UNITED NATIONS, July 4. /TASS/. US experts Daniel Kovalik, Christopher Helali and Jackson Hinkle, who earlier visited Donbass, held a briefing for UN-accredited journalists from various countries of the world and answered their questions.
The briefing was organized by Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations.
In their introductory remarks, he experts delivered the position they heard from the people of Donbass, saying that the conflict in Ukraine began back in 2014, and Russia’s decision to launch its special military operation prevented Kiev’s imminent invasion.
They also said that civilian residents of Donbass and Ukraine will never agree to reunify with Ukraine because of their historic and cultural ties with Russia.
Prospects for conflict settlement
Daniel Kovalik, a US lawyer and Human Rights advocate who currently teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh, said, answering to a question from TASS, that Ukraine "wants the land, but not the people."
"I think ultimately, the deal on the table will not include those areas going back to Ukraine, though we know by the way that that could have been a deal <…> in March 2022," he said.
"Apparently there was a peace deal that Zelensky signed that would have allowed them to keep all their territory, and the US and UK intervened to nix that," the US expert continued. "That's got to be pointed out how the US probably prevented Ukraine from getting that territory back. I think ultimately, this will be settled through peace negotiations. You're even hearing Zelensky talk about the need for those negotiations."
Respect to Russian culture and history
Helali, in turn, mentioned the need to respect Russian language, culture and history once the conflict in Ukraine is settled.
"There is no denying the historical facts: that this area was part of the Russian Empire for centuries; that the people share cultural values," he said. "People who want to speak Russian, who want to maintain Russian culture, who want to honor May 9 - the Victory Day during the Great Patriotic War - need to be respected. I think history needs to be respected. <…> This needs to be accounted for, this needs to be discussed and this needs to be hammered out in any peace agreement."
He said that many statues of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin or monuments devoted to the Great Patriotic War had not been taken down in the Donbass, but had been removed throughout other parts of Ukraine.
Correlation with Gaza events
Christopher Helali, a rights activist and a member of the US Communist Party, said that, to a certain extent, the situation in Donbass is linked to the events in the Gaza Strip as they both can be seen as "remnants of a US hegemonic system that is in decline."
"We see of course, people yearning for their freedom and their liberation, Palestinians yearning for statehood for recognition for their self determination, as well as the people in the Donbass and in Crimea, who have advocated for that. But of course, there are tremendous crimes being committed by the US and by its allies, its regional proxies like Israel, and of course <…> Ukraine.
"We spoke with the Human Rights ombudsman. The UN has been there. Other groups have been there. Of course, if you go there, you have to have an open mind to a different perspective. One thing that was very clear to us is that other groups have come there with their own agenda, and have made it very difficult because they have a completely different narrative, and they want to force that on the ground," the US expert added.