The interim authorities are grappling the with the dual threats of separatism and a looming debt default as they try to piece the ex-Soviet nation back together following the weekend ouster of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.
Protests that started in November over Yanukovych's decision to ditch an historic EU trade deal in favour of closer ties with old master Russia culminated in a week of Kiev carnage that claimed nearly 100 lives.
The interim leaders' headaches are compounded by Moscow's decision to freeze payments on a massive bailout package that Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to Yanukovych as his reward for rejecting closer EU ties.
The Ukrainian government faces foreign debt payments of USD 13 billion this year and has less than USD 18 billion in its fast depleting coffers - a grim equation that has forced it to seek as much as USD 35 billion from Western states.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Secretary William Hague also rejected Russia's claim yesterday that Ukraine was being forced to make a historic choice between the East and West.
"This is not a zero-sum game, it is not a West versus East," said Kerry after hosting Hague in Washington.
But EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton wrapped up a two-day visit to Kiev yesterday by mentioning only a "short term" economic solution for Ukraine while saying nothing about extending the billions of dollars in credit requested by interim leader Oleksandr Turchynov.
The elite units carried shields and Kalashnikov rifles as they cracked down on protesters in Kiev and brutally beat those detained - forcing one man to strip naked in the freezing cold and parade in front of a police camera in one incident that became infamous through the Internet.
But acting interior minister Arsen Avakov announced on his Facebook account that he was dissolving the feared unit effective immediately.