Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2014-04-16-Speech-3-044-000"
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"en.20140416.5.3-044-000"2
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"Mr President, each time we debate Ukraine the situation is worse than before. We are witnessing now the second phase in President Putin’s aggressive plan to partition or swallow up the whole of Ukraine based on a pack of lies. Putin is a clever operator, and he knows how to stage the attacks in eastern Ukraine with the right balance of special forces and home-grown activism. It is an insult to our intelligence to hear from Foreign Minister Lavrov that Russia plays no part in this.
The revanchist insurrection currently being witnessed in the Donbas region is unprecedented. It seems to have sprung up virtually overnight, when all students of politics regarding sub-state nationalism know full well that genuine movements need many years of development, in the face of profound state oppression, to take root. There is no state oppression in eastern Ukraine whatsoever. The people are free to speak whatever language they choose and to live their lives as they see fit. To assert that the eastern Ukrainians are facing systematic human rights violations is nothing less than an insult to those countless minorities around the world whose rights are genuinely under attack. Besides, a perceived lack of language/cultural rights cannot under any circumstances justify foreign invasion and – as in the case of Crimea – outright illegal annexation. The appropriate forum to resolve these differences is via elections, representation and negotiations, not a paramilitary barricade.
Putin believes that he can get away with it, but the West must not allow a democratic potential future EU Member State to be carved up or destroyed under our very noses. We must continue diplomacy, of course, with the Kremlin, but the EU economic sanctions regime must now, at the same time, be intensified to Iran-style levels and Ukraine should be given the means militarily to defend itself. Too many people in Europe remember only too well what happens when tyrannies wilfully disregard the sovereignty of free states and the wishes of their peoples. The past of the previous century must not be repeated on our continent."@en1
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