Ukrainians want the country to join the EU, but...
Once again on the “postmodernist” Vladimir Putin and his European footboys
More than half of respondents support the idea of Ukraine’s accession to the EU, while joining the Customs Union is supported by less than a fifth of respondents. These data came from the April national survey conducted by the Razumkov Center’s sociologists. One question on the subject was very direct: should Ukraine join the EU? Overall 53.4 percent of respondents said “yes,” and 33.4 percent said “no” to it. The sociologists have clarified what the opponents of EU accession stood for. It was found out that 18 percent of respondents favored joining the Customs Union, while the rest of the opponents of accession would prefer Ukraine to keep out of any of these structures.
When adjusted for the impact of violent anti-European propaganda broadcast by the Russian media in eastern and southern Ukraine, we can confidently predict that should a referendum on joining the EU be held in more or less calm political circumstances, at least 60-65 percent of Ukrainian citizens will support it. Even without it, European choice of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians is a done deal: Ukraine’s present ratio of votes “for” and “against” was often seen in referendums in countries that have joined the EU.
My second message is that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that Ukraine did not have to choose between pro-European and pro-Russian orientation; “Ukraine should be a bridge between the EU and Russia rather than being forced to choose between one and the other,” he tweeted. Let us recall that Laurent Fabius is not only a minister, but also a leader of the French Socialists. The Socialist government, as we know, refused to cancel the sale of two Mistral-type landing helicopter docks (LHDs) to Russia; Le Monde newspaper recently reported that the government of France intended to go through with the contract for the LHDs’ sale, despite the Ukrainian crisis. “This contract has been signed and will be fulfilled,” a senior Elysee Palace official told the newspaper. One of these LHDs, as already stressed by the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s commander Admiral Aleksandr Vitko, will come to Sevastopol, thus greatly enhancing the Russians’ ability to land a strong force anywhere in the Black Sea region...
Is not it an illustrative example of the European leftists’ position, as they see the Ukrainians as a people who do not have a right to make their own choices and are destined to drift around living under the “geopolitical bridge,” not allowed to enter the “European home”?
But there is probably more to it that Fabius’s leftist sympathies and the traditional Russophilism of a significant number of French politicians. “By refusing to offer Ukraine real prospects for joining the Euro-Atlantic community through either European Union and/or NATO membership, the West is leaving Ukraine in a gray zone of uncertainty, vulnerable to falling into the Russian orbit,” Russian political analyst Lilia Shevtsova wrote in her article “Vladimir Putin’s New World Order,” published by The Washington Post. “The Russian leader’s call this week for pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk to put their independence referendum on hold was not a surrender; it is an invitation to Kyiv to accommodate the Kremlin’s interests, this time through ‘dialog.’ However, the Kremlin’s goal is more likely pragmatic: to switch to the role of peacemaker and strike a new Faustian bargain with the West, persuading it to agree to Ukrainian limited sovereignty and the right of external forces to teach Ukrainians what is right and what is wrong. I will bet that Western leaders, tired of their Ukrainian headache, might agree with the bargain. And the Kremlin will join the Ukrainian ‘roundtable’ moderators. Instead of an invader, Putin will be seen as the architect of the new postmodern reality.”
However, as we see, Europe already has some such “postmodernists.”
In order for such a scenario to fail to materialize and the French Socialist government to stop engaging in anti-Ukrainian actions and statements, we need unity of all political forces and conscious Ukrainian politicians. This unity would let us choose a strong and effective head of state, who will also be the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, on May 25. It will also put on the back foot all Putin’s footboys in Europe, forcing them to respect the will of the Ukrainian people. Moreover, it will break the backs of all militant gangs in the east of Ukraine and clear terrorists from the Donbas.
