Dutch voters discover their referendum to exclude Ukraine is ignored

It comes as no surprise that the Dutch government waited to officially ratify the unpopular treaty until after the Dutch parliamentary elections of March 15.

Instead of obeying the clearly expressed wishes of Dutch voters, the Dutch government decided to go ahead and ratify the treaty anyway, on behalf of their paymasters, the European Commission.

The Dutch people who said ‘No’ to association with Ukraine were wrapped around their finger, Maria Zakharova, the official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday. “It was the Dutch leaders who did it,” she said.

“They once again made a ploy of overtly Russophobic propaganda, which incidentally offers a direct testimony to the anti-Russian essense of this agreement, despite the assurances it isn’t anti-Russian.

“As for the Kiev authorities, the ratification of the ill-fated agreement will give them some more time for feeding the Ukrainians with fairytales about a bright European future, the menu of which shortened considerably after the passage of the legally binding decision of the EU’s 28 member-states,” she said. “It’s worthwhile recalling the AA says explicitly the association doesn’t give Ukraine the status of an EU candidate country automatically,” Zakharova added.

“Along with it, Kiev will continue hushing up a speedy degeneration of the country from a developed industrialized state into an agrarian appendage to the EU,” Zakharova said. “But there is the hope for the wisdom of the Ukrainian people, who will be able to realize what’s happening.”

This agreement is the start of an attempt to get Ukraine to join the EU, PJ media reported. “It will not only put the EU on a collision course with Russia, but it also means that the most corrupt country in Europe will, in a few years, be rewarded for its corruption by joining the European Union.”

Kiev’s plans to introduce advance biometric registration rules for Russian citizens going to Ukraine reveal its wish to put up “a new iron curtain”, the Russian foreign ministry said.

Alexander Turchinov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said on Monday biometric control would be introduced as of January 1, 2018, for all foreigners crossing over into Ukraine and the measure would concern mostly Russian citizens, TASS reported.

“Notably, special entry and sojourn rules will be mandatory for Russian nationals,” the Russian foreign ministry noted. “Thus, these rules provide for the use of an electronic system of advance registration and submitting to the Ukrainian foreign ministry additional data about a Russian citizen, purposes of his or her trip and movements across Ukraine. These novelties are yet to be specified and endorsed.

“The current Kiev regime seems to see a real threat in Ukrainians having relatives and friends in Russia. Considerable funds are spent to repel this threat, from the construction of a ‘Yatsenyuk’s great wall’ to the ban of Russian social networks.”

“It looks like Ukraine is ready to drop another iron curtain in a bid to prevent normal human contacts between Russians and Ukrainians,” the ministry said, adding that the Verkhovna Rada’s (Ukrainian parliament) “crackpot initiatives” to ban guest performances of Russian performers in Ukraine and Ukrainian performers in Russia are in a similar vein.

Meanwhile Ukraine has disrupted the plan for a large exchange of prisoners. at the negotiation talks in Minsk. The vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Gerashchenko, demanded that the delegations of Russia and the Republics of Donbass leave the meeting.

“Irina Gerashchenko said that Kiev will hold talks on the exchange of prisoners only with the OSCE and not the” Russian occupier. ” In response, representatives of the Republic left the talks with the representative of the Russian Federation “, the Lugansk head of the working group on the exchange of prisoners of war, Olga Kobtseva, said.

Parliament Speaker pf the DPR, Denis Pushilin, expressed outrage at the Ukrainian side.

“Parties had to work hard to achieve results as quickly as possible. Mothers of children who are prisoners and other participants in the process had to overcome hundreds and even thousands of kilometers to collect them. Those months of languishing in the dungeons of Ukrainian prisons (often on spurious pretexts, or political reasons), subjected to degrading treatment, torture, without adequate health care, they deserve freedom. But Ukraine continues to delay the process, pushing more and more conditions that complicate the exchange. Moreover, the Ukrainian side did not consider it necessary to take into account not only the opinion of LPR, but the opinion of international humanitarian and human rights organizations.”

The delegation was forced to leave the meeting of the subgroup on humanitarian issues because of the refusal of the Ukrainian side to the exchange. The next meeting of negotiators will be held on July 19.

Corruption is a widespread and growing problem in Ukrainian society. In 2016’s Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index Ukraine was ranked 131th out of the 176 countries with increased score from 2015 results.

Back in 2007 Ukraine had taken 118th place of the 179 countries investigated that year. In 2012, Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most corrupted nations of the world together with Colombia and Brazil, and in 2015, The Guardian called Ukraine “the most corrupt nation in Europe”.