Firtash talks about his role in February 2014 events in Ukraine
VIENNA. April 30 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash has said that he played one of the crucial roles in securing a compromise between the opposition and the then president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014, and suspects Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko of having thwarted the deals struck at the time.
On Thursday Firtash told a court in Vienna which was hearing the case over his extradition to the United States, that he persuaded his supporters in parliament to help the opposition and decide in favor of reverting to the 2004 Constitution which restricts the powers of the Ukrainian president, an Interfax correspondent reported.
Firtash said that after that Yanukovych called him back while the businessman was in Paris for talks with European politicians. "He said that I stabbed him in the back, that I physically took power away from him," Firtash said.
The businessman said that after that he had to go back to Ukraine as there was a likelihood of a crackdown on Maidan protest and failed talks in Kyiv between the opposition and Yanukovych, mediated by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland.
He said he met with the Party of Regions parliamentarian Serhiy Tigipko, who had the backing of about 50 parliamentarians at the time.
"He [Tigipko] told me what happened: the opposition is weak, they don't know what they want, what to offer [to the government]," Firtash said.
The businessman said that after that conversation he phoned the then UDAR Party leader, Vitali Klitschko, and asked him to arrange a meeting with the other opposition leaders - Batkivshchyna parliamentary faction leader Arseniy Yatseniuk and Freedom Party faction leader Oleh Tyahnybok. "We must not give these ministers a chance to go away. He (Klitschko) made sure they did not," Firtash said.
Subsequently, Tigipko, too, was involved in the document approval, following which the businessman phoned the then chief of the presidential administration, Andriy Klyuyev and asked him to arrange for another meeting between the opposition and Yanukovych.
The businessman said he was content with the result obtained "without a coup, without blood."
"But I did not take into account Tymoshenko's interests," Firtash said, adding that the agreements did not stipulate her running for president in November 2014.
The businessman said he suspects that "Tymoshenko's people" staged a provocation at Maidan Square and thereby disrupted the arrangements made with Yanukovych at the time.
Firtash claims that after that U.S. increased pressure on him because it was not prepared to back Klitschko's presidential candidacy while betting on the political force that had Tymoshenko, Yatseniuk and Oleksandr Turchynov.
Commenting on Yanukovych's escape, Firtash said: "I think he is a coward. He should not have run away."