March 2, 2014, 19:01
After the Federation Council gave permission to the President to use the armed forces on the territory of Ukraine, our country was on the verge of war.The need to use the army is motivated by the threat over life of Russian citizens and compatriots. Indeed, such cases of abuse and violence committed by representatives of various political forces are known.
However, the use of foreign military force, which is connected with the violation of the sovereignty of the neighboring state and that is contrary to the international obligations of Russia, in our opinion, is absolutely not appropriate with regards to the scale of the violations. In particular, information about attacks, riots and murders on the territory of Crimea is unreliable and exaggerated. According to the testimony of the Human Rights Council-member Andrei Yurov, who is in Crimea now, during the last two days there were no victims and wounded among the civilian population and the military, as was discussed at the meeting of the Federation Council.
The use of armed force is always fraught with further escalation of violence and more large-scale human rights violations. Ukraine’s problems should be resolved by political settlement and a constant search for compromise on key controversial issues (like the status of languages), but not by commiting troops.
In view of this we consider it necessary to completely exclude the use of armed forces in the course of settlement of political crisis in Ukraine.
The statement was signed by the members of the Council:
Lev Ambinder, Svetlana Aivazova, Yevgeniy Bobrov, Alexander Verkhovsky, Sergey Vorobyov, Sergey Krivenko, Yury Kostanov, Stanislav Kucher, Elena Masyuk, Leonid Nikitinsky, Ella Polyakova, Nikolay Svanidze, Anita Soboleva, Irina Khakamada, Sergei Tsyplenkov, Pavel Chikov, Ilya Shablinsky, Ihor Yurgens, Andrey Yurov.
The collection of signatures continues.
Translated by Liliia Chulitska, edited by Philip Loeventoft
Source: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1270412-echo/
