A split threatens Ukraine

MOSCOW, January 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Dramatic events in Ukraine have been hitting the headlines of Russian papers for the fourth day. The papers discuss the reports that clashes in the streets of the Ukrainian capital resulted in first casualties as well as a meeting between President Viktor Yanukovich and three opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnibok. A split really threatens Ukraine, analysts warn.
“It is impossible to defeat this powerful popular protest movement by force, it is only possible to hound them in the underground that is even more dangerous and worse for incumbent authorities,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily quoted head of the agency of situation modelling Vitaly Balu as saying. The political expert is sure that Yanukovich’s team has no other way out, but to sit at a negotiating table and solve those problems, which the protest movement put on the agenda. But nothing points to such intentions of the country’s state authorities.
The issue of state of emergency is on agenda again, the daily noted. In theory, pro-presidential majority of Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, may make an official appeal to the president on Thursday to introduce a state of emergency. However, all experts that Nezavisimaya Gazeta interviewed are convinced that this will change nothing, as people had been demonstrating not just discontent, but mistrust for the last two months. “Society responds with more radical position to each new forcible action of state authorities. Protest movements have emerged in almost all Ukrainian cities, though they differ much in their number of participants. But the number of discontent and active people is growing,” experts said.
Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reports about a real threat of split in Ukraine. “If a minor part of people are protesting, tough suppression solves the problem. But when not only oppositionists, but students and ordinary people come out on the square the situation may sweepingly result in a civil war. Just remember how fast Yugoslavia disappeared from the European map. A civilized, prosperous European country. But when the civil war broke out, the rivers of blood started flowing and this country exists no longer. Bear in mind that this happened not in Africa and Asia, but in Europe. The split that led to a catastrophe,” the newspaper added.
“Ukraine is split. It is really split. And politicians (from all sides, inside and outside, from the West and the North, the South and the East) may bring the situation to a civil war. They are resolving their time-serving task, they are indifferent at this moment of time that they probably consciously unleash a civil war. The civil war for many years...It is hard to believe that they lack intelligence and historical knowledge. They are aware of this and realise this, but each of them resolves his or her own task. And everything else can go to hell,” the daily added.
Vedomosti business daily contemplates whether Russia’s terms of a credit to Ukraine will change. The daily recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to allocate $15 billion credit to Ukraine from the National Wealth Fund. Ukraine has received first three billion dollars in late December 2013, when Russia had purchased Ukrainian Eurobonds for this sum of money. Before the end of January Ukraine plans to issue Eurobonds for another two billion dollars, Ukrainian First Deputy Finance Minister Anatoly Myarkovsky said on Wednesday.
The situation in Kiev does not jeopardize relations with Russia, including fulfilment of the last December’s agreements between the presidents of the two countries in Moscow, deputy of the presidential Party of Regions Vadim Kolesnichenko said with confidence. Russian has stabilised the situation in the country through its financial aid, after that foreign Western forces fanned up tension, but the opposition will not overpower the country’s state authorities.
Even if the opposition demands are fulfilled, including a dismissal of the government and early parliamentary elections, no one in the opposition is going to spoil relations with Russia, head of the Kiev branch of opposition party Batkivshchyna Yuri Odarchenko said. Russian credits are allocated on a commercial basis, Ukraine can meet all commitments and will fulfil them.
Yet, Russia’s suspension of credits to Ukraine is not on the agenda, a Russian federal official told Vedomosti daily. If political risks in Ukraine grow, a threat of change of power will appear and Russia will analyse the situation again.