Descent Into Chaos

We are ready for a national mobilization and complete blockade of the government quarter. The time for chatter has passed."
Dmitry Jarosh, leader, radical group Pravy Sektor (Right Sector)

A protester mans the barricade in front of riot police in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014. Ukraine's embattled president Viktor Yanukovych is taking sick leave as the country's political crisis continues without signs of resolution.(AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

"Why don't we hear condemnation of those who seize and hold government buildings, burn, torch the police, use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans?"
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

When the protests in Ukraine began in November, huge crowds came out in support of the peaceful protests that the organizing opposition leaders, felt confident they could control. And they were able to, for the first while, the protesters listening to and respecting the opinions and orders of the leaders who had organized these mass demonstrations of public dissonance with President Yanukovych's decision to re-embrace Russia and bypass European Union offers for economic aid.

Now, President Viktor Yanukovych is in sick bay, taking a rest from all the aggravation he brought down on the country, and the radical groups have taken command of the protests with violence condemned by the political opposition leaders whose efforts had initiated the civil unrest. The anti-protest laws, emulating the autocratic measures taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin did not endear Mr. Yanukovych to protesters who started out insisting on dialogue, not violence.

And then the violence perpetrated by riot police on protest camps changed the equation, where it swiftly became clear that the government was hugely disinterested in dialogue and invested instead in clearing away the rabble as swiftly as possible, spurring similar action on the part of the protesters. Demonstrators began taunting and battling police, they built barricades, and they settled in for the duration, despite the long, cold nights of winter.

A division between the radical groups and the opposition protest leaders resulted, with opposition leader Vitali Klitschko ending up having a fire extinguisher sprayed at him as a symbol of the level of frustrated wretchedness that has come to typify the lack of the only kind of concession from the government acceptable; the resignation of the president, not the governing council, not the prime minister. Only then might it be feasible for the country to begin again to negotiate in its best interests for the future; alignment with the EU.

Demonstrators aligned with extreme nationalists with their usual anti-Semitic ravings, and who nostalgically celebrate the Ukrainian partisans who fought bravely in the company of Nazi soldiers against the Red Army during World War Two, have sullied the entire proceedings. Their presence has given Russia moral ammunition against the entire protest movement, relegating it to fascism-tainted status, and a return to the excesses of ugly right-wing nationalism.

"The situation in Ukraine is so tense that radical groups appear like mushrooms after the rain", commented Andrew Parub, co-ordinator of the volunteer security corps for the mainstream protesters. When the Yanukovych government made a move toward protest concessions, including an amnesty for arrested protesters once demonstrators leave occupied buildings, along with a repeal of the anti-protest laws, they impressed none among the opposition.

But the radicals interpreted the offers as encouragement to ramp up their violence. "Peaceful demonstrations didn't give any results and many were disappointed, but we on the barricades forced Yanukovych to become frightened", boasted one young masked radical. "Yanukovych only understands the language of force. Only radical actions will force him to go", said Spilna Sprava's Denis Nakhmanovich.