Sometimes it takes a private person to point out what officials are not willing to face. That recently happened in Ukraine, where blogger Vasya Baraban has punctured talk about talks with Moscow by pointing to what should be obvious: Ukraine would be trading its future with a country that has repeatedly demonstrated it won’t live up to its commitments.
In a May 26 YouTube post that has gone viral, she says that the only things Moscow would accept in exchange for any concessions would be “the sovereignty of Ukraine and the future of our children” (censoru.net/35886-ukrainka-smelo-otvetila-zelenskomu-po-povodu-rossii-ja-ne-znaju-kak-vy-uchili-istoriju-moschnoe-video.html).
She notes that Presidential Administration head Andriy Bohdan has said that “territory and citizens cannot be the subject of negotiations.” But if that is so, “what will be their subject? Our sovereignty? The possibility for Ukraine to take decisions independently? The future of my daughter?”
Ms. Baraban challenges Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy to answer and in doing so not to forget the fundamental reality that “agreements with Russia aren’t worth the paper on which they are written” and instead to remember that violating these fundamental values will undermine the domestic situation in his country.
Any referendum on peace talks risks crossing such “red lines,” the young Ukrainian woman says. “A referendum in which a professor and general of an army in the field have the same voice as someone who hasn’t even finished middle school is not democracy. It is, instead, a guaranteed power for frauds who will capably use uneducated people” against their country.
“The people have no information, including maps, intelligence reports and the work of experts,” she says. “The people have no international partners and specialists who conduct consultations. The people have no strategy which could be pursued for the achievement of its goals.”
What’s more, Ms. Baraban continues, “the people have no responsibility. The president must have such responsibility.” And she adds: “I don’t know how well you studied history, but I did – and not badly. And I can tell you that there’s one overriding fact: Russia can’t be trusted, as it will violate any agreement Kremlin officials sign.”
Paul Goble is a long-time specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia who has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau, as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The article above is reprinted with permission from his blog called “Window on Eurasia” (http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/).