Interview with Volodymyr Ariev
August 8, 2012 -
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New Eastern Europe newsletter
Now Online: Ukrainian member of parliament, Volodymyr Ariev, discusses the upcoming election in Ukraine, corruption, and the future of the country.
"A Revolution is in the Air": An interview with Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament in the political block “Our Ukraine-People’s Self Defence”
Interviewer: Zbigniew Rokita
ZBIGNIEW ROKITA: Let’s start with the EURO 2012 football championships. Do you think that Ukraine succeeded?
VOLODYMYR ARIEV: There are three answers to this question. First of all, a big thank you to our Ukrainian players who played very well. We can’t say the same about our judicial system, however. We can see what is happening to Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko. And now a different type of “judge” has not accepted what was an obvious goal for our team. There is definitely something wrong with our karma. We clearly have bad luck with judges.
The second issue here is the social dimension of EURO 2012. Normally it’s quite difficult, due to visa restrictions, for Ukrainians to leave their country and visit the EU and meet Europeans living there. So instead, Europe came to visit us and we’ve had an opportunity to meet many interesting and friendly people. It is possible that those among us who cannot make the trip to the West have changed their attitude thanks to EURO 2012 and maybe we will stop fearing the West so much. In this sense, the EURO 2012 championships have been a great success and bore its first fruit. It is enough to read some social media networks to see that Ukrainians are becoming more aware that it is probably better to turn towards Europe than to Russia.
To read the entire interview please visit: https://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/409
