Francis A. Boyle is an attorney and a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. His books include Foundations of World Order (Duke University Press: 1999) and Tackling America’s Toughest Questions (2009). His most recent book is United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law. He spoke with The Voice of Russia about events in Ukraine. Excerpt.
Ukraine’s interim Government has supported the idea of a second round of talks in Geneva to defuse the crisis in the country. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has put it bluntly that new four-party talks are not promising. What do you make of all of this?
I agree. It does seem to me that if there is any progress here, Kiev is going to have to meet with the people there in the Donetsk Republic and at Luganks, but so far I’ve seen no evidence that they intend to do so. So, it does not look good at all.
As you know, President Putin has agreed to this OSCE roadmap that the President of Switzerland is trying to broker right now through Kiev. But again, it is really going to depend on the support by the Obama administration and, regretfully, I don’t really see that support there.
I think Obama fully intends to run through these May 25 pseudo elections that are only going to make the situation worse and lead to more divisions there in Ukraine.
As we’ve seen he sent the Head of the CIA over there – Brennan – to order a crackdown in the east. Then, he sent Vice President Biden over there to resume the crackdown and you had the massacre in Odessa.
So, I regret to say, I haven't seen any change in policy on the part of the Obama administration.
Do you think that Kiev and the leaders of the self-declared republics are going to be able to come to some kind of an agreement? And what they can agree upon?
It might be possible before the situation degenerates into a civil war. But it is really going to require Obama to order his little gang of neo-Nazi thugs in Kiev to meet with the leaders in Donetsk and Luganks. And so far Turchinov and others in this junta in Kiev have ruled this out.
francis a. boyle
