Fragment of the Tsaryev interview for "Svobodnaya Pressa"

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   kravietz 🦇 (kravietz@agora.echelon.pl)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 21:26:13 JST kravietz 🦇

   For the ninth anniversary of the beginning of the #Euromaidan, Denis Kazansky recalls an interview with Oleg Tsaryov, a former #Ukraine politician who switched to #Russia in 2014.

   There, Tsaryov talks about the Party of Regions’ plans to forcibly introduce a #Belarus-style lifetime presidency for Yanukovych which would guarantee “friendly relations with Russia”.

   Yanukovych of course reckoned likely protests and even a separatist movement in Western Ukraine.

   This is especially intended for those who have read about the ‘meddling of European politicians in Ukrainian affairs’ in 2013 and feel it was somehow not OK.

   Well, the problem is that before anyone from the EU even managed to ‘meddle’, it was Moscow that not only pumped billions of roubles into pro-Russian militias in Ukraine, but already had a plan ready for a ‘peaceful annexation’, including pacification of the protests, which according to Tsarov required just a little ‘toughness’ (we have already seen it in Mariupol, Izyum and Bucha).

   As a reminder, the immediate reason of the start of the protest, which was later dubbed ‘Euromaidan’, was Yanukovych’s unexpected cancellation of the cooperation agreement with the EU and its replacement by deepened integration with Russia’s CIS after an equally unexpected secret visit to Putin. The cancellation was shocking for Ukrainians, because EU cooperation (not even membership at that stage!) was giving hope after years of economic stagnation within Russia’s economic zone. For Russia, of course, it would be highly beneficial as it opened gates for Russian investors into takeover of Ukraine’s land and access to cheap workforce, and gave Putin hope to revive the dying CIS for a few more years.