The supporters of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko are calling on the Verkhovna Rada to adopt an appeal to the United Nations, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO, as well as national parliaments to come to the defense of minority nations in Russia against Moscow’s increasing oppression.
The draft resolution says that the peoples of the North Caucasus, Idel-Ural and Siberia are at particular risk and notes that the central Russian government has been stepping up its oppression of them since 2014, when it invaded Ukraine, seized Crimea and began the war in the Donbas (solydarnist.org/?p=212567).
In part, this action reflects increasing activism by émigrés from these regions who have been forced out of their homelands by Russian abuses; in part, it is also the results of Kyiv’s decision to raise ethnic questions in Russia because Moscow constantly does so with respect to Ukraine (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/12/kyiv-to-focus-attention-on-moscows.html).
But what makes this appeal so important is that it represents a marker of where Ukrainian policy is and presents a challenge to the incoming administration of Volodymyr Zelensky. On the one hand, the new president may want to avoid such sharp statements, but on the other, he may see this is a useful political tool against Russian aggression.
The reaction of Mr. Zelensky, national deputies who support him and candidates in the upcoming elections to the Verkhovna Rada will thus say a lot, not only about where Kyiv is heading, but also about the possibilities of the minority nations inside Russia in the coming months to gain attention and outside support.
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/).