Press Release, 23.05.2014

Victor Kogan-Yasny, a well-known human rights advocate and Grigory Yavlinsky’s advisor, gave a lecture which expressed his point of view on the events in Ukraine at YABLOKO’s office on May 22.

“Officially Ukraine has been a unitary state governed from Kyiv including a multilateral structure since the Soviet Union time. Cities like Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk which are equal to one another exist within this structure,” said Kogan-Yasny in the begining of his speech.

He noted that the same principle had been maintained after Ukraine had become independent. The current form of government where the majority had an opportunity to influence a decision had been found by Leonid Kuchma, the second President of Ukraine.

“The established statehood had negative features as well – during Kuchma’s presidency an estate of oligarchs who received all their property practically for free for being loyal and who had their own idea about the Ukrainian statehood, which coincided neither with legal nor with public norms, was created,” emphasised the human rights advocate.

According to Kogan-Yasny, that estate substantially made support for the Ukranian statehood and, on the other hand, caused a problem which one should do away with since such a state couldn’t exist at all in the long term.

Kogan-Yasny belives that today’s problems of south-east Ukraine result from several reasons: the state structure type and the Kyiv’s attitude to the eastern regions, Donbass in particular.

“The first factor is that the centre neglects Donbass, the second factor is the “caprices” of oligarch Renat Alkmetov who “watches over” the region and the third determining factor is Russia which supports the pumping of tension,” he noted.

Another problem of Ukraine is the diversity of regions such as Odessa and Zakarpatye where the population of different areas can both support and disapprove of Kyiv’s actions.

“The latest events show that an attempt to unite the regions with the help of an oligarch has outlived itself. If the new form of state structure is not found, Ukraine might face the real collapse, no matter who becomes president,” concluded Victor Kogan-Yasny.