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MEMORANDUM. The Ukrainian Political Crisis and the Urgency of Overcoming it 06 марта 2014 Moscow The current political crisis in the Ukraine, with its sad toll of casualties amongst civilians and law enforcement officers, is being represented by the media, political actors and other commentators in a way, which does not provide a full perspective of the entire situation in the country, rather the views presented are too simple. We, the leadership of A JUST RUSSIA party, would like to share with our comrades of the Socialist International and other colleagues our vision of what is happening in the Ukraine. Firstly, we would like to emphasize that we are interested and fully committed to see that in Ukraine there should be a democratic political development based on the principles and values that we share within our movement. President Yanukovych de facto lost power. During more than three months confrontation between forces among the opposition and the elected state government, Yanukovych demonstrated a lack of capacity to handle the crisis, politically and legally. As a result, he fled the country, leaving it in a difficult political situation. We believe that those in the international community who present an unconstitutional coup in Ukraine as a victory of the democratic forces over the criminal regime of Yanukovych are partly responsible for the current situation in the country. We also would like to recall that on the 21st of February 2014, Yanukovych signed an Agreement with leaders of the parliamentary opposition in Ukraine, among them V. Klitschko, A. Yatsenyuk and O. Tyagnibok, for the political resolution of the crisis. The execution of this Agreement was guaranteed by the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland and an official of the Foreign Ministry of France. Its provisions stated that Ukraine should return to the 2004 Constitution, according to which it would have a parliamentary-presidential form of government; early presidential elections to be held before the end of 2014 and a government of national trust should be formed; security forces should be withdrawn from the center of Kiev, opposition should surrender their arms and cease violence. However, the next day, this Agreement was violated by the opposition, and representatives of European countries who were supposed to act as guarantors of its execution, in fact, disavow their signatures under the Agreement. It should be stated that Yanukovych did not go through the impeachment procedure in the Ukrainian Parliament and therefore in accordance with the current Constitution of Ukraine he is the de jure President. We want to draw the attention of our colleagues in the Socialist International to the fact that ignoring the signed agreement along with the lack of desire to enforce its provisions, untied the hands of those nationalist and pro-fascist forces, which have actually seized power in Ukraine. We mean the "Right sector" organization, which is led by neo-fascist and nationalist D. Yarosh and has about 15,000 fighters who are well-trained and armed with automatic weapons, who subdued representative and executive authorities by threats and violence in several regions of Ukraine, including the Supreme Rada and the central government. D. Yarosh has already stated that he sees Ukraine entirely independent and free from any integration projects either in the West or the East of the country. He insists that both Russian and Jews should be expelled from Ukraine and even speaks of their physical liquidation. He announced that in the nearest future he will increase the number of his militants to 45,000. Yarosh’s troops in Rovno, Lviv and other cities of Western Ukraine persecute with impunity retired police officers, war veterans and their families. His slogan is "Ukraine for Ukrainians". Under the pressure from this "Right sector" neo-fascist organization and "Svoboda" parliamentary nationalist party (formerly known as the Social-National Party of Ukraine), the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine approved, among the first laws, the following two: 1. The revocation of the law on punishment for Nazi propaganda, thereby leaving Ukraine as the only country in Europe where such a measure is not enforced. Among other consequences, Israel has expressed its deep concern about the rapid growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. 2. The revocation of the law on the official status of languages which allowed for official bilingualism in the Regions, including Russian, where there are significant minorities, crucial to such a multi-ethnic country like Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine, we find today amongst those with control of the government, ultra-nationalists who are far from representing the opinions of all Ukrainians. There is therefore a real threat of infringement of the rights of a significant proportion of the population. Representatives of the parliamentary opposition, now in power in Ukraine, like Yatsenyuk, V. Klitschko and others, in fact have no real power in these circumstances. In this situation, when militants of D. Yarosh and members of the "Freedom" parliamentary party led by O. Tyagnibok have begun taking over power in the regions of the country, including the east and the south of Ukraine, and the Crimea, where a large number of Russians live, Russia had to declare its willingness to take clear steps to protect their rights and freedoms, including their right to life. A constitutional decision of the Federation Council of Russia on compliance with the appeal of President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Ukraine is a logical, preventive measure by Russia aimed at controlling the expansion of extremism in Ukraine. Thus, immediately after the announcement of this decision, the threat of the seizure of local authority’s premises in several eastern regions of Ukraine, like Kharkiv, Donetsk, Lugansk and the Crimea, was stopped. In order to normalize the political and socio-economic situation in Ukraine, the international community, including representatives of the Socialist International, should unite their efforts in assisting the multinational Ukrainian nation. We believe that it is necessary as soon as possible to give an objective definition of the tragic events in Ukraine, to publicly condemn the ideology of nationalism being imposed, the glorification of Nazi criminals and the actions of right-wing extremist forces, whose armed representatives roughly and with impunity violate the constitutional rights of a significant part of Ukrainian citizens. We believe that the current government must achieve complete disarmament of all militants. We appeal to all political forces in Ukraine for peaceful dialogue and to only act within the law. Real power must be legitimized through free, fair and democratic general elections with the necessary involvement in this process of all regions of the country. We ask the world community to provide the multinational Ukrainian people with the necessary assistance and support, including political, financial and humanitarian aid to quickly cope with the deep crisis which Ukraine finds itself in. Sergey Mironov
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