#5 Associatieovereenkomst met Oekraïne

quote:

Ukraine can deal with its plethora of problems if it follows the economic policies of Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt and obtains nuclear weapons,
says the leader of the Radical Party, who is angling to be appointed the country’s prime minister, Oleg Lyashko.

Lyashko is among the more controversial Ukrainian MPs. His party saw a surge of popularity amid the political crisis of 2013-14. It had a single MP – Lyashko himself – in the previous parliament elected in 2012, but now has 21, and its leader claims it would double its strength, if a snap election were called now.

The Radical Party was part of the now-defunct ruling coalition, which put forward Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk as head of the Ukrainian government, but has since gone into opposition.

“Ukraine must for the sake of its security recreate its nuclear weapons potential. We have everything we need. We have the scientific expertise, uranium, schematics, the Yuzhmash plant, which can build nuclear missiles,” he said.

Kiev considers the secession of Crimea through a referendum and its reunification with Russia an annexation through military force rather than a democratic exercise in self-determination. Some Ukrainian politicians, including Lyashko, say the US and Britain have betrayed Ukraine by not going to war with Russia to return Crimea and that Kiev should never have given up its nuclear weapons.

Another quite radical solution suggested by Lyashko is the way he wants to force the country’s oligarchs to pay taxes.

“Paying taxes is the key thing. If someone doesn’t – have a firing squad shoot him. Or jail him for life,” he said, in what presumably was a rhetorical exaggeration.

Lyashko is no stranger to using force to further his goals. On several occasions in 2014 he and his associates abducted several officials in the discontented east of Ukraine who spoke against the new authorities in Kiev. The abductors insulted, threatened and humiliated their victims in video reports that Lyashko proudly presented to the public after each incident.

Last August, Lyashko’s fellow Radical Party MP Igor Mosiychuk claimed he and the party leader were being investigated for one of those abductions, but it was never confirmed by the authorities. Instead the Prosecutor General’s Office had Mosiychuk arrested for bribery, but the case against him stalled.