Early in the morning on February 24, Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine that resulted in rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities.
On the same day, at an emergency meeting of the political committee of the Yabloko party, adopted a statement concerning the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“This war is a war against time, a tragic fall from the reality of the modern world,” the political committee states.
Yabloko demands President Putin immediate cessation of hostilities and the start of emergency peace talks through international mediation.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine was preceded by a meeting between Vladimir Putin and members of the Security Council. For the first time, it was covered by the pseudo-live TV.”
The members of the Security Council unanimously called for the recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR).
As Ivan Bolshakov, deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, notes, “we thought that the Security Council was an important strategic body, in which experienced, well-informed and authoritative statesmen sit. It turned out that this is the same talk show as the program “60 Minutes” or “Meeting Place”. With the same level of intelligence, discourse, and arguments – only without opponents.”
“The “Ukrainian program” of the Kremlin, which consists of three projects: influence on Kiev through the DPR and LPR, the Little Russia project, and global recognition of the Russian takeover of Crimea turned out to be unviable,” writes Grigory Yavlinsky. According to him, the recognition of the DPR and LPR means a complete failure of the entire political project that Putin has been trying to implement since 2014. The President of Russia assumed that Donetsk and Luhansk, under the leadership of the Kremlin, would politically stifle Kyiv. But, the separatist regions became a heavy economic, financial, and military burden for the balance of Russia. – all the costs of maintaining life in the Donbas from today indefinitely fall on our economy.
The fate of millions in eastern Ukraine was sacrificed during the implementation of Putin’s “Ukrainian program”. 14 thousand dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees with broken lives, the destruction of a significant part of the economy of Donbas – this is the price of Russia’s dead-end political line.
Yavlinsky talks about the motives of the Kremlin and recalls that back in 2017, Yabloko formulated a roadmap for overcoming the crisis, which has now become even more relevant.
“Black days” in the history of Russia and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of refugees. Tens of thousands of signatures against the War!
Yabloko is a social liberal political party in Russia engaged in the struggle for democratisation and against the War. Its leadership includes Academician Alexei Arbatov, Honored Teacher of Russia, Moscow City Duma deputy Yevgeny Bunimovich, human rights activists Valery Borshchev and Svetlana Gannushkina –
The Yabloko party continues the all-Russian civil campaign “NO WAR!”.
“We thank everyone who has already signed our petition, and we call those who have not yet done to join,” says a press release today.
Film director Alexander Sokurov and several tens of thousands of other people from all over the country signed the Yabloko anti-war petition last week.
