KIEV, Ukraine — The tents stayed up and the fire barrels kept burning in Kiev’s central Independence Square on Thursday as President Viktor Yanukovych announced he would take sick leave.
Yanukovych is taking time away due to “acute respiratory disease accompanied by fever,” according to a statement on the president’s website, citing a deputy head of the state affairs department on medical issues. The protests continued to swell despite a new law granting amnesty to some anti-government protesters.
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The statement gave no indication as to when the president might return to work, creating a potential power vacuum after more than two months of civil unrest and violence in the nation's capital and many regional centers. The president has been under serious pressure since late November, when protests broke out here following his decision to back out of a deal with the European Union that would have deepened ties between the former Soviet state and the 28-member bloc.
The protests here first turned violent in early December, following a violent police assault on peaceful protesters in Kiev, and again on Jan. 16 after parliament pushed through a slew of stifling anti-protest laws mean to quell the protests.
At least four protesters and four police officers have died as a result of tense standoffs between the two groups, according the Interior Ministry. Two of the protesters died of gunshot wounds from live ammunition, despite the ministry denying its use against protesters.
On Tuesday, Mykola Azarov, a close ally of the president, gave up his post as prime minister — and effectively his entire cabinet — in an apparent concession to opposition leaders who had demanded his resignation. Serhiy Arbuzov, Azarov’s first deputy, is temporarily filling the role of prime minister.
Making matter worse for Yanukovych, Russia seemed to have reinstated sanctions on Ukrainian products, stopping vehicles at the border for intense inspections that delay shipments of goods into the country, according to an urgent memo posted on the Association of International Automobile Carriers of Ukraine's website. It imposed sanctions last August on Ukrainian chocolate and railcars, and in the past has not let dairy products through.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also said the country would hold off on transferring the next installment of a $15 billion bailout meant to keep Ukraine from falling into financial abyss, even though he had said during a visit to Brussels the same day, on Wednesday, that Moscow is prepared to work with any Ukrainian government, including one filled with opposition members.
Citing congressional aides who asked not to be identified by name due to the sensitive nature of the subject, Reuters reported that the Obama administration is readying financial sanctions to be imposed on Ukrainian officials and protest leaders, should violence on the streets escalate further. Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy revoked the visas of those officials it believes are responsible for the brutal crackdown on protesters in November and December.
News of Yanukovych’s illness came after a late-night parliamentary session during which the pro-government majority passed a bill granting amnesty to “peaceful protesters,” but only after they vacate occupied government buildings.
Mikhail Chechetov, a Party of Regions lawmaker, told local media that when he saw the president on Wednesday, it was immediately apparent that he was not well.
"We met him at a meeting on Saturday, and he was perfectly healthy — tall, stately, an epic hero. And yesterday he was very pale, with a sickly shine."
Yanukovych appeared in parliament to ensure lawmakers from his ruling Party of Regions voted on the amnesty bill drawn up by one of its members. Defections from his party in recent weeks have exposed cracks within the faction, weakening Yanukovych’s grip on parliament.
Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion and current opposition leader, warned that the amnesty law supported by the pro-government majority “will only make the situation in society hotter, instead of lowing its temperature.”
Andriy Parubiy of the opposing Batkivshchyna party called the amnesty law passed by parliament unacceptable. "No one will comply with them," he said.
The opposition did not agree on the language of the bill and did not vote for it. They have been pushing for an unconditional amnesty bill that would ensure the release of dozens of protesters detained by authorities over the course of two months of protests.
Earlier in the day, Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of Ukraine after the country won independence in 1991, warned that the country is amid a “revolution” and that the situation could escalate.
"All the world acknowledges — and Ukraine acknowledges — that the state is on the brink of civil war,” he said. “We need to ease the confrontation between the [government and opposition] and agree on a plan to solve the conflict.”
Yanukovych had not signed a law passed on Tuesday that repealed sweeping new rules that restrict the freedoms of assembly and speech in the country before taking time off, leaving many on the streets wondering whether he would ever do so.
“We can’t leave the streets without a guarantee that we won’t be arrested,” Artur, a 24-year-old protester from Lviv who did not want to give his last name for fear of persecution from authorities under the strict new laws told Mashable as he helped a group of men stabilize a barricade on Khreschatyk Street. “The president still hasn’t signed the laws [passed on Jan. 28] that cancel the anti-protest laws [passed on Jan. 16].”
In a last-ditch effort to get protesters to go, Yanukovych appealed to them in a statement posted on the president’s website Thursday afternoon not to become pons in the opposition’s political games.
“The opposition continues to escalate the situation calling for people to stand in the cold for the political ambitions of several leaders,” he said. “I believe that together we will be able to bring Ukraine and all the people onto the peaceful and quiet track.”
Christopher J. Miller is an editor at English-language newspaper the Kyiv Post in Ukraine.