Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych returned to work yesterday after four days of sick leave, issuing a warning about rising “radicalism” after more than two months of unrest on the streets but giving no word on a new prime minister.
Yanukovych, caught in a tug-of-war between Russia and the West, is seeking a way out of a sometimes violent confrontation with protesters who have occupied city streets and public buildings following his decision in November to spurn a trade deal with the EU and accept financial aid from Moscow.
As he returned to work, looking in fair health, a day before a new session of Parliament, the political opposition took heart from fresh expressions of support from Western governments and pressed for more concessions to end protests.
However, the EU, whose foreign policy chief is due in Kiev today, played down suggestions it was working with the US on a large-scale aid package aimed at nursing the economy through a political transition.
The President’s first urgent task, after an absence that some saw as a tactical gambit to gain time, will be to name a new prime minister to succeed Mykola Azarov, who stepped down on January 28 under pressure from the protest movement.
Russia has suspended its financial support until it sees how a new government will handle relations with Moscow.
But Yanukovych confined himself, in his first public appearance since Wednesday, to warning against the actions of thousands of protesters who have erected barricades around central Kiev and occupied public buildings there and in other cities, as well as militants who have clashed with police.
At least six people were killed in clashes last month.
“We must say no to extremism, radicalism, the fanning of enmity in society, which is the basis of the political fight against the authorities,” he said in remarks on video.
On the frontline barricades close to the Kiev Parliament building, where riot police and club-wielding, steel-helmeted militants face off across 20 metres of no man’s land, his words carry no weight.
“We’re staying here until Yanukovych is gone,” said a 28-year-old masked opposition protester named Dima. The speaker of Parliament, a Yanukovych ally, said the President was still planning to discuss the choice of premier with the Opposition and may propose someone this week.
In other concessions, Yanukovych last week approved the repeal of recent anti-protest laws and offered a conditional amnesty to activists who have been detained in the unrest.
But Opposition leaders want further concessions, including a broader amnesty for detainees and a return to an earlier constitution, which would curb presidential powers and give parliament greater control over the formation of governments.
We are not going to a bidding competition over who pays more for Ukraine’s signature
EU diplomacy chief Catherine Ashton is to meet Yanukovych and opposition leaders tomorrow. A report of her describing an EU-US aid package for reforms lifted prices of Ukraine’s dollar bonds even as political tensions saw the hryvnia continue to weaken.
However, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso played down talk of aid yesterday, saying the EU was discussing with allies whether to help Kiev.
But in reference to rivalries with Russia, he said: “We are not going to a bidding competition to say who pays more for the signature of Ukraine.”