During the past few days several radical proposals for what to do with Donbass were heard.
Ukrainian public people of a nationalist colour offer their formulas. To evict for 50 years from Ukraine, to disenfranchise, to take away pensions, to create filtration camps – these are only some of the proposals that known Ukrainians have so far shared on social networks while in Donbass an attempt is made to start disengaging military forces.
We collected the most scandalous statements that were made by Ukrainian politicians, writers, and journalists over the last five years.
“Leave Ukraine in any direction within three months”
On October 8th the former anchorman of “Karaoke on Maidan”, the producer Igor Kondratyuk, voiced his version of solving the situation in Donbass after Ukraine coordinated the Steinmeier formula.
Among the 10 points of “Kondratyuk’s program” – the eviction of residents of the Lugansk and Donetsk region outside of the borders of the country if they don’t state a desire to live in Ukraine, and also the deprivation of their electoral right for 10 years. And Kondratyuk suggested to deprive those who were involved in the organisation of so-called “referenda” of their right to vote for life.
The showman published his opinion on his Facebook page.
“Kondratyuk’s formula for solving the conflict in Donbass.
1. Ukraine returns control over the Eastern border (peacefully, with the help of the OSCE, UN peacekeepers, and all other important organisations). Therefore the ONLY point for the sake of which diplomats/heads from different countries gather in Minsk, Normandy, Geneva, or any other format is to force Russia to close its border with Ukraine. All other issues at such negotiations aren’t discussed owing to uselessness.
2. After Ukraine receives complete control over the Eastern border, the fighters of illegal armed groups of the so-called LPR and DPR voluntarily hand over their weapons.
3. For those who the Ukrainian military court will define as war criminals – sit in jail for the term established by the court.
4. The inhabitants of the so-called separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions within a month from the moment of the full restoration of the power of Kiev need to decide whether or not they want to live in the state of Ukraine.
5. For those who doesn’t want to – leave Ukraine in any direction within 3 months. Ukraine pays for them to ‘exit’. With a condition – not to return to Ukraine within 50 years after departure.
6. Those who will remain lose their electoral right for 10 years. In the Donetsk and Lugansk regions only those who have lived in Kiev-controlled territory since the beginning of the summer of 2014 will have the right to be elected to elected positions and serve in the police within 10 years.
7. Persons who were involved in the organisation of so-called ‘referenda’ on the so-called LPR and DPR and who remain to live in Ukraine lose their Ukrainian electoral right forever.
8. During the implementation of Paragraphs 1-7 Russia is silent, as if it has taken water into its mouth!
9. After the implementation of Paragraphs 1-7, the same formula is used to liberate the Crimea from Rashans [pejorative term for Russians – ed].
10. All nuclear countries except the Russian Federation act as a guarantor of the performance of the Kondratyuk formula for solving the conflict in Donbass”.
“40 years of cleansing, filtration camps, bash everyone”
A couple of days before Kondratyuk’s recipe, a formula was offered by the Lvov journalist Oleg Radyk, the host of “Big Talks”.
He called to beat up the residents of Donbass if they incorrectly respond to “Glory to Ukraine“. He also suggested to close all universities in the region and not to pay pensions. And to pass “collaborators” through filtration camps that need to be setup inside mines.
According to him, only 40 years of cleansing will make the temporarily non-controlled territory “actually Ukrainian”.
“If you want the truth about how to return Donbass. When we will enter there: 40 years of cleansing and Anti-terror; a ban on the use of the Russian language among officials; the closure of all universities – all; let them go to Lvov; financing of informers; f*ck pensions. For everyone. Allowances. Only allowances, for the victims of Russian occupation.
If the OSCE digs in, then get rid of them. Filtration camps for collaborators. On the territory of mines.
And to bash, bash, bash all who don’t respond correctly to ‘Glory to Ukraine’…
PS. I forgot. All shops have to be ‘Roshen‘. And 95th quarter on TV. And bash.
I am ready to become the head of the filtration camp or the police of Gorlovka in my old age,” wrote Radyk on Facebook.
After “strana.ua” wrote about his statement, Radyk decided to file a lawsuit against us. Or at least he wrote about such an intention on social networks.
Don’t grant IDPs the right to vote
The well-known Maidan activist, and in the recent past a deputy from the “Bloc of Petro Poroshenko” Mustafa Nayyem said in the past that displaced persons shouldn’t be granted electoral rights.
Within the framework of a round table in the building of the Verkhovna Rada he entered a skirmish with the judge of the Supreme Court Vasily Gumenyuk over of the right of inhabitants from Donbass to take part in local elections in the East of Ukraine.
“Imagine that we have hundreds of thousands of people who are registered on the controlled territory, close to the front line, who are IDPs, but in fact they live on that territory. Their center of vital interests is there. They, in one way or another, work with that power, if we allow the elections at the local level, we’ll get not an integrated power, but a power that will directly represent the interests of, let’s say, not quite Ukrainian forces,” said Nayyem.
Gumenyuk objected that the right to vote in Ukraine is guaranteed for every citizen via the Constitution.
It should be noted that earlier Nayyem introduced draft law No. 6240 – for the renewal of the Rada electoral rights of internally displaced persons.
“Our draft law will provide an opportunity to exercise legitimate and constitutional electoral rights during local elections not only for internally displaced persons, but also other mobile groups of citizens, for example labour migrants. Finally, an end will be put to the issue of discrimination of citizens by place of residence and regional grounds in the implementation of the election,” reported Nayyem in March 2017.
“Vote for Ukraine – remain alive and start anew. Vote for separation – goodbye”
The Ukrainian writer Yury Andrukhovich willingly spoke about what Ukraine should do with Donbass.
In 2010, i.e., several years prior to war, he said that Crimea and Donbass must separate from Ukraine.
“If ever there will be such a miracle that Ukraine will win again, figuratively speaking, orange, then it will be necessary to give Crimea and Donbass the chance to separate. Now they won’t do it, because today their people are sat in power in Kiev, but I almost don’t believe that orange will sometime come to power,” said Andrukhovich.
He said how, according to him, Crimea and Donbass differ from other regions of Ukraine. “Politically it is another nation. I already don’t touch on ethnic issues, only political ones. Politically it is a part of the Russian nation,” he said, and added that the territorial integrity of Ukraine is illusory.
“We constantly please ourselves with some illusion of territorial integrity that is already absent, it exists today only because their guy is sat on the throne in Kiev, i.e., 1/7th of Ukraine makes its decisive contribution to how the country as a whole lives. Therefore I wouldn’t refuse such a project and wouldn’t make this damned integrity any kind of dogma,” said the writer, expressing an opinion that today would be called separatism.
In 2014 he said in another interview that keeping Donbass as a part of Ukraine “is possible only at the price of concessions that are fatal for our European future”.
“Once again it is necessary to cajole Donbass really largely. Yes, it is still possible to keep Donbass in Ukraine, but it will be such a Ukraine…” he noted.
According to Andrukhovich, simply stopping the fighting and bringing troops out of Donbass will mean capitulation.
“This is a very bad beginning for our new future, very traumatic. The separation of Donbass from Ukraine would have to create the impression that we have not lost it, but gotten rid of it,” said the writer.
In 2019 he continued to talk about his vision of the Donbass problem and propose an action plan.
“Donbass is such a disease that, with a very favourable combination of circumstances, the price of serious losses, first and foremost the lives of our military, is in general possible to heal. However soon, at the most improper moment for the whole country, this disease will come out again in such a relapse that it will not seem enough. God would give our President enough mind that he already started some imperceptible movements to get rid of this disease, slowly unhook this burning carriage from the Ukrainian train.
My vision is such: It is necessary to pressure Donbass, terrorists, if to speak like their idol Putin, to wipe them out. Then to establish temporary military authorities there. And then already to hold a fair legitimate referendum in due form and with all international observers. If they vote for Ukraine – let them live with us and start anew, mature, grow wiser. If they vote for separation – goodbye. Breathe a sigh of relief and cross oneself. You ask, why did our fighters die and continue to die? They perish for Ukraine, for our freedom. It is thanks to their feat that the fighting is going on in Donbass, and not, for example, somewhere in the Poltava region,” said Andrukhovich in an interview to “AiF”.
Concerning the Crimean Tatars, he reproached them for being sat at home when the “little green men” came.
“There are people who just need to be killed”
The Ukrainian journalist Bogdan Butkevich, who works for “Espresso TV”, offered an action plan concerning Donbass and its inhabitants. During an April airing in 2014 he advised to get rid of 1.5 million superfluous, according to him, residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
“Donbass is not just a depressive region. There is a crazy number of unnecessary people there… I talk about this completely consciously. In the Donetsk region there are about four million inhabitants. And no less than one and a half million are superfluous,” said Butkevich.
He also said that in Donbass there are people who should be killed.
“We should understand the Ukrainian national interest. But Donbass needs to be used as a resource…. Concerning Donbass: I don’t know the recipe for how to do this quickly. However, the main thing that needs to be done: there are people who just need to be killed,” said the journalist.
Temporarily deprive them of their civil rights. Avakov’s plans
Everything said above could be perceived as the nonsense of marginals if such ideas weren’t voiced by quite official persons, albeit not in such a radical form.
Last summer the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov proposed several plans for the reintegration of Donbass “after victory”.
Victory most likely means the deployment of peacekeepers, which at the time was actively being discussed. So actively that Ukrainian politicians started to share out the “skin of the not-yet-killed separatist”.
In one of his Facebook posts, Avakov suggested to introduce the status “inhabitant of territory temporarily not controlled by Ukraine” – until the recovery of legitimate Ukrainian documents.
This is a strange statement taking into account that nobody has yet taken away the Ukrainian passports of Donetsk and Lugansk residents.
I.e., in essence this is the mass filtration of inhabitants of the LDPR. The minister explains this “filtration” as follows:
“In the temporarily occupied territories there were not only adherents of the ‘Russian world’ and admirers of Putin’s regime, but also those who couldn’t leave for absolutely personal, non-political reasons, elderly people and those whose health didn’t allow them to leave or they simply had no health… Over the years of the war, families were created there and children were born, schoolchildren became students, people reached retirement age… All of this created a big field of legal uncertainty that must be properly brought into legal status, and it will take time”.
In another post Avakov suggested to introduce a presumption of guilt for the inhabitants of the DPR and LPR, which the minister understands as the “consistent restoration of all civil rights and freedoms” for all residents of those territories.
I.e., their automatic defeat of their rights “before trial”.
The minister suggested to strike these rights for 5-10 years. And also to revoke electoral rights.
“I think that the rights of the people from the occupied territories will be struck concerning central government elections – parliamentary, presidential, and so on. But this is normal international practice. This was done in all post-conflict zones, starting from post-Franco Spain and ending with the Balkans. Too hot emotions are calmed by time. This period was always from 5 to 10 years. After that the territory completely enjoyed full rights,” said the minister in one of an interview.
Even back then the emergence of such plans was perceived by many as the attempt of Avakov and the “party of war” in Ukraine to disrupt the prospects of the negotiation process for the peaceful reintegration of the non-controlled territories.
It is clear that if the residents of the “DPR” and “LPR” say that they will automatically become second-class people in Ukraine, then they will not have any desire to integrate.
And it also isn’t a coincidence that talk about discrimination against Donetsk people started to sound with new force and now, when for the first time in many years there was a prospect of starting the process of political settlement in Donbass.
And they are voiced in a very radical way (Kondratyuk and Radyk).
And here the position of the government is important. Will it react in the legal field to so frank appeals to infringe on the rights of a part of Ukrainians and to incite hatred towards Donbass? I.e., will criminal proceedings be initiated against “warmongers”? Or will it pretend that nothing bad happened?
The prospects of the peace process in relation to Donbass also largely depend on the answer to this question.
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