The opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk took part in the Munich conference where they had several meetings with the US State Secretary John Kerry and European politicians.

The Batkivschyna leader Yatsenyuk announced that he was ready to head the government of Ukraine on the condition of restoring the Constitution of 2004 and forming the Cabinet of Ministers by the opposition alone.

Several thousands of manifestants came to the building of the Supreme Rada demanding that the MPs should vote for returning to the Constitution of 2004. The commandant of Maidan Andrey Paruby announced that it was an action of warning. On the fifth floor of the Trade Unions House, occupied by the Right Sector, in the office 517 there was an explosion. As a result, one person got a hand torn off and another got an eye burn of III degree. In Rovno and Chernovtsy protestants released the seized buildings of the Regional State Administrations. The European Parliament called on the European Union to start preparing address sanctions in respect of overseas travel, assets and property of Ukrainian officials, MPs and oligarchs responsible for the use of force against protesters and death of the opposition activists.

According to the so-called first amnesty law, the Security Service of Ukraine terminated its investigation in criminal proceedings on actions aimed at seizing the state power. In Kiev members of the Internet community ‘Kiev people for the clean city’ tried to clean Kreschatik and dismantle barricades. They were met by Euromaidan activists defending their fortifications with pieces of pipes, metal sticks, clubs and chains. In the end, Kiev people weren’t allowed even to approach the barricade in Kreschatik.

In the Supreme Rada there appeared principal disagreements between the Batkivschyna (Yatsenyuk) and UDAR (Klitschko) parties on the bill on changes in the Constitution. The Batkivschyna insisted on empowering the Parliament while the UDAR demanded more rights for the government. The interests of the parties got separated after a telephone conversation between the US State Secretary Nuland and the US ambassador in Ukraine Pyatt was made public. The conversation made it clear that the USA preferred Yatsenyuk as the Head of a new government. Dmitry Yarosh announced that the Right Sector wasn’t obliged to uphold the truce with the authorities and intended to go on with active protests; he called on protesters ‘to prepare to the nationwide mobilisation for further blocking the Governmental District’. At a press conference in Kiev the Council of Europe Commissar on human rights Nils Muižnieks accused the Internal Affairs Ministry of using certain civilians to put pressure on the opposition, violating human rights of protesters and arrested citizens and attacking journalists and medical staff.

The Council of the all-Ukrainian Union Maidan took a decision that protesters would consider releasing administrative buildings and Grushevsky St only after liberating all arrested activists.

At a meeting with members of the NATO Parliament Assembly the Supreme Rada Chairman Vladimir Rybak announced that Victor Yanukovich had agreed on creating a coalition government. At the same time the Head of Parliament called the opposition’s demand of the right to form the entire government ‘an ultimatum and dictate’.

The Right Sector announced the formation of its political council and demanded that, considering a necessity of unity of all opposition forces and the Right Sector’s role in protests, ‘the democratic parliamentary opposition’ should start consultations with the political council of the Right Sector about its representatives’ participation in the political process aimed at resolving the conflict.

During the second and last attempt of the movement ‘Kiev people for the clean city’ to start a dialog with Maidan people members of the movement were severely beaten by the Maidan Self-Defence. Some firecrackers were thrown at activists of the movement and then, a group of people in camouflage, armed with bludgeons and clubs, sapper blades and axes beat them and sprayed tear gas at them. The city department of the Inner Affairs Ministry received 13 applications from the victims, 5 of them were taken to hospitals. At night protesters de-blocked the buildings of Regional State Administrations in Ternopol, Ivano-Frankovsk, Lvov and Poltava. In Kiev protesters partly de-blocked Grushevsky St and the building of the City Hall.

The parliamentary opposition leaders Arseny Yatsenyuk and Vitaly Klitschko made a trip to Germany where they had consultations with the Chancellor Angela Merkel. The ‘commandant’ of the seized City Hall, the Kiev Mayor and the OSCE representative signed a document according to which the building was placed under the OSCE control. Several hours later the building was seized again and looted by a group of about 150 armed people in camouflage. Three policemen who arrived on a call were stopped at the entrance to the building by representatives of the so-called ‘commandant office’, surrounded and beaten by a crowd in masks, helmets and armed with clubs. The Maidan leaders announced that barricades at the corner of Kreschatik and Bogdan Khmelnitsky St wouldn’t be dismantled but in barricades in Grushevsky St there was made a gap letting the one-lane car traffic be restored. The protesters continued to strengthen all existing barricades. The all-Ukrainian Union Maidan and the Right Sector announced the preparation of the ‘peaceful advancement’ to the Supreme Rada.

Clashes between Euromaidan radicals and the police forces started again on the day of the Supreme Rada session at which the opposition demanded the immediate return to the parliamentary-presidential form of governing and restoration of the Constitution of 2004. To support those demands the opposition leaders organised the ‘peaceful advancement’ to the Supreme Rada, in which several thousands of armed activists of Euromaidan took part. Having come up to the police cordon the protesters attacked it, smashed and set on fire some cars and vans blocking the road, entered buildings by force, burnt tires and threw paving stones and Molotov cocktails at the policemen. They beat participants of the pro-governmental action in the Mariinsky park and started building barricades there, seized the Officers House where a temporary clinic was set and burnt the Party of Regions office having killed a guard there. By the evening the Berkut and police units pushed the manifestants back to Maidan having cleared the entire Government District, the October Palace, the European square and the Ukrainian House. The police forces used water cannons and stun grenades, the protesters threw paving stones, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at them. There was one explosion after another on the spot. Through loudspeakers there was repeatedly announced a demand to the protesters to leave Maidan. The police forces were moving from the European square and Institutskaya St leaving the protesters a possibility to escape via Mikhaylovskaya St and toward the Bessarabskaya square. During the day and following night the clashes in Kiev resulted in 25 people killed, more than 350 injured and more than 250 taken to hospital. Some policemen got gunshot wounds, including mortal ones. By the order of the city authorities due to the ‘threat of terrorism’ the capital underground stopped working. The press service of the government imposed restricts on entry of transport to Kiev; on many roads traffic was one-lane or blocked altogether. The air and satellite broadcasting of the Channel 5 was discontinued on the entire territory of Ukraine. Vitaly Klitschko addressed to Victor Yanukovich with a demand to immediately announce early presidential and parliamentary elections and send the Berkut away from the capital. Arseny Yatsenyuk addressed to the President Yanukovich with an appeal to call a truce till the morning, then the opposition would agree to resume the negotiations. An MP from the Party of Regions Anna German announced that the meeting of the President Yanukovich with the opposition leaders appointed for the next day would take place only on condition of ceasing the armed confrontation. In towns of the Western Ukraine on an appeal of the Svoboda leader Oleg Tyagnibok there was announced a recruitment for volunteers to be sent to Kiev. Convoys were being formed in Lvov and Ternopol. Everywhere in the Western Ukraine people started to seize armories. Only in Lvov and the Lvov region there were seized more than 1.170 weapons (almost 1.000 Makarov guns, more than 170 Kalashnikov automatic guns, machine guns and sniper riffles, more than 18.000 cartridges of different calibre).

The Presidium of the Crimea Supreme Council declared that, in fact, in Ukraine a civil war had started and called on Victor Yanukovich to take emergency measures to preserve the constitutional order and unity of Ukraine.

The Mayor of Kharkov Genady Kernes officially addressed to the mayors of cities and towns with an appeal to prevent violence and bloodshed in the country and with a special demand to the mayors of the Western Ukraine to stop giving in to emotions, arming and sending people to the conflict zone.

The Maidan activists seized the buildings of the Main Post Office, Conservatory and State TV and Radio Committee. The police forces started to build a concrete fortification around the Supreme Rada and barricades on Grushevsky St. For unknown reasons in the Trade Unions House there broke out a fire which was extinguished only the next day and in which, according to a representative of the Batkivschyna party, more than 40 people burnt alive. Later Maidan doctors voiced a figure of several hundreds who died in the fire. The funds of the Museum of Kiev history situated in the Ukrainian House were looted. In the Western Ukraine there was another wave of seizing administrative buildings accompanied by looting and setting on fire local police stations and courts. The SSU announced the cont-terroristic operation regime. The SSU press service announced the beginning of the investigation on some politicians’ illegal actions aimed at seizing the state power.

The President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovich negotiated with representatives of the EU. According to the Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk, during the negotiations Yanukovich showed his willingness to hold the early elections that year. Early in the morning an armed reinforcement from the Western Ukraine arrived at Maidan. At 9 am supporters of the opposition went on the offensive having pushed the police forces behind the October Palace in Institutskaya St, toward the European square to the middle of Grushevsky St and then behind the Art Museum. The number of protesters in Institutskaya St reached 3 thousands; they were going on the offensive in organised columns. Hundreds of the opposition supporters came to the ‘no man’s land’ between the camp of protesters and the police and started to reinforce the barricades built the day before but then they pulled metal rods out of them and attacked the police. Being thrown paving stones and Molotov cocktails at the police retreated. The police and Berkut tried to stop the attackers with rubber bullets in response to which the opposition supporters opened fire from hunting, sporting and sniper riffles. Several dozens of unarmed policemen surrendered. In Institutskaya St snipers whose identity is still unclear opened fire to kill shooting at both sides of the confrontation, including doctors who were carrying the injured from Maidan. Later the Head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Estonia Urmas Paet in a telephone conversation with the Head of the EU diplomacy Kathrin Ashton suggested that the snipers might have been the opposition radicals. The number of killed reached several dozens, that of injured reached hundreds of people. The Euromaidan activists blocked exits of the internal troops barracks in Vozdukhoflotsky Avenue, near the National Academy of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The Kiev underground returned to normal work, excluding stations in central parts of the city. In Sumy the Right Sector announced the end of the technical truce with the authorities. In the centre of Zhitomir the Lenin monument was pulled down. The deputies of the Ivano-Frankovsk Regional Council impeached the President Yanukovich and announced him the ‘illegal Head of the state’. In Volyn region the police forces recognised the Volyn Regional Council a self-governing body of the territorial community. The Lvov Regional Council guaranteed security to all members of the Maidan Self-Defence, the Right Sector and the Galytsky legion but prohibited wearing masks, balaclavas and so on in public places in order to prevent vandalism, marauding and provocations. At the emergency session the Supreme Rada of Ukraine adopted a resolution condemning violence resulted in the death of citizens of Ukraine, tortures, mutilations and other crimes against humanity. With this resolution the Supreme Rada obliged the Cabinet of Ministers and the police forces to immediately cease the use of force, prohibit the use of all kinds of weapons and special equipment against citizens of Ukraine, stop the cont-terroristic operation, cancel the decision to restrict entry of transport into the territory of the city of Kiev and liberate all arrested participants of the peaceful protest. Dmitry Yarosh had a personal meeting with the President Victor Yanukovich and, according to him, turned down the President’s proposal of truce.

The protesters violated the truce again and opened fire at the policemen. About 100 policemen from several regional police departments of Lvov and Lvov region, headed by their officers and sided with the protesters, came to Kiev from the Western Ukraine. They were accompanied by retired officers and ex-Afghan fighters. The Chief of the General Staff of the Military Forces of Ukraine and his deputy resigned. In Kiev students occupied the building of the Education Ministry, demanding a meeting with the deputy Minister. The Supreme Rada passed a bill on liberating all those arrested during protest actions. The Berkut and internal troops units left the centre of Kiev. In Cherkassy region a convoy of those opposing Euromaidan was attacked, which resulted in 31 persons missing. In Poltava, Chernigov, Khmelnitsky, Skvir, Dunaevtsy, Belaya Tserkov, Zhitomir, Slavut, Brovary, Boyarka, Komsomolsk, Kalinovka and Ilyintsy there were destroyed Lenin monuments. In Dnepropetrovsk an attempt to pull down the Lenin monument took more than 6 hours, several people got injured. Under pressure of the Western countries Yanukovich gave in and signed an agreement with the opposition on resolving the crisis in Ukraine, providing, in particular, the immediate return to the Constitution of 2004, a constitutional reform, early presidential elections no later than December 2014 and formation of the ‘government of national trust’. It also provided a withdrawal of the police forces from the centre of Kiev, cessation of violence and surrender of weapons by the opposition. The agreement was signed by the President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovich and the opposition leaders Vitaly Klitschko (the UDAR party), Arseny Yatsenyuk (the Batkivschyna party) and Oleg Tyagnibok (the Svoboda party). Signing the document was witnessed by the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Germany and Poland Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Radosław Sikorski and the Head of Continental Europe department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of French Republic Eric Fournier. The special representative of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Lukin who took part in the negotiations refused to put his signature on the document. At the public announcement of the terms of the agreement by the opposition leaders representatives of the Right Sector said that they weren’t satisfied with gradual political reforms stipulated in the document and demanded the immediate resignation of the President Yanukovich; otherwise they intended to assault the Administration of the President and the Supreme Rada. On the night of 22 February the President Yanukovich left the capital and the opposition supporters, in violation of the agreement signed by them, seized the Government District abandoned by the police, took the buildings of the Supreme Rada, the Administration of the President, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Internal Affairs Ministry under their control and launched a number of new demands; in particular, they insisted on the immediate resignation of the President Yanukovich.

Pro-Russian residents of the Crimea, refusing to recognise the new authorities of Ukraine, started an indefinite action of protest at the building of the Supreme Council of the Autonomic Republic of the Crimea, demanding the recession of the Crimea from Ukraine and creation of a new state. When supporters of Euromaidan tried to hold an action ‘against the Crimea’s recession from Ukraine’ near the building of the Parliament, they were stopped by about 100 young men who called themselves activists of the ‘people’s liberation movement’.

At 10 am there started a session of the Supreme Rada that was held under physical pressure on MPs; in some cases, registered by cameras, a direct physical force was applied to them. Besides, a part of MPs didn’t attend the session while their names were entered into the minutes. The Supreme Rada accepted the resignation of the speaker (Vladimir Rybak) and the vice-speaker (Igor Kaletnyk) of the parliament and statements of several MPs on their leaving the fraction of the Party of Regions. Besides, the Supreme Rada impeached the Attorney General Victor Pshonka, voted for the dismissal of the interim Head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry Leonid Kozhara, the interim Head of the Education Ministry Dmitry Tabachnik and the interim Head of the Health Care Ministry Raisa Bogatyryova. The Supreme Rada made a statement that it was to take the power into its hands. Alexander Turchinov was elected the new Head of the Supreme Rada, Arsen Avakov was elected the interim Internal Affairs Minister, Valentin Nalivaychenko was elected an official authorised to monitor the activity of the Security Service of Ukraine. Avakov announced that the management of the Internal Affairs Ministry would include representatives of the Right Sector and the Maidan Self-Defence. Nalivaychenko invited representatives of the Maidan Self-Defence, public activists and the mass media to cooperate. The Internal Affairs Ministry, the Military Forces, including the Air Forces and the Main Intelligence Directorate, and the A group of the Security Service of Ukraine published official statements in which they pledged their allegiance to the Ukrainian people and refusal to perform illegal actions against Ukrainian citizens. At a closed congress held in Kiev the Right Sector was transformed into a political party on legal and human resource base of the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA-UNSO) that was renamed as the Right Sector party. The Supreme Rada adopted a resolution on the disengagement of the President of Ukraine from the constitutional powers implementation and on early presidential elections in Ukraine. This resolution contradicts the Constitution as, according to the latter, there are only four cases of the early termination of the powers of the President, namely his resignation announced in person at a session of the Supreme Rada, his departure for health care, impeachment and death. The Supreme Rada adopted a resolution on liberating Julia Timoshenko which resulted in Timoshenko set free from hospital in Kharkov where she was held in custody. The same day she took a plane to Kiev and appeared in public on Maidan The Supreme Rada also adopted a resolution ‘On prevention of separatism’ proposed by MPs Vitaly Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnibok. At night the newly appointed Head of the SSU Nalivaychenko and the interim Internal Affairs Minister Avakov, accompanied by members of the special units Alpha and Sokol, set off to the Crimea in order to arrest Yanukovich. The Foreign Affairs Minister of Sweden Karl Bildt announced the active support of the new Ukrainian government.

At the exits from Sevastopol there were erected checkpoints manned by volunteers from local public organisations, police and road patrol. In Kharkov there was held a Congress of all levels MPs of the South-Eastern regions of Ukraine, the Autonomic Republic of the Crimea and Sevastopol. Right after the Congress the governor of the Kharkov region Michael Dobbin and the Mayor of Kharkov Genady Kernes left the territory of Ukraine. In the evening of the same day at a meeting of the Euromaidan supporters near the Lenin monument on the Freedom square there was made a decision to dismantle the monument. A deputy of the Regional Council from the Batkivschyna party Ivan Varchenko persuaded those present to wait until the Supreme Rada adopted a resolution on dismantling communist symbols on 25 February; a project of dismantling the Lenin monument was to be prepared by that time. The Euromaidan supporters blocked the Kharkov Regional State Administration. At 10 pm in Chuguev there was a spontaneous meeting of about 300 Euromaidan opponents, which lasted till 2 am. At the Luhansk Regional State Administration there was an armed clash. The pretext for the conflict was an insult to the memory of the Berkut fallen fighters when radicals in masks and armed with clubs threw away memorial candles in the city centre. They were opposed by activists of the Luhansk Guard. The Berkut armed soldiers arrived at the spot of the conflict. As a result three persons got gunshot wounds. In Mariupol there was held a meeting against the change of the central power. The participants came to the meeting with banners ‘Mariupol - Crimea - Russia’, ‘Forever with Russia’, ‘No to fascism’ and ‘Sevastopol is a city-hero’. A Russian flag was raised near the building of the Regional State Administration.

The duties of the President of Ukraine were assigned to the Chairman of the Supreme Rada Alexander Turchinov. The Supreme Rada tried to cancel the law on the state language policy that had been adopted in 2012 and provided a possibility to give languages of national minorities a status of regional ones in the regions where the number of national minorities exceeded 10%. However, the interim President Alexander Turchinov vetoed this decision. The Stop Censorship movement demanded that the mass media that ‘had misinformed the society and spread lies about participants of the peaceful protests and rebels’ should be taken their licences away from and brought to account. There was also drawn up a list of journalists that ‘were to become persons non-grata’. In Kiev and other regions of Ukraine cases of robbery and attacks on the property of former officials became more frequent. Russia recalled its ambassador Michael Zurabov from Ukraine ‘due to the deterioration of the situation in Ukraine and the need of the comprehensive analysis of it’.

In Sevastopol there was held a meeting of the People’s Will Against Fascism in Ukraine participants of which expressed their distrust to the city administration and elected the ‘people’s Mayor’, an interpreter and Russian citizen Alexey Chaly. They also proclaimed a resolution saying that Sevastopol didn’t recognise the latest decisions of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine and considered events in the country a coup d’état. The Head of the City Administration Vladimir Yacuba made a speech at the meeting but he was booed by the crowd. The delegation of supporters of Euromaidan who had blocked the building of the Kharkov Regional State Administration demanding the resignation of the governor Michael Dobkin ‘inspected’ the building. Up to thirty Euromaidan supporters entered the office of the Head of the Kharkov RSA ‘to make sure that everything was all right’, took a portrait of Victor Yanukovich from a wall and burnt it in front of the Kharkov RSA entrance while a crowd gathered there was cheering. As a result of a fight between supporters and opponents of Euromaidan who were holding their meetings on the same Freedom square a part of it around the Lenin monument was taken by Kharkov residents who opposed dismantling it. They fenced the monument and washed inscriptions left by Maidan supporters from it. There was organised a round the clock guard at the monument. There was also set a field camp with a kitchen, an infirmary and some barrels where fires were made to let people get warm. On the same day Michael Dobkin and Genady Kernes returned to Kharkov and spoke to Maidan opponents gathered on the Freedom square. Dobkin called on them to ‘defend Kharkov from aggressors’ and said that he wasn’t going to meet the demand of Euromaidan supporters and resign. Kernes announced his readiness to cooperate with the new authorities to ‘stabilise the situation’ right at the airport and then, at the meeting, called on those gathered there to avoid provocations and solve all problems in a peaceful and legal way. Kernes tried to speak to the Euromaidan supporters and enter the building of the RSA but they refused to speak to him chanting, ‘Gang, go away!’. Kernes said that he had addressed to the interim Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov with a demand to take measures for the release of the building of the Kharkov RSA. In Odessa, on the day of the Soviet Army, several thousands of Euromaidan opponents marched from the Sobornaya square to the Uknown Sailor monument the Alley of Glory. The participants of the march included representatives of such organisations as the Youth Unity, the Watch, the Civil Consciousness and the People’s Alternative as well as ordinary residents. At the same time about 2,000 people took part in the ‘March of free people’ that was organised by a local group of the Democratic Alliance to support Euromaidan. During the march a group of radicals tried to urge people to seize the Odessa RSA but the majority of them didn’t yield to the provocation. In Zaporozhye there was held a meeting organised by the People’s Militia after which its organiser Alexander Pataman was kidnapped. He could be contacted only 5 days later and turned out to need medical treatment. In Berdyansk there were meetings of both supporters and opponents of the new authorities. Both meetings gathered several hundreds of participants.

The interim Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov opened proceedings on investigation of mass killings of civilians, which resulted in Yanukovich and some other officials being wanted. The Supreme Rada proposed the next President of Ukraine to give the “Sky hundred” the title of the Hero of Ukraine. The new Ukrainian authorities got recognised by the EU and the USA. The European Parliament commemorated those fallen in the struggle for democracy in Ukraine and called the Maidan’s “Sky hundred” with a minute of silence. The Foreign Affairs Ministry of Russia made an official statement in which it expressed ‘deep concern about legitimacy of actions’ in the Supreme Rada of Ukraine. In Zaporozhye Maidan activists chased the governor of the region away from the conference hall, demanding his resignation. In Dnepropetrovsk the Chairman of the regional council resigned ‘to avoid risks of destroying the building where the Dnepropetrovsk regional council staff works, beating people and on the condition that no one gets hurt’. Activists of the Maidan Self-Defence and the Right Sector took the building of the Dnepropetrovsk RSA under their protection.

The Chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk regional council Evgeny Udod called his resignation back ‘because it had been written under physical and moral pressure’. The Mayor of Sevastopol Vladimir Yakuba resigned. During the negotiations on transfer of powers in the building of Administration there appeared officials of the SCU and prosecutor office with a warrant to arrest Chaly but activists gathered near the building made them tear the order and leave the building. The Coordination council of Euromaidan in Kharkov informed that for the time being it refused the idea to start dismantling the Lenin monument. Michael Dobkin announced his intention to run for the President of Ukraine. In Odessa the Kulikovo Pole became a place to hold mass Antimaidan meetings. Meetings were organised by Anton Davidchenko and Egor Kvasnyuk, coordinators of the Youth Unity and the People’s Alternative, and activists of the Motherland party, the non-governmental organisation United Odessa and the Union of Afghanistan Soldiers.

MPs of the CPU and the Party of Regions fractions stated that all new laws and decrees were adopted without discussion or even reading and under the physical pressure on MPs. The Lvov Berkut was made to repent on their knees to Lvov residents for having defended the criminal regime of Yanukovich. The activist of the Right Sector Sashko Bily came to a session of the presidium of the Rovno Regional Administration with a Kalashnikov automatic gun and demanded total lustration in the region.

The Euromaidan supporters kept blocking the building of the Kharkov RSA. The officials were allowed to come to work but when they were leaving the activists checked their things to prevent them from taking documents with them. Two entrances were guarded by the Self-Defence, the others were barricaded. The Batkivschyna deputy of the Regional Council Ivan Varchenko stayed in the building; he announced that the activists would hold the building until Dobkin resigned. According to him, the interim Head of the Internal Affairs Ministry Arsen Avakov had spoken to the governor and the Mayor Kernes by phone and both officials assured him of their intention to solve the problem in the peaceful way. Meanwhile Arsen Avakov informed that the Internal Affairs Ministry had opened criminal proceedings against the leader of the Kharkov organisation Oplot Evgeny Zhilin on charges of organising attacks on Euromaidan supporters in Kharkov; the investigation was to be carried out by a specially created investigative team. In Odessa activists of the People’s Alternative set up a tent camp on the Kulikovo Pole. According to the representatives of the organisation, they stood for Russian language and against the chaos in the Supreme Rada and the early elections. The activists considered the change of power in Ukraine a coup.

Candidates for ministerial posts in the new Cabinet of Ministers passed a presentation on Maidan. In the town of Irpen in the Kiev region Maidan supporters made the local authorities vote threatening them to massacre the deputies and their families. Some people who introduced themselves as the Right Sector burst into the Regional Council of Sophia Borschagovka. They smashed everything demanding an immediate resignation of the Head of the Council. Despite assumptions of the Council officials that it might have been a staged action the attackers turned out to really reside in the Kiev RSA.

The Majlis organised a meeting in order to block the building of the Supreme Council of the Crimea and prevent making a decision to enter Russia. During the meeting Refat Chubarov announced that Crimean Tatars wouldn’t allow tearing the Crimea away from Ukraine. At the same time there was held a pro-Russian meeting. A confrontation between participants of two meetings broke out, which resulted in 30 persons injured and 2 persons dead. In Kharkov hundreds of Maidan opponents and defenders of the Lenin monument organised a picket of the City Council session. Among the participants of the action there were activists of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the non-governmental organisation Labor Kharkov Region, representatives of Cossacks and people wearing uniforms of the Soviet Army. The participants of the picket demanded that the Euromaidan activists leave the building of the RSA seized by them. The flag of the EU in front of the building of the City Council was changed into the Russian one. After negotiations with Kernes representatives of the protesters decided to take away the Russian flag. Michael Dobkin resigned due to his intention to run for the presidency. In Kherson relatives of the dead police officer who had gotten knife wounds while trying to arrest offenders during Euromaidan actions in the city came out to protest against an amnesty to a suspect of his murder as a ‘political criminal’.

Arseny Yatsenyuk became the Prime Minister of Ukraine and a provisional government was formed. Victor Yanukovich addressed to the leaders of Russia asking them to ensure his personal safety ‘from actions of extremists’ due to death threats. In Kherson the Head of the Regional Council officially announced that he refused his powers under pressure of a group of people. The next day his successor, another member of the Party of Regions, also resigned and the power in the region passed to a representative of the Batkivschyna party.

Two groups of unknown people seized the buildings of the Supreme Council of the Autonomic Republic of the Crimea and the Council of Ministers of the autonomy, raised Russian fas there and barricaded approaches to the buildings. In the building of the blocked Supreme Council MPs gathered for an extraordinary plenary session appointed Sergey Aksyonov the new Head of the government and announced a referendum on ‘improving the status and powers of the region’ in the Crimea on 25 May 2014. The new authorities of the Crimea refused to recognise the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian government and appealed for cooperation and assistance to the Russian government. In Berdyansk there were held meetings of opponents and supporters of the new authorities. Both meetings gathered small number of participants. In Odessa on the Kulikovo Pole there was held the fourth People’s Veche in which about 4,000 residents participated.

Victor Yanukovick held a press conference in Rostov-upon-Don where he called on the Russian government not to remain indifferent to the situation in Ukraine. However, Yanukovich pointed out that he was strongly against a military intervention in Ukraine and violation of its territorial integrity.

In Donetsk Pavel Gubarev, the commander of the movement People’s militia of Donbass created in the end of February, came to the session of the City Council with an ultimatum to recognise illegitimacy of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers and the governor of the Donetsk region. His ultimatum was rejected after which he announced a decision to hold a meeting on 1 March.