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Ukraine PM offers concessions as Putin hints of further annexation

Ukraine PM offers concessions as Putin hints of further annexation

19 March 2014

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk offered numerous significant concessions to the residents of southeastern Ukraine in a March 18 televised appeal as the Ukrainian government prepared for a military assault on nation’s easternmost oblasts. He assured them the full use of the Russian language within Ukraine’s borders, greater local autonomy and no threat to its industry from the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, as the government is already redrafting the economic portion of the EU Association Agreement.

 

In his March 18 speech to the Russian Duma declaring the annexation of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin alluded to the need of also annex the southeastern portion of Ukraine. “After the Bolshevik Revolution, for various considerations, may God be their judge, significant territory of the history Russian south was included into the structure of the Ukrainian republic of the union,” Putin said. “That was done without taking into account the national composition of its resident and today’s that’s the contemporary southeastern Ukraine.”

 

Putin implied that the Russian language rights of southeastern Ukrainians were being violated by a government that’s not democratic or civilized. He also declared Ukrainians and Russians to be one nation and implied that he also intended to pursue a pro-Russian regime change in Kyiv. “We’re not simply close neighbors,” he said. “We are practically one people, as I said many times. Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus is our common source. We can’t exist without each other.”

 

Zenon Zawada: Putin’s remarks were dangerously reminiscent of another dictator half a century ago, who appealed to ethnic minorities in neighboring lands to unite together on ethnic and linguistic grounds. Indeed for the first time since World War Two, a foreign territory has been annexed in Europe, which will be Putin’s historical legacy. And the Russian government has already outlined its plans to federalize the Ukrainian southeast.

 

Despite Yatsenyuk’s plans to undermine such efforts, we expect Russian soldiers will take advantage of any pretext to invade eastern Ukrainian regions in the coming days, for which the Ukrainian government is already preparing for. But the proper policies both nationally and locally can make the Russian annexation project a failure, which would involve convincing the citizens that life in Ukraine will improve. Yesterday’s statement by EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule on possibly granting EU membership to Ukraine, though with no clear time frame, could serve as the best driver for Ukraine’s eastern regions to stay with the central government.

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