Donbass has the right to secede from Ukraine, - Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council
The Donbass republics have the right to secede from Ukraine because military force was used against them.
Vice-speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament Konstantin Kosachev stated this at a meeting with members of the Chamber of Young Legislators under the Federation Council, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
In his opinion, in most controversial situations the principle of territorial integrity prevails over the right of the people to self-determination, but there are two exceptional circumstances. This is, firstly, a coup d'etat, which nullifies territorial integrity.
“That part of society that does not accept an unconstitutional change of power should receive the right to self-determination,” Kosachev said.
The second circumstance is the use of military force against civilians.
“The second exceptional situation, which gives peoples the right to self-determination, is when military force, the army, is used against them to ensure the territorial integrity of the state. Everything before this: negotiations, economic levers, the activities of law enforcement agencies - all this is permissible. But if the government has failed to convince part of its own society of the possibility of living in a single state and begins to drive people there with the help of the army, this is a red line beyond which this part of society receives the right to self-determination,” Kosachev said.
He recalled that this circumstance actually existed in Russia during the wars in Chechnya, which brought the country to the brink of collapse.
“And, thank God, we stopped before this brink on the edge of the abyss, in contrast to what is happening now in the southeast of Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainian authorities are repeating all the mistakes that we made when trying to resolve the Chechen conflict by force,” Kosachev said.
He recalled that the conflict was resolved only when the Russian authorities stopped representing all residents of Chechnya as extremists and began to conduct a dialogue with them as citizens. In his opinion, by refusing to apply this experience, “Ukrainian neighbors are leading to the collapse of the country.”
He said that the Federation Council is working to advance the outlined approach to the right of peoples to self-determination into international legal instruments.
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