Ukraine's former President (2005-2010) Viktor Yuschenko has called on the authorities and opposition to start a dialogue immediately and to discontinue violence against civilians.
“Political negotiations must be a way to exit the situation both tactically – for today, and from the viewpoint of Ukrainian citizens’ strategic demands. A victory of the street, the advantage of force in standoffs could become the first episode in a civil war. Such a scenario should by no means be realized,” Yuschenko said in a statement posted on the Web site of Our Ukraine Party.
The values of an independent, sovereign, integral Ukraine as a European state must make up the ideological outline of the political solution of the crisis, he said.
“The lack of political leadership and the absence of a clear realistic plan of action became not only the main problem in preserving the authoritative status of the opposition, but also radicalized the Maidan protestors,” Yuschenko said.
“People never heard anything specific proposing a way out of the situation. While the authorities fully ignore any of the demands of the Maidan and effectively declare it as being outside the law, both on the basis of court bans and through the passing of a package of new laws, the Maidan resorted to the last means – an open radical resistance. The most radical groups have come to the vanguard,” he said.
The standoff in Hrushevskoho Street in central Kyiv might not have been, if the law enforcement agencies had not obstructed a peaceful demonstration of activists and vehicles from the Automaidan protest movement, he said.
