Ukraine's deposed President Viktor Yanukovych is on the run. There's uncertainty over who will emerge as its new leader. Its economy is in shambles. And Russia and the West are divided over what they want next.
Here are the issues likely to be relevant over the next few days:
Leadership: Parliament named its speaker, Oleksander Turchinov, interim president after a vote Sunday. He's expected to stay in that position until elections scheduled for May 25.
Turchinov is an important member of the opposition, and an ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister who lost the presidential race to Yanukovych in 2010. She was in prison on what critics of the previous administration said were trumped up charges. Tymoshenko was freed Saturday after a parliamentary vote. Soon after her release, she said she would run for president, but her lawyer denied Monday that she'd made the statement. Tymoshenko is a divisive figure: She was a hero of the Orange Revolution in 2004, after which she became prime minister. But, as the BBC noted, "critics point out that she made a fortune of her own." Indeed, The Guardian reported that when she addressed Kiev's Independence Square after her release, "she was received politely, but by no means rapturously."
Other prominent figures in the opposition movement that ousted Yanukovych include Vitali Klitschko, the former boxing champion; Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whom the U.S. apparently backs, according to a leaked phone conversation; and Oleh Tyahnybok of the far-right Svoboda.
Divisions: The protests against Yanukovych and his subsequent ouster have rekindled deep-seated divisions in Ukraine.
i i