Anti-government
protesters gather on and around barricades at a road block in central
Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 26, 2014. (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
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Bloomberg
Ukraine Braces for March on Parliament as Putin Resumes Bailout
Ukraine’s
opposition will march on parliament to pressure lawmakers struggling to
end a deadly three-month political standoff, jeopardizing compromises
that eased tensions over the past week.
Vitali Klitschko, a former
boxing champion, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a lawmaker and former central
banker, plan to lead thousands of demonstrators today on the first mass
action outside their Independence Square compound since Jan. 19, when
the last attempt to reach parliament erupted in clashes with police.
“If politicians don’t make a decision tomorrow, we the people will,” Serhiy, a 23-year-old from the Lviv region near
Poland,
said inside the encampment yesterday, wearing camouflage and a
bulletproof vest adorned with a paper “self defense” badge.“We’ve had
enough. We’re fighters. We haven’t come here to listen to talks. If we
decide to act, we’ll act.”
Klitschko and Yatsenyuk are seeking to
overturn constitutional changes that strengthened Russia-backed
Yanukovych’s powers and put Ukraine on a path toward European Union
membership. The standoff began Nov. 21, when Yanukovych pulled out of a
free-trade deal with the EU, opting instead for President
Vladimir Putin’s offer of $15 billion of aid and cheaper gas. It turned bloody on Jan. 22, when three activists were shot dead.
Russian ‘Hardball’
Russia, which stopped buying bonds from Ukraine’s cash-strapped government after Yanukovych’s Russian-born prime minister,
Mykola Azarov,
resigned on Jan. 28, said yesterday it will resume purchases this week.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov made the announcement just as
Klitschko and Yatsenyuk were meeting with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel to seek financial and political backing to form a new government.
“Russia
is playing hardball,” Alexander Valchyshen, head of research at
Investment Capital in Kiev, said by phone. “Russia gave a clear signal
that it knows who’ll be the next prime minister, that it’s ready to
financially support him, and that no other players are acceptable here.”
Yanukovych,
63, will submit his candidate for prime minister this week, Speaker
Volodymyr Rybak told reporters yesterday, after meeting with the
president. Yatsenyuk rejected Yanukovych’s offer to become premier on
Jan. 25.
Merkel Sympathy
Merkel told Yatsenyuk and
Klitschko yesterday that the EU will “do everything” it can to help
Ukraine out of the crisis, according to government spokesman Steffen
Seibert. She also expressed sympathy for the “legitimate concerns” of
Ukrainians, Seibert said in Berlin.
The standoff has hurt
Ukraine’s bonds and helped push its foreign-exchange reserves to a
seven-year low. The yield on the nation’s dollar debt due in June fell
83 basis points to 22.157 percent yesterday, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg. The hryvnia weakened 0.9 percent to 8.86 per dollar,
extending this year’s loss to 7 percent.
“Let’s form columns here
at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and march to parliament,” Oleh Tyahnybok, who heads
the nationalist Svoboda party in parliament, told tens of thousands of
protesters at Independence Square on Feb. 16. “We need you to press
them.”
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DAVID MDZINARISHVILI / Reuters
ANDRIY MOSIENKO / Ukrainian government via EPA
