Foreign Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2017

[Ivan Miroshnichenko]

I have one comment. We passed a law two years ago to allow the State Property Fund to involve external advisers to make the audit, prepare visas, and run the privatization of state enterprises. That's why as a part of the process we also made a step forward. Today's state can involve Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse, or whatever they want to basically run the whole process for privatization of strategic enterprises. It's what they started to do.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

How much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Go ahead, Tom. You asked two questions. Keep going.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'll keep going until you stop me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Well, you have a couple of minutes.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Can I ask you about the warming relations between the Russian Federation and the Turkish government? Obviously, you share the Black Sea. There are a lot of navies in the Black Sea right now. Two of them seem to be having a warmer relationship. Does that have an impact on Ukraine?

Also, what types of free trade agreements have you signed with other governments? You have one with Canada. What is your government doing to reach out to other governments and to obtain those avenues to actually increase your external trade?

[Oksana Syroyid]

That would be a question for the government. As we represent a small opposition party, it's very difficult, again, to be accurate in the response. Frankly, I don't have exhaustive information about government activity in this area.

I can only tell you that, in fact, the whole international legal and security order is changing, and we don't know where we will be in two years or even in five years. Of course, Russia, actually, is replacing the rule of law with its rule of power across the world. Our common task is to suggest an alternative. Yes, Russia will be talking to Turkey or the U.S. or—Russia will be talking to everyone. The question is whether we will be just following the Russian talks or whether we will be able to provide our own position on these global issues. I think we all have to talk, and in this sense, I think we have to learn from Russia how to talk and with whom to talk. This is the challenge.

[Ivan Miroshnichenko]

I have a couple of comments on external economic relations. Obviously the example of the free trade agreement with Canada is our standard, and it's probably the leading one.

As to what we have done as a process, I think Ukraine has improved access to Asian markets, especially to China. We extended some limits of trade agreements with the EU, but a little bit, because Ukrainian potential is much higher. After we lost the Russian markets, we suffered in trying to replace these with access to other markets, that's for sure. We still struggle. I think it will take another two to five years until Ukrainian enterprises plus state or governmental work—paperwork—will allow Ukrainian products to access other markets.

When you talk about Turkey and Russia, I think the right impact or the direct influence will be on the energy sector. As you know, the Turkish government did not allow us to go through the Bosporus with LNG, for example, for a project. With the new pipeline for gas, I think it will be even more difficult to find any compromise for this. Obviously the impact will be severe. As our vice speaker said, we should find our own counter-strategy for what we have to do as Ukraine, together with our partners.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you, Mr. Kmiec.

I'll go to Mr. Saini, and then Borys will be next.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for coming.

I don't have enough time, unfortunately, so I'll ask a hybrid question.

Madam Speaker, you made some comments in the media regarding Minsk I and Minsk II, that it was an escape from reality and an attempt by Russia to create a vulnerable and dependent Europe. When we look at Minsk I, there was a failure. When we go to Minsk II, it has been a failure. My question is with regard to the fact that in Minsk I or Minsk II, Crimea was never mentioned. If you look at the state of the situation right now, in the Donbass you have a line of control where you said you have occupied territories. But within those occupied territories, you have Russia now beginning to establish certain services. There's a de facto border created, and there are border crossing points.

If we go to Crimea, the Russian media, especially after the election of President Trump...where you said that this was a chance, during that transition period, for Russia to strengthen its hand in Ukraine. If you look at Crimea right now, it's such that it's not even really talked about. It wasn't talked about in Minsk I or Minsk II. The other fact is that it's a situation where, for instance, the special monitoring mission has limited access in the Donbass and no access in Crimea. The Russian media has also said that Crimea is now a territorial part of Russia, that if we look at the near abroad, it's not a question even to be debated.

What is your step going forward when you have these two situations in Ukraine? To me it's very difficult and challenging.

[Oksana Syroyid]

It's a very good question. Thank you very much.

It is true, sir, that from the Russian perspective, those two territories have different status. Russia needs Crimea. It needs Crimea for its strategic military purposes. That's why Russia occupied and illegally annexed this territory and established its regular administration. Russia doesn't need Donbass. Russia needs to keep Donbass occupied as leverage on the whole of Ukraine. That's why Russia occupied but didn't annex those territories, and didn't establish its administration directly but through proxy forces.

This is how it is from the Russian perspective. From the Ukrainian perspective, and I believe from the international perspective, those territories have the same status. They are absolutely equally occupied territories that are administered by Russia, either directly or indirectly. We have to acknowledge this. For example, we have had in parliament for two already a bill that acknowledges the illegal occupation of Ukrainian territories. We state the start dates of occupation for both Crimea and Donbass. For Crimea it's February 20, and for Donbass it's April 7. We state who occupied, that it was Russia regular forces as well as proxy forces. We state how from that moment, the Ukrainian administration could not reach there, and we don't work there. We actually give all the legal grounds for our soldiers to protect the rest of the territory. We also bring international humanitarian law to the occupied territories, because we cannot reach there. This is also a partial solution for the human rights issue, to recognize those territories as occupied and to allow international humanitarian law to reach there.

This is, we believe, the approach. It would be wonderful if the international community would recognize this as well, but we understand that because of the Russian veto on the UN Security Council, for example, it would be very difficult to do.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

But Russia has also recused itself from the Treaty of Rome, so it's a little more difficult now to pursue that option.

Is there a fear in some ways or anxiety that Crimea may be used as, I don't want to use the word bargaining chip but as, a point of—

[Oksana Syroyid]

It is already used. If you remember the suggestion from Kissinger, he planned to bargain Crimea for Donbass. It was quite recently, already with new administration. It was not Kissinger's idea. This idea came from Surkov, who met Kissinger and actually gave him this note—I know this. Actually, all those ideas of bargaining came from Russia and they are just repeated by, for example, Ukrainian oligarchs, by Mr. Flynn, by Mr. Kissinger, by Mr. Pinchuk. There are a lot of people who are.... Now Mr. Artemenko is coming with this idea to Washington.

They will be coming more and more. Of course, Russia will be struggling for this bargain. That's why it is so important for us to legally acknowledge what's happening, and not to forget.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

We will go to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to follow-up on Mr. Levitt's question with regard to Crimea. You may not be aware that Mr. Levitt also chairs the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the foreign affairs committee. A previous generation of Canadian parliamentarians—you may have heard of Irwin Cotler—internationally championed the cause of the Kremlin's prisoners of conscience during Soviet times.

The current Putin Kremlin regime doesn't have that many Russian prisoners of conscience. Mostly they are eliminated, assassinated, as in the case of Nemtsov, including some 150 investigative journalists who've been assassinated since Putin first came to power. But there are prisoners of conscience and they're mostly Ukrainians who've been kidnapped from Ukraine, extrajudicially arrested, kidnapped, tortured, and put on show trial.

I believe it's an area of study that our human rights committee could potentially look at. I know they have many areas of study. Unfortunately, the world has many human rights situations. Within the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada is there an equivalent committee or subcommittee of human rights that our committee could potentially co-operate with to work on the file of people like Mr. Sentsov, a Ukrainian documentary filmmaker and the recipient of this year's PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, who was put on a show trial and sentenced to 20 years in Russian prison.

Is there an opportunity for co-operation between our two parliaments on that very specific case, and more broadly perhaps to take a look at the situation in Crimea from the perspective that it's astounding that in the 21st century, within the borders of Europe, you have a territory that in different ways is being ethnically cleansed. It's not just the Ukrainian minority that you mentioned, but I also know that the Jewish minority has pretty much been completely cleansed in Crimea. Of those who haven't managed to get to Israel, most are IDPs within Ukraine. The situation there is one of ethnic cleansing, ethnic suppression, and of course of people disappearing, and their bodies sometimes being found with markings of torture. For the specific individual cases of prisoners of conscience who've been kidnapped from Ukraine into Russia, and also the general human rights situation, is there a committee that the subcommittee could potentially co-operate with on a project?

[Oksana Syroyid]

Thank you very much for the question.

I believe this is a task for the whole Ukrainian parliament to be responsible for. We do have a human rights committee in Ukraine, but there is another problem.

The people you mentioned actually have no status and are hostages. They are in fact just illegally detained people in Russia. That's why for example we suggest to legally acknowledge the occupation, because that would also allow us to bring the international law that protects prisoners of war, the Geneva Convention, for example, to bear.

I believe that as soon as we have better status for those people, involving international support for their protection as prisoners of war, it will be easier to protect them. We had a meeting quite recently with the relatives of those illegally detained people who are in Russia, at the initiative of those relatives. They told us that the prisoners need to have status, otherwise we have to reach them one by one because we cannot collectively protect those people. Yes, you were right: maybe they have to institutionalize it more. But at the same time we have to have better status for those people to fight for better conditions, and of course primarily to take them back to Ukraine. We can only do this if we have appropriate status for them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you very much to all who have been taking the extra time. First, I want to thank the deputy speaker and her colleagues for being here. I think it's unique for our committee to see opposition members from another country without governments being there with them. I think that's an occasion in itself that I haven't seen in my 18 years here. I think that's a good sign of democracy in Ukraine.

I want to thank you very much.

We took more of your time than we expected, but I think it was well worth it.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend for a few minutes, and then we're going to go in camera for a short period of time to do some committee business.

[Oksana Syroyid]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and honourable members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

We'll suspend.

[Proceedings continue in camera]