Yanukovych's survival skills may fail him this time, analysts say

He was once pushed out by the power of protest, and his famed political survival skills are again being put to the test by furious Ukrainians on the street.

Within three months, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has flip-flopped between the European Union and Russia, losing his legitimacy with a large chunk of the population that has risen up against him - in an eerily familiar repeat of the 2004 orange revolution.

The orange revolution sprang up when he claimed to have won elections that were rigged, and eventually prompted a rerun that saw his Western-backed opponent win.

"He will go down in history as the president of Ukraine who twice was sacked by the Maidan," said Vadym Karasev, head of the Institute for Global Strategies in Kiev. "Maidan" first refers to Independence Square in central Kiev, where protesters trying to oust Yanukovych, 63, have camped out since November.

Ukraine's wily leader has made a number of spectacular comebacks, defeating orange revolution leader Yuliya Tymoshenko in a poll in 2010 and then seeing her sentenced to seven years in prison. But some analysts say he is unlikely to stay in power for long this time around.

Formed as a politician in the rough-and-tough surroundings of his industrial native Donetsk region, the burly Yanukovych is no stranger to the art of political survival and reinvention.