Ukraine’s ousted leader Victor Yanukovych Flees Ukraine and takes refuge in Russia

 Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine, speaks in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday Feb. 22, 2014

Ukraine’s ousted leader Victor Yanukovych insisted he is still the “legitimate” President even as he took shelter in Russia amid a growing revolt in Russian-speaking Crimea against the power takeover in Kiev.

In a statement issued on Thursday Feb 27,2014 Viktor Yanukovych said he still considered himself “the legitimate head of the Ukrainian state” and asked Moscow to guarantee his personal safety “from extremists.” 

Note 

Kiev's Independence Square was the epicentre of three-month-long anti-government protests that turned violent in recent weeks, claiming more than 80 lives in clashes between protesters and police.

Hours after he signed an accord with the opposition to end a three-month long standoff ViktorYanukovych appeared to have lost the grip on power and fled Kiev to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city in the East, denouncing the events in the capital as “vandalism, banditry and a coup d’etat.”

Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kiev for Kharkiv in pro-Russian East on Friday Feb 21,2014 defied the Parliament’s decision to sack and impeach him, denouncing it as a “coup.” However, his whereabouts were unknown on Sunday Feb 23,2014 amid reports he tried to leave the country but his plane was stopped by border guards in Donetsk, an industrial city close to the border with Russia

Ukraine’s opposition on Sunday Feb 23,2014 moved to consolidate its victory over President Viktor Yanukovych, voting to appoint newly elected Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov as Interim President and moving to form a new Govt. 

Ukraine’s Parliament on Sunday Feb 23,2014 declared null and void a 2012 law that approved the use of the Russian language in courts, schools and other government institutions in provinces where Russian-speakers accounted for more than 10 percent of the population.The move may further alienate Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions, which on Saturday refused to recognise the legitimacy of new authorities in Kiev and abide by their orders

Ukraine’s Parliament on Sunday Feb 23,2014 decided to form an inter-party commission that will try to form a new “national unity government”

The new leaders in Ukraine have issued an arrest warrant for Viktor Yanukovych and some other officials held responsible for the death of more than 80 people in violent protests in Kiev. 

Ukrainian Parliament overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday Feb 25,2014 to ask the Hague-based International Criminal Court(ICC) to try Viktor Yanukovych and for “mass murder” of civilians during violent anti-government protests which took the lives of more than 80 people.