Francis A. Boyle is an attorney and a professor of international law.
He's also the author of many books including, most recently, United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law. This is an excerpt from an interview with The Voice of Russia that Boyle gave.
Putin right ignoring West's hysteria over Crimea as they provoking Russia - expert - News - VoR Interviews
The tensions around the situation in Ukraine haven't been eased as the West is going further with imposing sanctions against Russia after the country's Parliament ratified the treaty on Crimean accession to Russia. Fencis Boyle, an expert on Ukraine and a professor from Illinois, gave an interview to the Voice of Russia and shared his take on the recent developments of the Ukrainian crisis and whether the presidential elections slated for May 25 could be the way out of it. How can you comment on the situation in the Crimea these days?
I think we will need the Obama administration to sit down and negotiate in good faith with the Russian government. Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin have made a reasonable offer here as to proceeding into the future, but regretfully it looks like the Obama administration is more interested in escalating the situation. So, I cannot say I am overly optimistic. Yesterday, President Putin said that he did not want to engage in any more measures of retaliation, which was a good thing, and then immediately National Security advisor Rice came out and started to provoke the situation again. My advice to Russia would be to continue with President Putin's policy and not respond to their provocations, because I think they are trying to provoke Russia.
The Ukrainians have the election scheduled for May 25. Do you think the results of that election could actually produce a leader that Russia will be able to find common ground with? Perhaps, that would be one of the steps in resolving the crisis, what do you think?
I guess it depends on the fairness of this election. My understanding is that the OSCE is now sending in observers. I can certainly understand why Russia will not negotiate or agree with the current government of neo-Nazi thugs in Kiev. There is no other words to describe these people. And I also think it was an insult yesterday for President Obama to tell President Putin that he should be negotiating with this gang of thugs in Kiev. But it could be there would be legitimate elections and as a result of those elections the Russian government might then be able to negotiate with the new government, the real government in Kiev. Right now you just have neo-Nazi rabble running Kiev and these demands, both by Secretary of State Kerry and also President Obama, for President Putin's Foreign Minister Lavrov to negotiate with these thugs, I personally find insulting and I can agree why you would not want to negotiate with these people.
francis a. boyle