An important clarification from Russia Today News.

[pampango]

36. Yanukovych 'overthrew' himself. The February 21 agreement with the protesters required him to remain

in office, protect public buildings and schedule a new election for December. He did none of those things. He did not even try to do any of them. Within a few hours he had packed up and left.

Instead of doing what he had agree to do, he ordered the security forces not protect government buildings and fled just a few hours after signing the agreement. Plan A seemed to be for him to contain and eventually break up the protests so that he could remain in office. Plan A collapsed when he signed the February 21 agreement agreeing to the December election which he was not confident he would win given events.

Plan B (from Putin?) was to leave and intentionally leave public buildings unprotected hoping their subsequent occupation would create the image of a violent takeover of the Ukrainian government that could be used to justify unspecified actions in the future.

The "democratically elected president" would still be in office if he had complied with the agreement, used security forces the way he had just agreed to use them and remained in Kiev running the government. All the Russian leadership knows that Yanukovych is a joke. Putin said there is no role for him in Ukrainian government in the future. Putin has no use for him other than as an abstract "democratically elected president" whom he hopes never returns to Kiev but can be used as a negotiating chip.

Within a few hours of signing an agreement that would keep him in power until December (and possibly much longer if he won the election) he not only turned and ran, but acted very 'unpresidentially' by ordering security forces to not protect the remaining government in which his own political party was still a majority. Why would he do that unless there was a Plan B?

What would anyone have wanted the remaining government representative to do when such a clown ran away? Beg him to come back? Beg him to tell the security forces to do their job? Beg him to do his own job? If he was afraid to stay in Kiev and do his job even though he had control of and protection from the police, security forces and Ukrainian military, what makes anyone think he would come back after running away in the first place? Perhaps the presence of a larger, more powerful army? Hmmmmm.