Bohdan Yaremenko: Without matter of Crimea being settled, Donbas problem could not be solved

The strategic blunder of the Ukrainian diplomacy is that without settling the matter of Crimea, it is impossible to solve the problem in the east.

These issues are inseparable. They could be discussed and solved only in package. Such a statement has been made by a diplomat and the head of the board of the charitable foundation, Maidan of Foreign Affairs, Bohdan Yaremenko, who commented on the talks in Berlin between political directors on resolving the conflict in Donbas.

“Political directors are directors of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s departments, who are in charge of certain political issues,” he writes. “Despite their name, “political”, it should be realized that the participants have a high expert level. An expert, not a political level. It means that these officials are not policy-makers, they implement the will of leaders of states or Foreign Affairs ministries.

Realizing that, we can easily come to a conclusion that the meetings of political directors could be fruitful only in the framework of a consensus formed by their leaders. In other words, when leaders of states have reached an agreement on something, political directors could bring into line the criteria of implementation of these agreements. They could certainly make that as a draft document for their ministers and presidents.

So it is clear that the today’s meeting [of January 5] could not have been fruitful a priori, there is no political consensus at the level of heads of states of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia at all.”

Bohdan Yaremenko notes that he is concerned by the behavior of the Ukrainian side.

“Judging by the reports we have at the moment, even at this level the Ukrainian side had not brought up the annexation of Crimea as a question for discussion. Only implementation of the so-called Minsk agreements was discussed. Which is to say, the Ukrainian diplomacy has completely fallen for Putin’s bait – we are ready to forget about Crimea for the sake of the peace in the east,” the diplomat explained.

He is convinced that Ukraine’s unpreparedness to bring up such issues even at the level of experts is viewed by diplomats of all other countries as consent to status quo in the Crimean issue.

“And the reaction is to be appropriate – if Ukrainians are not interested in Crimea, why should others be interested by it? A strategic blunder of the Ukrainian diplomacy (not only the Foreign Ministry, but primarily the president) is that it’s impossible to solve the problem of the war in the eastern Ukraine without settling the matter of Crimea. These issues are inextricably connected. And they could be discussed and solved only in package,” Bohdan Yaremenko concluded.