MOSCOW, December 30. /ITAR-TASS World Service/. Summing up the results of the outgoing year, Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily named Ukrainian opposition actions for European integration unprecedented in its scale as the main event in the former Soviet republics.
The daily noted that the participants in massive protest actions came out against the current system of power in the country, where the laws are used as a disguise for the arbitrariness of state officials, corruption, authoritarianism and oligarchy. But the public protest movement faced the problem of the lack of political leaders, who can cope with the task of reforms in the country. The protest movement for European integration did not attain its goal. Incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich succeeded to take advantage of the situation to agree with Russia and the European Union on some concessions to the country.
In the evening on November 21, Nikolai Azarov’s government stated that the Cabinet had suspended the preparation to signing an agreement on association and a free trade zone with the EU.
Supporters of European integration have launched massive protest actions.
On Sundays, up to one million people have gathered in central Kiev, several ten thousand people were staying at the tent camp on workdays.
On December 17, the situation has changed, as Presidents of Ukraine and Russia Viktor Yanukovich and Vladimir Putin had signed the agreements, thanks to which the Ukrainian production industries had received the orders, credits and cheap gas supplies and Russia had allocated 15 billion dollars to the Ukrainian economy from the National Wealth Fund. The Ukrainian incumbent authorities had built up their positions in the country and at the talks with the EU. Yanukovich’s team has pretentiously turned a blind eye to the protest movement. The court ruled to delay the hearings of the case over establishing the order in the centre of the Ukrainian capital to the end of January. So, they seemed to say live in the street, if you want to.
The West failed to influence the situation. The Ukrainian society did not have any legal instruments for the early change of power. Therefore, the issue of Yanukovich’s resignation as well as a new state system was postponed at least until the presidential election in 2015.
The protesting movement intends to see in New Year on Kiev’s Independence Square under the New Year Tree decorated with the national flags of Ukraine and the EU states. But the protest movement does not expect any miracles, as Ukraine did not turn in a European country yet, Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily noted.
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