What caused the new popular revolt in late 2013?

Mass protests on the Maidan, prompted by the Yanukovych administration's last-minute refusal to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, began in November 2014. But it would be wrong to see this spectacular political volte-face as the primary cause of the revolution.

When Yanukovych became president in 2010, he and his clan sought to restore Kuchma's model of an oligarchic state. Its components included controlling the national media, helping the oligarchs to loot the country's economy, and maintaining a polit­ical balance between Russia and the West without getting too close to either—all with the ultimate aim of enriching the ruling group's families and allies. Ultimately, Yanukovych and his friends perfected Kuchma's scheme—too much so—by pushing Ukraine practically into bankruptcy. State procurements became the preferred method of instant enrichment for all sides involved, because of massive kickbacks, inflated costs, and outright embezzlement. The officials and oligarchs close to Yanukovych particularly liked mammoth construction projects generously funded by the state. In preparation for the 2012 European soccer cup, the state funded so many new airports, stadiums, roads, and high-speed trains that there was no way to patch the huge hole left in the budget. Nobody was even trying to find a solution, because the government was hoping for a bailout from either the West or Russia. The Yanukovych administra­tion assumed that both these geopolitical rivals would be happy to spend US$15 billion and possibly more for the privilege of having Ukraine in their sphere of influence.

Carried away by the prospect of milking the country in perpetuity, the ruling elite misjudged the degree of popular discontent. Because their priority was exploitation of the system, the Yanukovych team did not initiate any economic reforms. The only political change came early in the new president's term, in 2010, when the Constitutional Court obediently struck down the 2004 political re­form package that had transferred some presidential powers to the parliament. Having restored a strong presidency, albeit under ques­tionable circumstances, Yanukovych proceeded to replace officials and governors across the country with party loyalists who were often Donbas natives. Yanukovych also consolidated his corrupt pa­tronage network and used his own oligarchical group, composed of his sons and their friends and nicknamed the “Family," to move into the most lucrative sectors of the economy.

The president and his Party of Regions never followed up on their much-repeated promise to make Russian the second state lan­guage. Instead, parliament passed a more innocent-sounding law on regional languages in 2012, which gave regions with at least 10 percent of the population speaking a minority language the right to institute it as a second language of administration. The authorities were cautious when it came to fixing the elections, too, lest massive fraud incite another revolution. The 2012 par­liamentary elections gave 34.4 percent of the vote to the Party of Regions and 30.7 percent to Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party, which took over from BYuT when electoral blocs were barred from participating. With the leader of the opposition in prison, Arsenii Yatseniuk led Fatherland's parliamentary faction. However, all op­position parties completely missed the start of popular protests in November 2013.

Everything was ready in November 2013 for the signing of Ukraine's Association Agreement with the European Union, which would provide Ukraine with free-trade status and signifi­cant funding for economic reforms. Only a few loose ends, such as the precise amount of the promised funding and an agree­ment allowing Tymoshenko to seek medical treatment in Europe, remained. But the Ukrainian authorities were also secretly talking to Russia, which threatened trade sanctions and in the end appar­ently promised the requested US$15 billion. On November 21, just a week before the scheduled signing ceremony, the Ukrainian government suspended talks with the European Union and issued a telling order to start aligning Ukrainian trade laws with those of the Russian-led Customs Union. That evening Mustafa Nayem, an influential, independent Ukrainian journalist of Afghani de­scent, posted an appeal on Facebook calling for a protest rally on the Maidan.⁷ Only about a thousand people showed up that night, but in the following days tens and hundreds of thousands, disaffected with their life under the Yanukovych regime, joined the protests.