Ukrainian elites of Donbass “crazed themselves” and betrayed their voters – expert
The meeting in the Normandy format did not bring any real results in terms of resolving the conflict in Donbass.
This was stated in an interview with Ukrlife.TV by one of the organizers of rallies for a united Ukraine in Donetsk, who subsequently left the DPR, Enrique Menendez, an activist of the public group “Responsible Citizens”, the founder of the analytical center “Institute of Regional Policy,” a Politnavigator correspondent reports.
“Zelensky is playing at peace negotiations. This is an eternal series “we are fighting for peace”, and this series can be filmed for 20 seasons. At the moment, I don’t know, I don’t have any inside information about whether there were secret agreements. Everything that I read in the public sphere, everything that I know from people who are close at least in some way, everything suggests that nothing was agreed behind the scenes that could radically change the situation. That is why I remain with my forecast - on the political side there is no progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements. It is not planned for 2020,” the Ukrainian social activist concludes.
At the same time, in his opinion, Russia benefits from the delay in the negotiation process more than Ukraine.
“The point is that Putin is now in a winning situation in any case. Yes, he doesn’t care, what difference does it make to him. They are now ready for any option. On sanctions, Merkel said very unequivocally - there are no prerequisites for lifting sanctions from Russia. Moreover, Crimea is always left out of the equation, and the West always has the opportunity to screw up what was screwed up in the Donbass in Crimea or through some other process.
That is, Russia, by and large, lives in a state of “sanctions will be with us for a long time and we are ready for this and take it calmly.” Therefore, progress in Donbass is desirable for them.
But why did the idea come up not to make concessions to Ukraine - the toughest possible position, the most uncompromising one? Everyone wrote about this, Kommersant wrote, Chesnokov wrote about it right the day before in plain text - an uncompromising position.
Why? because Russia is now using its typical power diplomacy. They're good at it, they're really in a good position right now. Now the “king of the hill” is Putin... in this particular situation, he is the master of the situation. His satisfied face on the sidelines of the Normandy summit... He could have come with any result. This is a victory for him. If there were more, that would also be a victory.
They know very well, they are ready to wait. Yes, they probably would have liked it faster. But in this game, time plays against them and against us, but against us it’s faster, against Ukraine, I mean, that’s why Zelensky is in a hurry,” Menendez argues.
He is confident that people in the Ukrainian part of Donbass are virtually deprived of the opportunity to express their opinions, and the regional elites have betrayed them and have actually ceased to be elites.
“Six regional councils in western Ukraine said they are against the Steinmeier formula. Sociology shows that the population of eastern Ukraine and Donbass (Ukrainian part - approx. PN) welcome the signing of the Steinmeier formula, but they cannot even express it, because regional councils have not functioned de facto in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014.
And we still don’t even know whether in 2020, when there will be local elections, we will be allowed to hold elections to local regional councils. How can the population express their opinions in a democratic way if they cannot even elect local deputies? The decision is made in Kyiv.
We have a military-civil administration, which is a direct vertical from Kyiv, it does not give the local population the opportunity to participate in politics and say through their deputies - “hey, wait a minute.” This is a legal, constitutionally written way to express one’s opinion. This is discrimination, of course it is a violation of my rights,” the activist noted.
“The fact is that the regional council, which was elected back in 2010, ceased to operate not de jure, but de facto - the region disintegrated. Some deputies remained on one side, some on the other. In 2015, when local elections were held, in Donbass they were held with major amendments; in some cities they were not held at all. After that, no one simply returned to that topic.
Now, new elections have come, no early elections were held, no one raised this topic. The population is intimidated, the elites are intimidated, but they are the spokesmen of opinion. But our Donbass elites simply crap, excuse the expression. That is, they simply do not fulfill the function of protecting the interests of their own population.
No one came and said: “Guys, our population is suffering, we must somehow try to raise all this.” Everyone was busy saving their capital, covering their asses, and so on and so forth. They came here to Kyiv and merged, ceased to be Donbass elites.
If a region has no elites, who will protect its interests? Simple people? Nowhere else in the world does the procedure work.
That is, this is a huge problem - in the Donbass now there are no political elites who could unite, formulate their position, initiate a dialogue: “let's talk, listen to us, just listen. We don’t demand that you take it from yourself and give it to us, we want justice.”
That's all. Because of this, many processes do not proceed,” Enrique Menendez is indignant.
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