우크라이나 야누코비치 정권 붕괴의 국내 정치ㆍ경제 요인 분석

Abstract

After the collapse of Yanukovich regime, Ukraine has plunged into a chaotic situation with the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the bloody conflicts in eastern provinces of Ukraine. Although the refusal of signing of EU Cooperation Treaty by the Yanukovich government triggered the peaceful demonstration, which eventually brought about the collapse of the regime, the fundamental causes of Yanukovich's dramatic fall are the oppressive and ill-concieved policies in domestic politics and economy. In addition to that, Yanukovich's personal shortcomings and lack of capacity as state leader have contributed to his downfall in a negative way. All these causes worked as 'intermediate causes' of the collapse of the regime, if we apply Joseph Nye's three different levels of causes of war or unexpected upheavals. First, Yanukovich did not take note of the fact that his regime had a weak political mandate from the beginning and did not try to widen the base of the political support. Instead he took coercive measures and started political oppression, imprisoning political opponents such as Tymoshenko and Lutsenko. Secondly, he did not take any effective measure to rescue the country from the economic crisis, ensuring financial assistance from Western countries and lowering the price of gas imported from Russia. As the result of these, his supporting ratio plunged to the dismal level of 10-15% just in one year after the inauguration. The wide spread corruption and the greedy accumulation of wealth by so-called Yanukovich 'family', monopolizing lucrative projects and capturing state-run enterprises, made oligarchies withdraw the support for Yanukovich regime. Although the crisis in Ukraine calls for multi-dimensional analyses, it is necessary to perceive that Yanukovich himself, more than anything else, is to blame for the collapse of the regime and Russia suffered serious setbacks twice in Ukraine, including 'the Orange Revolution', because Russia selected Yanukovich as the leader of pro-Russian camp in Ukraine.