Ukraine’s Euro-Maidan enters its third week, to face a counter-rally

Today marks the three-week anniversary of the Euro-Maidan. Police have refrained from attempts to remove protesters since its early morning Dec. 11 raid. The Kyiv City Council building and Independence Square (Maidan) remain under the opposition’s control, with the makeshift barricades of metal and wood objects being doubled in height as high as three meters.

The Ukrainian government is organizing an “anti-Maidan” at European Square, just a few hundred meters from the Maidan, news reports said. It is bringing thousands of state employees, students, supporters of the Eurasian Union, as well as potential provocateurs.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, parliamentary faction chair of the Fatherland party, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Dec. 13 that the government planning a mass provocation this weekend, bringing its allies to Kyiv to start a civil conflict “introduce a state of emergency, bring in the army and special forces and disburse the Maidan.” Opposition leaders expect a repeat turn-out from the previous weekends of at least a half million protesters.

Zenon Zawada: Warnings of mass social unrest and violence have been surfaced ever since the start of the political crisis. They would be a legitimate concern this time, given the dire straits the government is in, if not for the reports of thousands of civil servants being brought to central Kyiv. In which case, the government would hardly want to involve its own supporters in beatings, most of whom are not provocateurs but simply working class people. Yet we don’t rule out some use of provocations and a final push to force out the Euro-Maidan before the Dec. 17 meeting of the Russian-Ukrainian Interstate Commission.