Viktor F. Yanukovych, in his first appearance since Feb. 21, said Friday
that Ukraine had been taken over by nationalist thugs and called for
the restoration of his government.
Viktor F. Yanukovych appeared in public for
the first time since he was ousted as Ukraine’s president. He spoke in
Russian and said he would not give up the fight for his country’s
future.
ROSTOV-ON-DON,
Russia — Viktor F. Yanukovych, the ousted president of Ukraine,
appealed for calm on Friday and rejected separatism or forcible
intervention from abroad, even by Russia, where he has taken refuge.
Appearing
in public for the first time since he fled Kiev, the Ukrainian capital,
a week ago, Mr. Yanukovych insisted to a roomful of reporters here that
he was still the legitimate president of Ukraine and that lawmakers in
Kiev had not taken the steps required by the Constitution to remove him
from power.
“Nobody
deposed me,” he said in a statement, speaking in Russian. “I had to
leave Ukraine because there was a direct and imminent threat to my
life.” He said Ukraine had been taken over by nationalist thugs, with
the assistance of the West, and called for a restoration of the
government he once led.
Mr.
Yanukovych said that Crimea, the predominantly ethnic Russian region in
the south, should remain part of Ukraine, despite the demonstrations
there calling for independence, the talk of a separatist referendum and
the groups of armed men who have seized government buildings and
airports and raised Russian flags in recent days.
He
said he would not ask his Russian hosts to send troops, either to help
him or the separatists. “I think any military action is unacceptable,”
he said. “I have no intention to ask for military support. I think
Ukraine should remain one indivisible country.”
Mr.
Yanukovych, who had Kremlin backing while in power, said he was
surprised, “knowing the character of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” that
the Russian president had said so little about the events of the last
week in Ukraine. “I believe that Russia must and is obliged to act,” Mr.
Yanukovych said. Pressed by reporters to elaborate, he said, “It would
be inappropriate for me at this point to say what Russia should do.”
He said he had spoken to Mr. Putin by telephone but had not met with him since his arrival in Russia.
It
seemed telling that Mr. Yanukovych’s news conference here, in the major
Russian city nearest to Crimea, was not being held in a government
building, but rather in the Vertol Expo center, a new shopping mall,
hotel and exhibition center fairly distant from the city center. An
exhibition of tractors and other farm equipment was in progress inside
and outside the center.
Police
officers were posted outside the entrance to the wing where Mr.
Yanukovych was speaking, allowing only journalists to enter, after
passing through metal detectors at the door. Among the officers inside
were several plainclothes agents who appeared to be part of Russia’s
diplomatic security service, the kind of protection typically provided
to visiting foreign officials.
The
conference hall was packed with dozens of journalists and television
crews. Four Ukrainian flags stood behind a large wooden desk.
Asked
if the Russian authorities had helped him leave Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovych
declined to say exactly how he had arrived. “I got into Russia thanks
to patriotic officers,” he said. “That’s what I would say. They did what
they had to do.”
His
whereabouts had been shrouded with mystery before Friday. He had been
heard from only in a video from his political stronghold in eastern
Ukraine and in a statement, in which he declared that he remained the
lawfully elected leader of Ukraine.
Reporters
asked Mr. Yanukovych about the lavishly appointed presidential mansion
and estate in Mezhigorye, outside of Kiev, which was taken over by
protesters and opened to the public after he fled the capital. He
smirked and said, “That’s the most important question, right?”
He
then said that not all of the estate was his property, only the house,
which he said he bought from the government for $3.2 million. He did not
discuss the zoo, greenhouses or golf course on the property or the
wooden ship that served as a private restaurant, except to say that
there were other owners of parts of the estate whose lawyers would soon
be in touch with officials in Kiev to reclaim their properties. He did
not name the other owners.
“All
the photographs you saw are just nice photographs,” he said. “I don’t
own anything, and I’ve never had accounts abroad. I’m a public person.
Everything I have, everything, was declared.”
In
the hours before the news conference, authorities in three European
countries with banking secrecy laws — Switzerland, Austria and
Liechtenstein — announced that they were freezing deposit accounts
linked to Mr. Yanukovych and his circle.
Mr.
Yanukovych was asked several questions about the swirl of confused
developments in southern Ukraine. “Everything that has happened in
Crimea is a natural reaction to the gangster coup that happened in
Kiev,” he said. “People of Crimea don’t want to submit, and they will
not submit to Bandera thugs,” a reference to Stepan Bandera, the World
War II-era Ukrainian nationalist leader who was vilified by the Soviet
Union.
Mr.
Yanukovych’s remarks, which were televised live, did not seem to make
much of an impression in Crimea. “Yanukovych is not a real man, but a
doormat,” said Vadim Mordashov, 58, a pensioner in Simferopol, the
regional capital. “The state should protect itself. Yanukovych gave in;
he should have been decisive.”
In
the square outside the regional parliament, a 23-year-old law student
who would give his name only as Sergei hesitated for a moment before
voicing the standard sentiment here that Mr. Yanukovych was still the
president and that he stood between the Crimean people and “the illegal
power grab” in Kiev. Asked about the reports of Mr. Yanukovych’s lavish
lifestyle and accumulation f wealth while in office, he declined to
comment.
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