Image
© SXC.hu
The Both Houses of the US Congress have passed a bill providing assistance to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. It envisages 50 million dollars in financial aid to Ukraine for improving democratic governance, anti-corruption efforts and supporting free and fair elections in Ukraine and allots additional $100 million to enhance security cooperation among the US, EU and countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

The document also calls for the introduction of sanctions against Russian citizens, who, according to US senators, are associated with the violation of human rights in Ukraine or actions that undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Voice of Russia talked to Francis Boyle, professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of Tackling America's Toughest Questions.

Can this financial aid stabilize the financial situation in Ukraine?

Of course not. It is purely symbolic, it is pretty much money down the drain. I think everyone knows it. Ukraine has enormous financial problems, as you know. President Putin offered Yanukovich 15 billion dollars and a 5 billion dollar gas discount, which would have helped meet their immediate upcoming debts. But this is purely symbolic.

Is adoption of the bill a next step in freeze of the relations between Russia and US?

I am afraid that if you are listening to what is coming out of Brussels today at NATO headquarters, it doesn't sound very good at all. They are jacking up the militarization of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania. Now they are talking about getting involved in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova. It doesn't look good at all. As for these sanctions, in fact, for undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine, those should be imposed on Nulland and Payette, the assistant secretary of state and the US Embassador to Ukraine because if anyone has done anything more damaging to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it was Nuland and Payette by sponsoring this neo-Nazi coup in Kiev that everyone has to deal with now.

How can the bill influence the further development of relations between Ukraine and West? Is it possible that the US is using this financial aid in order to have a leverage over Ukraine in important political issues?

As was pointed out, basically they are using the international monetary fund to impose draconian restructuring on Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Indeed the day after Yatsenyuk signed the IMF agreement, he doubled the gas prices and that was even before Gazprom eliminated the discount. So, when president Putin even after this push and coup offered to provide more money to stabilize Ukraine, according to president Putin in his press conference, the Americans told them "no, you have to follow the lead of the IMF". So, again these sanctions by Congress are purely symbolic but they are symbolic in a negative way. We are moving here in a negative direction, fortunately so far the Europeans, especially the Germans who do so much business over there with Russia, don't want to go any further, but I am afraid we are going to see pressure from the US Congress and the US for more economic sanctions against Russia. Whether this will happen, I don't know.

What are the main consequences of the US-Ukrainian close security cooperation for Russia? Would it have any impact on Russian-Ukrainian relations?

I read the interview that Foreign Minister Lavrov just gave to Russian TV, discussing his negotiations with Secretary State Kerry, and it does seem to me that if the US wanted to, they would move in that direction of a constructive de-escalation of this crisis which would include a commitment that Ukraine would not join NATO, some type of constitutional reform with the federalization of Ukraine, we have a federal state here in the US and most of our lives are governed by the federal states, not by the government itself in Washington DC, so I don't see why that should be objection to anyone, re-establishing Russian as an official language of Ukraine, which it had been before this crisis started and precipitated the crisis.