Is there any hope whatsoever that Ukraine’s young government, born out of the fire of revolt against Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovitch, will survive the apparent loss of Crimea to Russia? For Poland’s Rzeczpospolita, columnist Jedrzej Bielecki paints an intimidating picture for interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who leads a nation deep in debt, comprised of squabbling factions, which has been left to face Russian military might essentially alone.
For Rzeczpospolita, Jedrzej Bielecki starts off this way:
It was supposed to be a suicide mission. After three weeks of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government, it’s even worse. For the head of state, the most difficult decision was to cede Crimea to Russia with practically no resistance.
“Yatsenyuk learned from the experience of Georgia, where president Mikheil Saakashvili gave in to Russian provocations in 2008, which caused the West to see him as largely responsible for the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” explains Olaf Osica, director of the O?rodek Studiów Wschodnich [Center for Eastern Studies].
However, Yatsenyuk’s strategy also has risks. Residents of the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine consider the new government in Kiev to be weak, which is an incentive to rebellion.
“Yatsenyuk is in control of the situation in Odessa, Lugansk and Dnepropetrovsk, but the situation in Donetsk remains very unstable,” admits Osica.
The prime minister is also unable to effectively control the border between Ukraine and Russia. The Kremlin is taking advantage of this by sending “tourists” who foment protests among the Russian-speaking population.
Especially critical of Yatsenyuk’s strategy are radical organizations created during the protests at Maidan Square [in Kiev’s Independence Square].
Yatsenyuk bases his legitimacy on the support of the Maidan protesters, since he wasn’t chosen in a free election. At Kiev’s central square, where protesters are still encamped, the mood is turning increasingly radical. Many people are irritated by the fact that the prime minister, despite the humiliating grab of Crimea, is making yet more conciliatory gestures toward the Russian-speaking minority and Moscow itself.
“He (Yatsenyuk) is between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, he needs to retain the loyalty of Maidan. On the other, he must maintain the unity of the country. It is an acrobatic mission,” Stefan Meister of Berlin’s European Council on Foreign Relations admits to Rzeczpospolita.
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