Donetsk Governor Pavlo Zhebrivsky has threatened to use force toretake occupied territories if the Russian-separatist side continues violating the Minsk truce brokered in February.
“We could enforce a
short-term blockade and then reestablish Ukrainian control in all of the
Donetsk Oblast by force,” he said in an interview with France 24 TV channel and
the Le Figaro newspaper on June 21.
The bold statement was
made ahead of the scheduled June 23 diplomatic talks in Paris between the
leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia.
It was a wakeup call
for Western governments, political expert Taras Berezovets of Berta
Communications wrote. The European Union had set the tone for the Paris talks
by extending sanctions on June 22 imposed on Russia for annexing Crimea in
March 2014 and for its role in the war in eastern Ukraine for another six
months.
Two Ukrainian soldiers
were killed on June 22 due to continued shelling, authorities in Kyiv said.
Zhebrivsky’s threat could also be seen as a war
of words in response to demands put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin
on June 19, Berezovets told the Kyiv Post. Referring to Ukraine and talking
about the armed conflict, Putin said that “once an attempt is made to resolve the issue
by political means, the weapons will be gone.”
Asked whether Putin acknowledged that
the weapons were controlled by him, Berezovets said, “no.”
Putin also denied direct connection to
his command over the combined Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, adding
that “warring sides always manage to get access to weapons.”
Some analysts however said that his statement
was the closest yet that Putin came to admitting the presence of weapons under
his control in the east. This view was strengthened when Putin proceeded to
list the conditions under which “weapons would no longer be necessary.”
Ukraine would, under the pretext of
decentralization, – distributing more authority and functions to regional and
local governments – have to guarantee
the occupied territories a degree of autonomy for them to keep their own armed
police force, establish their own justice system and conclude treaties with
foreign powers and hold separate referendums.
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Zhebrivsky (center with tie on) inspects defensive fortifications in the Azov coastal city of Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast earlier this month soon after being appointed to the position June 11.
Ukraine would have to bear the financial burden of the war-torn region. Kyiv would have to be a militarily neutral country restricted from ever seeking NATO membership. Moreover, this would all have to be written into the Ukrainian constitution, Putin said.
Vladimir Socor, a political analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, called the demands “constitutional obstacles against Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic and European aspirations,” and stated that the restrictions the demands would impose on Ukraine went far beyond “decentralization” and “special status” of self-governance in the occupied territories as prescribed by the Minsk peace agreement. Berezovets said that Putin’s main aim was to destabilize Ukraine and that reincorporation of the occupied territories in the east into Ukraine on his terms would help him achieve just that: “They are his way of poisoning the rest of the country,” he said.
After initially endorsing a plan for autonomy for the occupied territories, Kyiv has backpedaled after Russia’s proxies conducted phony local elections last November where only the militia leaders were allowed to campaign. As per the peace deal, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has repeatedly insisted that all foreign troops be withdrawn, control over Ukraine’s border with Russia be restored and multi-party local elections held in accordance with Ukrainian legislation.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said on June 8 that the joint Russian-separatist forces in eastern Ukraine were more than 42,000 strong and supported by 556 tanks, “enough to defend a medium-sized European country.”
Threatening to use force, Zhebrivskyi stressed that it was up to the central authorities to make strategic decisions concerning the occupied territories.
“Our task as a local
administration is to provide security, to normalize life and show that life on
this side is fundamentally better than life on the other side,” he said.
