Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Ukrainian customs agents blocked Viktor Yanukovych from fleeing the country without detaining him after lawmakers voted to remove him as president and hold a new election May 25.
As protesters took control of central Kiev and Ukrainians flooded into Yanukovych’s luxury estate, he said in a speech from an undisclosed location that attempts to remove him from power were a “coup d’etat.” Also yesterday, Ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, who led the overturning of a 2004 Yanukovych election victory in the Orange Revolution, punctuated her release from a seven-year prison term by announcing a bid for the presidency.
In downtown Kiev, where clashes last week killed at least 82 people, activists were unopposed by police. Ukraine’s army and Interior Ministry said they wouldn’t get involved and customs officials stopped Yanukovych’s plane from leaving the country in the eastern Donetsk region, news service Interfax reported.
“Today a dictatorship fell,” Tymoshenko told a crowd of tens of thousands of supporters on Kiev’s Independence Square, scene of the worst fighting. “A new epoch has started - an epoch of free people, of a free European Ukraine.”
Parliament approved a motion yesterday to remove Yanukovych, on a 328-0 vote in the 450-seat chamber. He had left for the eastern city of Kharkiv a day earlier after signing a European Union-brokered deal with the opposition to end the bloodiest episode of the country’s post-World War II history.
Minister Replaced
With protesters guarding key buildings in the center of Kiev, lawmakers in parliament appointed a new speaker, who will also coordinate the government’s activities until a new cabinet is named. The lawmakers replaced the head of the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security forces, and passed measures to bring to justice those behind the violence.
The customs agents who grounded Yanukovych’s plane rejected an offer made by unidentified armed men of money in exchange for the flight’s departure, Interfax reported, citing Serhiy Astakhov, aide to the head of the State Customs Service. Yanukovych then left the airport by car and didn’t appear at any border crossings. Former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko was caught at the same airport, Interfax cited customs as saying.
Private Zoo
In Kiev’s northern outskirts, thousands of Ukrainians converged on Yanukovych’s residence. Hundreds of cars thronged the entrance, while people rode bikes and carried children around the compound. Previously closed to visitors, it boasted a man-made lake as large as several football fields with a life-sized galleon and a zoo with deer, ostriches, peacocks and other animals. Next to a towering mansion, a garage housed antique cars, motorcycles and at least seven limousines, according to images on website Censor.net.
Activists prevented people from entering the mansion. They recovered reams of documents that had been thrown into the pond and dried them in a building full of boats and a miniature hovercraft, according to images shown on Hromadske TV.
“We are obliged to bring Yanukovych back” to Kiev, Tymoshenko said in a speech from a wheelchair on Independence Square after her release. Having traveled from a hospital where she was receiving long-term treatment for a hernia in her back, she urged protesters to stay in the square, also the center of the Orange Revolution.
Kiev Mourns
In central Kiev, hundreds of people marched in processions bearing the coffins of activists killed in clashes since Feb. 18, shouting ‘Glory! Glory! Glory!’’ Marchers wept as the coffins were put in trucks to be taken for burial. Priests chanted prayers from the stage at the protesters’ tent encampment that has been the epicenter of the crisis.
“This man died for you,” Vitaly Kulakovsky, a 43-year-old supply manager shouted, sobbing openly in front of a coffin yesterday. “It could have been me. Remember, he died for us, for our lives to be different.”
Nearby, thousands of protesters continued to reinforce barricades and direct downtown traffic in the absence of police. Many families posed for pictures around barriers, burnt-out vehicles and a make-shift catapult that protesters designated as a future museum piece. Some shops reopened after being closed during the violence.
The peace agreement, signed on Feb. 21 after all-night talks in Kiev with European Union foreign ministers, envisioned a national unity government within 10 days. Lawmakers approved a return to the 2004 constitution, curbing presidential powers.
‘No Coup’
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who helped negotiate the deal agreement signed by Yanukovych and the opposition, said there was “no coup in Kiev,” and that parliament is acting legally. Yanukovych said in a statement published on his presidential website that he wouldn’t resign and deemed all of the new acts illegal.
The U.S. White House urged “the prompt formation of a broad, technocratic government of national unity” in Ukraine.
“The unshakeable principle guiding events must be that the people of Ukraine determine their own future,” the White House press secretary’s office said in an e-mailed statement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his “gravest concern.” The opposition “was following the lead of ‘‘armed extremists and thugs whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order in Ukraine,’’ Lavrov said, according to a statement.
The staff of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry ‘‘stresses it is on the side of the Ukrainian nation,’’ according to a website statement. The military and the Defense Ministry said they would ‘‘remain faithful to the people.’’
Economic Toll
The crisis erupted Nov. 21, when Yanukovych rejected an EU integration pact and opted instead for $15 billion of Russian aid. Violence intensified last week in Kiev amid frustration among protesters that their demands were being ignored.
The street fighting prompted EU governments to threaten sanctions on Ukrainian officials and send envoys to hammer out the peace deal. The crisis has taken its toll on the economy in Ukraine, whose gas pipelines are a key east-west transit route for energy. The country has endured three recessions since 2008.
Russia has halted a $15 billion bailout for its neighbor because of the unrest. U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague agreed with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to support a new government in Ukraine and push for a ‘‘vital’’ International Monetary Fund Financing package, the British official said in a Twitter post.
Standard & Poor’s warned Feb. 21 that Ukraine risks default without ‘‘significantly favorable changes’’ in its political crisis and cut its credit rating to CCC, eight levels below investment grade.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net ; Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at kchoursina@bloomberg.net ; Ilya Arkhipov in Kiev at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net ; Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
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