KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s fugitive president was indicted for “mass murder” yesterday over the shooting of demonstrators as new leaders in Kiev sought urgent Western aid to make up for a loss of funding from Russia, which is angry at the overthrow of its ally.
Moscow said it would not deal with those who led an “armed mutiny” against Viktor Yanukovich, who was elected in 2010, and said it now feared for the lives of its citizens, notably in the Russian-speaking east and Crimea on the Black Sea.
Russia’s top general agreed with NATO to maintain contact on a crisis that has raised fears of civil war and which UN chief Ban Ki-moon said called for an “inclusive political process” that “preserves Ukraine’s … territorial integrity”.
While Russia, its strategy for maintaining influence in its former Soviet neighbour in shreds, made clear its $15-billion package of loans and cheap gas deals was in jeopardy, the European Union and United States offered urgent financial assistance for a new government that may be formed today.
They were responding to warnings from Ukraine’s acting head of state that the country was heading for bankruptcy.
The acting interior minister – appointed by parliament when Yanukovich fled at the weekend after mass protests sparked by his rejection of closer ties with the European Union – said the 63-year-old was now on the wanted list and had last been seen at Balaclava in Crimea, near Russia’s Sevastopol naval base.
“An official case for the mass murder of peaceful citizens has been opened,” Arsen Avakov wrote on Facebook, referring to the shooting by police marksmen of many of the 82 people killed in two days of bloodshed in Kiev last week.
“Yanukovich and other people responsible for this have been declared wanted,” he added.
The ousted president was still at large, Avakov said. He had left by helicopter on Friday from Kiev, where his lavish residence was quickly overwhelmed by curious compatriots who took its lavish fittings as proof of grandiose corruption.
Having arrived in his power base in the industrial east, Yanukovich was prevented from flying out of the country and then diverted south to Crimea. He had later left a private residence at Balaclava for an unknown destination, by car with one of his aides and a handful of guards.
