BRUSSELS, April 09. /ITAR-TASS/. The current crisis in Ukraine is largely a result of the erroneous EU policy, Russian Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said on Wednesday, April 9.

“The crisis was obviously caused by the underestimation of two factors: external and internal ones. Speaking of the present-day situation, the external factor is largely a result of the erroneous EU policy,” Chizhov said at a roundtable discussion held in the European Parliament to explore ways to deescalate the crisis in Ukraine.

The discussion was organised by Fiorello Provera, Deputy Chairman of the EU Foreign Relations Committee in the European Parliament.

Chizhov noted that the authors of the Eastern Partnership and association agreement concepts “underestimated, first, the depth of the problems Ukraine was facing, and second, serious differences and disagreements between different regions and different political forces in the country”.

“The attempt, notwithstanding these differences, to draw Ukraine into association with the European Union without the promise of EU membership led to the division of society, the consequences of which we can all see today,” he said.

According to the diplomat, the freedom of choice for the people of Ukraine, as EU institutions understood it, “basically boiled down to two options: there can be a correct choice in favour of integration and the wrong one in favour of cooperation with Russia”.

Chizhov expressed concern about the fact that the interests of people living in the east and south of Ukraine “have been completely ignored by the Kiev administration”. “There must be a national dialogue leading towards federalisation, which the Kiev administration has flatly rejected. After all, what matters is not the term but the meaning. Decentralisation of government, the model of unitary state in which Ukraine lived for the past 23 years has failed and this must be admitted,” he said.