Leonid Kuchma, who was president of Ukraine in 1994-2005, believes that promoting the idea of the federalization of Ukraine in the current political crisis in the country threatens the sovereignty and integrity of the state.
“I think this issue is just harmful to Ukraine. Politicians who promote it either do not understand the possible consequences or deliberately provoke the situation to ‘ruin Ukraine.’ For this reason, promoting the issue of federalization in the current acute and large-scale political crisis means fuelling this crisis. It’s a real threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Kuchma said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Historians consider statements about the federalization of Ukraine to be purely ignorant. Historically, federalism has always developed ‘downward,’ not ‘upward.’ The current federative states were once formed as unions of smaller, independent entities, for various purposes. Frequently the purpose was to increase defense potential,” Kuchma said.
Kuchma also criticized attempts to present the regions of Ukraine created under the Soviets as a prototype of a federative system of Ukraine. “The division into regions can in no way be accepted as a federalization matrix,” he said.
Kuchma, however, said he has always supported the idea of “decentralization of administration.” “We tried to resolve these issues in the 2004 political reform, which was expected to give more powers to the regions and expand the rights of local self-government bodies. Unfortunately, the political reform was ended after 2005 and was fully abolished in 2010,” he said.
“In the meantime, decentralization of administration and local self-government reform in a combination with a well thought-out administrative-territorial, budget, and tax reforms could help resolve problems that now enable some politicians to exploit the idea of the federalization of Ukraine. However, it requires serious, long, and responsible work,” he said.
