MOSCOW, March 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko has staged a self-revealing session in Kiev. In the recording of her telephone conversation with former Deputy Secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine Nestor Shufrich, which went viral on the Internet, she explicitly expresses her views as if she were a mere jailbird and an ultra-nationalist.
“We should take up arms and go whack these damn kacaps [a derogatory nickname for the Russians in Ukraine] together with their leader. It's a pity I cannot be there now - they would never *** get Crimea then,” Tymoshenko says on the record. Asked what Ukraine should do with eight million Russian people living in southeastern Ukraine she said “they should be shot with nuclear weapons”.
On Tuesday, the leader of the Batkivshchyna party, determined to pit the whole world against Russia, announced she would run ifor president in Ukraine. The main point of her program will be the need to retain clauses in the new constitution that will define Ukraine as a presidential republic with wider authority for the president to enable the leader to promptly make tough decisions.
“In her election campaign, Tymoshenko will fiddle with the current disagreements among Russia, the USA and EU countries amid the Ukrainian crisis. But her telephone threats to bring Crimea back to Ukraine are ridiculous to say the least,” Director for International Development at the Institute of Contemporary Development Sergei Kulik told Itar-Tass.
“Tymoshenko is not a force that is capable of mobilizing and consolidating Ukrainian voters now. She is unable to rally the unbalanced government and prevent anarchy since neither she nor any of the opposition now at the helm have opportunities to control the situation not only in Ukraine but even in Kiev,” the expert believes.
“Attempts made by the new leaders of Ukraine, including Tymoshenko, to decide the issues of national importance on Independence Square in Kiev indicate the inefficiency of a new government unaware of what is to be done and how to resolve the country’s top priority social and economic problems,” Kulik added.
“Threats against Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine and Russia voiced by Tymoshenko are the start of her election campaign ahead of the presidential election. Threats and offensive language against the Russians correspond to her nationalist views,” Director of the Institute of Globalization Studies Mikhail Delyagin told Itar-Tass. “This was, undoubtedly, an act of grandstanding intended to lure Ukrainian nationalists to Tymoshenko’s side. Yulia Tymoshenko and Nestor Shufrich are close allies and they could not be unaware of potential bugging.”
The expert believes that it will be Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the radical nationalist Right Sector, who will be Tymoshenko’s archrival in the presidential race, not Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, boxer Vitali Klitschko or tycoon Petro Poroshenko.
“Tymoshenko will make use of the contrast to Yarosh, like Nicolas Sarkozy who once vied for the presidential post with nationalist Le Pen so that the French had no choice but to vote for Sarkozy,” said Delyagin.
“Under these circumstances, Russia should prevent violation of the Russian-speaking population’s rights in the southeast of Ukraine. Besides, we’d better not finance the nationalist regime in Kiev with discounts for Russian gas supplied to Ukraine,” the expert believes.
“The private conversation of Yulia Tymoshenko that came to light has revealed her true view of Russia and the Russians, her true face," Civic Chamber member and Director of the Institute for Political Studies Sergei Markov told Itar-Tass.
"If she wins the presidential election, she will undoubtedly establish a tough personal dictatorship in Ukraine," he said. "It is not to be discounted that Tymoshenko will seek to become the Ukrainian Saakashvili and exert pressure on Russia with the help of the USA and the West."
“It is also not to rule out that, if Tymoshenko wins the presidential election, she will arm the Ukrainian army according to NATO standards and instigate a major military conflict in Crimea,” warned the political scientist. “An end to the Ukrainian crisis is not in sight," he concluded.
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