U.S. and European leaders have hatched a plan to bring Ukraine’s opposition to power and replace Russia’s aid package with Western money.
The plan was announced after a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukraine’s opposition leaders on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich over the weekend.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna party, said that the four-point plan called for an end to violence, release of detained protesters, investigation into abductions, tortures and killings of civilians and a return to the 2004 Constitution which transformed Ukraine from a presidential to a parliamentary-presidential republic.
“We have discussed with our Western partners a very substantial economic package that may be offered to the new Ukrainian government if the opposition takes full responsibility for the country following a constitutional reform,” the Interfax news agency quoted Mr. Yatsenyuk as saying.
Addressing a thousands-strong rally in Kiev on Sunday, the opposition leaders said they would press for the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych.
