As Ukraine continues to descend into civil unrest that risks full-blown civil war, the head of The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, has offered OSCE’s services in mediation between the two sides.  Ukraine was plunged into weeks of unrest after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych suddenly refused to sign an economic agreement with the European Union that was very popular among the citizens, announcing instead he would sign an agreement with Russia.  Protests began in the city of Kiev and have progressed steadily since then, with citizens now barricaded behind walls of rubbish and furniture and fighting police with makeshift catapults and other weapons.

Switzerland, not being a member of the European Union, assumed the chairmanship of the OSCE in January.  President Burkhalter approached Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov in Davos and offered to act as a mediator between the government and the protesters in a bid to avoid an official state of emergency being declared and further escalation of violence.  So far, three activists have been killed and many more injured as police struggle to contain the protests.

So far, OSCE has received no answer from Ukraine.  There is doubt that President Yanukovych would be willing to participate; suspicion that he was coerced economically and politically by Russian President Vladimir Putin to suddenly abandon the EU deal that had been years in the making would explain his seeming reluctance to consider any alternative despite the violence that is tearing apart his capital.