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Thursday 20 February 2014 - 08:46

Ukraine conflict spinning out of control

Story Code : 353631
Ukraine conflict spinning out of control
Question: Mr. Jatras, just how close are we to seeing a civil war in Ukraine? Administrative and government buildings are of course little by little being seized and weapons can be seen in the hands of the opposition?
 
Jatras: I think that danger definitely exists and I think all steps need to be taken to avert that outcome.
 
    You are right. We have heard reports of takeover of police stations in parts of western Ukraine, the seizure of weapons, there are pictures of protesters with rifles. Several policemen have been killed evidently with gunshot wounds. This rapidly seems to be spinning out of control.  
 
Q: And of course why do you think the opposition was not content, so to say, with accepting a coalition government?
 
Jatras: I suppose it is possible that the opposition did not trust the government, that they thought they were trying to slow roll them on power sharing, on return to the 2004 constitution which I think there is broad agreement.
 
I think that the peculiar thing that set up this intensification of violence was the protesters were marching on the parliament earlier on Tuesday. The parliament was blocked by police and then suddenly violence broke out.
 
There is no indication I saw that the police are the ones who initiated this attack but rather the protesters but now the police seem to be responding with very strong force.  
 
Q: And finally, many say the crisis is because Ukraine did not join the EU. Just how successful would an EU accession have been for Ukraine?
 
Jatras: Well not at all. To start with the EU is never offering membership to Ukraine. They were not even offering visa free travel which is something that Ukraine had asked for, for a long time.  
 
This is never a question of whether Ukraine will be allowed to join the EU but rather whether they would sign a trade agreement after President Yanukovych decided not to do that and when the Russians decided to provide financial aid that Europe would not, things began to spin out of control from there, but membership in the EU was never on the table.
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