them and beat them when they were caught.
Never in its twenty-two years as an independent country had Ukraine witnessed such acts of violence against their own people. The public response to the attack was momentous. Parents were not going to stand by passively and watch their children being beaten. Later that day over ten thousand people, including parents and many elderly Ukrainians, poured into Maidan.
As the situation heated up, Ukrainian citizens from all over the north and west made their way to Kiev; it was estimated that some hundred thousand people were marching into the city, heading for the square. To give those who had travelled from other cities and the countryside a sleeping place, tents were erected not only in the square but along the streets leading to it. Barricades were put up to keep the Berkut at bay. The square’s Christmas tree was dismantled and used as a barricade; Ukrainian flags and anti-government slogans decorated its toppled carcass.
A large stage was raised on the square and every day after work hours, people gathered to hear the speeches of community activists and politicians who supported the movement. Musicians and other artists kept the masses entertained, bringing some cheer to the crowds who spent the night braving the bitter cold. On Sunday the number of people pouring into Maidan doubled or tripled, driving their numbers into the hundreds of thousands. Throughout those first days, police tried in vain to disperse the crowds, but to no avail.
Two days later, 3 December, Yanukovych flew to China, where he was going to sign a deal which he claimed would bring in a US$8 billion investment to Ukraine. In the meantime, at home, his cabinet barely survived a no-confidence vote in parliament. The protesters were now less focused on the EU agreement; their focal point had shifted to ridding the country of its corrupt leaders. The crowds, united in their common goal to free Ukraine of decades of political corruption, demanded the resignation of President Yanukovych.
To show their solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Frans Timmermans, and two liberal members of the European parliament, Hans van Baalen and Guy Verhofstadt, rushed to Kiev on 4 December. Timmermans stressed in an interview, after he posted a photo of himself speaking to people at Maidan on Facebook, that he wasn’t there to pick sides. The Russians, however, were not amused by the visit of the EU members; Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev condemned their action, explaining that it was alright for foreign politicians to speak with Ukrainian leaders, but to take part in the protests and meet with the opposition was considered an interference in internal affairs. Even in Europe leaders raised eyebrows, considering the rushed and rash visit an inflammatory move.