With Viktor Yanukovych on the run, Ukraine’s interim government drew up a warrant Monday for the fugitive president’s arrest in the killing of anti-government protesters last week, while Russia issued its strongest condemnation yet of the new leaders in Kiev, deriding them as “Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks.”
Parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchinov, the interim president, moved quickly to open a dialogue with the West, saying at a meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that the course toward closer integration with Europe and financial assistance from the EU were “key factors of stable and democratic development of Ukraine.”
In a statement released by his office, Turchinov said Ukraine and the EU should immediately revisit the closer ties that Yanukovych abandoned in November in favor of a $15 billion bailout loan from Russia, setting off a wave of protests. Within weeks, the protests expanded to include outrage over corruption and human rights abuses, leading to calls for Yanukovych’s resignation.
In Washington, the Obama administration signaled it no longer recognizes Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president.
“Yanukovych left Kiev. He took his furniture, packed his bags, and we don’t have more information on his whereabouts,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. “So there are officials who have stepped in and are acting in response to that leadership gap at the moment.”
Yanukovych, who fled Kiev on Saturday after the opposition took over government buildings, has reportedly gone to the pro-Russian Crimean peninsula, where Russia maintains a large naval base on the Black Sea.
Calls are mounting in Ukraine to put Yanukovych on trial. Anger boiled over last week after 82 people, primarily demonstrators, were killed in clashes with security forces in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history.
Acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakhov said on his official Facebook page that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Yanukovych and several other officials for the “mass killing of civilians.”
Yanukovych’s last public appearance was in a televised interview Saturday from Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, a base of his support. He insisted he was still president and would not leave the country.
After a failed attempt to fly out of Donetsk, he traveled to Crimea on Sunday, Avakhov said.
There, Yanukovych freed his official security detail from its duties and drove to an unknown location, Avakhov said.
Security has been tightened across Ukraine’s borders, the Interfax news agency quoted the State Border Guard service as saying.
Activist Valeri Kazachenko said Yanukovych must be arrested and brought to trial.
“He must answer for all the crimes he has committed against Ukraine and its people,” he said, as thousands continued to flock to Independence Square to light candles, lay flowers where dozens were killed and watch a video screen showing photos of the dead. “Yanukovych must be tried by the court of the people right here in the square.”
Turchinov, the parliament speaker, is now nominally in charge of this strategic country of 46 million whose ailing economy faces the risk of default and whose loyalties are sharply torn between Europe and longtime ruler Russia. He said he hopes to form a new coalition government by Tuesday.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev strongly condemned the new authorities, saying they came to power as a result of an “armed mutiny” and their legitimacy is causing “big doubts.”
Medvedev wouldn’t say what action Russia might take to protect its interests.
“If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be the government, then it will be hard for us to work with that government,” Medvedev said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the West for turning a blind eye to what Moscow described as the opposition reneging on an agreement signed Friday to form a unity government and aiming to “suppress dissent in various regions of Ukraine with dictatorial and, sometimes, even terrorist methods.”
NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, discussed Ukraine with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, and they agreed to keep each other informed about developments in the
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