THE RESTLESS MAYDAN

Exactly nine years ago the world's attention was fixed on Ukraine where political emotions caused by the "Orange Revolution" were running high. The power struggle between Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko ended in victory for the latter.

And in the last few weeks they have again been talking about a revolution in Ukraine and are anxious about the future with the country again facing virtually the same choice. The same ongoing rally in Independence Square with its tent camp of protesters, barrels filled with fuel to make a fire, guitar songs, flags, demands, Berkut [Golden Eagle] riot police, the militia and speeches by opposition-oriented stars of the stage and public figures and European bureaucrats worried about Ukraine's choice and the now former Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski. And the same Viktor Yanukovych is up against all of them.

The only thing is that the orange Maydan has today become the European Maydan. The former heroes of the "orange" days are recalled extremely rarely - Yushchenko practically never, and his comrade-rival Yuliya Tymoshenko crops up in news bulletins only because of where she is - in prison. Nor is there any sign of the "simple village woman" - Baba Paraska [Praskovia Korolyuk, political activist who became an icon of Orange Revolution]. Maybe some "ordinary European woman" will suddenly turn up…But seriously, the difference between the current protest and the Maidan of nine years ago is the economic situation which has become much more complex. People have become noticeably more disillusioned and indifferent. Many of the residents of Kiev who in the past played an active part in the "orange" events are now saying they won't come to the square and they will carry on calmly with their everyday lives.

However, of course, this is a forced calm, perhaps even strained and somewhat desperate. The Ukrainians we talked to mainly heaved a sigh of resignation and then added angrily that they had quite clearly been faced with a choice between Europe or Russia, but in actual fact, in many cases this choice is virtually impossible to make. And that is precisely why official Kiev is torn between the huge Russian bear and the outwardly ever lovable European lamb. As time has shown, the former, excited by the search for large territory and tormented by a harsh climate, frequently in the heat of the geopolitical moment sees no difference between friends and foes. Whereas the latter, as is expected of a loveable lamb, cleverly manages to stash away behind one substance something quite different…something which is really just the lamb's skin.

Ukrainian Prime Minister [Mykola] Azarov described the gas agreements signed in 2009 by Russia and the Yuliya Tymoshenko government as "one-sided" and stressed that Ukraine "had gone overboard" to carry them out. As far as the current cause of the trouble is concerned - the association agreement with the EU - it is, of course, a "second-class citizen", but it did a great job with this role. The agreement contains hundreds of pages and it is very doubtful that every one of them was carefully read by many of the present activists at the Euromaydan. And yet, according to a number of experts, the European Association agreement is probably of more benefit economically to Brussels than Kiev. "We will continue the negotiations which give us an opportunity to sign the Agreement on European Integration on conditions that are beneficial to Ukraine," the country's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said. The question is, however, is Europe prepared for such conditions?

And, finally, we come to the main thing - the fact that the signing of the document on association in no way means that Ukraine is joining the EU. And, in actual fact, it doesn't even bring it any nearer to this (it doesn't even presume a cancellation of visas). In the first place, Europe itself, whose leaders have for months been racking their brains about how to save the sinking economies of Greece, Cyprus, Spain and certain other countries, and also how to restrict the flow of labour migrants to the rich countries of the "united European family", is not ready for this. Brussels scarcely needs right now a burden in the shape of a seriously ailing Ukrainian economy and about 45 million potential labour migrants. Investors are assessing the risk of a Ukrainian default of 53.3 per cent, and the country has overtaken Cyprus in level of insurance from default. According to the Fitch Ratings agency, next year Ukraine is due to pay out 8.2bn dollars in foreign debt with a level of currency reserves of approximately 20bn dollars. In his speech at the opening of the OSCE foreign ministers summit, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov openly stated why Kiev had refused to sign the association agreement with the European Union: "We took timeout purely because of economic difficulties."  Azarov also asked foreign "partners and colleagues to lend Ukraine a helping hand".

So, who will help Ukraine? The degree of despair of the country's leadership is shown by the fact that Kiev immediately said it was prepared to send delegations to the EU and to Russia. Furthermore, President Yanukovych himself, despite what was happening in front of him, set off on a prescheduled visit to China apparently without a care in the world

The position of the European Union has proved to be rather confused. First there followed a refusal to start new talks on the agreement. Or rather, Brussels was prepared to talk about the benefits of the agreement for Ukraine and was prepared to discuss the details of its implementation, but it had no wish to review the text of it. Then came rumours about some kind of "road map" on association, and after that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland, called on the Ukrainian authorities and the opposition to a dialogue. After that Maja Kocijancic, a spokesperson of the EU's head of diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, said that if the meeting goes ahead then it would be "not at the level of European commissioners but at the level of representatives".

 What kind of success was achieved by the delegation which left Kiev for Moscow "to strengthen strategic partnership and restore trade and economic relations" was still not precisely known at the time this issue of the magazine was being prepared for publication. Some of the Ukrainian media wrote that Yanukovych had almost reached agreement with Vladimir Putin on major loans and discounts on gas for Ukraine. On 2 December, in a TV interview, Viktor Yanukovych said that Ukraine was ready to restore volumes of purchases of Russian gas if the price was reduced. In the president's opinion, at this moment in time the maximum price of gas for Ukraine should be no more than 300 dollars for 1,000 cu m (the current prices is 510 dollars). Yanukovych had given his team a strict deadline - to prepare the 2014 budget by 17 December.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian opposition has no intention of surrendering or making compromises. Large-scale actions by the supporters of European integration in Kiev and other regions of Ukraine began on 21 November immediately after the government's announcement of the suspension of preparations for the Association Agreement with the EU. Nine days after the start of the protests things became violent - the Euromaydan was dispersed by special Interior Ministry Berkut forces. The following day there was a rally in Kiev which ended with the building of the Kiev mayor's office being captured and large-scale clashes between protesters and the police. At the same time there was the famous incident with a bulldozer which someone used to ram police cordons on Bankova Street in front of the presidential administration building. Some 412 people were admitted to hospital, 220 of whom were members of the law-enforcement bodies.

It is not surprising that literally the next day - 3 December - the question of a vote of no-confidence in the Ukrainian government over "the betrayal of the national interests of the Ukrainian people" and "the extreme use of force against peaceful demonstrators" started to be examined in the Supreme Council. However, the no-confidence resolution failed to get through the Council - it won only 186 votes (with a minimum requirement of 226), and that means that neither the communists nor independent deputies voted against Azarov and Yanukovych and there were no "traitors" from their "Party of Regionals". Now, according to the country's constitution, a new attempt to get a vote of no-confidence in the cabinet may be made only within a year of the failure of the previous one.

And so the government's resignation by lawful democratic means has failed and now the demonstrators are demanding that Yanukovych sacks the government by decree. Furthermore, as the leader of the Svoboda [Freedom] Party, Oleh Tyahnybok, said, the opposition has decided to form a local self-administration in Kiev. Another opposition leader - Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the head of the Batkivshchyna [Fatherland] faction - added that Yanukovych's opponents had formulated five basic demands: the release of political prisoners, the criminal persecution of persons responsible for the forced dispersal of peaceful demonstrators, the resignation of the government, early presidential and parliamentary elections and the signing of an association agreement with the EU. According to Svoboda's leader, the Ukrainian opposition is actively consulting "with its international partners", is appealing to the international community for support and demanding condemnation of the bloodshed and the imposition of individual sanctions against those who are infringing the rights of the Ukrainian nation and human rights. More radical calls are being made, too. For example, the singer Ruslana, who is taking part in the "Euromaydan" in Kiev, said that she is prepared to commit self-immolation if no changes are made. It is true that prior to this the singer-politician promised to go on stage in a swimsuit and have ice rubbed over her "to warm up the demonstrators" which, of course, sounds somewhat radical, albeit much less damaging to the health of the winner of the European Song Contest. Also, according to vesti.ua, the supporters of European integration are creating self-defence detachments made up of professionals from about 600 ex-servicemen, whose activities are being coordinated by former police generals who have switched to the opposition - Hennadiy Moskal and Vitaliy Yarema.

For his part, Azarov said that extremist forces were involved in the capture of administrative buildings in Kiev. "The Ukrainian police dispersed not students but well trained provocateurs in Independence Square in Kiev on 30 November," the Ukrainian prime minister stressed at a meeting with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland. Ihor Miroshnichenko, a Supreme Council deputy from the Svoboda party, and Andrij Feschuk from the radical "Bratstvo" [Brotherhood] organization, are believed to have been the organizers of the disturbances. Its leader, Dmytro Korchinskiy, is still at large.

And so, the rallies in Independence Square have already turned into a kind of tourist attraction in Kiev. Tourists and journalists are happily having their photos taken against the background of demonstrators as they smile and pose waving Ukrainian flags. But, in fact, it is no laughing matter. "Ukraine is going through a crucial time which will have considerable influence on the country's future destiny," US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said at the OSCE session in Kiev. It is hard to disagree with her. Nuland also added that "the principles and values on which the OSCE is based are at stake, and the authorities of the country are faced with the choice: either "meet the expectations of your people", or "disappoint them and risk plunging into chaos and violence".

But what do the expectations of the Ukrainian people amount to? What, in fact, is stopping Ukraine becoming a truly democratic state and why does this have to be done under the guidance of Brussels or with Moscow's support? Surely statehood hasn't really existed for less time in Ukraine than in Europe? Hasn't Kiev acquired enough experience of its own in a hard centuries-old struggle for independence? How has it come about that the development of a country in the framework of democracy and common human values has been made to depend so much on Europe, but economic stability and political equilibrium are constantly linked to the state of Russian-Ukrainian relations and gas prices?

Making predictions in this situation is extremely difficult. The worst-case scenario is the splitting of the country into two parts - the pro-European western part and the pro-Russian eastern Ukraine. Another, and one of the more likely options of the development of events, is the transition of the war between the Euromaydan and the Yanukovych-Azarov team to a positional war. There are quite obvious preconditions for this - the creation of alternative power bodies, the organization of so-called "self-defence detachments" and possible sanctions against the Ukrainian government by certain western countries. Anyway, in such a situation, the main thing is that the celebrated and so far relatively peaceful Kiev Maydan does not turn into a not less celebrated, but certainly not so peaceful Maidan like Tahrir Square in Egypt… There is another prediction, too - the Euromaydan will cease to exist if a real winter sets in, in other words, before the New Year. However, this won't solve the problem. So long as Ukraine is squeezed in the middle of two poles of geopolitical influence there will never be peace in the Maidan.