Yanukovych Likely to Head Russia’s “Puppet Government” in Ukraine
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, March 2: The former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, currently living in exile in Russia, is believed to be the reason behind the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014, is believed to be being prepared by Russia for hoisting him as the new president of Ukraine to head a Russian puppet government if it can manage to overthrow the president Volodymyr Zelensky government in Kyiv.
Some media reports citing Ukrainian intelligence, said according to one scenario, Russia would try to declare him as the “President of Ukraine.” Moscow may be preparing an informational operation or action for Yanukovych’s return to Ukraine, it said.
Viktor Yanukovych was elected as the fourth president of Ukraine in 2010 and he remained in office until the Maidan Revolution. A string of violent clashes involving protesters, riot police, and shooters in Kyiv resulted in the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in February, 2014 and Yanukovych’s ouster from office. The protests, which began in November 2013, were a response to Yanukovych’s refusal to sign a political and trade agreement with the European Union (EU). Yanukovych then made his way to Russia where he continues to live in exile under the protection of the Kremlin.
The Russian invasion, however, has also brought out the darker racial face of the western world. Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, part of the global spotlight has focused on the torture and discrimination of Indians, Africans, Arabs and other people of colour trying to cross the Ukrainian border. Race is often deciding whether people fleeing the war will be welcome or face hostility when they reach European nations for refuge.
The prime ministers of Bulgaria and Poland have declared their countries would accept as many Ukrainian refugees as possible because “these are not the refugees we are used to. These are intelligent and educated people.” These countries have often denied entry to Iraqi, Afghan and Syrian refugees in the past.
The way sections of the western media are covering the war betrays deep racist exceptionalism. Some western commentators have also inferred that only countries like Iraq and Afghanistan perhaps deserve war.
There is also shock about “well-dressed, prosperous middle class, next-door, white Christian people” being victims of war, with the inference that refugees can stream only from the Middle East or North Africa. The maximum surprise is over the fact that war has visited a European country, “instead of a Third-World nation.”
The African Union and the Arab and Middle East Journalists’ Association have condemned such treatments and remarks that have tarnished the West’s “high moral ground” of standing up to the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Many Indian students trying to flee from the war zone have also send messages back home that they were being discriminated against even by the Ukrainian police. They were not being allowed to enter the overcrowded trains leaving Kyiv though everyone is trying to escape the same risk as the Russian shelling continued. Even at the international borders with Poland or Romania they were being “pushed back” and not easily allowed to cross Ukrainian territory, they complained.
