Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, went to Kiev where she met with representatives of the Ukrainian opposition: Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Leader of the “Fatherland” Party, Vitaliy Klitschko, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Party, and Oleh Tyahnybok, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Leader of the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” Party. The Vice-President then met with Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine. (Round table in an anti-clockwise direction, starting from six o’cklock: Tyahnybok, 2nd, Klitschko, 3rd, Yatsenyuk, 4th, Tombiński, Head of the EU Delegation in Ukraine, 6th, Ashton, 7th, and Helga Maria Schmid, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service –EEAS, 8th). (EC Audiovisual Services).
As if history wanted to remind everybody what will be the outcome of direct foreign intervention in a region or country divided by internal differences, the Bosnians took it to the street to end a fallacy of governance at a time when Ukraine is about to follow suit in this direction. Kiev’s political elite, the President and the opposition leaders, currently following personal collision strategies, powered by their affiliation with foreign powers, are driving the country straight to civil war and a partitioning. Crimea, the Black Sea autonomous region of Ukraine, where Moscow pays rent for a huge naval base, is already contemplating to join Russia.
President Viktor Yanukovych speaks on the telephone many times a day with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the western leaders. On Thursday the Ukrainian President allegedly asked for Putin’s permission to agree with the western powers a way out from the stalemate, through the formation of an all-inclusive government. Reportedly Kiev agreed with Brussels, Berlin and Washington that this government will bring about constitutional changes to trim Presidential powers and hold early legislative and presidential elections.
Kiev can’t decide for itself
This is equivalent to an admission by all interested parties, that the Ukrainian leaders have direct references to Moscow, Berlin, Washington and Brussels. Of course this doesn’t mean that Paris, London or even Warsaw are less eagerly mixed up in the internal developments of Ukraine. Everybody uses everything to increase his own claw on the flesh of this, once very rich country. Even the extreme right ‘regiments’ are being used by the opposition to strengthen its presence in the streets and squares. They don’t mind if these regiments of fighters are manned by the heirs of those who cooperated with the Nazis and served in the German occupation forces during the WWII. They ravaged entire regions and annihilated the populations who opposed the Nazi Germany. Of course their enemies were the partisans who worked with the Russia and the then Allies.
Given that Moscow, Berlin and Washington have the strongest ties with the internal power sharing in Ukraine, they also share the responsibility of what happens now in Independent Square and the center of many western cities opposing Yanukovych’s choices. All those local and foreign power mongers though have built their cause on an initial and quite spontaneous revolt of the average Ukrainian. The largest part of the anti-government rallies were initially mobilised by the unbearable feeling that this government, along with the ones before it, is so desperately corrupt that nothing good can come out of it. So it had better go. This was a genuine popular unrest with spontaneous protests all over the country. Then came the ‘regiments’…
Usurping a genuine revolt
On 9 December the European Sting writer Suzan A. Kane wrote prophetically “All in all, the present paralytic situation in this country has to be attributed to a great extent to the deeply corrupt character of the Ukrainian politicians who run the country after the fall of Communism and the declaration of its independence. In this respect, the foreign influences, from the West and Russia, must have affected the country very negatively. The fact that the foreign powers do not pick their local ‘protégé’ on the account of honesty but on obedience has chased away the honest Ukrainian politicians who could unite the country. But who in the West or in Moscow cares about the unity of Ukraine? Probably the opposite is true”.
Now the tens of dead and the hundreds of wounded have created a situation that cannot be reversed. Yanukovych announced today, Friday, an agreement with the opposition for an inclusive government and early elections, which is actually an agreement with all the western powers. Reportedly the deal also has the blessing of Putin. The Russians though have start talking about Ukraine becoming a federation, which is tantamount with a partitioning of the country between east and west, the two parts controlled by Russia and the West respectively. The problem is, that the country couldn’t stand economically on its feet as one whole, then it’s more than certain that the two parts will end up being completely dependent on their foreign masters’ financial aid. Exactly like Bosnia. Is this what Europe and the US want for Ukraine? Very probably, yes! Who cares about the Bosnians and the Ukrainians…
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