A chill for the authoritarians

The Battle of Poltava in June 1709 marked Russia's eclipse of Sweden.  The Swedish force of Charles XII had been severely depleted by the coldest winter on the steppe in living memory (the next coldest winter would be in 1812 and then in the early 1940s - Russia have found the winter a very useful ally, similar to how the Japanese felt about the Kamikaze) and divisions in the Swedish camp allowed the troops of Peter the Great to rout the Swedes.  Charles XII fled south to Constantinople and the Great Northern War was as good as over (though drag on to 1721).
Poltava is now a stronghold to the authoritarian Victor Yanukovych, increasingly a creature of the Kremlin, but in recent days there has been discontent about the government's killing of unarmed protestors.  The street opposition (as opposed to the formal opposition) have endured the winter which though harsh has been milder than usual and now they see springtime.  Yulia Tymoshenko has been released from a prison in another Yanukovych strongpoint in Kharkhiv and given that the embattled president and senior Russian advisors are alleged to be in the city, it seems to be part of a calculation to dampen down the crowds which are even gathering there.  All of Yanukovych's sweeping accumulation of executive power has been revoked by parliament.  Only in Donetsk and the Crimea have there been demands for a harsher crackdown, something unlikely now the Interior Ministry has apparently switched sides.  Yanukovych is a slippery character but hopefully the EU will keep up the pressure to pin him to these new commitments and maybe release some cash to help out a country which was effectively purchased by the Kremlin for $15bn in the last few months.