You're reading: Ukrainians skeptical about law granting special status to Donbas region

 Ukrainians are not happy about the law passed behind closed doors at the behest of President Petro Poroshenko to grant special status to Kremlin-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region. Nor do they think the law will bring peace.

The Verkhovna Rada, flouting democratic procedures, backed the bill on special status of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts on Sept. 16. 

In a GfK poll published on Sept. 23, only one third of respondents backed the law, while nearly 44 percent percent of Ukrainians are against it. Nearly two-thirds — 62 percent — of Ukrainians do not think that the law on the special self-government status for individual districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts will guarantee peace in eastern Ukraine.

The self-rule status for a number of districts in eastern Ukraine “is designed for three years,” according to Poroshenko.

Kyiv Post+ is a special project covering Russia’s war against Ukraine and the aftermath of the EuroMaidan Revolution.

But the fact that the law gives Russia-backed militants control over huge swaths of eastern Ukraine was passed behind closed doors is wrong, according to 67 percent of the respondents.

“This law is a betrayal of national interests,” said Oleksandra Brovko, 23, while commenting on a bill. “And what about the price Ukraine paid for that. What people were dying for?”  

However, a number of officials backed Poroshenko’s initiative.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Facebook page that Poroshenko had no choice (than to sign the law) because, if he had refused to conclude the deal, Russian troops advancing in eastern Ukraine would have moved towards Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhiya and Kharkiv.

“These laws just shows Poroshenko’s intent to bring conciliation to the Donbas region. I don’t see any betrayal of national interests in this specific law,” reads Gerashchenko’s post.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]