I beat Callinicos to the punch: The protest movement seems to have been motivated by a mixture of opposition to Yanukovych, illusions in “Europe”, hatred of all the oligarchs and their political cronies, and the Western version of Ukrainian nationalism, which gave an important opening to the extreme right.16 The influence of the far-right, and their presence in the new government, dangerous though it is, does not mean Yanokovych was the victim of a “fascist coup”, as not simply Russian nationalists but many on the Western left claim. He fell because oligarchs—notably Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash—who had been key backers of his Party of the Regions reacted to the popular mobilisation by withdrawing their support and instructing the deputies they controlled to vote for his removal by the Ukrainian parliament.17 Some oligarchs have been rewarded by the new government by being appointed governors of eastern provinces.
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