Yanukovich's Options are Narrowing

At one end of Kiev's protest zone, just inside a makeshift barricade, protesters have set up a mock jail with an effigy of President Viktor Yanukovich sitting in a striped convict's tunic, his arms raised above him in manacles.

In the past few weeks as anti-government protests have grown in intensity, it has become a common spot for a Sunday outing. Parents send their children to pose for family album snapshots alongside the jail bird.

That Yanukovich could be brought down by the present spasm of street violence and face prosecution for his "crimes" in office might be wishful thinking by his most ardent opponents.

Despite two months of unrest after pulling out of a trade deal with the European Union and moving closer to Russia, there is nothing to suggest that the 63-year-old former construction worker is in danger of falling from power.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday sounded a note of alarm when he admonished European governments for "interfering" in Ukraine's political crisis, a regular complaint of Moscow.

"The situation is spinning out of control," he said.

Yanukovich appears to be still in charge of the security forces who are still holding back from an all-out offensive against protesters. There have been no public defections from his camp and the super-wealthy "oligarchs" who bankroll him have not broken ranks.

But nonetheless his options are narrowing as street violence against his rule grows more intense following policy blunders - the latest being the passage of sweeping legislation that bans virtually any form of anti-government protest.

In the worst violence that anyone can remember in Kiev, radical protesters have been battling police day and night near the main government building, lobbing cobblestones, fireworks and sometimes petrol bombs, undeterred by the stun grenades and rubber bullets fired back at them.

Though a line of three priests kept the two sides apart on Tuesday in a temporary truce, it seemed only a question of time before violence resumed again.

With Ukraine in unchartered territory now, Yanukovich is running out of options to reclaim control of the streets peacefully, having turned his back on compromise and used the promise of talks with the opposition only to play for time, analysts say.

He might even declare a state of emergency backed by a curfew, some say.

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