Teetering On The Edge

By Volodymyr Kish

It is make or break time in Ukraine. President Viktor Yanukovych has returned from his begging expedition to China and Russia and must now confront the reality of a nation up in arms against his bankrupt policies and incompetence. Having squandered the opportunity in the past three years since he got elected to redeem himself as a leader, he is now teetering on the edge of a very deep abyss of his own making.

His choices are limited and becoming more so the longer the EuromMaidan movement continues to blockade the workings of his government. He has already tested the waters of the force option by having his Berkut Special Forces police violently clear the Maidan a week ago during the night when few protesters were present. All that accomplished was to anger and provoke the populace even more as they subsequently re-occupied the Maidan in the hundreds of thousands and have now fortified it against further such efforts. Aside from the strong negative backlash in Ukraine, he has also been soundly censured by world leaders for his actions and has become even more of a pariah in the civilized world.

Although the government has been threatening for most of the past week to use force again if the demonstrators do not disperse, it is doubtful whether they would be foolish enough to make such an attempt again. The only forces that Yanukovych can rely on with any certainty are his private army, the Berkut Special Forces which number at most some four to five thousand personnel. They were effective a week ago because they faced only a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand unprepared and largely sleeping occupiers of the Maidan. The protestors are now forewarned and much better prepared, and significantly larger in numbers. The government cannot rely on the regular police forces, the Militsiya, or the armed forces, as their loyalty to the government is suspect, and they would likely favour the protesters. To clear the protesters the government would have to up the ante by using deadly force, and that would escalate the situation and likely trigger a civil war which Yanukovych and his oligarchs would most certainly lose.

Yanukovych’s other option would be to sit the storm out and do nothing, in the hope that the protests peter out to the point where he can once again re-assert control with the forces and power that he has at his disposal. The problem with this option is that with each passing day and week, his government comes ever closer to being bankrupt. Ukraine can no longer raise money on the world financial markets, and the reserves are almost depleted. Another few weeks or months at most and the whole machinery of state, government and industry will grind to a halt. Long before that happens, his support base of oligarchs will see the writing on the wall and I am sure they will engineer his quick departure by fair means or foul. Yanukovych’s actions are now threatening the future and wealth of the ignoble elite, and they will not allow themselves to be dragged down with him into the abyss.

Of course, Yanukovych could reverse himself, give in to the protesters demands and offer to sign the agreement with the European Union. Regrettably for him, the train has already left the station on that option. The vast majority of the Ukrainian people have absolutely no faith any more in anything that Yanukovych says, and with his perfidious actions of the past few weeks, the only option they are prepared to consider is regime change and the earliest possible departure of Yanukovych from the President’s chair. The only thing he can negotiate now is the terms of his departure. If he leaves willingly, he may still be able to preserve his freedom and his life. Prolonging the agony would most certainly result in his forced exile, imprisonment or worse.

The only prerequisite now to a successful conclusion to this “revolution”, is for the Ukrainian population to continue to strongly support the protests, to have the patience and fortitude to keep the Maidan in Kyiv strongly defended and to maintain the patience, discipline and numbers that they have shown to date. The time has finally come to put an end to two decades of stumbling around in the democratic wilderness, and to create the promised land of Ukraine that we have always dreamed of.