The shootout in western Ukraine
July 17th, 2015Bratislava’s Hungarian daily fears for the future of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, where the authorities are utterly incapable of providing security for the citizens, as proved by last weekend’s shootout between the guards of a tycoon who is also an MP and armed gun-men affiliated with a far-right party. .
In Új Szó, Géza Tokár doesn’t even see a remote chance for normality to be restored in Ukraine, where oligarchs surrounded by heavily armed guards can be MPs, and may wage a battle with paramilitary units belonging to a right-wing extremist party, allegedly for the control of the transborder smuggling routes. The West is supporting a regime of oligarchs and is pouring money into it hoping that some of them will end up running a state where killings are not on the order of the day and where gas pipelines operate normally. The Hungarian minority in the Trans-Carpathian region where the shooting took place doesn’t have the means to protect itself and opts increasingly for emigration. The remaining Hungarians would be better off even if the old status quo was restored, with local oligarchs but without far-right nationalist gunmen Tokár believes, but that is something the Ukrainian authorities are unable to guarantee.
Tags: transborder politics, Ukraine