All plans to return the Ukrainian territories under Kyiv’s control, which have been proposed before, are populist or treacherous. The Head of the UKROP political council, MP Taras Batenko said it on February, 23 in the program “Right to Rule” on the air of “1+1” TV channel.
According to the politician, independent Ukraine has never had a state preventive plan for Ukrainization of Crimea and involvement of Crimean Tatars in the governing bodies of the autonomy, while they have actually been the main center of the Ukrainian heritage.
The Ukrainian authorities did not provide possible measures in case of the Russian aggression even after its attack against Georgia in 2008. The absence of any strategy is also proved by the transcript of NSDC meeting on February 28, 2014. The maximum that could be done by the state leadership after Russia’s attacks – was to address diplomatic notes to the international community, said the MP.
“The plan to return the occupied territories should lie in the fact that we have to bring up a point of recognizing Russia as an occupant,” said Taras Batenko. The politician is convinced that the Ukrainian leadership first of all should comply with the first paragraph of the law on defense, which requires introduction of martial law on the territory of confrontation in case of aggression. Then there should be a rupture of diplomatic relations and trade cut off with the occupants. Instead of this, the authorities still rely only on the Minsk agreements that are not implemented and do not contain a single item on returning the Crimea.
