Ukraine requests arrest warrant for Yanukovych
Wednesday 26 February 2014 16.26
Ukraine’s interim general prosecutor has requested an international arrest warrant for ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, who is wanted within his own crisis-hit country over the “mass murder” of protesters.
Oleg Makhnytsky told reporters in Kyiv that Mr Yanukovych was “the subject of an international arrest warrant”.
It is as yet unclear whether authorities had made a formal demand to Interpol.
NATO defence ministers have thrown their support behind Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as the ousting of Mr Yanukovych has raised doubts about the country’s future.
“A sovereign, independent and stable Ukraine, firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law, is key to Euro-Atlantic security,” the ministers said in a statement issued during their meeting in Brussels.
“NATO allies will continue to support Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, democratic development, and the principle of inviolability of frontiers, as key factors of stability and security in central and eastern Europe and on the continent as a whole,” they said.
Pro-Russia separatists and supporters of Ukraine’s new leaders confronted each other outside Crimea’s regional parliament before a planned debate on the political upheaval in the country.
The parliamentary session was later cancelled and the crowds have started to disperse.
About 2,000 people, many of them ethnic Tatars who are the indigenous group on the Black Sea peninsula, had converged on the parliament building to support the ‘Euro-Maidan’ movement which overturned Mr Yanukovych in Kyiv.
They were met by several hundred pro-Russia demonstrators who shouted loyalty to Moscow and denounced the “bandits” who had seized power in the Ukrainian capital.
Crimea was gifted to Ukraine in 1954 in the Soviet-era by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
With a part of Russia’s Black Sea fleet based in the port of Sevastopol, it remains the only region of Ukraine where ethnic Russians dominate in numbers.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s acting interior minister said he has disbanded the elite Berkut riot police that protesters blamed for most of the deaths last week in Kyiv.
“The Berkut is no more,” acting interior minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook account.
“I have signed Decree No 144, dated 25 February 2014 on the dissolution of the Berkut special police units of civil defence.”
Elsewhere, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on democracy watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to “decisively condemn” the rise of “nationalist and neo-fascist” sentiment in western Ukraine.
In a foreign ministry statement, Mr Lavrov also said the OSCE should condemn attempts by nationalists to ban the Russian language in Ukraine.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the crisis in Ukraine should not be seen as a battle between east and west.
He called for all nations to work together to bring stability as the country deals with political uncertainty following months of unrest.
Mr Kerry was speaking alongside his British counterpart, William Hague at a news conference in Washington.
An Irish expert on post-Communist politics, Professor Neil Robinson, said it will be imperative that the provisional leaders of Ukraine are able to gain support throughout the country and secure emergency funding for Ukraine.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said territorial unity will pose a problem in the Crimea – an ethnically Russian region – because Russia has not yet made its position clear.
His comments come as a unity government is expected to be formed tomorrow and fresh elections are due to take place in May.
The economic stability of Ukraine is in doubt, as it faces bankruptcy and a promised loan from Russia is looking unlikely.
Prof Robinson added that the International Monetary Fund is reluctant to issue any more funds to the Ukrainian government after it failed to reform after previous bailouts.
“The IMF Article 6 consultation last December was quite critical of Ukrainian government’s failure to reform and honour is past promises.”
“The IMF has given bailouts to Ukraine, namely a small amount of money in 1990s followed by a large tranche of aid in 2008 and in 2010 to stave off major financial crisis, but the disbursement of that money was frozen in 2011 due to Ukraine’s failure to reform its oil and gas industries,” he said.
Putin puts troops in western Russia on alert in drill
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an urgent drill to test the combat readiness of the armed forces across western Russia, news agencies reported.
Mr Putin has ordered several such surprise drills in various parts of Russia since he returned to the presidency in 2012, saying the military must be kept on its toes, but the geopolitical overtones could hardly have been clearer this time.
The western district borders Ukraine, which lies between NATO nations and Russia.
The drill will be conducted in two stages, ending on 3 March, and also involved some forces in central Russia.
Mr Putin has made no public comment on Ukraine since Mr Yanukovych was driven from power over the weekend.
The United States and European nations have warned Russia against military intervention in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that Mr Putin has called a “brother nation” and wants to be part of a Eurasian Union he is building in the region.
Russian officials have said Moscow will not interfere in Ukraine, while accusing the West of doing so, and Interfax cited the speaker of the upper parliament house, Valentina Matviyenko, as saying today it would not use force.
But Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that Russia’s interests and its citizens in Ukraine were under threat, language reminiscent of statements justifying Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, when he was president.