RIA Novosti: Ukraine’s Yanukovych vows to return, urges warring sides to make peace

Viktor Yanukovych file photo

(RIA Novosti – February 21, 2015)

The authorities in Kiev will have to stop discriminating against southeast Ukraine and give the region enough autonomy to protect its rights if they want to hold Ukraine together, ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych said on 21 February. He urged the sides to negotiate a peace and said he would like to return to the country when the opportunity arose.

He was speaking in separate interviews to Russian state-owned official TV station Rossiya 1 and state-controlled Channel One TV, his remarks reported by RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) ahead of their broadcast in Moscow. The two interviews were held in the same setting, with Yanukovych and his questioner sitting on either side of a fireplace. Rossiya 1’s was due to go out in Moscow on the evening of 21 February in the “Vesti v Subbotu” news programme, Channel One’s on the evening of 23 February in the “Voskresnoye Vremya” weekly analysis programme.

The two interviews were timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Maydan. Also on 21 February, there were large turnouts in a wave of “Anti-Maydan” rallies across Russia, including an estimated 50,000 in Moscow.

Stop the war, build trust

“I am sure that there is no other option,” Yanukovych told Rossiya 1 when asked about talks between Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk. “Stop the war, stop insulting the people who live in the southeast, stop calling them names. Guarantee that these regions will have sufficient self-government to uphold their rights. And European countries and Russia should definitely be involved in the process.”

Kiev has to halt its discrimination if it wants Donbass to remain part of Ukraine, he said. “Who could even imagine that, for example when I was president of Ukraine, that I would stop paying pensions in the western regions? How can you withhold social guarantees that are enshrined in the constitution?”

Given “so much humiliation and so much mistrust and hatred” in Donbass among those who have suffered, “we need time to allow us to live together, so we need a transitional period”, Yanukovych continued. “And for that, above all else, the war has to stop.”

Failure of the EU ministers

Yanukovych was scornful of the way three EU foreign ministers – of Germany, France and Poland – handled their talks with him while he was still in office. The very fact of their arrival was significant, he said in a brief clip from the Rossiya 1 interview shown on its sister channel, the rolling news Rossiya 24.

“Representatives arrived from three major European states and together with the incumbent authorities and the opposition they drew up the appropriate agreement,” he said. “They initiated the process so they should be responsible for it,” he continued. “I agreed to early presidential elections and to constitutional reform, to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in line with the changes to the constitution. What else did they need?”

I will return

In the interview with Channel One he was asked if he would return to Ukraine and what he would say to the country if he did. “I’ve had many sleepless nights and I grieve for what is happening now in Ukraine,” he answered. “I don’t want to say much but should the Lord God preserve my life and should the Lord God allow me the opportunity to do what is needed to uphold people’s rights and protect them against the chaos and lawlessness in the country, then I will do whatever is in my power.”

He had thought of going back earlier to play a leading role but was talked out of it, he said: “They were all against and all certain that if I returned my enemies would do all they could to kill me. My advisers were against me returning to Ukraine. Events were moving fast and I regret that I was unable to go. As soon as the opportunity does arise I shall return and I shall do all I can to make life easier for the people in Ukraine.”

[featured image is file photo]

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