Ukraina valde Ryssland före EU - stora protester som följd, länkar i inlägg2

The question, now that violence has intensified, is whether the oligarchs still want to broker a peaceful solution, or whether they might be starting to feel that Yanukovych's days are numbered.

The established oligarchs have had their gripes with his style of rule for some time, and are unhappy about the rise of "the family", a group of businessmen around the president who have been promoted and given favourable contracts since 2010. Yanukovych's son Oleksandr, a dentist by training, has built up a huge fortune in the past three years, while a mysterious 28-year-old named Sergey Kurchenko has appeared from nowhere to control around $800m (£480m) of assets.---

"In just one year, this unknown man and his unknown company became fabulously rich," said Yuriy Syrotiuk, an MP from the nationalist Svoboda party who has filed a number of requests to the prosecutor general's office regarding Kurchenko and companies he says the 28-year-old owns.

"This is impossible in our country without support of those in power. I'm sure Kurchenko is just a front man. After all, he didn't create Facebook or do anything intelligent, he just managed to use links to those in power."---

It is not known what discussions Akhmetov and Yanukovych have had in recent days, but it is clear that the businessman is getting increasingly disturbed by the prospect of further violence. Whether or not Yanukovych can survive until scheduled elections next year may depend as much on what the oligarchs decide as on the power of the street.

"For Akhmetov, if Yanukovych wins fairly in 2015 he will be fine, and if the opposition wins fairly in 2015 he will be fine," says one source who knows the businessman. "What he is really scared of is what happens if Yanukovych continues down the path of repression and autocracy. That would make things very dangerous indeed for him."

Längst hat sich der Mob der Straße, ein gefährliches Gemisch aus Hooligans, Frustrierten, Vorstadtschlägern und rechten Krawalltrupps, verselbstständigt. Im Stile einer Stadtguerilla herrschen Hunderte junger Männer über die Barrikaden, kontrollieren Ausweise von Journalisten und suchen gezielt die Provokation mit der Polizei. Politische Ziele stehen für viele von ihnen nicht im Fokus.
Der Regierung käme eine Eskalation sehr gelegen

Für die Opposition sind die Krawallmacher, die sich selbst gern als Bürgerwehren darstellen, ein zweischneidiges Schwert. Auf der einen Seite sind Sprechchöre und brennende Barrikaden ein wichtiges Druckmittel für weitere Gespräche mit Präsident Viktor Janukowitsch. Gleichwohl aber droht der schwarze Mob die gesamte Bewegung zu diskreditieren, wenn es in den kommenden Tagen zu einem Gewaltexzess der Demonstranten gegen die Polizei kommen sollte. In der Nacht zum Samstag war dieses Horrorszenario am Haus der Ukraine bedrohlich nah.

Un anonymat qu’il garde "comme tous ceux qui sont là", dit-il. "Nous n’avons pas de leader. J’accepte de vous expliquer qui nous sommes, mais cela ne fait pas de moi un porte-parole. Je reste un parmi d’autres".

"Pravyi Sektor est une organisation nationaliste qui participe à la révolution activement. Nous pensons que ce régime à la tête du pays est un régime d’occupation, c’est pourquoi nous nous battons pour la mise en place d’un gouvernement nationaliste, un gouvernement libre et nationaliste, sans la mafia au pouvoir", explique le jeune homme, gourdin fermement en main.

L’organisation, qui est en fait l’agrégation de différents groupuscules d’extrême droite, rejette les partis politiques qu’elle considère comme un élément même du régime actuel. "Après la révolution, bien sûr, il faudra des partis. Pour le moment, leur action est inefficace, contre-productive même."

Pour ces jeunes dont on ne connaît pas le nombre exact, il n’y a qu’une seule référence : le "grand patriote Stepan Bandera." "Nous sommes ses héritiers", explique Tcherno Morie. "Nous continuons son combat pour une Ukraine indépendante."

The Ukrainian government announced on Tuesday that Prime Minister Azarov had stepped down.
"I have taken a personal decision to ask the president of Ukraine to accept my resignation from the post of prime minister with the aim of creating an additional possibility for a political compromise to peacefully resolve the conflict," Azarov said in a statement as reported by the news agency AFP.
Moments ahead of the news, Ukrainian lawmakers began holding an extraordinary session of parliament to debate ways of ending two months of deadly political unrest after President Viktor Yanukovych gave in to a key opposition demand to abolish draconian anti-protest laws.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has accepted the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet amid continuing anti-government protests.

Mykola Azarov had offered to step down as prime minister to create "social and political compromise".

The move came after the Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly to annul a controversial anti-protest law.

The protests have spread in recent days across Ukraine, even to President Yanukovych's stronghold in the east.

Official buildings in several cities have been occupied.

Tuesday saw the interior ministry report that three protesters had stabbed and wounded three policemen in the southern city of Kherson, one of whom later died.

Parliament - holding an emergency debate on the crisis - voted by 361 to 2 to repeal the protest legislation, which among other measures banned the wearing of helmets by protesters and the blockading of public buildings.

When I arrive at the administration building, I find two lines of riot police guarding the entrances. By the steps, around 100 supporters of the president are making their opinions known.

"We already have a president who has been elected by the people," Irina tells me. "When Viktor Yushchenko was president, there were many people in eastern Ukraine who didn't like him. But we put up with him and waited for his term to end. Today the three opposition leaders in Ukraine are like a three-headed serpent. They're just dying to seize power."

"When protesters throw Molotov cocktails, they call that democracy," a man called Viktor points out to me. "Well, in that case, firing rubber bullets at them is democracy, too. Those extremists are funded by the West. Why doesn't the West mind its own business? First Syria, then Libya and Kosovo, and now Ukraine: it's all the West's fault."

We request an interview with Governor Peklushenko, but he declines. On Friday, he reportedly told a meeting at the administration building that the authorities had prevented the city from being shut down. "If Zaporizhya comes to a standstill," he reportedly said, "so will the entire country".

By the evening there is a blizzard in the centre of Zaporizhya and there are police reinforcements on the square outside the governor's office. They're banging their truncheons against their riot shields to scare off another group of anti-government protesters, which has just arrived. The activists sing the national anthem and then disperse.

It appears that Viktor Yanukovych still enjoys support in eastern Ukraine and there are some here who believe he should rule out concessions to his opponents. But the fact that unrest has spread here, and to nearby cities like Dnipropetrovsk, which are normally viewed as a central part of his powerbase, will be of major concern to the embattled president.

As the Euromaidan (Independence Square) movement went into a third month, its magic ‘revolutionary velvet’ has seemingly been worn out. Molotov cocktails, gunshots and medieval-age catapult to fire at police, hastily erected at the streets of Kiev, along with the seizure of government buildings, including the Ministry of Justice, show that Ukrainian peaceful protests have already been hijacked by a new enigmatic force.

But who are these grim-faced people in helmets and camouflage at the streets of Kiev, armed with stones and batons, very determined and hardly controlled by anyone? Meet the new breed of Ukrainian revolutionaries – ‘Pravy Sektor’ (Right Sector) radical movement, which has recently announced it is breaking away from the mainstream Maidan opposition crowd with its moderate leaders and decided to act on its own.

Here is a quote from the Pravy Sektor manifesto, announced early this month when Ukrainian radicals staged their first attacks on the police. Prepare to be energized by a surprisingly large dose of odd neo-Bolshevik rhetoric which has paved its way into the post-industrial world: “All those who at this point would try to tame the revolutionary energy of the masses should be proclaimed traitors and punished in the most severe way. The time of peaceful singing and dancing at Maidan is over. This is waste of time. There can be no negotiations, no compromise with the ruling gang. We will carry high the fire of national revolution.”

The foreign diplomats also reportedly met with the speaker of Right Sector - a movement uniting several nationalist organizations - and one of Maidan’s self defense commanders. The diplomats were “convinced that these people posed no threat” and that the “aggression” only comes from government forces, as said in the press release.

Right-wing extremists from Right Sector have been widely involved in violent clashes with police in Kiev. The group is committed to ousting the “occupation” government at any cost.

The movement posted “instructions” for their members on a social networking site on Monday, though the directions looked more like a military order. The message calls on regional commanders and their deputies to organize their subordinates in units, conduct propaganda among the general public, and “neutralize the anti-Ukrainian bloc” – apparently referring to government supporters.

Additionally, Right Sector commanders must provide their units “with everything necessary” and be “ready to act illegally.” Upon request from the headquarters, they should “send people to Kiev and other regions,” the message reads.