You're reading: Putin disagrees that Yanukovych fled Kyiv

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree that Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine during the recent events in Kyiv.

“I don’t agree that he fled,” Putin said during a Q&A session on Thursday.

Putin acknowledged, however, that Yanukovych did have to leave Kyiv.
“He didn’t just flee Kyiv, but he left for provinces, and as soon as he
traveled from Kyiv to a province, the buildings of the presidential
secretariat and the government were immediately seized,” he said.

Yanukovych presumed that an understanding had been reached with the
opposition forces when he signed a February 21 agreement guaranteed by
the foreign ministers of Poland, France, and Germany, Putin said.

“Its essence was that he would not use the army and force, would
withdraw Interior Ministry units, including [the special task force] Berkut from the capital, and the opposition would leave the
administrative buildings it had seized, dismantle the barricades, and
disarm its people,” Putin said.

Yanukovych agreed to early parliamentary elections, the reinstatement
of the 2004 constitution, and presidential elections in December 2014,
he said.

“If they [the opposition] had demanded, I think he would have agreed
in the end even to early presidential elections in a month or a month
and a half. In principle, he had already agreed to everything. But no,
as soon as he pulled Interior Ministry units out of the capital, they
[the opposition] immediately went further, seized his secretariat
building and the government building, and staged a coup,” Putin said.