Ukraine court verdict sparks clashes, former interior minister injured

A Kyiv district court sentenced on Jan. 10 two councilmen of a Kyiv Oblast town, and an aide, to six years imprisonment for planning to detonate a Lenin statue, illegal handling of weapons and explosive materials, and calls to undermine the constitutional order. The accused say the government planted evidence against them was planted as part of a political-business conflict with rivals. The verdict drew several hundred protesters who tried to block trucks from transporting them to prison. Special police forces cleared the road for the police van, forcing protesters out of the way. Provocateurs then attacked police, who then began viciously beating the protesters without discrimination.

Among those seriously injured was former Internal Affairs Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, a key EuroMaidan leader, who was hospitalized with wounds and a concussion. In addition, three Freedom Party MPs were injured, as well as at least 17 protesters and several journalists. After the beatings, the peaceful protesters surrounded the police buses, punctured their tires and forced the special forces to emerge and remove their helmets to expose their faces. They weren’t attacked.

Zenon Zawada: The criminal convictions apply to three members of an ultra-right political party, which isn’t likely to draw international sympathy, regardless of whether the charges were justified. Yet Lutsenko’s beating will draw international attention. He has many allies within the EU leadership, which helped arrange for his release from prison in April 2013 after his conviction was determined by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to have been political persecution.

The incident demonstrates the administration of President Viktor Yanukovych is merely intensifying its persecution of the opposition and has not upheld the president’s promise to restrain his police from applying violence to protesters. The incident also highlights how the lengthy duration of the EuroMaidan – 54 days as of today – is taking its toll on its leaders, who are enduring beatings.

Yesterday’s weekly Sunday demonstration drew fewer supporters than previous weeks, also revealing exhaustion. Last week’s plans for a strike have yet to materialize and its leadership lacks new tactics to pressure the government to abdicate. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the parliamentary faction chair of the Fatherland party, told the Jan. 12 audience that they would personally enter Yanukovych’s office in 10 days and read the text of a law that was supposed to amnesty those arrested throughout the EuroMaidan.

Whether he’s planning a massive protest at the Presidential Administration is unclear, but what’s apparent is a lack of strategy of the EuroMaidan leadership that is frustrating its hundreds of thousands of supporters. The lack of effective measures is also prompting speculation that the leaders of the three pro-EU opposition parties aren’t interested in assuming leadership of a government that’s now financially dependent on Moscow, and whose economy would plunge into tailspin without that support.