By Vestnik Kavkaza
MPs have called on the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs to initiate an investigation into the activities of the Ukrainian authorities in the Hague Court. The State Duma believes that the people who ordered the launch of the counterinsurgency operations in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and ignored the slaughter in Odessa must be judged as military criminals.
Comments by experts have become harsher as the situation grows more tense. However, most of them state that Moscow has no plans to invade Eastern Ukraine.
Konstantin Zatulin, Director of the CIS Countries Institute, is sure that “there are no signs of “a Putin plan” to invade Eastern Ukraine, conduct a military operation, or annexe Donetsk and Lugansk. There are a certain number of troops on the border between Russia and Ukraine. This is a preventive measure; if they withdrew, the Kiev authorities would act much more radically.”
According to Zatulin, views in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions differ significantly from views in Crimea and Sevastopol, where people have been dreaming about a return to Russia for 20 years: “In the Lugansk region there are people who want to join Russia, but I cannot say that they are the majority… The political and economic elites of the southeast treat the protesting people like Mahatma Gandhi - passive resistance. They could call the protests evil, but they don’t take part seriously in attempts to suppress, destroy, capture, and so on. Otherwise, they try to warn the Ukrainian authorities.”
Zatulin considers the declarations of the Donetsk Republic to be an application stance: “An application stance in any internal political conflict could differ from the final result... The people participating in the events are far from understanding the whole scenario, negotiations, contacts, and so on. Those expressing their indignation and are being attacked are our compatriots, and we have to respond.”
As for the presidential elections which are scheduled for May 25th, Zatulin doubts their necessity: “The elections will fail in Eastern Ukraine in the current situation; they won’t take place in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, in many ballot stations. Thus, the elections cannot calm the country down in the present situation. They will be an additional reason for radicalization of the protest in Eastern Ukraine. Thus, it would be beneficial for some candidates, especially non-eastern candidates, to postpone the elections.”
