Below is a translation from an article over at der Spiegel discussing the current make up of the Ukrainian ‘provisional’ governing body and suggestive signs of pending civil war — The T-Room.
By Uwe Klußmann
Right-wing extremists in the coalition , protests in the East : The Provisional Government has the situation in Ukraine is not under control. The experts confirm the input from the federal government. But Premier Yatsenyuk refuses to draw conclusions from his failed policies .
The gesture of the incumbent Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk should act conciliatory . In Russian , the prime minister turned in the past week on television to the residents of the Russian-speaking regions in the south and east.
” My wife speaks mostly Russian ,” said Yatsenyuk and promised the preservation of the annulled by Parliament Language Act , which regulates the use of Russian . The Prime Minister offered a vague ” decentralization of power ” with elections of mayors and city councils ” in the coming year .”
However, the appeal faded effect. On the weekend demonstrated in eastern and southern Ukraine again thousands against the Kiev government and for referenda on the status of their regions. Most people in the Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine simply do not believe the promises of the government.
Here, the Cabinet in Kiev has just been appointed a deputy Jazenjuks for those responsible for the ” protection of national minorities.” The flaw: Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Sytsch belongs to Swoboda . At the same extreme right party so their Member of Parliament Igor Miroshnichenko the chief of state television in the past week forced with blows to resign.
With such personnel , the reconciliation of the National Ukrainian West and Russia-friendly East can not succeed. However, does the Prime Minister not one – he holds fast to the coalition with the nationalists. Yatsenyuk assesses the situation also unrealistic : He speaks in the message to the East Ukrainians thereof, in them there is only “artificial conflicts ” that would fomented by ” external forces ” – is meant Russia.
Government against federalism
In fact – the leadership in Moscow encourages doubt about the state television , the Russian forces. But there are Ukrainians who go to tens of thousands against the government on the road.
To the east, ever louder call for a new federal system of the country is from the perspective Jazenjuks only a move Moscow : “More federalism is the first step to destroy the Ukrainian sovereignty ,” he told the ” Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
The problem is the premier but : federalist system on the German model he could even if he wanted to , not enforce his right-wing coalition partners Swoboda . The new “National Guard ” to the Yatsenyuk calls the young Ukrainians , divided the nation . Because the Guard is a rallying from nationalists , especially from the west of the country . In Odessa Russian-speaking young protesters greeted the troops with the cry of ” Traitor ! ”
So drives the leadership in Kiev , the country on the path to civil war . In the Federal Chancellery and the Foreign Office , we now know what risks does the policy of the Ukrainian transitional government in itself. There is circulating an eight-page dossier from the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP ), entitled “Ukraine in the midst of crisis.” The analysis determines the total loss of confidence in the leadership in Kiev in the east of the country and warns that “there is hardly representative of the government, with which the majority of the population can identify the eastern and southern regions”.
Presidential elections questionable
The government , according to the dossier had ” devastating message to the residents of eastern regions ” sent and as a consequence in these parts ” little influence ” . The appointment of oligarchs to governors in the east , the analysis , the government undermines their credibility and ability .
The study’s authors doubt whether the 25 for the Can take place in May announced presidential elections. They consider it questionable whether it would succeed in the government “to ensure a level of stability that is sufficient to be able to properly run the election .”
The dossier of the co-financed by the Federal Chancellery foundation is formulated diplomatically. But it concludes a fiasco . The authors analyze aptly that Russian President Vladimir Putin “at any price a consolidation of a Ukrainian government seeks to prevent .”
Only the authors spare their readers the logical conclusion : That the government in Kiev, a conglomerate of pragmatic amateurs , dubious oligarchs and unbridled ultra-nationalists , Ukraine can not stabilize . And that it is so inevitably doomed to failure.