In November and December hundreds of thousands of people rallied to Kiev’s freezing streets to protest Yanukovych’s abrupt decision to reject the Association Agreement. But they made no overthrow attempt and Yanukovych might have ridden out the storm but for the ill-advised decision, encouraged by Moscow, to crack down. By using his majority in parliament to ram through constitutional changes, on January 16 he triggered a second wave of mass protests and the occupation of government buildings across Ukraine. At this point, the involvement of the EU and the United States became overt.
