PONARS Eurasia: How far will Ukraine’s perfect storm go?
Over the first winter weekend, youth-led rallies across Ukraine, protesting the government’s decision to suspend the signing of an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU, have turned into a genuine revolutionary movement aimed at ousting the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The immediate trigger for the current large-scale popular mobilization in the Ukrainian capital was the violent dispersal of several hundred mostly young protesters remaining on Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan) for an overnight rally. The videos of brutal beatings of peaceful protesters went viral on social media sites and were widely broadcast on Ukrainian television.
In response, hundreds of thousands of protesters took over Maidan and adjacent streets pushing the law enforcement units out of the way. The opposition leaders called for the resignation of the government and the president and pledged to block access to government buildings until the authorities agreed to their demands. While this new popular mobilization produced immediate comparisons with the Orange Revolution, several crucial and potentially consequential differences are already clear.