Jan Malicki: West did nothing for Ukraine

Statements by the EU and US representatives have been and will remain just words.

Such an opinion came from the director of the Eastern Europe Institute of Warsaw University Jan Malicki as he gave an interview to PAP.

- It is very hard to estimate, in which direction the situation in Ukraine will develop. Maidan has defended itself, having shown strength by this. On the other hand not all the forces were used at the disposal of the government, - he said.

In the expert’s opinion, since the West has not done anything for such a long time in order to help resolve the situation in Ukraine, it will limit itself solely to words this time too.

- For many weeks many people such as myself have been calling for the visas to be cancelled and accounts frozen of the Ukrainian authorities and oligarchs, however nothing has been done. They only say that sanctions do nothing, that they must remain careful. There you have the result of such cautiousness, - Malicki added.

We would remind that on 18 February in central Kiev most violent clashes took place between the protesters and police forces.

They started in the morning right after the opening of the parliament session, which was supposed to resolve the political conflict in the country. The opposition prepared a draft law for returning to the 2004 Constitution, for which a part of the ruling party’s parliament fraction was ready to vote. Nevertheless, the document was not registered in the parliament. This caused indignation among the protesters, since the changes in the Constitution were considered the most real possibility to settle the conflict in Ukraine.

200 thousand activists circled the parliament. Small clashes started due to provocations, which later on grew into large scale clashes between the protesters and police. Police shot at protesters with guns, riot police used grenades, rubber bullets and buckshot. Activists constructed barricades around the parliament building, but soon they were pushed out of the government district. Medical stuff and parliament members reported 5 deaths. In the evening after the cleansing of Maidan Nezalezhnosti started, the death toll reached 15. Several hundred protesters were wounded. At the current moment 25 deaths are reported.