Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

After a particularly gory series of clashes between protesters and police that left dozens dead in mid-February 2014, the Ukrainians and the outside powers took a step back from the abyss. Talks between Yanukovych and the nominal leaders of the Maidan protest movement – it would become clear later that they were not in fact leading the crowds, but being led by them – began in earnest. During three days of negotiations, Yanukovych and three opposition leaders – Oleh Tyahnybok, Vitaliy Klichko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk – hammered out an agreement mediated by the French, Polish and German foreign ministers and a Russian presidential representative. Signed on 21 February, the pact stated that the 2004 amendments to the constitution, which placed limits on the president’s powers and had been revoked in 2010, would be restored within 48 hours; a national unity government would be formed within ten days; all illegal weapons were to be surrendered; presidential elections would be held under reformed electoral laws no later than December 2014; and the occupations of streets and buildings would end.[25] Participants reported that Putin called Yanukovych during the talks to urge him to agree to the deal.[26] In what looked like a Russia–West truce, Putin and US President Obama spoke on the phone that night and agreed on the need to implement the arrangement in full and without delay.[27] On paper, the 21 February agreement had elements of a ‘pacted’ transition, a form of political transformation that is generally more peaceful and democratic than forcing incumbents out of office. It also had the benefit of endorsement by the external powers that had spent much of the previous six months locked in a tug of war over Ukraine.

However, the agreement collapsed immediately, largely due to domestic factors, and became another settlement-that-wasn’t. Within hours of the signing, Yanukovych’s authority buckled, as police deserted their posts throughout the capital. Protesters freely entered government buildings that riot police had secured hours earlier. Yanukovych fled Kyiv the next day and parliament voted 328–0 to remove him from office – an extra-constitutional act since there had been no statutory impeachment process – and to call new elections. Several days later, he surfaced in Russia.

The Maidan Revolution upended the balance of power among the macroregions of Ukraine. Of Yanukovych’s ministers, 75% hailed from the southern and eastern oblasts (provinces); in the new government, 60% came from the four westernmost oblasts (where only 12% of Ukraine’s population resides) and only two ministers were from the south and east.[28] The speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament), a prominent Yanukovych ally, quit, and Oleksandr Turchynov, an MP known for his hard-line nationalist positions (and an associate of Tymoshenko, who was released from prison on 21 February), was selected to replace him. As speaker, he by law became acting head of state until a new president was elected. Within days, the Rada confirmed a government headed by Yatsenyuk, a Western-oriented politician; the other ministerial portfolios were divvied up among his party, Tyahnybok’s far-right Svoboda party and representatives of the Maidan protesters. The first steps of the post-revolutionary Rada merely reinforced the impression that southern and eastern Ukraine (with their sizeable Russian-speaking minorities), and not just Yanukovych, had been pushed out of power. Two days after Yanukovych’s fall, the Rada unwisely voted to repeal a 2012 law that allowed oblasts under certain conditions to use Russian or any other of Ukraine’s minority languages for official business, in addition to Ukrainian. Although Turchynov did not sign the repeal in the end, its passage alienated a substantial portion of the population.

Western leaders neither voiced concerns about these developments nor sought a new accord to replace the 21 February agreement, some provisions of which had now been overtaken by events. The day after the change in power, the US declared its ‘strong support’ for the new authorities.[29] The EU foreign-policy chief, Catherine Ashton, travelled to Kyiv and stated that ‘the situation has moved on’ and therefore the 21 February pact could be disregarded.[30] Behind the scenes, some Western officials were celebrating the change in government in Kyiv, and saw no need to deal Moscow in, as they had on 21 February when Yanukovych was still in power. The then-US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, later said he received numerous ‘high-five emails’ from colleagues in the days after the revolution.[31]