The Orange Revolution in Ukraine

Abstract

AbstractKhodunov analyzes the Orange Revolution in 2004 in Ukraine, events preceding this revolution, its external and internal causes, course and outcomes. The Orange Revolution took place in 2004, when Ukraine simultaneously showed the highest rates of economic growth in the world and was facing numerous problems, such as extreme corruption, favoritism and nepotism, the domination of the economy and politics by oligarchs, a high level of inequality and dissatisfaction, regional and ethnic divisions. The government was rather weak and tried to balance between eastern and western parts of the country. This opposition made the political situation unstable especially because radical Western Ukrainians wanted more nationalist politics in respect of limitation of the Russian language and culture, demanded pro-Western foreign policy and the reduction of the connections with Russia, whereas Eastern Ukrainians were against these ideas. The Orange Revolution was quite similar to other Color Revolutions in that it was triggered by fraudulent elections, the opposition made use of mass demonstrations and street performances to attain its ends, whereas results fell short of expectations. The revolutionary coalition succeeded in overthrowing the regime by means of mass demonstrations that forced the regime to repeat the second round of the presidential elections, bringing victory to the opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko. After the revolution, press freedom increased considerably, but the new government was unable to solve other major problems. After the subsequent election, in which Viktor Yanukovych came to power, corruption became much worse and press freedom suffered. Was the revolution able to unite Ukrainian society and solve its fundamental problems? Khodunov concludes that it was not able to and, of course, it did not bring the West European standards of living to this Eastern European country. As a result, the Orange Revolution became just a prologue to a new revolution in 2013–2014.