Potential of West for defending Kiev waning — Pushkov

The potential of the West for defense of Kiev gradually exhausts itself, because people around the world cannot ignore for long the mass crimes being committed by Ukrainian security personnel, Alexey Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said.

"It is possible to defend those who came to power in Ukraine in an unlawful way, up to a certain limit, though. Beyond that limit, when a critical mass of facts piles up, defending that becomes a highly complicated affair ," the parliamentarian told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.
Pushkov believes that the fact of discovery of mass graves in Donbass will prompt the West to assess the Kiev regime in a different way. "They cannot indefinitely argue the blame is on Russia and on the so-called separatists, behind whom Russia allegedly stands. Even at a session of the PACE monitoring committee, in which I participated (earlier this week in Vienna), I already noticed a definite change (in attitude) in the sense that none of PACE officials started to say that they 'are absolutely sure that the Ukrainian side is not guilty of those crimes'," the Duma committee head explained.
Pushkov said that already at the PACE monitoring committee meeting, it became evident that "the potential for the defense of Kiev, especially regarding the Odessa issue (tragedy in Odessa on May 2) diminishes".
"I think that on the wane is also the West's ability to defend Kiev, because one cannot indefinitely condone those mass crimes," Pushkov emphasized, adding that, following the new developments, it will be still more difficult for the West to pretend that the Ukrainian authorities are not to blame in any way.