In February hundreds of protesters were released from jail as part of an amnesty deal that led to the evacuation of demonstrators from government buildings. The thaw in tensions was short-lived, however, as opposition parliamentarians were rebuffed in their attempts to limit the powers of the presidency, and the battle in the streets took a deadly turn. More than 20 were killed and hundreds were wounded when government forces attempted to retake the Maidan on February 18. The 25,000 protesters remaining in the square ringed their encampment with bonfires in an attempt to forestall another assault. Protesters in the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk seized government buildings, and EU officials threatened sanctions against Ukraine unless the Yanukovych administration took steps to de-escalate the violence. The proposed truce failed to materialize, and on February 20 violence in Kiev escalated dramatically, with police and government security forces firing on crowds of protesters. Scores were killed, hundreds were injured, and EU leaders made good on their promise to enact sanctions against Ukraine. Central government control continued to erode in western Ukraine, as opposition forces occupied police stations and government offices in Lutsk, Uzhhorod, and Ternopil.
The bloodiest week in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history concluded on February 21 with an EU-brokered agreement between Yanukovych and opposition leaders that called for early elections and the formation of an interim unity government. The parliament responded by overwhelmingly approving the restoration of the 2004 constitution, thus reducing the power of the presidency. In subsequent votes, the parliament approved a measure granting full amnesty to protesters, fired internal affairs minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko for his role in ordering the crackdown on the Maidan, and decriminalized elements of the legal code under which Tymoshenko had been prosecuted. Yanukovych, his power base crumbling, fled the capital ahead of an impeachment vote that stripped him of his powers as president. Meanwhile, Tymoshenko, who had been released from prison, traveled to Kiev, where she delivered an impassioned speech to the crowd assembled in the Maidan. Fatherland deputy leader Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed acting president, a move that Yanukovych decried as a coup d’état. On February 24 the interim government charged Yanukovych with mass murder in connection with the deaths of the Maidan protesters and issued a warrant for his arrest.
The Ukrainian economy, struggling prior to the Maidan protests, responded erratically to the shifting power situation, with the hryvnya sinking to historic lows. Credit agency Standard & Poor’s cut the country’s debt rating and downgraded its financial outlook, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sought to restore calm. The interim Ukrainian government installed Fatherland leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister, and early presidential elections were scheduled for May 2014. Yanukovych resurfaced on February 28 in Rostov-na-Donu, Russia, and he delivered a defiant speech in Russian, insisting that he was still the rightful president of Ukraine.
The crisis in Crimea and eastern Ukraine
Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea
As pro-Russian protesters became increasingly assertive in Crimea, groups of armed men whose uniforms lacked any clear identifying marks surrounded the airports in Simferopol and Sevastopol. Masked gunmen occupied the Crimean parliament building and raised a Russian flag, as pro-Russian lawmakers dismissed the sitting government and installed Sergey Aksyonov, the leader of the Russian Unity Party, as Crimea’s prime minister. Voice and data links between Crimea and Ukraine were severed, and Russian authorities acknowledged that they had moved troops into the region. Turchynov criticized the action as a provocation and a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, while Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin characterized it as an effort to protect Russian citizens and military assets in Crimea. Aksyonov declared that he, and not the government in Kiev, was in command of Ukrainian police and military forces in Crimea.
Sevastopol, UkraineUnidentified soldiers accompanied by Russian military vehicles patrolling Sevastopol, Ukraine, on March 1, 2014, a few weeks before Russia annexed Crimea and the city.Andrew Lubimov/AP Images
On March 6 the Crimean parliament voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, with a public referendum on the matter scheduled for March 16, 2014. The move was hailed by Russia and broadly condemned in the West. Meanwhile, Yatsenyuk affirmed Kiev’s position that Crimea was an integral part of Ukraine. On the day of the referendum, observers noted numerous irregularities in the voting process, including the presence of armed men at polling stations, and the result was an overwhelming 97 percent in favour of joining Russia. The interim government in Kiev rejected the result, and the United States and the EU imposed asset freezes and travel bans on numerous Russian officials and members of the Crimean parliament. On March 18 Putin met with Aksyonov and other regional representatives and signed a treaty incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation. Western governments protested the move. Within hours of the treaty’s signing, a Ukrainian soldier was killed when masked gunmen stormed a Ukrainian military base outside Simferopol. Russian troops moved to occupy bases throughout the peninsula, including Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol, as Ukraine initiated the evacuation of some 25,000 military personnel and their families from Crimea. On March 21 after the ratification of the annexation treaty by the Russian parliament, Putin signed a law formally integrating Crimea into Russia.
As international attention remained focused on Crimea, Yatsenyuk negotiated with the IMF to craft a bailout package that would address Ukraine’s $35 billion in unmet financial obligations. He also met with EU officials in Brussels, and on March 21 Yatsenyuk signed a portion of the association pact that had been rejected by Yanukovych in November 2013. The IMF ultimately proposed an $18 billion loan package that was contingent on Ukraine’s adoption of a range of austerity measures that included devaluation of the hryvnya and curbs on state subsidies that reduced the price of natural gas to consumers.
Russia continued to solidify its hold on Crimea, and it abrogated the 2010 treaty that had extended its lease on the port of Sevastopol in exchange for a discount on natural gas. The price Russia charged Ukraine for natural gas skyrocketed some 80 percent in a matter of weeks. While Russia openly exerted economic pressure on the interim government in Kiev, Russian officials publicly stated that they had no additional designs on Ukrainian territory. In early April, however, a NATO press briefing revealed the presence of an estimated 40,000 Russian troops, massed in a state of high readiness, just across Ukraine’s border. Subsequently, heavily armed pro-Russian gunmen stormed government buildings in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, Horlivka, and Kramatorsk. In Kharkiv a group of ostensibly local gunmen mistakenly seized an opera house, believing it to be city hall. As was the case in Crimea, a number of these takeovers were executed by men with Russian equipment, in uniforms bearing no insignia, acting with military precision. In the city of Slov’yansk in the Donets Basin, a gun battle erupted as pro-Russian militiamen occupied buildings and established roadblocks.
Turchynov imposed a deadline on those occupying the buildings, offering them immunity from prosecution if they surrendered but threatening a military response if they did not. The deadline passed without incident, the occupiers consolidated their gains, and Turchynov called on the United Nations to dispatch peacekeeping forces to eastern Ukraine to restore order. Meanwhile, he signaled his support for one of the key demands of the pro-Russian camp—a popular referendum on the conversion of Ukraine into a federation, a change that would convey greater autonomy at the regional level. On April 15 the Ukrainian military successfully retook the airfield at Kramatorsk, but the following day a broader effort to reassert control in Slov’yansk went sharply awry when Ukrainian troops surrendered six armoured personnel carriers to pro-Russian militiamen. As emergency talks between Ukraine, the United States, the EU, and Russia began in Geneva, Ukrainian troops in Mariupol repelled an assault by pro-Russian gunmen that left several militiamen dead.