RIA Novosti: Turmoil in Ukraine Caused by Constitutional Crisis – Russian Foreign Ministry
MOSCOW, April 2 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry urged the Ukrainian government Wednesday to adopt a more balanced constitution to protect minority populations, blaming the ongoing political crisis in the country on an unstable legal foundation.
“The lack of a balanced fundamental law in the country, which would adequately take into consideration the interests of all ethnic and linguistic groups, is the reason for political turmoil, which over the last few years has shaken the Ukrainian government, rocked its foundations, and negatively impacted the ability of Ukrainian citizens to improve their lives and develop themselves,” the statement reads.
The ministry said the ongoing economic crisis in Ukraine is the result of adventurism on the part of politicians and the irresponsibility of a number of countries uninterested in the fate of the country’s citizens.
Moscow has called on Ukraine to draft a new federal constitution granting broadened powers to the country’s disparate regions, which are divided between a largely Ukrainian-speaking west and a predominantly Russian-speaking east.
The ministry said Wednesday that changes to the constitution should not be “cosmetic touch-ups of earlier texts,” calling for adopting a “reworked and renewed social agreement that would be accepted by the multi-ethnic Ukrainian society as being solid and reliable.”
This should be a long-term agreement guaranteeing the “equality of regions and nationalities,” the ministry said, adding that such is the basis of government rule-of-law, without which the country would not be able to solve urgent political tasks, including the preparation for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.
Russia is worried about closed discussions on Ukraine’s constitutional reforms and sees no progress on the issue, the ministry said.
“It is worrisome that work on reforming the [Ukrainian] constitution, if it has even started at all, is being conducted behind closed doors, without providing information in the mass media, an absolutely necessary step in these cases to provide for a wide discussion with the participation of independent experts and social organizations,” the statement reads.
Russia has consistently warned that the new government in Ukraine, which came to power last month unconstitutionally, has a dangerous fascist element of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism, leading Moscow to take steps to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine.