Yanukovych vows to fight for Ukraine’s future

At his first appearance to reporters since fleeing Kiev, Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych said Friday he was not ousted but left the country over threats to his life from “a nationalist fascist minority.” The crisis owed its victims to the “irresponsibility of the West” in indulging protesters, and the opposition’s failure to stand by the Feb. 21st agreement signed with three European mediators with a Russian presence. Speaking from the Russian town of Rostov on-Don, Yanukovych demanded that illegal weapons be handed to the authorities and blockades removed. Normal life should be guaranteed in Kiev like all the regions of Ukraine. Instead of elections, he proposed a broad national referendum to determine the country’s genuine needs.