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The European Parliament urged to impose sanctions against Ukrainian officials

February 6, 2014 Sergey Chizhov

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the situation in Ukraine. Deputies called for sanctions against those Ukrainian officials, legislators and their financial patrons who are responsible for suppressing anti -government actions. They should be refused to issue entry visas to the EU countries, and bank accounts should be frozen. The adopted resolution emphasizes the need to strengthen measures to combat money laundering Ukrainian companies through European banks. In addition, the deputies supported the idea of ​​discovering the constant representation of the European Parliament in Ukraine in order to contribute to the dialogue of the parties to the domestic political conflict.

First of all, it must be understood that European instruments are limited in their capabilities. In Europe, everything always goes according to the procedure, very slowly, in very diplomatic formulations. And against the background of what the EU usually accepts, this resolution, of course, is very sharp. If you compare with the usual conversation, this is not just an increase in tone, but almost a transition to a scream, even to some extent-a transition to threats against representatives of Ukrainian authorities. That is, in the conditions of the current confrontation, the European Union does everything that it is able to do. Another question is how effective this is, since in Ukrainian authorities many can count on the fact that the crisis will be resolved in some foreseeable time, if not weeks, then at least months, and really until this time, no European sanctions will come into effect, accordingly, everything will be ignored. The winners, as they say, are not judged, and if Viktor Yanukovych and his environment will be able to take up, then Europe will have to come to terms with this or another.

The question is about personal sanctions against representatives of the Ukrainian leadership here. In Europe and Ukraine, there is a great discussion about whether they should be introduced. Some say that sanctions are not very effective at all, as the example of Belarus shows, and can finally push the current power into the arms of Russia. Others say that associations with Belarus are inappropriate, since in Ukraine there are much more oligarchs who live in much more free conditions, have taken their capital to the West, teach children there and so on. The sanctions are already slowly becoming a reality, as we now see, another thing is whether this will make a serious impression on the Ukrainian establishment. They should be worried, first of all, not even Ukrainian politicians who, however, are all businessmen themselves, but those largest Ukrainian oligarchs who have made bets on Ukrainian markets. This is, first of all, Renat Akhmetov, Dmitry Firtash and many others. Because, of course, they will have this situation for a long time, and even if we assume that the current Ukrainian authorities will somehow get out of this situation and not to touch its sanctions, the oligarchs will definitely suffer significant losses.

The peculiarity of the oligarchs, even if we proceed from the term itself, is that they are not one. These are different groups, and, of course, if you take them all, 7-8 of the largest financial groups of Ukraine, then they are able to make any decisions and achieve any changes if they are consolidated. But we are obvious to such consolidation, therefore, the position of the most powerful oligarchs is most interesting, the most influential of which both on controlled assets, and in financial condition, and in political influence - including the Verkhovna Rada - is Renat Akhmetov with a group of the Investigative Committee. Political scientists and simply politically active citizens look at him, because he already now has the opportunity through his deputies to reformat the majority in the Verkhovna Rada, and there is even reason to believe that he was already trying to do this. Moreover, the group of Renat Akhmetov is also consistent with the informal group of Renat Akhmetov. It was them, apparently, that Viktor Yanukovych scared, when he spoke about the possible dissolution of the Verkhovna Rada that, by the way, he was not included in his powers, but perhaps it could somehow be implemented.

It is amazing that these strongest oligarchs, although they have already made several statements against the authorities, cannot completely decide until the end, and due to the uncertainty of their position, the situation continues to be so suspended. Sometimes voices from the opposition sound that you should not negotiate with Yanukovych, but to convince at least a few oligarchs that their interests and interests of the protesters coincide, and then everything will go cheerfully and quickly. But, of course, there are also oligarchic groups that definitely appear on the side of the authorities. Firstly, this is the so-called family-for example, Vadim Novinsky-which cannot be against Yanukovych by definition, this is a very strong group. In general, all oligarchs have a very different political weight. For example, another of those who potentially be on the side of the protesters is Igor Kolomoisky, his Privat group and his partner Bogolyubov. But their political weight is much smaller, there are no “their deputies” and such an authority in the government, although, of course, there are quite a few assets, the enterprises on which Ukrainians work, and so on.

In fact, European integration moods are sitting in Ukrainian society very deeply. Just a year ago, all experts converged in the fact that the question of the need for a European vector is the only question that consolidates the entire Ukrainian elite. And when Viktor Yanukovych and even Nikolai Azarov, in whose mouths it sounded not very organic, began to say that there were no alternatives to the European way of developing Ukraine, then the whole country was set up for movement there. Therefore, now Europe - as a direction of the country's movement - is very important and desirable for most Ukrainians. Another thing is that the issue of signing an association agreement, due to which the very first protests began, went far into the background, and more acute internal problems related to the need to change power or at least a very serious redistribution of powers have reached the agenda.

At the same time, they really want to wait for some help from Europe, according to the old principle, "a foreigner will help us." Or just reasoning that someone should be stronger than President Yanukovych-if the Lord God does not directly intervene, then maybe even the European Union. The peak of disappointment has already passed when it turned out that even the EU high representatives who arrived could not do anything. And as a result, such a sound attitude dominates now that Europeans may not be many, but everything they can do, and Ukrainians are counting on it very much.

In the photo: 02/05/2014. Plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
Photo: Patrick Seeger/ Era/ ITAR-TASS