Ukraine ratifies association with E.U., grants concessions to rebels
Ukraine ratifies association with E.U., grants concessions to rebels
(about 14 hours later)
KIEV, UKRAINE — The Ukrainian parliament ratified an agreement Tuesday to forge an economic and political association with the European Union and quietly passed legislation to grant amnesty to pro-Russian rebels and greater autonomy to regions they control in eastern Ukraine.
KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine on Tuesday ratified a landmark deal to move closer to the European Union, while also making painful concessions to Russia in a sign that the nation is far from escaping its neighbor’s powerful orbit.
In a vote synchronized with the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Ukrainian lawmakers unanimously approved the association pact over objections from Russia, which fears the loss of a market for its goods and damage to its economy from an influx of European products through Ukraine. The rejection of the pact in November by pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych sparked popular protests that led to his downfall in February, triggering the current crisis with Russia and driving relations between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.
In a ceremony filled with pomp and patriotism, Ukraine’s parliament ratified the E.U. deal, which had been rejected in November by the country’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, setting off months of pro-European street protests that deposed him and unleashed a grinding conflict in Ukraine’s east that has claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Staged amid great fanfare in Kiev, the televised ratification vote prompted a standing ovation from legislators, who leapt to their feet to sing the Ukrainian national anthem. President Petro Poroshenko told lawmakers the vote was a “first but very decisive step” toward integrating Ukraine with the European Union.
But the ratification took place after an unusual closed-door session in which the parliament granted sweeping amnesty to the pro-Russian rebels who have seized portions of eastern Ukraine. Those territories were also given significant new powers to rule themselves. Both measures were attempts to sustain a tenuous Sept. 5 cease-fire whose terms were largely dictated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainians “gave up their lives so that we could take a dignified place among the European family,” he said in his speech, which was published on his Web site. He referred to the scores of people who died in street protests against Yanukovych and the estimated 3,000 killed in a five-month-old conflict with pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The dueling decisions were a testament to how much Ukraine remains trapped in the orbit of Russia, which shares centuries of cultural, political and linguistic history with its smaller neighbor. Many Ukrainians want to join the European Union, but Russia has shown that it is willing to sustain steep costs to retain influence over a country that until 23 years ago was part of the Soviet Union.
E.U. nations, by contrast, are far from united about whether they want to accept Ukraine as a full member.
The ratification of the E.U. deal was coordinated with E.U. lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, and staged amid great fanfare in Kiev. It prompted a standing ovation from legislators, who leapt to their feet to sing the Ukrainian national anthem. President Petro Poroshenko told lawmakers that the vote was a “first but very decisive step” toward integrating Ukraine with the European Union.
“Since World War II, not a single nation has paid such a high price for their right to be European,” Poroshenko said.
“Since World War II, not a single nation has paid such a high price for their right to be European,” Poroshenko said.
Earlier Tuesday, legislators voted behind closed doors to approve two bills granting amnesty to rebels and greater autonomy for eastern regions as part of an effort to consolidate a tenuous Sept. 5 cease-fire and end the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
But the E.U. agreement was throttled back by a significant olive branch to Russia, after Poroshenko last week delayed key economic provisions of the pact until the end of 2015, temporarily soothing the Kremlin’s concerns that low-tariff European products could flood the Russian market via Ukraine.
The decision on Tuesday to enshrine in law an amnesty and a framework for self-rule in the east represented a major concession to Russia that in many ways gave the Kremlin what it had been seeking since early in the conflict, long before the violence broadened and thousands died.
Many Ukrainians have pinned their hopes for the future of their country on the measures enshrined in the E.U. deal, which commits Ukraine to taking steps to combat corruption, open its economy and strengthen the rule of law. But the delay in implementing the full deal has disappointed some of Poroshenko’s supporters, and a deputy foreign minister, Danilo Lubkivsky, resigned last week in protest.
Any loss of sovereignty in the east complicates Ukraine’s chances to join NATO — a key Russian concern.
The decision Tuesday to enshrine in law an amnesty and a framework for self-rule in the east was a major concession to Russia that in many ways gave the Kremlin and pro-Russian rebels what they have been seeking since early in the conflict, long before the violence broadened and thousands died.
In another significant olive branch to Russia, Poroshenko last week delayed key economic provisions of the pact with the European Union until 2016, soothing the Kremlin’s concerns that low-tariff European products could flood the Russian market via Ukraine.
Early local elections will be held in December, and local governments will have broad oversight powers over judicial and prosecutorial appointments and will create local control over police forces. The use of the Russian language will be guaranteed. Most of the measures will be in force for three years, after which the constitution will have been modified to permanently devolve power to the regions.
The parliamentary votes came a day after Poroshenko proposed a series of major concessions to end the uprising in the east.
But after five months of violence, it is unclear whether the measures will be enough to assuage Russia or the rebels, nor whether the law can hold off an end to the increasingly tenuous cease-fire. Donetsk’s city administration said Tuesday that three people died and five were wounded in shelling, while Ukrainian military spokesman Col. Andriy Lysenko said three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the previous 24 hours.
In addition to amnesty and special self-governance status for territories occupied by the rebels, his proposal also included protections for the Russian language and would allow the separatist-controlled regions to elect their own judges, create their own police forces and cultivate deeper ties to Russia — while remaining part of Ukraine.
Rebels have said they want full independence from Ukraine. Still, some of their leaders sounded more conciliatory Tuesday than they had in the past, stopping short of full rejection of the measures.
It would effectively formalize a concession of power to the rebels after sweeping military setbacks in August and September forced Poroshenko to sue for peace. Although Ukraine appeared on the verge of ending the rebel uprising weeks ago, a reinvigorated separatist campaign — which Ukraine and NATO claim has been backed by Russian arms and troops — left the Ukrainians facing devastating losses. Russia denies aiding the rebels.
“We cannot accept any political union with present-day Ukraine,” said a top rebel leader in Donetsk, Andrei Purgin, in an appearance on state-run Russia 24 television. But he said the rebels planned to study the legislation.
The proposal fleshed out a cease-fire deal reached with the rebels this month and provided the most complete view yet of how far Kiev may be willing to go to end the uprising.
“We must be realists. We must understand that politics is the art of the possible,” he said.
Poroshenko’s offer came as the truce was fraying, with intense fighting in pockets of the east threatening to destroy the cease-fire. On Monday, mortar rounds continued to strike residential neighborhoods in the city of Donetsk a day after two vehicles carrying international observers were struck by shrapnel.
Any loss of sovereignty in the east hurts Ukraine’s chances to join NATO — a complication that Russia would welcome.
Some of the elements of Poroshenko’s plan resembled the so-called frozen conflicts in which Russian-backed partisans have seized control of territories in Georgia and Moldova, thus giving Moscow leverage over those countries and complicating their efforts to join NATO. But Poroshenko defended his proposal, insisting that despite the broad concessions, it would succeed in maintaining the rebel-held territories within the boundaries of Ukraine and prevent their independence.
The measures were met with mixed reactions Tuesday from the pro-European activists who were the driving force behind the winter protests in Kiev and who form an influential part of Poroshenko’s base.
“There is nothing more important for us than peace,” Poroshenko told Ukrainian political leaders Monday. “These are the key positions that will ensure it.”
“At the initiative of the president and the hands of the parliament, Donbas has been surrendered,” legislator Andriy Shevchenko wrote on Twitter, referring to the region that is at the heart of the rebellion.
But the proposal also put Poroshenko on a likely collision course with pro-Western activists and politicians in Kiev, who think he might be conceding far too much to the Russian-backed rebels. In turn, some separatists — a band of aligned militias that have called for creating an independent state called “New Russia” — offered highly skeptical assessments of the offer, and others dismissed it outright.
Others were more cautious.
“We will take care of our land by ourselves,” Alexander Zakharchenko, the self-declared prime minister of the separatists’ Donetsk People’s Republic, told Ukraine’s Vesti news Web site. “On our land, it will be our people and our laws. There have been no discussions about staying within the territory of Ukraine.”
“It is a real step toward implementing peace and stopping bloodshed,” said Marianna Shimanovich, a volunteer with an organization that provides aid to Ukrainian soldiers. “But there is a recognition of losing sovereignty in these territories.”
Poroshenko called for new local elections Nov. 9 in the rebel-controlled regions. Miroslav Rudenko, an official with the Donetsk People’s Republic, told the Interfax news agency that such a ballot would “be held only if the situation at the front becomes stable and if these elections unfold in compliance with the laws of the people’s republics, not Ukraine.” He vowed that “neither Poroshenko nor Ukrainian state institutions will have anything to do with these elections.”
William Branigin in Washington and Natalie Gryvnyak in Kiev contributed to this report.
Although the special self-governance status would be guaranteed for only three years, it appeared to allow the separatists a chance to solidify theirpower in theregions where they have seized control, allegedly with the aid of Moscow.
Poroshenko’s proposal — which must still be debated and approved by parliament — came after a decision by Kiev to postpone Ukraine’s full entry into a trade treaty with Europe, a move that fueled further concerns of among pro-Western groups in Ukraine that the government is sacrificing too much. Although Poroshenko said the worst offenders in the conflict would not be given amnesty, critics said he was effectively rewarding violence and leaving thugs in charge in the east.
“This is a bad proposal,” said Ekaterina Butko, a leader of the Maidan movement that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February. “It goes too far. After so many people have died, so many houses destroyed, so many lives ruined, this would reward the people who did this.”
In the east, the fragile truce has been shaken in recent days by escalating violence. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko accused the rebels Monday of having attacked checkpoints and other positions in intensified fighting over the weekend. The Ukrainian military, he said, was forced to respond.
“The attacks of Russian mercenaries have become more active to provoke our units to retreat from their positions,” he said.
For their part, the rebels charged Monday on their Web site that Ukraine had “repeatedly violated the cease-fire.” They said the Ukrainian military fired on separatist militias as well as residential targets in Donetsk, killing 20.
Russia’s envoy to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is observing the cease-fire in Ukraine, accused the Ukrainian military of shelling rebel and civilian positions. On Sunday, two OSCE vehicles were damaged when observers were caught in the shelling.
“OSCE observers obtained vivid evidence that the Ukrainian military violates the cease-fire and shells civilians with heavy weapons,” the envoy, Andrei Kelin, told Interfax.
Lysenko, however, denied that the Ukrainian military had shelled “any residential areas and settlements” and claimed that rebels had committed hundreds of cease-fire violations over the weekend, including an assault by more than 200 rebels near the Donetsk airport.
Ukrainian officials also said two drones were spotted over the weekend, one traveling toward the strategic port city of Mariupol, where heavy fighting was recently reported.
Russia still has about 25,000 troops along its long border with Ukraine and more than 3,000 soldiers inside the country, according to the Ukrainian government.
The United States and other NATO countries started military exercises in western Ukraine on Monday. Ukraine has recentlysought to join the NATO alliance, but given the uproar such a move would provoke in Moscow, there is almost no chance of that happening.
