By Vestnik Kavkaza
Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, will meet the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, and the USA next week to discuss a de-escalation of the situation over Ukraine. Moscow expressed its readiness to consultations in the multilateral format. However, at the moment the situation in Ukraine, especially in its eastern regions, remains very tense.
Yevgeny Minchenko, Director of the International Institute of Political Expertise, thinks that “one should welcome the recent moves of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, as it tried to disarm these militants. It is necessary to remain unprejudiced, when we talk about these developments. I believe that was this prejudiced position, according to which one side is always right and another one always wrong, which caused the deaths of more than 100 people. Representatives of the US and the EU are responsible for this as well. When Ukrainian policemen were being killed by protesters in Kyiv, the EU and the US demanded that Yanukovych should stop violence against "peaceful demonstrators." At this very moment policemen were being burned alive and shot at. This policy of double standards caused the deaths of these people.”
At the same time, Minchenko is afraid that the actions being taken against the armed militants will not be effective: “Representatives of Right Sector say that they will not hand over their weapons, as no one has provided them with those arms. That is why they do not have to return them, they say. This means that these gangs will remain. Dmytro Yarosh says he has 10,000 armed men. At the same time Ukraine's Defense Minister says there are only 6,000 in the Ukrainian army. 10,000 militants and 6,000 soldiers. The question is: how can one hold elections in such circumstances? How can one say that this atmosphere of terror will not remain?”
Sergei Markov, chairman of the Public Chamber Commission for International Affairs, sees two possible negative scenarios in Ukraine:
“The first immediate and easy scenario – the junta continues spreading terror among the Russian-speaking population of the Southeast; armed suppression will go on. Lugansk today is circled by tanks and armored vehicles in case the population, dissatisfied with Kiev’s policy, starts breaching the border, as there is such a possibility. So the junta would use the Armed Forces against the rebels, i.e. not simple arrests, but shooting and so on. The next step would be Russia’s response, which would launch its troops. The junta would order the Ukrainian army to attack Russian troops. These are possible military activities. However, it wouldn’t last long, as today the Ukrainian army is weak, moreover, it has lost battle spirit, as everybody knows that the current authorities in Kiev are illegitimate. And all the soldiers know that fulfillment of their orders could lead to heavy consequences.”
According to Markov, the second scenario is worse: “At the moment the junta would improve its positions, hold elections, and I am sure the elections would be unfair. And the next step is that Ukraine would be headed by a Ukrainian Saakashvili, who would get money for the army. A Ukrainian Saakashvili would give an order to attack the Russian army in Crimea in 2-3 years. And, unfortunately, it could lead to wide-scale military activities.”
