Ukraine’s president open to early vote, Polish leader says
Scores are killed in clashes, shattering a shaky truce reached between the government and opposition
leaders.
leaders.
‘Obama Doctrine’ flounders as Syria and Kiev crumble
DEBRIEF | The question Obama confronts is whether his inaction in humanitarian crises will come to define his legacy.
Anti-government protesters man a barricade in Kiev. (AP)
Ukraine’s president open to early vote, Polish leader says; scores reported killed in clashes
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has told
European foreign ministers that he is open to early presidential and
parliamentary elections as a way of resolving Ukraine’s deepening and
increasingly violent crisis, the Polish prime minister said Thursday
evening in Warsaw, according to news services.
Yanukovych met with the top diplomats of Poland, France and
Germany for four hours in the afternoon, after which his visitors left
to confer with opposition leaders.
Radislaw Sikorski, of Poland, tweeted that they went to “test a
proposed agreement” with the heads of the three main political parties
opposing Yanukovych. Afterward, as it grew late, the three returned to
the presidential offices and met with Yanukovych again.
Sikorski tweeted that the mood in Yanukovych’s executive office
building when they arrived for the initial meeting was “panicky,” with
detonations nearby and black smoke swirling outside. He said they moved
their meeting to another building.
He has not released details of the proposed agreement, but it was
clearly what Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in Warsaw, was
referring to. The three foreign ministers decided to spend the night in
Kiev to continue their talks.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s parliament, in a vote that will be
challenged on grounds that a proper quorum hadn’t been achieved,
approved a resolution Thursday night to pull back Interior Ministry
troops and stop the use of force against protesters.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, spoke with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, and later with President Obama, about the
situation in Ukraine, and the three agreed that they would explore
taking joint action, according to reports from Berlin and Moscow. Putin
also spoke with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The Ukrainian crisis erupted after Yanukovych spurned a deal with
the European Union and turned to Putin for help instead. Russian and
Western officials have staked out sharply opposing positions on who is
responsible for the violence in Ukraine — but it appears that all sides
have started to recognize a danger in its continuing.
Fierce fighting broke out in the capital early Thursday,
shattering a truce declared hours earlier and leaving scores of people
dead.
A top human rights official said that at least 50 people were
killed in the clashes that erupted Thursday morning in the streets
around Kiev’s Independence Square. Other estimates of the death toll
were considerably higher.
Protesters threw molotov cocktails at police and captured dozens
of them, parading them to a makeshift detention center with their hands
held high. Government snipers fired at the protesters, killing or
wounding hundreds, according to an opposition doctor.
“I’m dying,” tweeted volunteer medic Olesya Zhukovskaya after
being shot in the neck while trying to aid fallen protesters. She was
later reported to be in serious condition while undergoing an operation.
“A horrible tragedy has been happening on the streets in Kiev and
other cities of Ukraine,” Valeria Lutkovska, human rights commissioner
of the Ukrainian parliament, said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
“Information that I have indicates that about 50 people have been killed
as of today, but there have been reports that there are many more
victims. Hundreds of people have been hospitalized.”
Oleh Musiy, coordinator for the protesters’ medical team, said at
least 70 protesters were killed and more than 500 wounded in Thursday’s
clashes with police, and he warned that the death toll could rise, the
Associated Press reported.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which fields the country’s
riot police, said three policemen were killed Thursday and 28 sustained
gunshot wounds, AP reported.
In Brussels, the 28-nation European Union decided unanimously
Thursday in an emergency meeting to impose sanctions against Ukrainian
officials deemed responsible for the violence, including a ban on travel
to E.U. countries and the freezing of foreign assets. It said the
targeted officials were “those responsible for human rights violations,
violence and use of excessive force,” but it did not immediately name
them.
The E.U. also announced a suspension of arms sales to Ukraine and
called for “the formation of a new inclusive government and the
creation of the conditions for democratic elections.”
Lutkovska said she had visited a number of Kiev hospitals, which she said are “packed” with gunshot wound victims.
She spoke after police and demonstrators battled each other in
the latest escalation of the political crisis that has gripped Ukraine
for the past three months. More than 100 people have been killed in the
clashes in Kiev this week, AP said. Authorities said that as of
Wednesday, 800 people had been injured and that 10 of the 26 people
killed were Interior Ministry troops.
The Interior Ministry said 67 of its troops were captured
Thursday by demonstrators. The captives were taken to a government
building occupied by the opposition, news agencies reported. On a hill
south of Independence Square, the protest movement’s epicenter, also
known as the Maidan, the parliament and cabinet buildings were
evacuated.
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Max Fisher breaks down the deadliest clashes in Kiev's Independence Square since protests began three months ago.
(/)
Videos indicated that some protesters have sniper rifles, and police were shown firing automatic weapons.
The Interior Ministry announced that it was issuing
military-grade weapons to the police, while saying that they were to be
used only in accordance with the law.
“We are outraged by the images of Ukrainian security forces
firing automatic weapons on their own people,” the White House said
Thursday. “We urge the Ukrainian military not to get involved in a
conflict that can and should be resolved by political means,” it added.
“The use of force will not resolve the crisis — clear steps must be
taken to stop the violence and initiate meaningful dialogue that reduces
tension and addresses the grievances of the Ukrainian people.” The
statement vowed that the United States would “hold those responsible for
violence accountable.”
The truce reached late Wednesday between Yanukovych and the three
main opposition political leaders has not been formally renounced, but
the fighting demonstrated how neither side appears to have control over
its armed contingents.
As U.S. and European leaders condemned the violence and the United States said it was imposing visa sanctions on 20 Ukrainian officials, Russia condemned the opposition.
The pressure on Ukraine — internal and external — has only
increased, and the two sides are so far apart that reconciliation
appears impossible. They are now faced with the challenge of getting the
country back on track even without reconciling politically.
The hostility between Yanukovych and the political opposition is
deep and intense, and now has been paid for in blood. Regional
differences are flaring, with governors in the east near the Russian
border denouncing the protesters and demanding a crackdown, while in the
west, cities are declaring virtual autonomy from the central
government. Opposition leaders, for their part, are leading a movement
that includes hard-line militants who are not keen on political
compromise.
Abroad, the Western nations and Russia blamed each other for
supporting one of the two sides in Ukraine’s long-running political
crisis.
The country, which has experienced regular bouts of political
turmoil since the downfall of the Soviet Union two decades ago — but
never the sort of violence seen Tuesday — appears to be at a point of
fracture.
That may now be extending to the government itself.
As fires continued to burn Wednesday on the Maidan, forming a buffer of flame and thick greasy smoke between protesters and police, the state security service announced that it was launching an “anti-terrorist operation.” A little while later, the Defense Ministry said it might join in.
It appeared as though a serious escalation was in the works. But
then Yanukovych fired his chief military commander Wednesday evening.
Col. Gen. Volodymyr Zamana was quoted a month ago as saying that
the armed forces should never be used against Ukrainian civilians, and
this may have been the reason for his ouster.
The Ukrainian army is not as well-funded or powerful a force as
the Interior Ministry. Nonetheless, it wields heavy weaponry that the
opposition fears may come into play.
U.S. military leaders have been unable for the past several days
to reach their Ukrainian counterparts to warn them against getting
involved in the crisis, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday night, and
this is a matter of some concern.
Ukraine’s military has joined with NATO in Iraq and Afghanistan
and has particularly close relations with the Polish military. But
Poland has been Yanukovych’s most vocal critic, and that may leave him
uncertain of his own army’s loyalty in a fight portrayed as East vs.
West.
Small but violent protests Wednesday left several people wounded
and one reported dead in the Black Sea port of Odessa and in the western
city of Khmelnytskyy.
In the east — in Donetsk, Yanukovych’s home town, and Kharkov — governors talked tough about defeating the protests.
But the city of Lviv in western Ukraine effectively declared
itself autonomous of the central government. In nearby Ivano-Frankivsk,
the local commander of the security forces pledged not to carry out or
give any illegal orders.
William Branigin in Washington contributed t
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