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bne February 2021 Cover story I 33
parties have refused to take their seats, claiming the poll was rigged.
Russia: a constitutional coup
Russia faced a constitutional crisis
in 1993 when protesters led by vice- president Alexander Rutskoi and
Duma speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov defied the president, Boris Yeltsin, and mounted a sit-in at the White House, the parliament building that sits on the banks of the Moskva in central Moscow.
Tension ratcheted up for over a week until October 3, when a large group of their armed supporters occupied the Moscow mayor’s offices and drove out to the Ostankino TV centre in an attempt to take over the transmitter,
morning his tank battalion had taken up position on the bridge and embank- ment overlooking the White House and proceeded to shell it into submission.
Fighting went on for several days
as snipers from both sides took
up positions on the surrounding rooftops, indiscriminately shooting anyone on the streets. Refugees hid under the bridge and in surrounding apartment blocks but 147 people were killed – thousands according to some sources – until the deputies holed
up inside the burning White House building finally conceded defeat.
Despite his reputation as a leading force for democratic change in Russia,
Ukraine: oligarchs co-opt protests
Protesters occupied the whole of central Kyiv in a legendary tent camp, as well as several buildings around Maidan Square during the 2014 Revolution
of Dignity and quickly trashed the city centre, which came to resemble a scene from Hell as tyres burnt and debris was strewn across the streets.
But the protesters did not attack
the Verkhovna Rada building on Khreshchatyk, a stone’s throw from
the Maidan. The Rada is the scene of regular punch-ups, but these have been exclusively between MPs who work there and are supposed to be in the chamber.
However, other government buildings have come under attack, most recently the offices of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), which is up the hill from Maidan on Instytutska Street.
In November 2019 protesters stormed the offices of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), demanding the resignation of then governor of the National Bank
of Ukraine (NBU) Yakiv Smolii. They crashed through the security and occupied the ground floor as the central bank staff cowered on the upper floors.
The police on duty made little effort to expel the protesters and the attack was widely seen as a paid-for provocation by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who
had been dispossessed of his bank PrivatBank by the NBU in 2016.
“Amid the turmoil in Kyrgyzstan, Japarov was busted out of prison, where he was serving
a sentence for kidnapping a political opponent”
intending to broadcast a call for a nation- wide insurrection. The OMON riot police and Alfa group special forces beat the protesters to the building by
a few minutes and a gunfight broke out in which dozens of people were killed, including British TV cameraman Rory Peck. During the course of the night Russian general Alexander Lebed came down on the side of Yeltsin and by
Yeltsin illegally dissolved Parliament and changed the constitution to give himself extended powers in what was in effect a constitutional coup d'état.
The 10-day conflict was the deadliest episode of street fighting in Russia since the 1917 Russian Revolution.
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