Lugansk regional council chief calls for end to punitive operation
22 May 2014, 18:14 -- Chairman of the Lugansk regional council Valeriy Holenko has asked the country's government to stop the punitive operation in the eastern regions.
'On behalf of the people of the Lugansk region, I hereby demand that the country's government and the punitive operation coordinators stop the war immediately! Stop the fratricide and bloodshed!' Holenko said in a statement posted on the regional council's website on Thursday, according to Interfax.
The operation in the Lysychansk area is 'essentially a war against your own people,' he said.
The punitive operation held ahead of the presidential election is not coincidental, Holenko said. 'It is clear that prior to the presidential election someone is very eager to boast military victories and thus staged the horrendous spectacle. Except that on the 'stage' we have people, not actors! And they die in earnest! And together with them dies the hope for a possibility of a civil resolution of the conflict. Ukraine itself is dying,' the regional council chairman said.
The nationwide roundtables on national unity are a farce, he also said. 'Like I said already, all these roundtables of national accord are a decoration and farce organized solely for a pretty TV picture. Unfortunately, this morning this certainty proved right. When a peace memorandum is signed for television cameras, while in reality troops and heavy vehicles are being sent against civilians, it is immediately clear what is false and what the true goals are of those who give orders,' Holenko said.
He urged his fellow citizens not to take part in crimes organized by politicians: 'Nobody's presidential ambitions are worth dying for.'
Moscow fears Ukraine roundtables held for sake of appearance
Roundtables in Ukraine aimed at ensuring national reconciliation are rather held for the sake of appearance for now because representatives of the regions are still not involved in them, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. 'Unfortunately, for now these events are held rather, as we say, for the sake of appearance without engaging real representatives of the regions, who represent political forces of this or that region of Ukraine,' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said at a briefing in Moscow, Interfax reports.
At the same time, Moscow notes the start of work in Ukraine to carry out a series of roundtables, which are aimed to ensure national reconciliation and fair and stable constitutional system of the country, the spokesman said.
Russia has studied the memorandum on mutual understanding and peace passed by Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, Lukashevich said. 'This document has become essentially public and understandable, although a belated document in terms of implementing the Geneva statement of April 17 and a roadmap of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chairperson-in-office,' he stated.
In general 'the condemnation of use of arms and violence can be assessed positively,' Lukashevich said. 'The approaches are quite good. One of the main thesis mentioned in this document, if compared to what is really happening on site, is when Verkhovna Rada proposes to offer a handshake, but in the end you see that not a hand but rather iron anvil is offered to a number of regions. In this situation it is very difficult to imagine the efficiency Kiev is going to seek from these round tables,' the spokesman said.
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