Yanukovych: ‘I’m the Real President’

Pro-EU Ukrainians holding a EuroMaidan protest are confronted by a pro-Russian group in Sevastopol, Ukraine, home to a Russian naval base and thousands of Russian sailors. Photo by Victor Neganov

Former Ukrainian president Victor Yanukovych resurfaced today in Russia, claiming at a press conference that he’s still “the real president.”

Overwhelmed by the EuroMaidan protesters in Kiev, Yanukovych fled the capital recently, reportedly to Sevastopol, located on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and home to a Russian naval base and thousands of Russian sailors.

The port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, home to a Russian naval base

Since he abandoned his presidential palace, a new interim president of Ukraine has been appointed, and new elections will take place in May.

Russia is not pleased with this political shake-up.

Several hundred armed Russian troops, wearing camouflage uniforms without insignias, have taken control of several airports in Crimea. Ukraine’s new interior minister called it an “armed invasion and occupation.”

Russia denies involvement. Moscow has denounced the change in Ukraine’s government as “armed mutiny” and “insurgency.” Russian media have dubbed it a “classic coup d’état.” They’re withholding economic assistance, and they’ve also mobilized their military forces on the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, another group of unidentified armed men took the Crimean parliament by force yesterday, hoisting a Russian flag on the roof.

This was all sparked by the EuroMaidan protest movement, based in Kiev’s central Maidan square. Protesters took to the streets after Yanukovych accepted a $15 billion loan from Russia in December instead of signing a trade deal with the European Union.

A memorial to a protester killed at the EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Violent clashes between the riot police and the protesters this month left at least 70 people dead, mostly protesters and police, along with one journalist.

Protesters were tortured. More than 100 journalists were targeted. Hundreds more, perhaps as many as 1,000, were injured.

While Yanukovych claimed today he never gave any orders to shoot, there’s a warrant out for his arrest for “mass murder of peaceful civilians.”

Naval ships in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine

In the southern port city of Sevastopol, a 20-year-old student named Filip told me that the protesters are “brainless vandals” set to do “nothing more than engage in destruction.”

“I believe that those nationalists [in Kiev] really work as destructive forces,” he said. “They are not actually Ukrainian nationalists; they are European nationalists.”

The EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Like most of the people I spoke to on the streets of Sevastopol, Filip was opposed to closer ties with Europe. He asked to be identified only by his first name so he could speak freely about these sensitive political issues.

Closer integration with Europe is “forced,” he told me. “If that sort of thing were to happen in other countries, it would be stopped. The president doesn’t want to do anything to stop it, so he is kind of sitting, putting up his hands, and not acting.”

Nearly 600 miles from Kiev, there’s little sympathy in Sevastopol for the protesters.

Sevastopol EuroMaidan leader Victor Neganov speaks to VICE in Sevastopol, Ukraine.

Yet there is a small Euromaidan movement in Sevastopol, which has a population of about 350,000 people.

About 100 activists have protested in the city, starting late last year. They initially held demonstrations weekly but have scaled back to bi-weekly protests, in part because of pro-Russian groups that are disrupting their events.

The counter-protesters grab flags, start fights, and make noise—tactics designed to prevent the EuroMaidan protesters from effectively communicating their message.

Now, rallies are being held in Sevastopol in support of Russia. Some 20,000 residents took to the streets on Monday, chanting “Russia” and demanding secession from Ukraine. Crimea was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.

Sevastopol residents have also been joining ad hoc self-defense and pro-Russian militia groups.

A EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol in August 2013

Activist Victor Neganov, who leads the EuroMaidan movement in Sevastopol, said he expects an annexation of Crimea by Russia "because the Ukrainian government is afraid to make steps which are necessary" to avoid that from happening.

He expects the situation to unfold as it did with the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2008.

Most people in Sevastopol now view Yanukovych as a "traitor," Victor said, because he "failed" as a president and didn't protect the east and south of Ukraine from what they see as the "bandits" of EuroMaidan.

Will this erupt into a civil war? "100-percent yes," Victor told me.

Victor and his fellow Euromaidan activists have been fighting for systemic change.

“We have no democracy here like the US citizens have democracy and European citizens have in the European Union,” said. “We have real democratic law, democratic standards in the law, but this law is not working because the power representatives they just [are] ignoring the law. “

Victor ran for a parliamentary seat, saying “it was fun” but admitting that he lost by “many votes.” He said he didn’t have much money to run for office, which he said is a prerequisite to win.

Now running a small human-rights organization called National Control, Neganov alleges politicians connected with Yanukovych are privatizing public resources in Sevastopol, including access to the Black Sea, for private benefit.

Representatives from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in Sevastopol declined to be interviewed for this story.

Another EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol in December 2013, with some counter-protesters screaming their support for Russia and Putin

With strong popular support for Yanukovych and Russia in Crimea, Victor acknowledges the challenge of getting people there to stand up for change. He's uniting groups like labor unions, anarchists, communists, and opposition parties that all have one common enemy: corruption.

“We just can’t live with corruption,” he said, yet “it’s in all spheres of life in Ukraine.”

Sergey Karniyenka, a representative of the opposition group Right Party in Sevastopol, agrees that ending corruption is the biggest problem in Sevastopol and Ukraine.

As a lawyer, he said he can’t adequately defend his clients. “Today, most of the official systems like military, police, and other authorities live off of [bribes],” he said.

“Yanukovych created the system of riches,” said Sergey, who also represents the ecological social movement Green Front. He described Ukraine’s democratically elected president as a “dictator… for whom riches are the governing force.”

In Kiev, EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav Yurash told me the opposition there is also united in its stance against corruption.

When I asked 17-year-old Sviatoslav for a specific objective they want to achieve, he replied, “Better life for Ukraine. Better Ukraine. The meaning of that is very ambiguous, but that’s the point.”

“We need a political democracy in which these ideas can fight with each other but on the basis of legitimate law, not on the basis of gang-ruling states,” he continued.

Stanislav Nagorny showed VICE his Ukrainian passport and pointed out that while it shows he’s a Ukrainian citizen, it doesn’t indicate his nationality. He identifies as more Russian than Ukrainian in terms of nationality.

An example of this corruption is how Ukrainian officials are issuing passports to Russian citizens. This is illegal under the country’s constitution. “But money could fix it,” Victor explained. One Ukrainian politician estimated that 5–10 percent of Ukrainians hold two passports.

Russia is reportedly handing out Russian passports, which happened in Georgia prior to the 2008 war there.

Victor estimates tens of thousands of people in Sevastopol have both Ukrainian and Russian passports. He said that most are former Russian Navy sailors who stayed here after their military obligations ended.

Even Sevastopol residents who have only Ukrainian passports identify as Russian.

“We are citizens of Ukraine, but Russian by nationality,” shopkeeper Stanislav Nagorny told me.

Indeed, about 1 million ethnic Russians live in Crimea, where Russian is nearly universally spoken and where only four of 600 schools teach in Ukrainian.

Calling himself an amateur historian, 39-year-old Stanislav said the “mentality” of the people in Sevastopol is different from Ukrainians who live elsewhere.

“The citizens of Sevastopol do not support the protests in Kiev,” Stanislav explained. “In general, we are against the integration with the European Union, because we see it as a refusal to integrate with Russia, which we are close to economically.”

A Russian-flagged ship in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as viewed from the window of a train

Russia signed a deal with Ukraine in 2010 that extends the lease on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea until 2042.

“The Russian Navy will stay in Sevastopol forever," said an ex-commander of the Russian fleet. Retired admiral Irgor Kastonov said Russia will never “give up” Sevastopol, considering its strategic role in protecting Russia's southwestern border.

“Economically, it influences the city for the best,” Stanislav said.

A Russian-flagged ship in the port city of Sevastopol, Ukraine

Victor claimed that the thousands of better-trained and better-equipped Russian military forces based in Ukraine could take control of Sevastopol within a day, if they wanted, “and Ukrainian army or police could do almost nothing about it.”

A 22-year-old Ukrainian sailor, Andrej, says he doesn’t see Russia as a threat. He occasionally trains with the Russian naval forces.

“If we keep together as one force, even Europe would not be able to stand against us. As a united force we are a big force,” Andrej told me in Sevastopol.

He said when the protests started in Maidan, the Ukrainian navy was put on a higher state of alert, “because we were afraid [the EuroMaidan protesters] might attack us.”

A banner in a protester-occupied building in Kiev that expresses opposition to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

For the activists leading the small EuroMaidan movement in Sevastopol, Russia’s $15 billion loan to Ukraine is an important indicator of their country’s future.

“I believe whoever gives the money will really control the situation,” said to Aleksej Shestakovich, a member of the anarchist party in Sevastopol.

“For me, the political situation in Russia is more like a police state,” he added. “I would not want that future for Ukraine.”

A small EuroMaidan protest in Sevastopol, Ukraine. Photo by Victor Neganov

But in Sevastopol, some residents see the Euromaidan activists as simply protesting for the sake of protesting.

“The opposition put itself against the authorities, not against specific]positions,” said 60-year-old Vitaly, who also asked that we use only his first name. “So we see it only as a fight for power.”

People in Sevastopol don’t really understand what EuroMaidan is all about, Aleksej claimed. He said they believe the movement is just nationalists and other “marginal” groups.

Communist Valery Balshekov doesn’t agree with what is going on, "because we are against the nationalistic and fascist mottos that we hear in Maidan.”

Valery, who represents the Labor Front of Sevastopol, believes Yanukovych “used” EuroMaidan to “pull attention away from real economic problems.”

Yet he said that this can be an opportunity for the proletariat of Ukraine to become organized against the “ruling forces” and to “destroy the power of the capitalism.”

Sevastopol shopkeeper Stanislav said these activists represent only a “small part of the population” of Ukraine.

EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav disputes that.

“If you ask people in Donetsk [in eastern, pro-Russian Ukraine], people in Lviv [in western Ukraine], whether they want to live in Ukraine, the majority of them in both places would say yes,” Sviatoslav said. “This proves to us that Ukraine is a state and a nation and will continue on living and continue on progressing and changing its own path.”

“The Maidan is a chance for us to do this better,” he added.

The EuroMaidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine

Yet there remains a perception in Sevastopol that the activists in Maidan are merely armed nationalists.

And there are weapons in Maidan in Kiev.

About 12,000 volunteers make up a “self-defense” force at the Maidan square in Kiev, patrolling the occupied areas and guarding all entryways with clubs and other weapons. Their commander called for the expansion of this force to 30,000–40,000 people from across the nation. “Self-defense is going on the offensive,” one of the militia leaders said.

In response to claims in Sevastopol that the protesters in Maidan are vandals, EuroMaidan representative Sviatoslav says that it’s the result of “an information war.”

The Yanukovych-led Party of Regions, he claimed, has a “monopoly of information” in areas like Sevastopol and puts out propaganda describing EuroMaidan as “wrong and destructive for the country itself.”

The Ukrainian elite riot forces, known as Berkut, stand their ground near a barricade erected by EuroMaidan protesters in Kiev, Ukraine.

Sviatoslav insists the EuroMaidan security forces are “necessary because our government continually shows to us its willingness to attack the people indiscriminately, to achieve total control over the country.”

“That’s what we want to avoid,” he continued, “by creating a militia which can defend effectively the Maidan and the people here.”

Sevastopol EuroMaidan leader Victor Neganov speaks at a protest in Sevastopol. Photo by Victor Neganov

In Sevastopol, the activists have had a tough time even getting people to attend their bi-weekly protests. Still, Victor has big dreams.

“We need to change the system of the power,” he said. “First, we need to change in our mind that the law and the procedure should be working. When we do it, then all will happen like we want it. Corruption will be stopped, laws will be worked, and we will live much better.”

Victor Neganov leads protesters in Sevastopol.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Yanukovych calls the interim government illegitimate. He claims he was shot at by automatic weapons while leaving Ukraine and will return when security is guaranteed for him and his family.