Disgraced former President Victor Yanukovych called for urgent action to resolve the ongoing separatist violence in eastern Ukraine in a statement from Rostov-on-Don on April 21.
Yanukovych requested the “immediate removal of all Ukrainian
Armed Forces from the east of Ukraine, sent there as a detachment of the
so-called ‘national guard,’ dressed in military uniforms and armed with
automatic weapons and grenades.”
Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine on February 22 after being
accused of ordering riot police to fire on activists demanding his removal from
power, called for “the immediate commencement of peaceful dialogue with the
leaders of the eastern regions.”
He warned the leaders of
the post-revolutionary government in Ukraine that they “are one step away from
bloodshed.”
“Blood cannot be washed away. Stop!” he said, according to the statement carried by the Russian media.
His statement came on
the same day that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press
conference in Moscow that he expected “more and more calls for Russia to save
[eastern Ukrainian residents] from this lawlessness. They are putting us in a
really difficult situation.”
Many analysts believe that Russian
leaders are looking for a pretext to intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine,
much like they did in Crimea before formally annexing the peninsula.
Yanukovych, who sought
asylum in Russia after fleeing Ukraine, has made statements and given press
conferences in Rostov-on-Don several times since being removed from power in
February.
Yanukovych maintains
that he is the legitimate president of Ukraine, denouncing the EuroMaidan
Revolution that brought down his administration as a “coup.”
If Russia annexes parts
of eastern Ukraine, or if the Ukrainian government gives in to separatists’
requests for more regional autonomy, many suspect that Yanukovych could return
to power there.
On April 21, Sergei
Aksenov, the Kremlin-backed leader of separatists in Crimea, said that
Yanukovych could return to Ukraine as early as May 11.
Leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine are demanding that a referendum on greater regional
autonomy, or even joining with Russia, be held on May 11.
On April 15, the
government in Kyiv launched an anti-terrorist operation in northern Donetsk
Oblast. However, many Ukrainian troops defected, while others simply surrendered,
giving separatists their weapons and even their armored personnel carriers. They were later recaptured by the Ukrainian army.
Yanukovych encouraged
the Ukrainian government not to use force in the east, saying that armed
confrontation in Donetsk Oblast “will not change anything.”
He suggested that the
anti-terrorist operation may have done more to hurt than help the Ukrainian
government’s credibility, saying that the government in Kyiv needed to do more
to reach out to residents of eastern Ukraine.
“People are feeling
insulted. You have called millions of people ‘terrorists’. The people have no
other option except to fight for their rights, for their lives and for their
children,” Yanukovych said.
Kyiv Post Staff Writer Isaac Webb can be reached
on Twitter @isaacdwebb or at [email protected]
