Why President Yanukovych fled Ukraine--by Ukrainian journalist JV Koshiw [View all]

[Tommy_Carcetti]

An excellent blog piece by Ukrainian journalist JV Koshiw giving a blow-by-blow analysis on former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukoych's last days in power in Ukraine in February 2014. This pretty much throws cold water on a lot of the conspiracy theories out there claiming that Yanukovych was deposed by a US backed "coup" and that the West is somehow to blame for the current crisis in Ukraine. A very good read.

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http://www.jvkoshiw.com/#!Why-President-Yanukovych-fled-Ukraine/ck8a/F4D49016-F69F-45D6-AE4A-027C10E02B79


Why President Yanukovych fled Ukraine

April 23, 2014

On February 22, 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych left the president’s post vacant. But why? Wasn’t his presidency safe? The day before he had signed an agreement with the opposition, witnessed by three EU foreign ministers, that would have kept him as president until December 2014.

This analysis argues that Yanukovych decided to flee from the capital three days earlier, on February 19, after failing to wipe out the opposition with the "Operation Boomerang" police action. On that day he ordered his staff to begin packing his valuables. For the next three days, his property was placed into removal vans; once the process was over, early in the morning of February 22, he left.

Other explanations of why he abandoned his post do not reflect what actually happened. For example, Christian Neef in Yanukovych's Fall: The Power of Ukraine's Billionaires, Der Spiegel, February 25, 2014, credits the oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash with causing Yanukovych’s downfall, arguing that their supporters in parliament, 60 and 30 MPs respectively, voted with the opposition on February 20 to topple Yanukovych by removing his ability to use “anti-terrorist” actions against the protesters.

However, voting figures from that day show that very few of Akhmetov’s or Firtash’s MPs were present. As a matter of fact only 35 out of 205 MPs from the Party of Regions were in parliament to vote against Yanukovych.

Neither can the official opposition or Western diplomats be seen as the reason behind his departure, given that both sides had signed a document ensuring that he would remain president until the next election.

The facts on the ground also belie the repeated claims by President Putin and his minions that Yanukovych was toppled by a coup.

What happened was that Yanukovych removed himself from the president’s office after failing to exterminate the opposition with force. He literally gave up.
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Much more at link.