Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych left behind massive anti-government rallies yesterday to hold a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that protesters fear will lead to a pro-Moscow deal, ruining their EU integration dreams.
The high-stakes Kremlin meeting comes two days after the EU suspended partnership talks with Ukraine for a pact that had been aimed at pulling the former Soviet country out of Russia’s orbit for the first time.
Brussels officials cited Yanukovych’s continued courtship of Russia for their decision, and demanded a firmer commitment to EU standards on political freedoms and economic reforms.
Photo: EPA
“If there’s a clear message from Kiev, we are ready to sign [a partnership deal] tomorrow,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Monday.
However, the Ukrainian president will instead be hoping to obtain a multibillion-dollar loan from Russia that his critics view as Putin’s reward for Kiev’s U-turn on the EU pact.
“I have the feeling Yanukovych does not hear the people, and does not hear the European Union and all the attention the European Union pays us,” 32-year-old builder Bogdan Baran said as he braved freezing temperatures along with thousands of other protesters in Kiev’s iconic Independence Square.
Yanukovych’s abrupt decision last month to spurn the EU Association Agreement with Brussels sparked the fiercest anti-government rallies since the 2004 Orange Revolution that first nudged Ukraine on a westward path, but it has also exposed the ancient cultural fault lines that run in the nation between the nationalist and Ukrainian-speaking west of the country and the more Russian-aligned east.
The government has attempted to organize counter-rallies in Kiev by busing in thousands of people from eastern regions where Yanukovych enjoys broader support, but those demonstrations have been dwarfed by the pro-EU protest.
Events in recent days suggest Yanukovych is cracking under the pressure and looking for a way out of the deepest political crisis of his nearly four-year rule.
He held an inconclusive meeting with three top protest leaders on Friday and followed that up by sacking senior officials, who he held responsible for a violent crackdown on protesters at the end of last month.
His own ruling Regions Party on Monday also encouraged Yanukovych to conduct a major government overhaul that could possibly take some steam out of the protest movement.
However, the Ukrainian president has firmly rejected the opposition’s main demand that Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resign immediately so that fresh presidential and parliamentary polls can be held.
Yanukovych hopes to sign a series of deals with Putin that include an agreement for cheaper Russian natural gas shipments and a multibillion-dollar loan aimed at righting Ukraine’s wobbly economy, but demonstrators fear that Yanukovych will in fact be putting Ukraine on a path toward future membership in a Russian-led customs union.
Nationalist opposition leader Oleg Tyagnibok said his Svoboda (Freedom) party had learned that Putin plans to reward Yanukovych for delaying the EU deal with a US$5 billion loan.
He said Russia would also lower the gas price it charges the Ukrainian state gas company to between US$200 and US$300 per thousand cubic meters from more than US$400.
“That is the baggage Yanukovych is taking with him to Moscow,” Tyagnibok told reporters.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in