Condolences, Silence, or Schadenfreude? The rampage in Kerch in Crimea has shown how difficult it is for Ukraine to respond appropriately to such tragedies and not to draw hasty conclusions.
It is an amok was run at a school in Kerch, in the Crimea about 20 people were killed. And probably no one of political backgrounds would speculate, would not be the Crimea as disputed between the Ukraine and Russia. The first reactions of politicians, journalists and citizens showed how difficult it is to contain their emotions, and how to draw easy, hasty conclusions. Many commented on the tragedy at the Polytechnic school, as a act of terrorism was assumed. They drew comparisons to a hostage-taking in Beslan in North Ossetia (2004), although after a few hours it was clear that a rampage is similar to the one at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.
“It is made out of Kerch, a Beslan,” wrote Osman Paschajew, a Journalist with the Kiev-based Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR. He stressed that there had been on the “Ukrainian Crimea, no terrorism”. The Russian Journalist Arkady Babchenko, who also works for the transmitter, and in Kiev, lives, went even further. It will come to the Crimea to “terrorist attacks”, whether any have been clear, I know the Russian reality. Babchenko wrote on Facebook that the Russian secret service FSB might be behind the events in the Kerch Strait, and turned to the inhabitants of the Crimea: “This is now your reality. Get used to it.”
An 18-year old student is taught at his school a bloodbath
Condolences, but …
Quickly, the reports of explosions and gunfire at the Polytechnic school in Kerch, but also the message from Russia is widespread in the Ukrainian media that it was an act of terrorism. After a few hours, President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman languages to the families of those Killed and injured their condolences, and stressed that Kiev consider the Peninsula as Russia occupied and that it was for the people there to the Ukrainian state.
Also, many Ukrainian journalists, bloggers, and some politicians expressed their condolences, suspected but at the same time, a provocation of Russian intelligence services with the goal of the confrontation with the Ukraine to fuel. Rise to such fears, the state Council, the Chairman of the Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, itself. He claimed in the Russian state TV that Ukraine have to do with this thing. “The Wind is blowing from the Ukraine,” he said.
The reaction of the Ukrainian politicians on the events in Kerch can be summarized as follows: “We suffer with him, because these are our people; but didn’t have to be, would not have annexed the Crimea.” The Parliament Chairman Andriy Parubiy, a member of the ruling party “people’s front”, the Victims expressed his condolences, stating: “it has given to the Ukrainian Crimea.”
Sincerity to provide evidence of
“Kerch belongs to the Ukraine … my sincere condolences to the families of the victims,” he wrote on Facebook Iryna Heraschtschenko, deputies of the party “Block of Petro Poroshenko”. “The big risk is that the occupation regime exploited the terrible events that it provoked, probably, to exert on the occupied Peninsula real Terror”, so Heraschtschenko. It hurt deeply, “what has become of the once tourism-influenced Crimea has changed.”
Also, foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who was himself a native Russian, commented on the events in Kerch: “first of all, I don’t want the Ukrainian reactions to the tragedy are referred to in Kerch than cynical. We suffer with the families of the victims. But the question is justified: Would be such a Horror without the atmosphere that reigns in Russia, and it has brought on the peaceful Peninsula?” Klimkin finished his entry on Twitter with the Hashtag #CrimeaIsBleeding (The bleeding of Crimea).
Mourning after the attack and a politically charged discussion
Oleksandra Matwijtschuk of the civil Association “Euromaidan SOS” wrote on Facebook, now the Ukraine, he called “the sincerity of their Slogans #CrimeaIsUkraine (the Crimea belongs to the Ukraine)”. She stressed, in Kerch, the Ukrainian citizens had been killed that would have lived on Ukrainian territory, which was only occupied temporarily. Exactly what you should focus in media reporting and in the responses to this topic, so Matwijtschuk.
State funeral to arrange?
The Ukraine and its leadership would behave in a correct, writes the columnist of the Ukrainian newspaper “Lewyj Bereg”, Konstantin Wetrow. Those who would show glee, are in the minority. “The only thing that should have been done was to arrange a country-wide mourning in Ukraine,” wrote Wetrow, and added: “In Russia, it has not done what is also symptomatic of this Regime.” A three-day mourning was arranged only in the Crimea.
For a state of mourning in Ukraine Oleksandr By. He is the leader of the “opposition block”, the members of the former President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling “party of regions”. He submitted to the Parliament a resolution. However, according to observers, she has little chances of success.