Eduard Basurin. Interview for the Bulgarian media. Part 1.

You are asking, why there are no changes after signing of the Minsk Protocol. As a matter of fact the biggest problem of so called Minsk is that Ukraine doesn’t see us as a subject, as a real negotiator and that’s why it makes everything possible to delay the process, they have signed, put their signatures to the thirteen paragraphs that include changing of the constitution, elections, lifting the economical and financial blockades. So, the problem is that they don’t see us as a subject of the negotiation process, that’s why they are delaying all this. Actually, there shouldn’t be such a question at all, because the initiators of the first and second Minsk Protocols made their proposals for cessation of hostilities and suffering of the civilians, destroying the towns. That’s why we completely support these paragraphs and always champion them. The paragraphs are divided into three parts, three clusters – military, humanitarian and political. Actually we are satisfied with everything, because the main thing that is written are changes that should occur in Ukraine, these changes are coordinated with us. Ukraine doesn’t introduce laws, it coordinates the laws with us, our lawyers examine them and give a verdict, whether the republic is satisfied with them or not, that’s why it would be silly to abandon the laws. To end the conflict… Actually, I’ve said it already – the first thing is that we have to be seen as a subject of the negotiations, because the common language cannot be found without it, and Ukraine obviously has to fulfil the paragraphs of the Minsk Protocol If the process starts, the conflict will end all by itself. Because the processes that started in 2014th were based on protest of the people who live here against the imposed vision of the country development which included the vision of our territory development. There are lots of aspects, which include humanitarian, political, economic, social, cultural issues and language barrier. People stood up to stop the process of changes, that is why when the process ends the conflict will stop all by itself.

The question of returning to Ukraine shouldn’t be discussed at all, because according to the Minsk Protocol Ukrainian territorial integrity is inviolable. But I constantly repeat that by the time it can be a state with a different name, not Ukraine. But the territory within the administrative borders of the state won’t be changed. Though we don’t know whether it will be changed or not and how it will be called, for example, we suggest federalisation as a substitute for the unitary structure, then every part of the federation will make its own decision who to stay with and how to live, so some changes are possible here. But it’s written in Minsk Protocols that we stay in the, let’s call it, territorial border of the state that we had withdrawed from.

Are they ready to administratively accept us? Basically, they’ve never been against accepting us, but once again, they want to do it in accordance with their conditions. That’s why Ukraine has never given up the territories of the South-East of Ukraine, it always said, that these are Ukrainian territories and they have to rule here, but we don’t want to accept their conditions.

(Answering the question: Are there any paragraphs in Minsk Protocol that haven’t been fulfilled yet and that can prevent the peace process?):

Of course, there are some… Look, the first item of the Minsk Protocol is ceasefire. The Ukrainian side doesn’t stop it, Ukrainians constantly attempt to seize definite territory by force. So we have to prevent it, to force people not to do it, it can be done with the help of force only, that’s why we have the army, that’s why it stays on the forefront to stop the opponent from moving into our territory. So we don’t fulfil this paragraph, but we’ve done everything else that is written there – we’ve withdrawn heavy weapons. We are partly solving humanitarian problems, but rebuilding of banking system, paying of social allowances and pensions depend on Ukraine. All the other issues of the Minsk Protocol depend on Ukraine. In this regard we involuntarily don’t follow some paragraphs, we are forced to do it, if we hadn’t opened fire, the opponent would have been here, in the city, already.

Is Ukraine ready to accept Donbass from the legislative point of view. Again if they change the law system and become a federation, we’d really prefer a confederation, but it all depends on Ukraine. These laws have to be developed jointly by Ukrainian Parliament and People’s Council of our republics, I don’t see any problems in finding a common solution. But once again, everything depends on Ukraine.

Actually, it’s a hard psychological question how our territories will exist if we return to Ukraine. As it was said already, autonomy as an administrative unit, federation with local management body, so we’ll be able to make our own decisions without… Kiev always wants all decisions to be agreed. We would make our decisions and present them to Kiev, saying that the changes are necessary for our life and development. That’s what we call an independent administrative unit.

No, the Russian Federation isn’t going to include our republics for different reasons. First of all such inclusion is breaking of the international law, and Russia will never do it. It constantly declares that breaking of the international law is taboo. It constantly says it both on political and humanitarian platforms, so we’ll not join Russia. Consequently, the main reason… It’s like a precedent, if it becomes possible here, then the whole world will be in flames. As far as I know, there are 137 states, or how should they be called, or different territories, that are unrecognised, that need a recognition. If it happens here the unrecognised states all over the world will demand recognition, they will say if it’s possible here it should be possible everywhere. Let’s just say about Kosovo, Americans had recognised Kosovo and national movements in Europe sparked, there are two territories, Basques on the North, Barcelona on the West and Catalonia on the South in Spain. There are conflicts between Scotland and Ireland, Northern Ireland, in Great Britain. Wales will speak, problems of Belgium, France, Italy will arise… It will cause the collapse of the world community, so Russia will never do this.

(Answering the question: Do you think that multinational peacekeeping troops should be placed on both sides of the line of separation and if yes, should it be done with the assistance of the UNO or should it be based on the negotiations between the two sides?):

As for the UNO, we suggested it in summer of 2014, Ukraine was strongly against it.

After the signing of Minsk Protocol, where it was stated that only the representatives of the OSCE are official observers here, that anyone except them can’t be here. Such decision should be made in Normandy format or to be agreed with us here, because if it happens it will undo the Minsk Protocol and something else will have to be introduced.

But all the leaders stated that there is no alternative to Minsk Protocol or to the Normand format. That’s why it should be completely fulfilled, that’s why… this question… it can’t be discussed. Then there is necessary… The contradictions are purely political. Then all the leaders should gather together and say, “Well, we are recalling the Protocol, a new format with new requirements, with new paragraphs should be introduced” and to engage the UNO, to give them an opportunity to participate in it. It can’t be done at the current moment, again from a legal perspective. It’s impossible.

Assessing the roles of the UNO and the OSCE… Well, the UNO has been here since 2014th, they have been working informally on the humanitarian and human rights programmes, they are still working unofficially. And as I told already, the OSCE has been working here officially, with permission of Ukraine, I want to emphasize that all the permissions are signed by Ukraine because for the international community it’s still a Ukrainian territory.

The organisations work in different ways. We’ve told already about double standards at work of the OSCE “If I want to see, I see. If I don’t want to see, I don’t see”. That’s why a lot of people don’t understand why the organisation is here, because if someone sees firing shells and sees where it comes from but doesn’t write about it in the report… it’s silly. If they see military hardware and don’t write about it they undermine the authority of the OSCE. We pointed at it, we are working on it, everything had changed a bit and they started to cover the situation more objectively.

(Answering the question: More than three years have passed since the beginning of the conflict. Did you analyse the experience /both positive and negative/ of other countries where different groups of people live and where tension and desire for separation was present, Spain, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, for example? Has the model of future development of Ukraine that will prevent a similar conflict been created?):

Spanish example doesn’t really work here. There is no situation of the kind in Spain, actually there is a separate territory within the country. As for Yugoslavia, there were two different religions earlier, that’s why the country was teared apart and destroyed. Also it was a big state that had strong influence in Europe, first of all in the Balkans. It was basically like in Bulgaria, you’ve been close to it, you know about it. The model of Yugoslavia means dividing Ukraine into several parts. No one wants it. That’s why such a model hasn’t been mentioned yet. The only possible model as we see it, democracy should be prevailed. If the Constitution doesn’t allow the territory to exist together, we need to change something. The easiest way is to change the constitution to stop the bloodshed. That’s why the model should include changing the lifestyle. The model must be typed and registered, the Constitution should be changed indeed to allow the people live peacefully on the territory, so if it happens, it’s always possible to make an agreement and to learn how to live together in spite of some possible misunderstanding.

It’s difficult to comment on the compensations in Ukraine, because they do claim that there are some compensations but the people who live in Ukraine don’t see that destroyed buildings are rebuild to the fullest extent, that the lost property is compensated, probably it works somewhere, I’m just afraid that it is plundered, it doesn’t reach the people, because the corruption that currently exists in Ukraine is probably on the first place in the world. That’s why everything is plundered. Probably there are some sparks of conscience, and the money is allocated somehow, but they are mainly plundered, they don’t reach the people. The same as… It’s the easiest example, Ukraine says that the money for pensions and social allowances for people who live on our territories are available. But at the same time they don’t pay anything. Probably there is the money but we don’t get them. So for me it’s hard to judge it.

I think that Ukraine has to change, really change, otherwise it will stop its existence as a state. Some European politics already say that the project “Ukraine”, they call it “project”, Ukrainian state is a dead child, it was stillborn, they just sustained it. But it… that’s why something has to be changed. If there are no changes in politics, in Ukrainian elite, then Ukraine as a state may simply disappear and the same thing that happened in Yugoslavia will happen here –one country split into seven different states, even into eight if we count Kosovo.

(Answering the question: What caused the separating of Donbass from Ukraine – was it an external influence or domestic reasons?):

Of course there is a reason for the conflict. I’ve told already – Ukrainization of the population itself, banning of the Russian language, at first it was prohibited in official documents, all people were forced to write Ukrainian, then TV and radio broadcasting time was increased for the Ukrainian language programmes and reduced for the Russian language ones; then they started to write declarations about joining NATO, EU – people didn’t want it so the protest movements appeared.

(Answering the question: If you think that there is an external influence, could you say what kind of the influence it is, what are the goals of it, what caused it, what countries it comes from, whether it’s a national policy of the countries or the result of non-governmental entitles?)

Of course, there was an external influence as well as domestic reasons. External influence is some forces that are interested in breaking out of the war here, it was planned to influence Russia, because Ukraine is a geographical centre of Europe, a big territory with a lot of population, the one who influences Ukraine consequently thought that he will be able to influence the Russian Federation at least partly.

As for the domestic reasons, as we’ve seen, the conscience of Ukrainians was changed, they were educated that Ukrainians are a great nation that they are allowed to do anything, ideas of revanchism, national-socialistic ideas, the same ideas as in Germany flourished in Ukraine. That’s why there were both external and internal processes, domestic reasons were fed externally to destroy the country, to make chaos, and get the dividends that they want to get.

Of course some mistakes were made in domestic policies. Ukrainians decided that they can have it both ways – flirt with the West and the USA, and to flirt with Russia without any determination to choose one of the sides. If you want to continue playing like this, you had to state clearly, that Ukraine is a non-aligned country, which is out of any alliance, of any military organisation, that it’ll be like in Switzerland: complete neutrality and friends for everyone. But the politics who were in power were playing double games. You can see the result, it caused the civil war.

Eduard Basurin
Deputy Defence Minister and defence spokesman of DPR

Donetsk
February 2017

Author: Lyubomir Dankov

Part 1

Eduard Basurin. Interview for the Bulgarian media. Part 2.

Crimea events in some way provoked the people’s movements in Donetsk and Lugansk… But the movements were not only in our region, Charkiv, Cherson, Nikolaev (Mykolaiyv) nearly all South-East part of Ukraine was pushed by Crimea. In Odessa we could see how they were trying to speak to us, they decided to threaten people and to threaten them by death only, that’s why these movements stirred up the other part of Ukraine but the people were forced to give up the idea. If we speak about Charkiv, protestors were dispersed, arrested, killed – it was very scarying. The idea itself originally wasn’t about separation from Ukraine, it was the idea of creating a federation. So called congress was organised by Party of Regions in Severodonetsk in 2004 when the first Orange Revolution happened, let’s call it failed, but generally it succeeded when Yuschenko came to power. At that time the idea was about changing the Constitution and structure of the state. If the Politians had listened to people then, there wouldn’t be anything of the kind nowadays.

(Commenting on separation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions from Ukraine):

There wasn’t planned a question about separation per se in the originally planned referendum. It was planned to suggest three questions to people: to stay as a part of Ukraine, to become an independent state or to join Russia. But after the events in Odessa the question was excluded because people understood that if they stay in Ukraine the same thing can happen to them. So the question was whether to separate from Ukraine or to stay in it on our conditions, so it wasn’t stated that we wanted to separate from Ukraine in any way.

Ukraine says that there wasn’t any legitimate referendum (at 2014th – editor). Why do they say so, if it’s written in the Constitution that people choose the State structure, and the direction of its movement and development? If they think that it’s illegitimacy because people have expressed themselves without their consent, then it’s nonsense, because all over the world the decisions about changing the political structure or country’s development are made on referendums, where people state their opinions. When we suggested this, they refused, so we decided to organise it ourselves, and now they say that it’s illegitimate, that’s why it’s a nonsense, it’s violation of the principle of democracy, it’s an autocracy when a little group of people wants to rule all the other people who live on this territory… it’s unacceptable. Of course, there is a connection with Euromaidan, the link is fully seen because the people’s minds were clouded to such a degree that they proposed, tried to reformate power structures without any hesitation. People had a kind of… how to say it…right vision, but all these visions were used just to organise coup d’état, what was happening in Kiev resulted in protests in Donbass, people here didn’t want the things that Kiev wanted, once again, we didn’t want to join European Union, we don’t want to join NATO, we want to speak our native language but we don’t prohibit the Ukrainian language, we don’t prohibit other languages, we don’t prohibit any different religions… Different people lived here. People of 142 nationalities lived in Donetsk region, we’re very multicultural in this regard… It’s being discussed in Europe now how to accept all the people without changing them. We lived like that, we had normal lifestyle, in general, people could demonstrate their nationalities, and no one prevented them, there were no prohibitions in clothes, in language, in culture, no one prohibited them, while we were imposed to live by different rules – people didn’t want it.

(Answering the question: Do you think that events in Donbass were caused by so called anarchy, pogroms during the protests, deputies were thrown into dumpsters without adequate intervention of police, the tragedy in house of Trade Unions in Odessa wasn’t prevented…):

Anarchy… Yes, actually, it happened this way. Things that were happening in Kiev in 2004, 2013-2014 years are anarchy, as such, or weak power. Because the president of Ukraine at that moment after making promises to be elected for one more term, to become a president again, the elections had to be hold in 2015th, he entered an agreement and was deceived, overthrown. It was necessary to give an order to disperse those radicals, not humans but radicals, who went out with bats then with weapon in the city centre, they blocked the work of public institutions… These were crimes but no one was arrested, no one was prohibited.

That’s why the power turned out to be weak, as such, it didn’t have a spine (firmness, determination, confidence in making decisions – editor) as a result we got the civil war.

Actually, the term ATO (anti-terrorist operation) was invented on purpose for two reasons. The first reason was an idea to call us terrorists, because the problem of fighting against terrorism has been popular all over the world.

Ukraine hasn’t been able to enter martial law so far, because according to the international obligations of the UNO a state that has entered martial law can’t get any financial support, no state is allowed to provide financial assistance, no state is allowed to provide any help to a country where martial law had been introduced, that’s why they refused to enter martial law at once, instead they have invented that we are terrorists and now they kill civilians, their own citizens under the aegis of fighting against terrorism – it has been helping them to hide what has been going on here for all the years. It was done on purpose, to control people’s minds in other countries worldwide, not in Ukraine.

Crimes… Of course, there are some crimes against civilians, as well as using of prohibited weapon. We have repeatedly reiterated this, we have showed the evidence, investigating authorities sum up and generalise it, we are working to open criminal proceedings not only in our courts but also in European courts with the help of public organisations. All the materials are being gathered and summed up, the UNO helps us very well in this field, they give us the materials… They voiced the atrocities that have been happening here repeatedly in their reports for Security Council (of the UNO - editor), so some work is being done in this field.

Foreign states… If we sum up, one half of the world is probably participating here. It’s mainly catholic countries from the Ukrainian side, and both catholic and orthodox ones from our side. Brazil is a catholic country, but a lot of Brazilians fought in Donbass at one time. People from Brazil, Columbia, Central America, the USA, from Europe: Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Bulgarians, Yugoslavian, Greeks – I don’t even remember all of them. Croatia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, England fought on Ukrainian side. There are some foreigners even now, but in Ukrainian Army they are mainly not real volunteers, they are mercenaries, who came here to earn money on the blood. From our side there were real volunteers fought, who wanted to stop the “The Brown Plague” (fascism and Nazi – editor) around the world. So they decided to show their protests by coming and helping us. It’s as I’ve said already, it’s alike to what was happening after or during the Spanish war that was going on in 1930s, it’s internationalism in a good way, I called them internationalists, they found it in their hearts to come here and help us it was necessary to kill “Brown Plague” to prevent its growing, that’s why they would come and help us. I don’t have any information about Bulgarians, probably there were some but I haven’t seen them, I haven’t seen the people who had a Bulgarian passport, not just those who called themselves Bulgarians, I haven’t seen them here, I can’t comment on it.

Malaysian Boeing… To say the truth, I’m tired of talking about it. It’s an artificially created hysteria, it was a planned provocation against us and against Russia as well, the provocation succeeded but not as fully as it was planned. The plane fell on the territory that we control. They planned its fall on the territory under Ukrainian control. It caused a glitch and they’ve been speaking, discussing something for two years but they don’t do anything. The recent scandal was caused by a Dutch journalist who proved that not all the physical evidence was found, that the commission didn’t work as good as it had to, relatives of the passengers who were killed especially aren’t satisfied with its work. That’s why it’s a provocation that was originally planned against the Russian Federation and against our republic at the time of its formation. That’s why it will be manipulated for a long time. If some political changes occur in Europe, if new politicians come to power, I think they will reveal the truth because Ukraine is hiding about 50% of the truth. They know for sure where the plane was flying, what was happening in the air, where the missile was launched from, but they are concealing the data. That’s why everything depends on Ukraine, whether it wants to say the truth or doesn’t want or forced to say the truth.