Why President Yanukovych fled Ukraine--by Ukrainian journalist JV Koshiw

[Tommy_Carcetti]

An excellent blog piece by Ukrainian journalist JV Koshiw giving a blow-by-blow analysis on former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukoych's last days in power in Ukraine in February 2014. This pretty much throws cold water on a lot of the conspiracy theories out there claiming that Yanukovych was deposed by a US backed "coup" and that the West is somehow to blame for the current crisis in Ukraine. A very good read.

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http://www.jvkoshiw.com/#!Why-President-Yanukovych-fled-Ukraine/ck8a/F4D49016-F69F-45D6-AE4A-027C10E02B79


Why President Yanukovych fled Ukraine

April 23, 2014

On February 22, 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych left the president’s post vacant. But why? Wasn’t his presidency safe? The day before he had signed an agreement with the opposition, witnessed by three EU foreign ministers, that would have kept him as president until December 2014.

This analysis argues that Yanukovych decided to flee from the capital three days earlier, on February 19, after failing to wipe out the opposition with the "Operation Boomerang" police action. On that day he ordered his staff to begin packing his valuables. For the next three days, his property was placed into removal vans; once the process was over, early in the morning of February 22, he left.

Other explanations of why he abandoned his post do not reflect what actually happened. For example, Christian Neef in Yanukovych's Fall: The Power of Ukraine's Billionaires, Der Spiegel, February 25, 2014, credits the oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Dmytro Firtash with causing Yanukovych’s downfall, arguing that their supporters in parliament, 60 and 30 MPs respectively, voted with the opposition on February 20 to topple Yanukovych by removing his ability to use “anti-terrorist” actions against the protesters.

However, voting figures from that day show that very few of Akhmetov’s or Firtash’s MPs were present. As a matter of fact only 35 out of 205 MPs from the Party of Regions were in parliament to vote against Yanukovych.

Neither can the official opposition or Western diplomats be seen as the reason behind his departure, given that both sides had signed a document ensuring that he would remain president until the next election.

The facts on the ground also belie the repeated claims by President Putin and his minions that Yanukovych was toppled by a coup.

What happened was that Yanukovych removed himself from the president’s office after failing to exterminate the opposition with force. He literally gave up.
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Much more at link.

[doxyluv13]

1. what do you think is excellent about this?

It's an "analysis" by an Ukrainian, and therefore biased, source. Even if factual, it proves nothing much. The fact that Yanukovych started packing up his loot 3 days before he fled proves nothing except that he thought his position was weakening and wanted to keep his surf.

The Feb. 21 agreement would have lead to an independent investigation of the events in Kiev. The coup ended that. The government in Ukraine has since brushed off any credible efforts to determine the events.


Smart, rational observers will give a lot more credence to Der Spiegel than anything out of Ukraine.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. It is factual. Video backs all of this up. And there was no "coup".

Read this and watch the videos if you wish:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/12/what-did-yanukovych-take-with-him-as-he-fled-his-mansion-paintings-guns-and-a-small-dog-according-to-new-video/

If you are still claiming there was a "coup", who executed said coup and how was Yanukovych supposedly forcibly removed?

[joeybee12]

4. surf...you mean turf...

They don't teach English properly at the Kremlin.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Maybe Yanukovych wanted to go surfing on the Black Sea?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

3. I thought Victoria Nuland coaxed him out with a plate of cookies. nt

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. And $5 billion worth of Fabrege eggs.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Key excerpts:

Following his departure, the security cameras show his staff packing valuables. At 16:43, the first of at least six removal vans arrived. The packing and removal took three days and it wasn’t until the early hours of February 22 that it was completed.

Supervising the packing was a lady identified as Lyubov Polezhay. According to information on her Facebook page, she was from the town of Yenakiyevo, just like Yanukovych. According to other sources, she had a child at Kyiv’s Pechersk International School, and was a hairdresser by profession and the sister of Yanukovych’s personal chef.

During the day, as the president was negotiating, the removal of his valuables at his Mezhyhirya residence intensified under the protection of armed guards. At 14:22 two more removal vans arrived. The removers packed the vans at great speed and left, and followed by two more vans. Besides paintings and icons, scores of rifles and shotguns were loaded on the vans. The removers continued to work into the night.

The president returned to his residence at 20:55.

At 21:24, Yanukovych emerged briefly to issue orders to the removers.

At 04.00, the packing of Yanukovych’s valuables ended. As the last of the removal vans drove out of the estate, Yanukovych, the unidentified dark-haired female companion, his staff and twenty-one bodyguards boarded two helicopters. They flew to Kharkiv to stay in a secret government residence called Obukhiv.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Kyiv Post article on Yanukovych's departure:

http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=481&siteid=2399&id=5185380&t=1394632426

As dozens of protesters were dying on the streets of Kyiv by blunt force and bullets from police on Feb. 19-20, Ukraine's now former President Viktor Yanukovych was quietly making an escape from his palatial estate located outside the city known as Mezhyhirya, according to time-stamped security camera footage recovered from the residence and published on YouTube.

The series of closed-circuit videos show the deposed president had plenty of help planning his Kyiv exit days in advance and even oversaw the operation himself in the hours ahead of his final departure late on Feb. 21, following negotiations with opposition leaders and foreign ministers earlier in the day, at which time an exit strategy to the more than three-months-long political conflict was agreed upon.

The footage filled by cameras positioned at the estate's main residence, known as Honka, shows dozens of men and women helping to carry and wheel out of the lavish residence several paintings, vases, statues and candelabras, as well as several other items. Some videos show what appears to be a small arsenal of weapons being carried away, including at least three apparent automatic rifles fixed with scopes and more than two dozen other rifles, some in a glass case.

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Yanukovych fled his luxurious residence in the late hours of Feb. 21, making his way to Kharkiv, Donetsk and then Crimea before turning up in Rostov-on-Don. Lawmakers from opposition parties and Yanukovych's own Party of Regions in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, voted on Feb. 22 to impeach him. Yanukovych has said twice since during press conferences from the southern Russian city that he remains the legitimately elected president of Ukraine and did not flee the country