AP Interview: Former Soviet Leader Gorbachev Says Ukraine Must Hold Together Through Crisis
By ADAM SCHRECK Associated Press
First Posted: February 24, 2014 - 11:04 am
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — The political turmoil in Ukraine looks like "a real mess," but it is important that the country hold together in the battle for influence between Russia and the West, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Monday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the 82-year-old Gorbachev emphasized the need for outside mediation to ease tensions in Ukraine, which became an independent country following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union that he once led.
Ukraine today is deeply divided between largely pro-Russian eastern regions and western areas that long for closer ties with the European Union.
"No one wants it to come apart. I think that today it's important not to tear it apart," Gorbachev said of Ukraine. "I recently appealed to the leaders of the United States and Russia to act perhaps as mediators. And that would also include the European Union."
The mediators, he continued, could play a role in ensuring "that the crisis we see in Ukraine does not result in this kind of dramatic breakup. Let us give the people a chance to agree on something."
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