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THE WHITE HOUSE has rejected a Vladimir Putin-backed effort to hold a referendum in eastern Ukraine on the region’s future, distancing itself from the idea in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s controversial summit with the Russian leader.
Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said the two leaders had discussed the possibility of a referendum in separatist-leaning eastern Ukraine during their Helsinki summit.
But Trump’s National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said last night that agreements between Russia and the Ukrainian government for resolving the conflict in the Donbas region do not include any such option and any effort to organise a “so-called referendum” would have “no legitimacy”.
The back-and-forth came as the White House outlined the agenda for a proposed second summit between Trump and Putin — in Washington this fall — that would focus on national security. Moscow signaled its openness to a second formal meeting between the two leaders as criticism of Trump over his first major session with his Russian counterpart kept up in the U.S.
Trump left the White House for his New Jersey golf club for the weekend. Once he got there, he returned to Twitter to complain about news coverage of Monday’s meeting.
“I got severely criticised by the Fake News Media for being too nice to President Putin,” he tweeted. “In the Old Days they would call it Diplomacy. If I was loud & vicious, I would have been criticized for being too tough.”
A White House official said the next Trump-Putin meeting would address national security concerns they discussed in Helsinki, including Russian meddling. The official did not specify if that meant Russia’s interference in U.S. elections. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss planning, said the talks would also cover nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Iran and Syria.
One stop Putin almost surely won’t make is Capitol Hill.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to make clear that Putin wouldn’t be invited to address Congress if he visits Washington.
She said Trump’s “frightened fawning over Putin is an embarrassment and a grave threat to our democracy”.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a sunnier view of the likely second get-together.
He said at the United Nations he was “happy that the two leaders of two very important countries are continuing to meet. If that meeting takes place in Washington, I think it is all to the good. Those conversations are incredibly important.”
It was not clear whether such a meeting would take place before or after the November congressional elections in the US.
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Russia and the US discussing a possible referendum in Ukraine? Call me old fashioned, but is that not a matter for the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians alone?
@Liam Doyle: surely the US don’t interfere in over countries elections and referendums
@Shaun Gallagher: not once they have secured ‘regime change’
@andrew: Funny I can remember several off the top of my head without doing any research.
Like Viet Nam, Chile, Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Libya and Colombia.
@Liam Doyle: Ukraine won’t hold a referendum because a large part of it would vote to leave. In any case, whatever the outcome, those who don’t like the result will declare it illegitimate and it probably won’t stop the violence.
Of course they won’t agree to it, for they know full well that the majority of Eastern Ukrainians would prefer to be separate from Ukraine or part of Russia
Donbas is Russian anyway so whats the difference ? Kiev is not capable of keeping the street lights on or collecting the rubbish without mass corruption. Let Putin have his referendum in exchange for the following info :
Names of private U.S. citizens involved in decision to remove Gaddafi.
Name of person who suggested a civil war would be the best way to have Assad removed.
Documents which explain why the CIA had so much leverage over Obama.
Sounds like a fair deal to me. At this stage the CIA poses a bigger threat to American democracy than the KGB.
@Joe Caulfield: Research “Project for The New American Century” and it’s associated links to find many of the names you seek.
@Joe Caulfield: It’s not as simple as that. The urban centres of the Donbas are, indeed, primarily Russian. These Russians arrived to populate areas and work in the factories which had been Ukrainian and depopulated during the Holodomor. The rural areas surrounding the urban centres are predominantly Ukrainian, though. How would you separate out the indigenous, rural Ukrainian areas from the descendants of Russians who are primarily urban, and maintain contiguous boundaries at the same time? Looking at ethnolinguistic maps of the area on a municipal level, you can see how much of a patchwork quilt the area is. It’s not just as simple as a referendum. Such a referendum would probably see the area secede and join Russia. But this means the majority of the geographic area (rural and Ukrainian) would be governed by the majority of the population which is a minority in terms of geographic distribution (urban and Russian). It would also leave Russians in rump Ukraine outside of the Donbas area in a far more perilous position.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: so what you’re saying is an imperial power is using plantation as a means to seize control of a part of a foreign country by displacing the original population. Now where have I heard that happen before? You’d think any Irishman would have pretty strong objections to that happening, right?
@Backuptron: Again, it’s not as simple as that. At the time, Ukraine and Russia were part of the same Soviet nation. At the time, it would have been akin to a large scale migration of Dubliners to Meath, say. The Holodomor affected not just Ukrainians, but had an impact in vast swathes of Russia itself too, with many ethnic Russians also dying. If the Holodomor had not happened, and the borders were subsequently aligned along ethnic lines, Ukraine would extend for hundreds of kilometres into Russia proper and would be approximately 25% larger than today (including Crimea). Basically, Russia would not have had a Black Sea coastline. But, the Holodomor did happen, and those factories still needed to be operational and so migrant workers were brought in to fill the gaps in the labour force.
@Backuptron: The following is a pretty good representation of the pre-Holodomor distribution of Ukrainians in Ukraine and the surrounding areas: http://ukrainianvancouver.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/10Ethnographic-mapOr2-600×430.jpg
Most of the areas to the east of the Ukrainian SSR (also, the current Ukrainian) border were completely depopulated of Ukrainians and have subsequently become populated almost exclusively with Russians. Similarly, areas in Eastern Ukraine suffered a similar fate, although mostly limited to urban areas, which leaves us with the current predicament in Ukraine.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: sounds like “Urban Democrats” wanting to control less populated areas of the US.
That’s like asking the people of Scotland or Northern Ireland whether or not they wish to remain as part of The UK or asking people of The UK if they want to remain part of The EU.
Funny that the west won’t entertain such democratic practice in the east.
@David McShite:
Do you seriously think a vote in eastern Ukraine or Crimea would be free from Russian interference? We are not able to guarantee that in the West, not much chance in Ukraine.
@P.J. Nolan: Using that logic no question or vote could ever be put to any people of any nation again for fear of the result being corrupted by others.
All elections are subject to influence by various parties, “vote early and often” was a long time mantra up north, a baseless tweet read out live during our last presidential debate sank Sean Gallagher, the money, lies and vested interests that steered towards Brexit and so on.
Does that mean we should dispense with democracy altogether or try to protect the process from corruption?
There are many powerful people who desire the former who’s agenda you are playing into.
@P.J. Nolan: and any such vote would also be subject to US and EU interference. But I’m sure you’d have no problem with that! Once the West gets its way never mind the outrageous hypocrisy of them condemning others for the same actions.
The Russian part of Ukraine was happy enough before Ukraine became ultra nationalist and banned their language in schools etc. It also doesn’t suit their economy to be in the EU because that region trades with the East. There is a solution to keep the country united if Kiev backs down a bit and allows them more cultural and economic autonomy within Ukraine. Otherwise there will be a schism.
@SC: it worked the other way round before the revolution where Ukrainian was the second language and Russian was first under the pro Russian leader Yanukovych. He who denied the famine ever took place and fled to Russia after he massacred the protestors. Get your facts right…..
@Red Ruskie: “Get your facts right….”. That is a bit rich coming from you.
We don’t know what the facts are. Some reports suggest that snipers were employed by opposition forces to shot at both sides and incite violence. We will never know what really happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/ukraine-bugged-call-catherine-ashton-urmas-paet
@SC: Jaysilus sounds like you work in the Kremlin, under Vlad’s table.
In my opinion, the only fair way to solve this would be to have an initial referendum to see if the majority of the east Ukraine people want a referendum to decide their future. If a majority say yes in the second referendum then an EU member or Russian Federation member result will be the winner.
@John Hagin Meade: Fair? Highly unlikely…..Russian elections are fair and well contested???
Everyone deserves the right to self-determination. I don’t see the problem with a scotland-style referendum with a full run-in period for debate culminating in a free and fair vote (without outside interference from the US, Russia, the EU or anyone else) overseen by international monitors to ensure transparency.
The same applies to Crimea however we all know that’s not what happened there.
It was good enough for Kosovo however. US (and Russian) double standards are the finest in the world!
Here we go, let’s see Agent Orange get behind this one..
A frozen conflict will remain in Ukraine for the foreseeable future. What a shame. The US and its western European allies are almost entirely responsible.
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