Merete Juhl, Denmark´s ambassador to Ukraine, has told media that there are concerns nothing will really change following the ousting of Ukraine´s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych on Sunday morning.
Three months of mass protests in Kiev culminated over the weekend, and Ukraine´s acting government has issued a warrant for the arrest of Yanukovych, accusing him of mass crimes against protesters who stood up for months against his rule.
Ukraine´s acting interior minister, Arsen Avakhov, said that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Yanukovych and several other officials for the “mass killing of civilians´´. Anger boiled over last week after snipers attacked protesters in the bloodiest violence in Ukraine´s post-Soviet history.
The speaker of Ukraine´s parliament, Oleksandr Turchynov, has been appointed interim president until new elections are held on May 25.
New faces, old system
However, Juhl said that not everyone was thrilled with the development.
“There has been criticism of the opposition for trying to deal with Yanukovych,” Juhl told TV2 News. “They are afraid that an opposition government could wind up being new faces but the same old political system.”
Philip Sviatchenko, who was born in Kiev but has lived in Denmark since the early 1990s, said that the political divide in the Ukraine falls not only across East and West but young and old.
“Young people, especially in the eastern part of the country, have been raised with European values, so they want democratic laws and a system not riddled with corruption,” Sviatchenko told DR Nyheder.
Sviatchenko said that older people are “tired and pessimistic” and fear that the changes will only result in a “new Yanukovych”.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Denmark issued a statement lamenting the bloodshed and death at home.
“We mourn for people who were deprived of their lives and well-being and we pray for those compatriots who perished,” read the statement.
Ukrainian diplomats in Denmark called for justice against those who “used violence that incited fratricidal slaughter”.
