5 Big Questions About the Future of Ukraine

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Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko addresses the crowd in central Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014.

Image: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

By Christopher Miller2014-02-23 17:29:34 UTC

KIEV, Ukraine - History books will record the past week as the Ukraine's most significant, and tragic, since the end of Soviet rule. Nearly 100 protesters were killed, many by government snipers; the nation's president, Viktor Yanukovych, was deposed and his opulent lifestyle exposed to the public; and the president's political rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, was released from prison and made a triumphant return to Kiev, where she delivered a forceful and emotional speech while seated in a wheelchair.

On Sunday, Ukraine's Parliament took steps to form a new government, appointing Speaker Oleksandr Turchinov as the nation's acting president, pending the outcome of newly scheduled elections on May 25. Lawmakers also unanimously reversed a sweeping array of anti-speech and anti-protest laws that Parliament itself enacted in mid-January and it voted to return Yanukovych's lavish estate to the people.

But much uncertainty surrounds Ukraine's future. Here are some essential questions facing the nation and its people:

What role will Yulia Tymoshenko play in future government?

After spending more than two years in jail, the former Prime Minister gave a passionate and rousing speech from the main stage of the EuroMaidan protest movement Saturday night, signaling that she was back in the political game. But she failed to say what many wanted to hear: that she would run for president of Ukraine.

Perhaps that was for the best. Much like the notoriously corrupt recently ousted president Viktor Yanukovych – her political nemesis – Tymoshenko is a highly polarizing figure unpopular to many.

Long before the golden braid, before her loyalists likened her to Joan of Arc, she was the “Gas Princess,” who in the raucous post-Soviet 1990s was a tough businesswoman who amassed a fortune in the natural gas industry, which in this part of the world has always been dubious business.

She used her money to catapult her into politics, obtaining the prime minister seat under former president Viktor Yushchenko following Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004. It was during that time that she cut a gas deal with Russia that many Ukrainians say benefited her but strapped the country financially. To this day, under the deal she signed, in 2009, Ukraine pays more to Russia for natural gas than western Europe.

Despite her past, Tymoshenko is a savvy politician who knows how to address a crowd, an asset other political leaders here lack. That is one reason Taras Berezovets, a director of Berta Communications and a former political consultant for Tymoshenko, said there is no doubt in his mind that she will run for office.

“She will definitely run (for president),” he told Mashable. “She is the best candidate for this job.”

Where is Yanukovych and what is likely to happen to him?

This is the million dollar question. There has been speculation that the now ex-president is somewhere in the United Arab Emirates, where his private jet had reportedly flown and landed on Feb. 22, or in eastern Ukraine, his stronghold. The latter is most likely. His advisor, Hanna Herman, said on Feb. 21 that he was in fact there, but not to attend a meeting with loyalists and a Russian envoys as some media local reported to discuss the eastern region separating from the central and western parts of the country.

At least one newspaper reported he was at a country home in the area on Sunday, after he failed to escape Ukraine on Saturday. His plane was reportedly grounded because the crew did not have proper documents to leave Ukrainian airspace.

There have been reports that a warrant has been issued for his arrest, which would please many protesters who sustained the EuroMaidan movement. Protesters have expressed their desire for the former president to be put behind bars for draining government coffers dry and giving orders to police over the course of the past three months that led to scores of deaths during clashes in Kiev and elsewhere in the country.

How will Russia react to the political convulsion in Ukraine?

Russia has long tried to reel in Ukraine to its political orbit. As its former Soviet ruler did, Russia still views Ukraine as a satellite state to which it can dictate orders. In fact, seeds of the crisis of the past several months were sewn when Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with the West in favor or closer economic ties with Russia.

On Sunday, it seemed unclear exactly how Moscow would react to the political turmoil. Officials said Russia would halt a second tranche of cash as part of the $15 billion bailout Russian President Vladimir Putin inked with Yanukovych in December until it was clear who would be leading Urkaine’s new government. But Moscow also said that it supported Tymoshenko as a candidate for a top position in office. Tymoshenko has had a fairly cozy relationship with Moscow in the past.

Will the former heavyweight boxer, Vitali Klitschko, be the next president? Or does he have a new rival in Tymoshenko?

Speaking to Mashable on Sunday, Klitschko admitted that the release of the former prime minister Tymoshenko had changed the political landscape.

He skirted the question of whether he still planned to run for president, as he had announced in 2013, saying that the most important task for him right now is to get Ukraine back on track politically and economically.

“If necessary, I can do this as president,” he said, in a tone that sounded less like a man ready to stump for the office and more like one who had be resigned to the back seat of the bus. “But there must be an honest competition between the politicians. It is good that Yulia is back, so more people can be involved. It is good for the political map.”

Both politicians have done well in recent polls, but those were hypotheticals against Yanukovych. Should they run against each other, they risk splitting a united opposition that worked together to oust the president on Saturday.

Will top government officials be prosecuted for the deaths of protesters?

If protesters in Independence Square have their way, those government officials they blame for the deadly clashes over the past three months will be arrested and prosecuted. But doing so is much easily said than done.

Yanukovych has fled, as well as much of his former cabinet, and their whereabouts are unknown. However, they are believed to still be in Ukraine, after the State Border Service grounded the private jets. According to Klitschko, political leaders “will consider this issue and we will compile a list of people responsible for giving these orders (to police troops and snipers to fire live ammunition at protesters), and we will decide then,” he said.

Klitschko place the blame for the the bloodshed on the former president. “Yanukovych is responsible for everything that has happened in Ukraine (since he came to power in 2010.). He is fully responsible for the people who have died,” he said.