© AFP 2016/ SERGEY VOLSKII
13:48 06.08.2016(updated 15:46 06.08.2016) Get short URL
For over two years, Ukrainian authorities have been
making claims of a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine involving thousands of
regular troops. Now, a sensible voice in Ukraine's own parliament is asking
authorities to provide evidence for the oft-repeated claims.
In April 2014, a couple
months following a coup d'état which toppled Ukraine's former government,
Kiev launched a military operation against rebellious residents
in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, who were angry over the putsch
and fearful of the new authorities' threats against the country's
Russian minority.
© AFP 2016/ ANATOLII STEPANOV
The military operation has left large areas of these regions
destroyed, thousands dead and over two million people displaced. From the
start, the government in Kiev has accused Russia not only
of supporting the self-proclaimed republics, but of intervening
directly using the regular Russian army.
At various times, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has told Western
reporters of a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine involving some9,000, 50,000,
or even 200,000 troops. For a long time, Western
media believed him. Some still do. In a scandalous interview with ABC News
host George Stephanopoulous late last month, Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump questioned the media narrative that Russia had invaded Ukraine,
resulting in a frenzy of media commentaryattacking him for being
'wrong' about Russia 'not going into Ukraine'.
But whether or not the Western mainstream media
continues to take Ukrainian authorities' claims at face values, their
leaders' patience for Kiev, and the country's political instability, its
depressed economy and the never-ending string of corruption scandals
(starting at the top with President Poroshenko himself) is slowly
coming to an end.
In a recent article in Foreign
Policy, contributor Askold Krushelnycky, a UK-based journalist
with Ukrainian roots, repeated the standard line about Russia being
"at war with Ukraine." Nevertheless, the journalist admitted,
"despite the seriousness of the threat from the East, Moscow
isn't the worse enemy the Ukrainians face. Given the self-inflicted [harm] that
has infected every facet of business and government, the country's worst
enemy may be its own leaders."
Krushelnycky noted that
Kiev's Western backers, including the United States and its European allies,
are quickly losing patience with the country. "Ukraine fatigue,"
the journalist wrote, is setting in in the Western capitals, "and the
next time they turn to the West for help, they might find that they
are truly on their own."
It's not just Western governments which are becoming
fatigued with Ukrainian authorities. The country's own political class is
becoming increasingly concerned with the state of the country. On
Thursday, Evgeny Muraev, an MP from Kharkiv in Ukraine's northeast,
went on national television and directly questioned the holiest
of holies – the idea that Russian troops were fighting
in civil-war-torn eastern Ukraine.
© WIKIPEDIA/ TOV_SERGEANT
Evgeni Murayev
In the explosive interviewfor Ukrainian
news channel 112 Ukraina, Muraev criticized the government's failed political
and economic policies, and said directly that after over two years
of conflict in the east of the country, Kiev has not yet been
able to provide any convincing evidence of Russian military
involvement there.
"We hear about a
million proofs [of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine]," Muraev
noted. "Let's present them to the world! In Europe, they no longer
take such statements seriously."
Unfortunately, he added, the
authorities aren't willing to provide even their own people's
representatives with evidence to that effect.
The MP explained that a
month ago, he submitted a formal request to the Security Service
of Ukraine (SBU) and the country's Ministry of Defense, asking them
to provide information on exactly which Russian military units are
involved in the conflict.
"According to the law on the status
of parliamentary deputies, they were required to provide me
with an answer, but neither the SBU nor the Ministry of Defense
has given me with any information about it," the lawmaker
complained.
Effectively, Muraev suggested, Ukrainian, and the rest of the world
for that matter, are simply being deceived by authorities
in Kiev.
"Every television set
across the country is saying that these [Russian units] exist somewhere –
so [let the government] show them! Then no one, either in Europe,
in Ukraine, or anywhere would have any doubts," the MP noted.
Meanwhile, the fragile peace in Donbass is continuing
to deteriorate. On August 2 alone, authorities from the Donetsk
People's Republic reported that
161 artillery shells had being fired into their territory. In neighboring
Lugansk, the head of the self-proclaimed republic, Igor Plotnitsky,
survived what appears to have been an assassination
attempton Saturday following a car explosion.
Meanwhile, authorities
in the self-proclaimed republics have said that they are increasingly
concerned over the rhetoric coming out of Kiev, and worried that the
Ukrainian military may try to resolve the frozen conflict there by force.
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