Russia keeps pushing federalism, with little support among Ukrainians

A decision to pursue a federal government will depend on Ukrainians themselves, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on March 30 after an evening meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Paris. “It’s not up to us to make any decision or any agreement regarding federalization,” Kerry said. “We talked about it. But it’s up to Ukrainians, and Ukrainians will decide their future for themselves, by themselves, with respect to what kind of definitions work for them.”

During the talks, Kerry asked the Russians to pull back “the very large Russian force that is currently massing along Ukraine’s borders. And tonight I raised with the foreign minister our strong concern about these forces. We believe that these forces are creating a climate of fear and intimidation in Ukraine. It certainly does not create the climate that we need for the dialogue and for the messages sent to both the international community as well as to Ukrainians themselves about the diplomatic channel.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on initiating an international dialogue with the U.S. and EU to create a new Constitution for Ukraine “that guarantees Ukraine’s federal status and affirms and enforces its non-bloc status, which will ensure the rights of all those who live in Ukraine.” Each region of Ukraine must have the right to elect its own leadership, legislature and governors, Lavrov said. “As practice has shown, a unitary state doesn’t work in Ukraine,” he said. “After each presidential elections, the Constitution is changed. They make it pro-presidential, then pro-parliamentary, then pro-Cabinet. This mess can’t last long.”

In response to Lavrov’s statement, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry issued its sternest statement yet on March 30, urging the Russian government to focus on “the catastrophic state and complete lack of rights of its own ethnic minorities, including Ukrainians, rather than dictate its ultimatums against a sovereign and independent state.” It called on the Russian Federation to provide for real federalism in its own government, as reflected in its name, rather than its current declarative nature. It called on Ukrainian to gain state status in Russia, among the languages of other ethnic minorities, and hold referenda on greater autonomy.

“The instructive and ultimatum tone of such statements don’t need any settling with the true aggressor, Russia,” the statement said. “Under the barrels of guns, this aggressor is demanding only one thing: the complete capitulation of Ukraine, its division and the destruction of the Ukrainian state.” The statement added, “Begin to introduce order in your own state. You have many of your own problems.”

Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov said on March 28 that the federalism movement has dissipated. “In recent days, we’ve had an incredible calming of the situation in the eastern regions,” he said. The reason is that saboteurs have been arrested in the southeastern regions, he said. About 1,500 pro-federalist activists gathered on March 30 in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, reported the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. About 2,000 gathered in Odesa, Ukraine’s third-largest city, and about 1,500 gathered in Donetsk, Ukraine’s fifth-largest city.

About 50,000 Russian soldiers remain stationed within 50 kilometers of the Russian-Ukrainian border, estimated on March 29 Dmytro Tymchuk, the organizer of the Information Resistance website. About 10,000 soldiers are directly at the border, he reported.

Zenon Zawada: The Russian government’s federalism campaign in Ukraine is a failure, as demonstrated by the anemic support during this weekend’s protests. Therefore, the U.S. and Ukrainian governments have the upperhand in dismissing Russian demands and have pursued the correct policy in deflecting such efforts so far. Consequently, the threat of a Russian military invasion has also significantly weakened. Any invasion at this point would be a clear act of aggressive war, not protection of ethnic minorities, as the Russian government has been trying to spin this conflict. Anyone living in Ukraine understands that Russian-speakers are entirely comfortable in those regions where they’re a majority.