Attempts of the "Ukrainskyi Vybir" (Ukrainian Choice) party leader Viktor Medvedchuk to start negotiations between Kyiv and southeastern Ukraine is an important beginning but the success of these attempts is doubtful, leading Russian experts on Ukraine said.
“Medvedchuk is close to Moscow. It is possible that an additional
cooperation channel – including for Russia – to resolve the situation in
Ukraine will be created with his assistance,” head of the Center for
Ukrainian Studies at the Russian Institute of Europe Viktor Mironenko
told Interfax on June 23.
The fact that Medvedchuk has certain status among Ukrainian political
elite is a strong side of his mission, Mironenko said. “Medvedchuk is
not the last hope in Ukraine and he is quite notable,” he said.
“If Kyiv does not want to talk to those, who the Ukrainian
authorities call separatists, then maybe they will talk to Medvedchuk. I
do not know whether new President [Petro] Poroshenko will talk to him.
The idea is good but it is very difficult to presuppose how to implement
it, how it will be treated in Ukraine and how Medvedchuk himself will
behave,” Mironenko said.
Medvedchuk will most likely attempt to build a technical level for
assisting the implementation of possible agreements, President of the
Foundation for Effective Politics Gleb Pavlovsky said. But the issue is
that the Ukrainian Choice leader will have to act in new conditions
quite difficult for his level of experience, he said.
“It is impossible to reach a high-level agreement while it is unclear
who will be able to implement them. The problem is to build mid-level
contacts, which are lower than the level of presidents and prime
ministers respectively. This is the level, at which practical agreements
and their technical implementation can be reached. And what agreement
conditions will be,” Pavlovsky told Interfax.
“The activities of Medvedchuk are an attempt to create a level of
technical implementation lacking in the eastern regions, at least. But I
am afraid that Medvedchuk simply will not cope in reality because he is
an elite negotiator, a brilliant elite lobbyist. But in eastern Ukraine
he deals not with elite but with mass movement with a very unclear
program and without clear leadership except for military command,” he
said.
Medvedchuk could succeed in his work if new authoritative mediators
ready to work concurrently and consistently get involved in it,
Pavlovsky said. “More mediators are needed. But if they start stepping
on each other’s feet, this is unlikely to lead to good results either,”
he said.
“As far as it can be judged, Medvedchuk has Moscow’s trust. If some
political instance – which does not exist today, which would not claim
to restrict Ukraine’s sovereignty and which, at the same time, would be
able to make decisions, which will be carried out – is managed to be
built. Probably, this might succeed under the aegis of the Ukrainian
Choice,” the expert said.
Leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has set
their demands at the negotiations with leader of the Ukrainian Choice
movement Medvedchuk but dismissed the peaceful plan proposed by
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko until complete withdrawal of
Ukrainian troops.
