Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych (foreground). Photo: ReutersUkraine’s embattled President Viktor Yanukovych yesterday signed into law an amnesty for demonstrators detained during mass unrest and repealed anti-protest legislation, in a fresh bid to take the heat out of the political crisis.
But the move by Yanukovych, who remains politically active despite going on sick leave on Thursday, was not likely to be enough to end the anti-government protests on the streets of Kiev and beyond.
President repeals anti-protest legislation
Many protesters rejected the amnesty outright, because it is conditional on occupied buildings being cleared of activists.
Meanwhile, a radical Ukrainian nationalist group behind much of the violence pressed new tough demands yesterday.
At least six people have been killed and hundreds more injured in street battles between anti-government demonstrators and police, which have escalated sharply after the authorities toughened their response.
The crisis forced Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to resign, and as yet there is no sign of a successor. Serhiy Arbuzov, Azarov’s first deputy and a close family friend of Yanukovych, has stepped in as interim prime minister.
Underlining its economic leverage over Ukraine, Moscow says a new government must be in place before it goes ahead with a planned purchase of $2 billion of Ukrainian government bonds.
That reluctance, and the turmoil generally, contributed to a 2.5 per cent fall in Ukraine’s hryvnia currency’s value against the dollar yesterday to its lowest level for four-and-half years.
Meanwhile US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Russia to keep its distance.
“We would... say to our friends in Russia this does not have to be a zero (sum) game, this is not something where Ukraine should become a proxy and trapped in some kind of larger ambition for Russia or the United States.”