27.07.2015, Strategic
Culture Foundation http://www.strategic-culture.org (Russia), Фонд
стратегической культуры http://www.fondsk.ru (Россия)
The settlement of local ethnic conflicts is
considered to be one of the most difficult diplomatic problems. The reason for
this is that reconciliation does not require the government or the armies of
both sides, but the people themselves, each of which genuinely considers themselves
a victim of enemy action. And sometimes it is not even enemy action, but that
of another ethnic group. The conflict between Ukraine and Novorossiya is a
typical example, despite the fact that the same Ukrainians, Russians, Greeks,
Bulgarians and Jews living in the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics (DPR and LPR)
are the same as in the rest of Ukraine.
After punitive operations began against
Donbass, however, its population does not associate itself with Ukraine,
calling them «Moskals» for wanting to remain closer to Russia than to Kiev,
while the latter do not want to be identified with Ukrainians, calling them
«Ukrops» (‘dill heads’). But everyone is trying to force people with two
mutually exclusive ideologies, two irreconcilable cultures and two opposing world
views to be reconciled. Those who do not understand that reconciliation will
only come when mutual exclusion, intransigence and opposition disappear, when a
compromise is found and not crushed by one of the sides involved.
* * *
One of the tasks given to Ukraine by the
Minsk agreements and the UN Security Council resolution is to make changes to
the constitution that reinforce the special status of the DPR and LPR.
The task is so complicated that the Kiev
authorities have seemingly found themselves in a hopeless situation: failure is
not an option. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly declared: «What
would the failure of the reform mean? First – it’s the end of the international
coalition to support Ukraine.» It was not for nothing that, for the sake of the
right solution, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who is in
charge of Ukraine, arrived in Kiev on the eve of the vote in the Verkhovna Rada
on Poroshenko’s proposed changes to the constitution. Literally right before
the issue was considered in parliament. And after the meeting with the
Ukrainian president, changes were introduced into the draft. And what changes!
Instead of
