Moscow - A senior Russian lawmaker has expressed fear that the alignment of forces in Ukraine's newly elected parliament means harder times for Russian-Ukrainian relations.
“It is an alarming situation,” Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, said at a meeting in which the committee discussed the performance of Russian observers during the October 28 election.
He argued that the victory of the ruling Party of Regions had been predictable, but it was unexpected that nationalist party Svoboda won seats in parliament.
Adding the voting results in constituencies where candidates were running individually rather than on party lists means that “Svoboda’s group may become even more numerous than the Communist group,” Slutsky said. “Nor is there any guarantee that the alliance of the Party of Regions and the Communists will be strong and make up a 100% majority.”
Slutsky questioned “prospects for major Russian-Ukrainian agreements in the natural gas sphere, on frontier demarcation issues or on the Customs Union.”
“There will be very tough struggles. One can’t hope that important decisions for Russian-Ukrainian relations will be easy to pass,” he said.
However, he expressed confidence that Ukraine would not go as far as denouncing some of its agreements or repealing legislation such as the free trade law or the law giving the Russian language a limited official status.
“Domestic political developments in Ukraine and the results of the elections for the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] bring it home to all of us that we need more intensive work on the inter-parliamentary front,” he said.
