Enacting of Minsk agreements to require internal policy change in Ukraine — Russian MP

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Implementation of all the provisions of the accords that were reached on Thursday at Ukraine settlement summit in Minsk will require an overhaul of domestic policies on the part of Ukraine and the European Union will bear responsibility for the process, Alexey Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma foreign policy committee told Rossiya 24 news channel.

As Ukraine fulfills one provision of the accords after another, it will have to revise its internal policy and to review some parts of its ideology, he believes.

"At present, a hunt for political opponents is in full swing in Ukraine but it can’t continue if the Minsk accords are implemented," Pushkov said. "Otherwise all the people who are doubtless leaders in eastern Ukraine will have to be arrested."

"This means Ukraine will have to democratize itself, to reconsider the ultra-radical version of its nationalistic ideology, which is linked to people like (Prime Minister Arseniy) Yatsenyuk, (National Security and Defense Council Secretary) Oleksandr Turchinov or (the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Oleh) Lyashko," he said.

Pushkov also warned about an inevitable clash of the West, which is now lulled by the telltales about Ukraine being a democratic state with the aspiration to playing by the European rules, with the stiff Ukrainian reality.

"The problem is the European rules don’t presume torch procession, the actions where members of parliament at squeezed into garbage cans, or the bans on the Communist part, since opposition in Europe is legalized officially," he said.

"To fulfill all the provisions of the Minsk accords, Ukraine will have to change and the EU will also bear responsibility for it," Pushkov said. "Along with practical actions under the accords, the Ukrainian government system will change, too, and the so-called party of war will be getting marginalized because it doesn’t have anything to offer to society if you take war away from it."

"Why did Yatsenyuk begin to build that hideous wall (along the Ukrainian-Russian border — TASS)? He doesn’t have anything in his brains except the nonsense about Russia’s invasion, a mix of Russophobia and Americanophilia," Pushkov said.

"Yatsenyuk can’t offer anything except the wall to his people, or the absence of heating in wintertime, or the ruminations about a need to tighten the belts," he said, adding that Yatsenyuk’s support base would shrink sizably if the Minsk accords were observed in full.

He did not rule out, however, that these forces would start offering tough resistance when they saw they were bound to lose. "I wouldn’t underestimate the threat personally," he said.