KIEV: The Ukrainian government bowed to intense Western pressure to let an opposition activist fly abroad for treatment after his abduction, torture and then attempted arrest by police outraged critics of President Viktor Yanukovich.
The embattled head of state, caught in a tug of war between Russia and the West and facing mass protests that have prompted fears of civil war, announced he would return from four days of sick leave today. It was unclear whether he might resume hesitant moves toward compromise or hit back at his opponents.
Either way, he is under scrutiny from the European Union and United States, who want him to compromise, and from Moscow, which is holding back much needed financing until he names a new government following last week’s departure of his prime minister in a concession that failed to appease the protesters.
Dmytro Bulatov, 35, whose bloodied face and account of being ‘crucified’ during a week in the hands of mysterious kidnappers has dominated opposition media since Friday, flew to EU state Lithuania. Intense negotiations with Western diplomats had led to a court lifting a charge of ‘mass disorder’ against him, on which police had tried to arrest him at a Kiev clinic.
‘Without the support of the European community this would not have happened,’ former world champion boxer and opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko told Reuters. ‘International pressure gives us a chance to fight for freedom in Ukraine.’
Yanukovich has been caught in a dilemma since a last-minute change of heart in November saw him reject a trade deal with the European Union and turn instead for support for a crippled post-Soviet economy to Ukraine’s old master Russia, which had threatened ruinous trade sanctions if Kiev allied with the EU.
Since then, a decade after the ‘Orange Revolution’ brought a dramatic political U-turn, protesters have occupied Kiev’s main square and taken public buildings in other cities, first demanding he revive the EU deal and now pushing for the removal of Yanukovich and a wealthy elite they see as dictatorial, corrupt and beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was working with the United States on a ‘Ukrainian Plan’ to help support the economy through a period of political transition – an idea that may be designed to help Ukraine cope with any backlash from Moscow, on which it relies for trade and energy.
Yanukovich retains the loyalty of a substantial section of the 45 million population, notably among Russian speakers in the east. A weekend poll showed he would top a multi-candidate presidential election with about 20 per cent of the vote.
But following at least six deaths in street fighting over the past two weeks in which hardline militants have appeared on opposition barricades, Ukraine’s neighbours have become ever more alarmed at the prospect of violent instability.
Western officials, some of whom met Klitschko and other opposition leaders at an international security conference in Munich over the weekend, have been trying to push the rival sides toward compromise, diplomats say. (Reuters)