Regarding the recent developments in Ukraine
The tragic events in the city of Odessa on the 2nd of May 2014, which resulted in more than 40 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded (the total numbers are still to be confirmed), demonstrated again the Kiev authorities’ inability to control the armed nationalists, including the “Right Sector” ultra-radical grouping. The Odessa’s tragedy confirmed that Kiev is prepared to use force and provocations in order to ensure at any cost holding of the presidential elections on 25 May.
The situation in the East Ukraine has been visibly escalating recently. The 15 thousand-strong Ukrainian Regular Army force has been deployed in the region, including 80 tanks, 130 infantry combat vehicles and armored vehicles, about 60 cannonry and mortars, more than 30 multiple artillery rocket systems and a significant amount of combat helicopters and warplanes.
Using army against its own people is a crime that would lead Ukraine to disaster. Now it is becoming obvious that if it hadn’t been for a historic choice by the Crimea population to re-unite with Russia in March 2014, the right-wing radicals in Kiev would have implemented even more tragic scenario on the peninsula.
A reprisal raid conducted by Kiev in the East Ukraine in fact prevented the launching of a nation-wide dialogue with participation of all regions and political forces of the country. In other words, those who executed the power takeover and wrecked the 21 February agreement implementation are now derailing the 17 April Geneva Statement, which demands to end all violence as a first step. Large scale military assault by the Kiev authorities is a clear violation of their Geneva obligations.
Kiev has not made a move to launch an inclusive constitutional process embracing all the Ukrainian regions that would contribute to ending the political deadlock in the country. Holding presidential elections in such circumstances looks like a desperate endeavor of the people who try to consolidate their power at any price. Such plans of the Kiev authorities simply fuel further anxiety. It is absolutely not possible to have substantial discussions on the issues of future government system within only few weeks left till the 25th of May.
No one can trust blurred and unspecific declarations of Kiev that “the government is ready to provide additional guarantees to Russian-speaking population and to other ethnic minorities’ languages on a respective territory” and that it has its own vision of the regional reform.
Moreover, continuous and outrageous violations of basic civil rights are witnessed in Ukraine. Almost all Russian TV channels have been shut down, journalists are being apprehended and detained on a regular basis. There are actually only two parties in Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) – the Party of Regions and the Communist Party – that call for granting to Russian language the official status of the second state language. Though this issue is of great importance for the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, the Ukrainian pro-government parties don’t even take into consideration such a possibility.
Despite the assurances of our American partners that there are no American mercenaries in the Ukrainian territory, the English-speaking gunmen have been spotted amongst those involved in the so-called “anti-terrorist” operation in Slavyansk city. This is extremely concerning. Russia keeps on insisting on inadmissibility of any external interference into Ukrainian affairs.
The US and the EU who have been inspiring the Ukrainian authorities in their crusade against pro-federalization activists should assume full responsibility for the failure of the peaceful crisis-resolving measures introduced by the Geneva Statement. All the attempts of the Western countries to shift the blame for the ongoing events to Russia look particularly cynical.
The efforts of our country resulted in the liberation in Slavyansk of the military observers from the OSCE’s Special monitoring mission in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the destiny of the political detainees of the Kiev regime remains unknown.
The discussions at the meeting of the UN Security Council, convened on 2 May 2014 on the initiative of the Russian Federation, once again revealed that the approach of the Western countries to the Ukrainian crisis is based on the “double standards”
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