Viktor Medvedchuk also argues that the Kiev government is leading Europe towards a potential nuclear crisis
FILE PHOTO. Top EU officials and Vladimir Zelensky during an EU-Ukraine Summit in Kiev, October, 2021. © EU Council / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The policies of President Vladimir Zelensky’s government – based on hatred and intransigence towards Russia – are inevitably driving Ukraine into poverty, the former parliamentary opposition leader has warned.
Viktor Medvedchuk, who was forced into exile after being arrested by the SBU (the successor agency to the Soviet KGB), claims that Kiev is encouraging the same approach in other European states. He believes that such dangerous sentiment could even lead to an eventual nuclear standoff.
Medvedchuk’s political party was the second largest in the current Ukrainian parliament, before it was banned last year. The rump of the faction is now closely controlled by Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” group.
As part of his crackdown on dissent, the President personally targeted Medvedchuk, who was a proponent of reconciliation with Russia, the latter has claimed in an article published on Monday in Russian newspaper Izvestia, in which he gives his view on the roots of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
Both Zelensky and his predecessor Pyotr Poroshenko had been elected after the 2014 coup in Kiev on a platform of peace, and each made a U-turn after getting into office, Medvedchuk pointed out. He argued that this shows a pattern of betrayal of the Ukrainian people by its leadership and by what he termed a “party of war.”
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Being enemies with Russia is against Ukraine’s economic interests, Medvedchuk asserted. Not only is Russia a major market and source of raw materials from which Ukraine can benefit, the country’s industrial sector was mostly in the east and people there, who for historic reasons have ties to Moscow, were antagonized by Kiev. Economic ruination is an inevitable consequence of the conflict, the politician wrote.
“It is no longer [Western] Europe that teaches Ukraine politics, but Ukraine that teaches Europe how to achieve economic decline and poverty with the help of a policy of hatred and intransigence. And if Europe continues to support this policy, it will be dragged into a war, possibly a nuclear one,” he warned.
He accused Western nations of hailing the incumbent Ukrainian government for “victory after victory, while no military breakthroughs are observed,” referring to the parades that generals in Ancient Rome were given after major victories. Meanwhile, the “party of peace” has no voice either at home or abroad, Medvedchuk lamented.
Those who stood for peace were slandered, intimidated and repressed on incitement from the West. The Ukrainian party of peace simply did not suit Western democracy
“This eloquently suggests that most US and European politicians do not want any peace for Ukraine. But this does not mean at all that Ukrainians do not want peace, and that Zelensky’s military triumph is more important to them than their lives and destroyed homes.” he reasoned.
Only when pro-peace politicians are allowed to make their case freely can there be hope to resolve the situation, Medvedchuk believes.
