It has taken more than three years and 10,000 deaths, but Ukraine’s government may finally stop calling Russia’s war against the nation an “anti-terrorist operation.”
According to Andriy Parubiy, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, new legislation to regain sovereignty over Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, will reshape Ukraine’s approach to curbing Russian aggression in the country’s east.
A draft bill was presented on June 19 by Oleksandr Turchynov, the chairman of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, during a Narodny Front party faction meeting, Parubiy said.
“In general, it … formally recognizes the occupied territories as being occupied (by Russia), and most importantly, it sets out the legal basis for fighting the war,… delegating this authority to the commander-in-chief and the National Security and Defense Council,” Parubiy said.
The bill sets out the legal basis for engaging all of the nation’s forces in prosecuting the war without imposing martial law and restricting democratic functions, such as holding elections, in the war zone.
The wording of the law represents a compromise between supporters and opponents of the imposition of martial law in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, Parubiy said.
The new law could be fast-tracked through the Verkhovna Rada by the end of the summer parliamentary session on July 15, Ukrainian Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said on June 19.
Speaking of the need for the new legislation, Turchynov said in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on June 14 that after three years of hostilities against Russian-backed forces in the east, the ATO, or anti-terrorist operation, had exhausted itself “in both duration and scale.”
The ATO was initially launched on April 7, 2014, by Turchynov – then Ukraine’s acting president – after Russian armed special operations forces started seizing police, security, and local government offices in the east of the country.
The ATO has since been conducted in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts by Ukraine’s SBU security service, in cooperation with the armed forces, National Police and National Guard, under Ukrainian legislation on fighting terrorism.
“The anti-terror operation has achieved a lot of crucial tasks,” Turchynov told Interfax-Ukraine. “In the ATO, we stopped the aggressor, managed to hold presidential, parliamentary and local elections, and also liberated a lot of occupied Ukrainian territory.”
At the same time, current legislation on national defense does not address the modern type of hybrid warfare that Russia is waging against Ukraine, so it is time to come up with a new format of defense that is “not restricted by the limits of the ATO,” Turchynov said.
Turchynov also said the new legislation for conducting the war in the Donbas would not contradict the Minsk peace agreements, first struck with Russia and its proxy forces in the Donbas in September 2014.
While the final text of the law is not 100 percent ready, the bulk of it has been approved by National Security and Defense Council, as source in Ukraine’s security services, who is not authorized to speak to the press, told the Kyiv Post on condition of anonymity.
The source said the bill foresees ending the war in the Donbas by non-military means, through the full implementation of the Minsk peace agreement. Ukraine will demand Russia returns to Ukrainian control over 400 kilometers of their shared border, through which Russia has supplied its proxy forces with men, weapons, and ammunition. The Kremlin will also have to withdraw all of its troops from Ukrainian soil.
Once security in the region is restored, a further political settlement, including the holding of local elections in the currently Russian-occupied areas, with be possible, according to the bill. The Russian-occupied areas are to be reintegrated with Ukraine.
The bill also terms Russia as an aggressor state, the source said.
The bill would set up an Operation Headquarters – a single command structure for all forces in front-line areas, which will include a system of civilian-military administrations for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The military will be empowered to operate in the area without there being a formal declaration of war or the imposition of martial law.
However, according to the bill, the president will have the option to declare martial law in the war zone if there is an escalation in fighting.
Earlier, Georgiy Tuka, the deputy minister of the occupied territories, also said that according to the bill Ukraine would seek a peaceful settlement in the Donbas.
“Any speculation about Ukraine ‘preparing an assault’ or ‘Kyiv deciding to act militarily’ is nothing but Russian propaganda to intimidate people and misinform our international allies,” Tuka wrote on his Facebook page on June 16.
