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Press TV has interviewed James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst from Washington, to discuss the political crisis in Ukraine.

- James Jatras, let us look at some of the statements that are coming out from Ukraine; the Ukrainian People’s deputy, Party of Regions, has called on politicians to heed the people and stop inciting separatist sentiments, saying: “The breakup scenario will not work and the Crimea will remain part of the Ukrainian state”.

Are the politicians inciting separatist sentiments?

- I am sure that there are some politicians that are inciting separatist sentiments and I understand that it also includes some members of the Russian Duma. I do not think that that is necessarily the position of the Russian government, which I do not think wants to see Ukraine become a major point of conflict and to take on the air of a major East-West confrontation.

I do agree with Dr. Kuzio that Crimea is very much different; that does not mean however, that other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are happy about what they see going on in Kiev. Even though they may not, and in fact I think most of them do not, have not, much love for Mr. Yanukovych, I think that they regard his removal as having been illegal and they do not necessarily subscribe to the legal authority of government in Kiev that not only has not been formed yet, has not been able to name the council of ministers or an actual government, but is not really even in control of the situation in Kiev.

We still have armed groups on the street that have in essence a veto power... former opposition now calling itself a government decides to do and for example the question of presidential elections in May, I do not know that they will be able to take place in the east and south if the people there feel that this is an illegitimate group that are trying to impose a new order on them against the constitutional procedures.

- James Jatras, nobody is against the country moving forward; but I mean really let us look at how quickly things are unfolding. It was just last week that about 80 people died and here you have some major developments, alarm in Ukraine that some headlines are putting it with Russia, the troops being on alert for war games and then you have NATO and the US coming up, saying that we are going to help Ukraine to go towards a democratic process. 

I mean what is the rush here? And of course not to mention the aid that is now being whipped up supposedly in talks with the IMF.

- Well, I think that that is a great part of the rush. IMF, the Western countries, have said that they would like to help the new government, as they understand it, in Ukraine, but they have to have something stable and something responsible that will undertake the kind of reforms that they insist must take place for the money to be used properly.

There are a number of problems with that; one is: I think it is very doubtful, frankly; they will come up with that much money. One of the problems, one of the things that kicked off this problem in November was that the Europeans were willing to put a lot of strings on Ukraine but not a whole lot of money into the pot, whereas the Russians put a lot of money on the table and very little strings attached.

- James Jatras, I am sorry, could you mention some of those strings? Can you just give us some examples?

- The strings, basically, had to do with the restructuring of Ukraine’s economy and also some of the conditions that the IMF was imposing, for example raising the domestic energy rates, devaluing the Hryvnia, the currency; which of course has happened all by itself dramatically in the last few days; things that have been characterized to the doctors bleeding an already anemic patient.

It is hard to see how in the short-term this cannot trigger an almost complete collapse of the Ukrainian economy plus the fact that I am sure we will hear some very impressive number coming out of West fairly soon and very little of it will, actually, involve giving money to Ukraine to meet its commitments. Instead there will be various kinds of credits and things that Ukraine might be eligible for but will not directly result in money being given to Ukraine.

It is very hard to see, at this point, how they are going to stop what is now, I think, a freefall of economy.

- I like to break this a little bit more. I touched on it James Jatras and that is what Russia has announced through Putin, saying its troops are going be on alert and there is going to be war games and they have said that they are going to take every step to guarantee security at the Black Sea Fleet facilities in Ukraine.

What kind of a message is that sending? Which is almost within the timeframe of when NATO comes out and says we are going to help Ukraine, we are going to protect it and of course, saying that we are not going to interfere in its internal affairs.

- I think that it is posturing. I think that it is a way to say that the Western governments, which Moscow believes have been interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs, to say: Listen! We are still here and we still have interests here and if anything really bad happens we are going to take appropriate steps.

I do not think anybody wants or expects those to happen. I think Russia’s position on Ukraine and also on Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union is more moderate than our other guest has suggested that the zero-sum game, from my perspective, is really coming from Europe not from Russia.

Russia’s point of view has always been: Look! Ukraine cannot afford to choose one path or the other.

What is really necessary is to establish a better bilateral relationship between the EU and Russia, in which Ukraine can find a proper place. It is unrealistic to ask Russia to expect that Ukraine would join a trade bloc, the association agreement with Europe, but still have full access to the Russian market without reciprocation, and this would be a backdoor into Russia, not only for Ukraine, but for European goods, that Russia would have no reciprocal rights. When the Russians object to this, that is called threats against Ukraine.

I think if there is any hope of getting off the dime here and putting Ukraine back in a new position, we could have productive relations in both east and west. We really need to start an enhanced dialogue between Brussels and Moscow about what the relationship is between the Customs Union and the European Union.

- James Jatras, some of these extremists, some of these nationalist movements, they are the armed part of this movement inside maidan, for example; and they are not affiliated with the opposition, they do not see politically.

Do you think that they are just going to get pushed to the side?

- No I do not. I agree with Dr. Kuzio that you can overestimate the influence of those groups but you can underestimate them too. They do not depend on electoral support. They depend on the threat of violence.

This revolution, if that is what you want to call it, would not have succeeded if not for their repeatedly attacking the police with clubs, Molotov cocktails and then firearms when the police were pulling back in accordance with an agreement with the political leaders.

I think they are going to be a continuing plague on the ability of political leadership to form a new and hopefully more moderate governance in Kiev.