Ukraine crisis: Bloodshed on Europe’s eastern edge

The first spark was lit when Yanukovych bowed to intense Russian pressure in November and decided not to sign a watershed EU agreement that would have paved the way for Ukraine’s membership in the 28-nation bloc. The shock decision triggered mass protests on Kiev’s iconic Independence Square that bore heavy echoes of the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution in which Russia’s hold on Ukraine faced its first test. Much of the anger was also rooted in widespread exasperation at state corruption that had gripped Ukraine throughout its post-Soviet independence.

A crackdown by baton-wielding police on protesters who had set up a round-the-clock vigil on Independence Square degenerated into urban guerrilla fighting in late January that killed four people and injured more than 500. But this was only a precursor to three days of carnage that erupted on February 18 and witnessed police snipers mow down nearly 100 protesters, most armed with little more than bats and sticks, in Ukraine’s worst bloodbath since World War II.

Shell-shocked lawmakers representing both nationalist forces and those in the Russified east on February 22 impeached Yanukovych after accusing him of committing “acts of terror.” But their anger also resulted in a highly-divisive decision to ban the use of Russian in state institutions, a bill that interim President Oleksandr Turchynov never signed but was one of the main contributors to the east’s subsequent suspicion of the new nationalist leaders. Moscow denounced Yanukovych’s ouster as a “fascist coup.”

A few dozen masked pro-Russian gunmen on Feb. 27 seized Crimea’s Parliament and government buildings and declared plans to stage a local referendum on joining Kremlin rule. The West accused the Kremlin of instigating the raid and drew up sanctions against Russian figures and companies considered key actors in the crisis. Rebel Crimean leaders said more than 95 percent of the voters decided to break all ties with Kiev in a March 16 poll conducted under the watch of pro-Kremlin forces who had earlier seized Ukrainian military bases across the Black Sea cape. President Vladimir Putin approved Crimea’s formal absorption by Russia on March 18.

Masked pro-Russian forces took over government buildings in three neighboring eastern regions in a coordinated series of April 6 raids that bore many of the hallmarks of the Crimea uprising. The US and its European allies unleashed a new round of travel and financial restrictions against Putin cronies and Kremlin-linked firms. The Ukrainian army responded by launching an “anti-terrorist operation” to try to restore control over the restive provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk on April 13.

The uprising has already claimed more than 150 lives and shows few signs of abating. Another 42 people, most of them pro-Russian activists and militants, also died in a government building fire and street clashes that broke out in the southwestern port city of Odessa on April 2.

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