21 February 2014

After negotiations between President Yanukovych and representatives of the opposition, through the mediation of representatives of the European Union and Russia, the Agreement “On the Settlement of the Political Crisis in Ukraine” was signed. The agreement was signed by President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko (UDAR party), Arseniy Yatsenyuk (VO “Batkivshchyna”) and Oleg Tyagnibok (VO “Svoboda”). The signing was witnessed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Germany and Poland – Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Radoslaw Sikorski and the head of the Department of Continental Europe of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Eric Fournier (fr. ?ric Fournier). Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Lukin, who participated in the negotiations, refused to put his signature on the agreement. The agreement provided for a return to the 2004 constitution, that is, to a parliamentary-presidential form of government, early presidential elections by the end of 2014, and the formation of a “government of national confidence.” It also provided for the withdrawal of law enforcement forces from the center of Kyiv, the cessation of violence and the surrender of weapons by the opposition. The Verkhovna Rada adopted a law on the release of all those detained during protests. Units of “Berkut” and internal troops left the center of Kyiv. On February 21, when the terms of the signed Agreement were publicly announced by the leaders of the parliamentary opposition, representatives of the Right Sector stated that they were not satisfied with the gradual political reforms stipulated in the document, and demanded the immediate resignation of President Yanukovych – otherwise they intended to storm the presidential administration and Verkhovna Rada. Dmitry Yarosh stated that the Agreement does not contain clear obligations regarding the resignation of the president, the dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada, the punishment of the heads of law enforcement agencies and the executors of “criminal orders, as a result of which about a hundred Ukrainian citizens were killed”, he called the Agreement “another blurry eye” and refused it fulfill. On the night of February 22, Euromaidan activists seized the government quarter, abandoned by law enforcement officers, and put forward a number of new demands – in particular, they demanded the immediate resignation of President Yanukovych. In particular, it was said that the 7th hundred of the Maidan stands in the Verkhovna Rada, near the latter there is a subdivision of the Right Sector, the nineteenth and third hundred guard the Presidential Administration and the Cabinet of Ministers, the 15th hundred “guarded” the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The police were asked to put on a yellow-blue ribbon and go on patrol together with the Maidan Self-Defense. It was also stated that all actions on the Maidan must be coordinated with the Military Headquarters in the Kyiv City State Administration. In addition, Parubiy said that “Maidan today completely controls Kyiv.” The night in Kyiv, despite the mourning and the signed agreement with the authorities, was not calm. Shots were heard, and Maidan self-defense fighters broke into the buildings of the Verkhovna Rada and the Presidential Administration. Yanukovych complied with the terms of the February 21 agreement, removed the police that protected the Rada and the presidential administration, and the opposition did not fulfill its part of the agreement, deceiving him and freely seizing the entire government quarter in Kyiv. Yanukovych suddenly left the capital. According to the official version, he went to Kharkov to participate in the Kharkov Congress of Deputies of the South-East. Yanukovych later explained his disappearance by an attack on his motorcade. Later he gave a press conference in Rostov-on-Don.