There is a good bit of tension in the air about what is happening with the Ukrainian crisis. Putin and Obama had a telephone conversation that seemed to open the possibilities of negotiation. Kerry and Lavrov are meeting in Paris tomorrow to see if they can reach any actual concrete agreements. Doing so would seem to require that both sides can find some common ground on a way forward. While Putin says that they have no plans to launch a military invasion of any part of Ukraine other than Crimea, the position is that major steps need to be taken to assure stability for the ethnic Russian population.
Lavrov gave an interview to Russian TV that outlines the sort of proposals that he will be taking to Paris. It seems useful to know what their position is likely to be.
Federal agreement is only way to reach Ukraine settlement – Lavrov Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_29/Only-way-for-Ukraine-to-reach-settlement-is-to-sign-federal-agreement-Lavrov-1757/
Russia believes that the only way for Ukraine to reach a settlement is to sign a federal agreement, said Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with the anchor of the 'Saturday News with Sergei Brilev' TV programme earlier today. "Current developments in Ukraine have resulted from a deep statehood crisis, triggered, among other things, by the inability (I’d hate to think of reluctance) of every successive leader coming to power to reconcile the interests of Ukraine’s western region and Ukraine’s South-East", the Russian Foreign Minister said. "This cannot continue that way anymore".
"We are certain that Ukraine needs profound constitutional reform. In all fairness, we can’t see any other way to ensure the stable development of Ukraine but to sign a federal agreement", Lavrov said.
"Some may know better and are, perhaps, capable of finding some magic spell to ensure living in a unitary state, with people in the West, on the one hand, and the South-East, on the other, celebrating different holidays, honouring different heroes, developing different types of economy, speaking different languages, thinking differently and gravitating towards different European civilised cultures but I think it’s pretty difficult to live in a unitary state like that", Lavrov said.
Russia’s topmost diplomat pointed out that a constitutional reform should be approved by a referendum and should reflect the interests of all regions, the interests that should be mutually agreed on, so that once the constitutional reform is approved by a plebiscite, presidential and parliamentary elections could be held, as well as the elections of regional legislatures, executive authorities and governors, so that these are elected, rather than appointed".
The West is no longer dismissing Russia's arguments that Ukraine should become a federation through constitutional reform, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
These are of course rather substantial demands for constitutional change by another supposedly sovereign state. Anybody who reviews the political history of Ukraine since it separated from the dissolved USSR would likely find the notion that it has been a chronically unstable mess pretty plausible.
It would seem that Obama and Putin would have had to have seen some possibility of working out an agreement in order to think that a foreign ministers meeting was worthwhile. However, it would seem likely that there would be some major road blocks facing anything along the lines of Lavrov's ideas. Not the least of these would be resistance from the interim government in Kiev. I guess we'll get to see if in their present circumstances they have anything that passes for national sovereignty. With their fate being discussed by the US and Russia in Paris, it really doesn't sound like they have a lot of it.