Warrant Issued For Yanukovych's Arrest On 'Mass Murder' Charges

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on charges of mass murder.

The announcement was made on February 24 by the country's acting interior minister, Arsen Avakov, on his official Facebook page.

"An official case for the mass murder of peaceful citizens has been opened," Avakov wrote. "Yanukovych and other people responsible for this have been declared wanted."
Avakov said that Yanukovych was last seen in the pro-Russian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea late on February 23 in a private residence in the Balaclava region.

He said that Yanukovych arrived there earlier that day accompanied by his head of administration Andriy Klyuev.

Avakov said that Yanukovych relinquished his state-appointed bodyguards, then drove off to an unknown location.

More than 80 people died in last week's unrest in Ukraine, according to the Health Ministry, most of them protesters.

Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has called on parliament to agree on a national unity government by February 25. 

In a televised speech on the night of February 23, Turchynov also made clear that steering a path back toward European integration was a top priority for the new authorities.

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is due in Kyiv on February 24 where she is expected to discuss measures to shore up Ukraine's ailing economy.

ALSO READ: EU's Ashton Meeting Ukraine's New Acting President

Opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said that Ukraine's treasury is empty and that the country is facing bankruptcy.

Ukraine's acting Finance Minister Yuriy Kolobov said on February 24 that Ukraine will require around $35 billion in foreign aid over the next two years. He said the first loans will be needed within two weeks and called for an international donors conference.

A day earlier, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Moscow will decide soon -- after the creation of a new government -- whether to disburse the next tranche of a $15 billion bailout loan program it had offered to Yanukovych last year.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, thousands of Crimean Tatars rallied in the region's capital, Simferopol, on February 23 to express their support for Ukraine's new leadership after the ouster of  Yanukovych.

Refat Chubarov, the head of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar self-government body, challenged Crimea's leadership at the rally, saying it was represented by politicians from Yanukovych's Party of Regions from Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

Chubarov demanded that Crimea's own people lead the peninsula, urging that a special commission made up of members of the Crimean Tatar community be established within the Ukrainian parliament.

On the same day, thousands rallied in Crimea's largest city, Sevastopol, to express their support for Yanukovych.

Those attending the Sevastopol gathering voted not to pay taxes to Kyiv and demanded that a Russian citizen, Aleksei Chaly, be elected as the city's mayor.