Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 9 – Ruslan Bortnik,
the head of the Ukrainian Institute for
Analysis and Management, says today that the idea now being floated by former
Ukrainian prime minister Nikolay Azarov to create a pro-Russian Ukrainian “government
in exile” comes too late to have any chance of having an impact.
“This initiative could have had a
certain effect in 2014 when the political emigration had weight and influence
in the information and economic sectors of Ukraine. Thus, the idea about
forming a government in exile now is at a minimum late and at a maximum simply
a publicity stunt” (lenta.ru/news/2017/01/09/late/).
Former Ukrainian officials and
politicians like Azarov who was prime minister between 2010 and 2014 have lost
all legitimacy in Ukraine, Bortnik says. Indeed there are “several parallel
shadow governments” in Ukraine and Azarov failed in 2015 to create a government
in exile. (See mk.ru/politics/2015/11/10/ischezlo-pravitelstvo-ukrainy-v-izgnanii.html.)
Azarov raised the possibility of creating
such a government now in an interview with Moscow’s “Izvestiya” newspaper (izvestia.ru/news/656045), encouraged
he said by a Moscow court’s decision on December 27 declaring the Maidan a coup
d’etat and thus fundamentally illegitimate.
The former Ukrainian official said
that conditions for such a government were emerging given what he said was the
inability of the ruling elite in Kyiv to “carry out their functions” and the
demands of “the people for an alternative power.” Such an organization could then raise issues about
Ukraine international courts and other organizations.
This last point is why Azarov’s
otherwise preposterous suggestion must be noted. Clearly, he and his Moscow
sponsors plan to try to use international institutions in that way to discredit
the current Ukrainian government, a tactic that unfortunately will attract some
support to their cause (cf. regnum.ru/news/polit/2224848.html).
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