The People’s Princess
THE news of the first deaths among Ukraine’s protesters has opened a
new and dark chapter in the story of the anti-government movement known
as Euromaidan.
For three days, the situation on Kiev’s Hrushevsky Street had smacked of a kind of collective madness. During the fiercest clashes on the night of January 19th, leaderless protesters fought riot police with batons and shields made out of stolen pieces of the adjacent Dynamo stadium. A row of police buses was torched in the process.
The buses formed a barrier behind which the protesters then dug in, throwing Molotov cocktails and paving stones at riot police on the other side. The police fired the same things back, plus tear gas canisters, sound grenades and rubber bullets. It now looks as though they are no longer firing only rubber bullets.
Most of the noise though, for those three days, came from supporters of the young fighters, banging on bins, fences, and the coal braziers they swiftly brought to the area in order to keep warm. It was hard to identify any clear goal other than mayhem.
During the day on January 21st the noise was supplemented by infernally loud pop music and vain appeals to security forces to switch sides, broadcast from a van belonging to Batkivshchyna, the largest opposition political party.
This was a feeble attempt by Batkivshchyna to reassert control over the situation. At the large (and peaceful) protest that took place on January 19th, the leaders of all three of Ukraine’s parliamentary opposition parties had been booed. They manifestly lost the patience of a large section of the protest movement (many of whose participants had never had much faith in them from the beginning) when they failed to designate a single leader and present a coherent strategy to counter draconian new laws signed by Viktor Yanukovych, the president, on January 17th.
It was not long after that that young men associated with the Right Sector (Pravyy Sektor), a motley confederation of football hooligans and nationalist groups involved in the pro-European protests, took matters into their own hands. They were soon joined by less radical, but equally frustrated elements.
The most striking thing was how willingly liberal, middle-class Ukrainians, who had hitherto been steadfastly insisting that the protests remain peaceful, rallied to the violence. Crowds amassed to watch. Men who did not wish to go to the front prepared cobblestones for others. Some set up a medieval-style catapult whose entire ill-fated career was filmed by several smartphones. Grandmothers provided tea and sandwiches, as well as milk to counter the sting of tear gas.
Opponents of the government believe the new laws introduce Russian-style authoritarianism, and see them as part of a plan by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to lock Ukraine into Russia’s orbit. The raft of measures, "voted" in by a farcical show of hands, slaps tight controls on media as well as severely limiting the right to protest. Many appear inspired by Moscow’s laws: a requirement for NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents" is a case in point. “Russian human rights activists describe their country’s parliament as a ‘crazy printer’ churning out repressive legislation,” says Oleksandra Matviichuk of the Center for Civil Liberties in Kiev: “We have the crazy photocopier”.
To the protesters, framing the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-European Ukraine in cultural or economic terms, even in the form of petitions in their defence, such as this one (link in French) is beside the point. They see an alliance with Europe as the only way to preserve democracy and improve the rule of law in Ukraine, and therefore have little time for those who, citing democracy, point out that up to half of Ukrainians don’t actually support Euromaidan.
Up until now the fighting has occupied only a very small area and involved only a few hundred people. Just 400 metres away, at the protest camp on Independence Square, an opera singer performed as though oblivious while the battle raged. But there is now a sense that these events could plunge the country into chaos.
Russia has already offered to step in to help stabilise the situation if needs be. That sounds ominous. An unstable and therefore weak Ukraine would probably suit Mr Putin just fine.
For three days, the situation on Kiev’s Hrushevsky Street had smacked of a kind of collective madness. During the fiercest clashes on the night of January 19th, leaderless protesters fought riot police with batons and shields made out of stolen pieces of the adjacent Dynamo stadium. A row of police buses was torched in the process.
The buses formed a barrier behind which the protesters then dug in, throwing Molotov cocktails and paving stones at riot police on the other side. The police fired the same things back, plus tear gas canisters, sound grenades and rubber bullets. It now looks as though they are no longer firing only rubber bullets.
Most of the noise though, for those three days, came from supporters of the young fighters, banging on bins, fences, and the coal braziers they swiftly brought to the area in order to keep warm. It was hard to identify any clear goal other than mayhem.
During the day on January 21st the noise was supplemented by infernally loud pop music and vain appeals to security forces to switch sides, broadcast from a van belonging to Batkivshchyna, the largest opposition political party.
This was a feeble attempt by Batkivshchyna to reassert control over the situation. At the large (and peaceful) protest that took place on January 19th, the leaders of all three of Ukraine’s parliamentary opposition parties had been booed. They manifestly lost the patience of a large section of the protest movement (many of whose participants had never had much faith in them from the beginning) when they failed to designate a single leader and present a coherent strategy to counter draconian new laws signed by Viktor Yanukovych, the president, on January 17th.
It was not long after that that young men associated with the Right Sector (Pravyy Sektor), a motley confederation of football hooligans and nationalist groups involved in the pro-European protests, took matters into their own hands. They were soon joined by less radical, but equally frustrated elements.
The most striking thing was how willingly liberal, middle-class Ukrainians, who had hitherto been steadfastly insisting that the protests remain peaceful, rallied to the violence. Crowds amassed to watch. Men who did not wish to go to the front prepared cobblestones for others. Some set up a medieval-style catapult whose entire ill-fated career was filmed by several smartphones. Grandmothers provided tea and sandwiches, as well as milk to counter the sting of tear gas.
Opponents of the government believe the new laws introduce Russian-style authoritarianism, and see them as part of a plan by Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to lock Ukraine into Russia’s orbit. The raft of measures, "voted" in by a farcical show of hands, slaps tight controls on media as well as severely limiting the right to protest. Many appear inspired by Moscow’s laws: a requirement for NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents" is a case in point. “Russian human rights activists describe their country’s parliament as a ‘crazy printer’ churning out repressive legislation,” says Oleksandra Matviichuk of the Center for Civil Liberties in Kiev: “We have the crazy photocopier”.
To the protesters, framing the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-European Ukraine in cultural or economic terms, even in the form of petitions in their defence, such as this one (link in French) is beside the point. They see an alliance with Europe as the only way to preserve democracy and improve the rule of law in Ukraine, and therefore have little time for those who, citing democracy, point out that up to half of Ukrainians don’t actually support Euromaidan.
Up until now the fighting has occupied only a very small area and involved only a few hundred people. Just 400 metres away, at the protest camp on Independence Square, an opera singer performed as though oblivious while the battle raged. But there is now a sense that these events could plunge the country into chaos.
Russia has already offered to step in to help stabilise the situation if needs be. That sounds ominous. An unstable and therefore weak Ukraine would probably suit Mr Putin just fine.
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