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  20 january, 2014

  Russia should not be as non-present in Ukraine!

  Author: Veronika Krasheninnikova, no comments

  There were mass disorders in Kiev last night. “Eurointegrators” burnt down police (militia) buses and beat several secret service officers. In response, law enforcement officers used lachrymatory gas, rubber bullets, and light-sound bombs. Director General of the Institute of External Political Studies and Initiatives, Civic Chamber member Veronika Krasheninnikova expressed her opinion on the situation development in Ukraine in an interview to the information/analytical portal NewsBalt.
  
  — Ms. Krasheninnikova, in your conversation with bloggers at the Kaliningrad Blog-Post discussion club you said that “lack of clear Russian politics in Ukraine brings us to what we can see today.” Could you please explain what lack of clarity is?
  
  — In my opinion, Russia was far too late to offer friendship to Ukraine.  We should have started development of our economic cooperation long ago.  Possibly, it was hard to do in the times of President Yushchenko. But who could prevent from doing this when Yanukovich came to power in 2010? It’s good that Russia had saved Ukraine when it literally was on the edge of an abyss. But foreign politics is right about not letting a situation to be ultimately escalated. I believe that the present situation in Ukraine is a consequence of a mistake in the Russian foreign politics. This is in line with the decision of the Russian state leaders (in the course of Medvedev’s presidency, NewsBalt) not to veto the UN resolution on Libya which led to the military attack on this state.
  
  In connection with this, let me bring a U.S. example.  With all its power, they also make mistakes there. Yes, the American state machine is a clever one, but many things depend on the human factor. But the U.S. can afford making mistakes. For example, the war in Iraq made Shiites in Iran much stronger. However, the U.S. compensated this through increasing pressure on Iran. Unlike this, we, Russia, do not have adequate military, economic, and political weight, and we cannot afford making mistakes. Each mistake can cost too much for us.
  
  —Do you believe that the European Union will not take care of well-being of the Ukrainian people?
  
  — What are you talking about? These are fairy tales. Today, in Kaliningrad, we spoke about a Latvian city of Liepaja, where the population decreased by 40%. People migrated to the European Union to earn money. But the idea was to make their life good in their own country.  Watch Arkady Mamontov’s documentary “Bulgarian Paprika” to see what had happened to Bulgaria after they joined EU. It shows it only too well.
  
  Let me repeat that only Russian-Ukrainian cooperation is the key to all other aspects of Ukrainian development.  People need to be fed in the first place. In the course of his election campaign, Yanukovich gave many promises, but only a few of them he has fulfilled. In the first place, these were exactly his declarations to enhance living standards.
  
  I visited Ukraine not too long ago. I got an impression of being in an occupied country.  People were afraid to talk. We came to present a book Murder of the Democracy. CIA and Pentagon’s Operations in the Post-Soviet Period; I know for sure that some people just did not dare to come and be seen next to this book. My conclusion is that the state we see today in Ukraine could hardly be called independent. And the document with EU which Yanukovich was about to sign would have finally deprived Ukraine of any sovereignty.
  
  — In your opinion, along with economic cooperation, should Russia convey its cultural and educational politics?
  
  — There is no doubt about it, and this is the second aspect of Russian politics which should be present in Ukraine.  We can see growth of fascism in Ukraine today. Generally speaking, growth of fascism is one of the trends of the present Europe, and I cannot avoid making parallels with the pre-war Germany when ultra-right spirits had been growing in the context of an economic crisis. In the same way as Germany had lost its identity having lost in the First World War and got into vacuum filled in with Nazis, the post-soviet countries now had lost identities after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this vacuum still does exist. At the example of Ukraine, we can see that it is being filled in with fascists. And these people strive for Europe which is built on absolutely different values.
  
  — Should Moscow participate in the upcoming presidential election campaign in Ukraine?
  
  — You know, last year, representatives from the State Department, Polish and Lithuanian Seims, Germany and other European countries came to Maidan and accused Russia of interfering with Ukrainian affairs. However, nobody reported about any Russian representatives in Ukraine. Even the Ambassador of Russia in Kiev did not say a word in this entire period.  This should not be this way. Russia should not be that missing!
  
  — Could it be that Russia does intervenes but secretly?
  
  — I do not know how, but we can see too few results.
  
  NEWSBALT, 20.01.2014

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