French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has stated that presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s remarks portraying the “people of Donbas” as a distinct group in the context of potential territorial concessions during peace negotiations echo the logic used by the Kremlin to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
He made the remarks at a press conference in Paris following a meeting of G7 foreign ministers.
“It would be roughly the same as if someone told us in France that the inhabitants of Hauts-de-France and Grand Est were peoples distinct from the French people and therefore had to have their say whenever territorial questions arose. And that France supposedly did not respect their right to self-determination, meaning a foreign power could come and, so to speak, liberate them from the French yoke,” Barrot said, drawing a comparison with regions of France.
According to the minister, this is precisely the argument Putin uses to justify his “illegal colonial war of aggression” against Ukraine. Residents of Donbas and Crimea are portrayed as a separate people whose right to self-determination is allegedly being suppressed by Ukraine.
“This reasoning is clearly flawed on every level. First, the inhabitants of Donbas and Crimea do not constitute a people separate from the Ukrainian people. In 1991, 35 years ago, the Ukrainian people expressed their support for independence and unity very clearly,” Barrot emphasised.
He added that there is no evidence that the Ukrainian authorities are denying residents of these regions their rights as full citizens of Ukraine.
