EU cheerleaders go to Russia-occupied Ukraine

Thierry Mariani, a former transport minister from Les Republicans, a centre-right opposition party in France, was the most senior politician to go to east Ukraine last Sunday (11 November).

Kostas Isihos, a former deputy defence minister from the left-wing Syriza party in Greece, also went.

They were among the 81 foreigners who went in total to appear on local TV saying that "elections" in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) were fine.

Most of them were Russians, but four other French politicians, including two former MPs, also joined in.

They were accompanied by six small-timers from far-right parties in Belgium, Hungary, Germany, and Italy: Vlaams Belang, Jobbik, AfD, Forza Italia, and the League.

And they were joined by two men from the far-left German party Die Linke.

The mixed bag of European visitors also contained characters like Johan Backman, a Finnish pro-Kremlin activist who is under a suspended jail sentence for attacking a journalist.

They included Xavier Moreau, a Frenchman whose Moscow-based firm, Sokol Holding, recruits former French commandos to work in Russia.

It also contained a Greek cartoonist, an Italian conspiracy theorist, and a French volunteer fighter who sings in the Donetsk Symphony Orchestra.

Most of them have a track record of endorsing dodgy elections in Russia-occupied Ukraine and Russia in recent years.

They falsely claimed on TV that the DPR and LPR votes were in line with the Minsk agreements, an EU-brokered ceasefire pact on the conflict.

They praised the high turnout, the orderly manner of the election, and spoke of how "safe and peaceful" life was in the occupied territories, according to the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), an NGO in Berlin.

They "were invited to the 'republics' to provide a sense of general legitimacy and normalcy to the 'elections' in the eyes of the domestic and Russian audiences," the EBDE's Anton Shekhovtsov said.

They did it even though the votes were "illegal and illegitimate", the EU said, because they "violate[d] Ukraine's sovereignty and law".

The visitors' comments also flew in the face of UN reports, which said people in DPR and LPR were "denied basic protection and deprived of basic human rights and freedoms".

The 2.7m people there lived in poverty, the UN said in February, under a regime in which "armed groups" have "imposed an arbitrary system of rules", "cracked down on dissent", and "tortured and ill-treated" opponents.

From Paris to Donetsk

Mariani, from Les Republicans, flew from Paris to Moscow, then to Rostov-on-Don in Russia to get there, he told EUobserver on Friday.

He crossed the Ukrainian border into DPR, where local security forces drove him to his hotel, within earshot of live fire on the contact line.

He denied he went there to serve Russian propaganda.

"I did not go there to support [DPR's] independence, just to look at the elections ... I did not go to legitimise anything," he said.

He also denied the UN report on abuses, saying things might be worse in Luhansk, but that they looked "normal" in Donetsk and that "people did not sound traumatised".

"There were no armed men in balaclavas. Yes, in the cafe, you might see a man with a Kalashnikov [rifle] on his back, and politicians tend to go around with five bodyguards, but we were just 15km from a conflict zone," he said.

The DPR invited him via his NGO, the Franco-Russian Dialogue Association in Paris, and paid him just €420 for his plane fare, he said.

The reason why the EU group was made up of junior figures from fringe parties was because mainstream French politicians were too scared of "attacks" by French media to join them, Mariani claimed.

The EU and Ukraine should make peace with DPR and LPR then try to lure them back via economic incentives, he suggested.

Azov problem

The French politician spoke amid EU and Ukrainian concern on a Russian naval build-up in the Azov Sea.

EU foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday to repeat non-recognition of the DPR and LPR votes and to discuss the Azov problem.

The Azov Sea connects the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk to the Black Sea and the rest of the world via the Kerch Strait.

Russian warships recently stopped over 200 commercial vessels, including from Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands, in the area for lengthy inspections, causing financial losses.

Russian naval forces have also massed there to complete the "Azov Fleet" - a new deployment which makes south-east Ukraine more vulnerable to a Russian invasion, according to a Ukrainian security assessment seen by this website.

The moves could signal the renewal of Russia's so-called 'Novorossiya' project - to conquer all of south-east Ukraine, joining DPR and LPR to Russia-occupied Crimea, an EU diplomat said.

The Azov Fleet is to contain over a dozen armoured troop carriers, infantry landing ships, and missile boats, on top of Russian warships already in the Black Sea.

"EU and G7 sanctions against Russia's ports in the Sea of Azov should be introduced" in order to stop the "escalation", the Ukrainian security assessment said, referring to the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy Western states - France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada, Japan, and the US.