Russia’s opposition politicians react to Malorossiya declaration

While members of Russia’s Presidential administration and governing United Russia party have stated that Russia will remain committed to enforcing the MINSK II agreements and shall not make any moves to endorse the Malorossiya declaration, members of Russia’s leading opposition parties have taken decidedly different views.

Leonid Kalashnikov who is an increasingly prominent spokesman on foreign affairs for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) a successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), spoke optimistically about the Malorossiya declaration.

The Communist Deputy of the State Duma stated,

“The creation of such a state is possible, and perhaps even inevitable, judging by what is happening with the Ukrainian authorities. Instead of solving the question the government (Kiev regime) tightens the noose of hostilities. People cannot live at war for a long time. Something needs to be done. So, the creation of such a sovereign state could be the solution for the people”.

Kalashnikov continued saying that even before the present crisis, individuals in Kharkov, Donetsk and Lugansk already considered such a solution in order to enhance local self-determination.

He concluded saying,

“I think the people will be positive (about the Malorossiya declaration) . But the international community will be against it. Some countries will turn a blind eye to it. Russia will be positive towards this idea”.

Later, the founder and leader of the Soviet Union’s first official opposition party and the current Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky spoke of the broader problems associated with disunity among Russians outside of the Russian Federation in addition to fraternal peoples that had a common history with both Tsarist and Soviet Russia.

The LDPR issued the following statement on Facebook,

“Only with the restoration of the borders of the USSR…will the order come.

The Belarusian delegation at the 26th session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly supported the resolution proposed by Ukraine, which referred to the ‘occupied Crimea’, and the Donbass was listed as a territory ‘under the control of Russian hybrid forces.’ The LDPR leader is convinced that this is another example of the fact that there is no ‘friendship of peoples’ (a Soviet construct that was reiterated in the 1997 Kharkov Agreement).

The LDPR leader commented on the situation: ‘In Minsk, the Belarusian delegation voted for an anti-Russian resolution. This once again shows that everyone is looking for a place under the sun, there is no Slavonic or Orthodox solidarity. They come to Moscow and sing with nightingales: ‘We are with the Russian people, we are with Russia, no one will turn us around anywhere.’ And in fact they act as if they are interested only in immediate enrichment.

At the same time, he (Zhirinovsky)  proposed the solution of all problems in the post-Soviet space – to hold an independent referendum in each former Soviet republic for the purpose of uniting into one country.

‘We suffer in the Donbass, Transnistria, Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia. Only the restoration of a single large country within the borders of the USSR will solve these problems. Naturally (it can be re-created), through a referendum. If it is properly held, then everyone will agree to return to the borders of the USSR, including the Baltic’,Vladimir Zhirinovsky is convinced.

It should be noted that the LDPR repeatedly called one of the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR – the erroneous nationalities policy. The unitary Russian Empire was artificially divided into national regions, which, having received borders, legislation, sovereignty, eventually fled in 1991, although the majority of the USSR citizens voted to preserve the Union. The unification of the lands will restore balance, but in a new large country all national borders must be erased, and instead of them the country is divided into provinces exclusively by geographic principle”.

These proposals are not radically different from those I have repeatedly proposed in The Duran and on televised interviews in respect of solving the current crisis. Indeed, such proposals were drafted prior to the Malorossiya declaration.

The primary way in which the LDPR proposals differ from the Malorossiya declaration is that referenda would be expanded throughout former Soviet countries and regions with an aim towards unitary re-unification with a Russian state that would differ in composition vis-a-vis the current Russian Federation.

As previously published in The Duran,

“If here was ever a case for 21st century regime change it is in Kiev. The Kiev regime has violated all the acceptable norms of the most rogue failed state and no amount of America or EU money can change this fact.

What’s more is that unlike in the countries where America militarily intervened, in Ukraine, millions of people would actually welcome Russia as a force of liberation. The people of the region were all living in one state until very recently and many still lament the creation of artificial borders between fraternal peoples.

If put to a referendum, the majority of Ukrainian regions would almost certainly prefer association with Russia than with neo-Nazi elements from the only non-Russian part of the region, Galacia in the west of the current Ukrainian borders.

Why is it that America can destroy nations at will, but Russia cannot help a fraternal Russian people on Russia’s current borders?

The only logical answer is timidity. It is a timidity that shames Russia and hurts millions of Russian people both inside and out of Russia’s current borders”.

READ MORE: 4 ways Russia could and should bring about regime change in Kiev

The statements from both Kalashnikov and Zhirinovsky indicate that prominent figures among Russia’s main opposition parties are far more optimistic about the potential for solving the current crisis through means other than the repeated violated Minsk agreements. These methods include respecting the results of existing national self-determination plebiscites in addition to opening the possibility of holding more as is mandated in the Malorossiya declaration itself, in respect of the appropriate territory.