A turning point?

UKRAINE - In Brief 15 Dec 2013 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Yesterday Victor Yanukovitch dismissed three officials who were allegedly responsible for bloody crackdown on the night of November 30. Those three were (a) Oleksandr Popov, Head of Kyiv city administration (Kyiv was not allowed to have major elections and Popov was effectively the ruler of the city), (b) Valeriy Koryak, the chief of Kyiv police and (c) Volodymyr Sivkovytch, Deputy Secretary of National Security and Defense Council. From the first glance that step might look as a victory of Maidan and step down of the current president in view of failed attempts to disperse protesters. However, knowing well Yanukovitch way of thinking we are inclined to see in this step punishment for ‘poor performance’ (for not fixing Maidan issue) not the punishment for blood. In light of this we believe that the real actions on civil confrontation are still ahead and we are still far from epilog. But does it mean that nothing has changed for Yanukovitch and he is just in search of more efficient executors? Not really. Yanukovitch is definitely furious from his powerlessness and we can read it from his face during TV interviews. According to the South-Eastern system of values he is now a weak loser and he does not deserve to be a president unless he puts everything under control soon enough. In this respect he needs to restore his authority in the eyes of his core voters ASAP. But the problem is that large part of oligarchs, who were among his close allies, are now revising their relations with Yanukovitch under pressure of the West. Rinat Akhmetov, Victor Pinchuk and even Dmytro Firtash have invested millions in their reputation and now they risk to be buried together with the dicta...