By Vestnik Kavkaza
Alexei Pushkov, the head of the State Duma International Committee, believes that considering the Ukrainian crisis, Russia needs a new policy toward the neighboring country.
He stressed that “we need a new policy toward Ukraine. We can see an infinite series of hostile acts by Ukraine against Russia. I mean the passiveness of the Ukrainian authorities during the attack on the Russian embassy, insulting the Russian president, which shocked not only us, but the whole world. I mean the constant arrests of Russian journalists and accusations of espionage, even though it has never been proven. I mean refusing to pay for Russian gas and attempts to blackmail Russia on the gas issue. I mean Ukraine’s statements on demarcation of the Russian-Ukrainian border on a unilateral basis.”
Alexei Oushkov noted that “demarcation cannot be held on a unilateral basis a priori. Unilateral demarcation is an invitation to a border conflict. The Verkhovna Rada which implemented this decided not to approve the initiative on demarcation.” He says that “Deshchytsia and Porubi are absolutely ignorant people about law. And the acting foreign minister demonstrated the quality of the people who came to office in Ukraine. Of course one could put these acts down to the lack of experience, professionalism and competence of several members of the Ukrainian government, but we see constant hostile steps. The Ukrainian side didn’t offer an expression of regret or apologies for the deaths of two Russian journalists. The only thing is that Mr. Poroshenko ordered the incident to be investigated, but only because the OSCE insisted on this. It wasn’t his initiative. The Ukrainian side has declared a political war against us. This is confirmed by all the statements of the illegal prime minister Yatsenyuk, the acting foreign minister, and others. I think we shouldn’t ignore this and speak about partnership. Russian should see that, in this context, a nationalist dictatorship has been formed in Ukraine. They consider Russia to be an enemy.”
The head of the Committee believes that sanctions against Ukraine could be a way of settlement the situation within the political sphere. According to him “it is necessary to launch individual sanctions against certain Ukrainian officials, first of all those who are responsible for the deaths of peaceful citizens, for the violation of human rights in Ukraine, for the murders of journalists. Some people are responsible for mortar attacks. Of course, it was not a soldier who decided to do this. A certain official ordered it to be done. Who is he? It should be found out. These people shouldn’t think that they can murder peaceful citizens with impunity. That they can break the main human right, the right to life. I think we should extend the sanction mechanisms which we have already used at the individual level on several Ukrainian officials who are responsible for these crimes. As for wider sanctions, I think the opportunity should be discussed. I repeat that countries of the West use the mechanism intensively and don’t want to stop it. I don’t see a reason for absolute rejections of use of sanctions by Russia. We should react to hostile acts against our country. Sanctions enable us to react, holding the situation beyond the threat of using force and so on. Sanctions enable us to react to certain acts without using any threats. Yes, sanctions are not a perfect mechanism, I don’t support them, but in this context sanctions keep the situation within the political sphere. It is a political rather than a military instrument. At the same time, they enable us to react to things which are unacceptable to us.”
