Moldavian expert: Verdict of UN court paves way for legal partition of Ukraine initiated by Romania

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“The verdict of the UN highest judicial body (the International Court of Justice — REGNUM) regarding the Serpent Island is actually the first international legal act that paves the way for partition of Ukraine initiated by Romania,” Oles Stan, a Moldavian political analyst and historian told a REGNUM correspondent on February 3.

“The official Kiev shouldn't be happy with the verdict. ‘Getting rid’ of Bucharest by this ‘plot of land’ that, nevertheless, is full of natural resources and has a strategic meaning, Ukraine not only has failed to make closer its NATO membership, but gave away ‘the finger’, after which it is to lose ‘the hand’ and then other ‘extremities’,” believes Stan.

“The international community in the face of the West looks to have finally given to Ukraine a place of not only ‘a loser,’ but of a victim as well. The process of partition of Ukraine will follow the path of partition of the USSR and Yugoslavia, as it was Kiev who let cast doubt on the borders inherited from the Soviet Union,” the expert notes. “The Serpent Island will be followed by, first of all, Transkarpathia, which while seeking its independence is addressing the treaty between the USSR and Czechoslovakia that became void after the both collapsed and deprived Ukraine of legal grounds for keeping Podkarpatska Rus within its borders as well as Crimea, where both pro-Russian and Crimean-Tatar separatist aspirations are quite strong and can be used by Russia and Turkey. A blow upon these two painful points in Ukraine will bring about another surge of federalist and separatist aspirations along the whole south-west of the present Ukrainian territory, which has been pro-Russian for the whole not quite long history of Ukraine's independence. The Donetsk Republic project will be revived and, probably, the idea of the Novorossiya Republic that had its supporters particularly in Transdnestr. Besides, one can expect Poland to become more active in Ukraine's west (Galychyna and Volyn) that was poised to interfere into the ‘orange revolution’ developments in 2004-05 exactly because of the fact that the Ukrainian society was regionally split”.

“As for Romania, undoubtedly, it will not content itself by the only Serpent Island. Its appetite towards South Bessarabia and North Bukovina (Ukraine's Odessa and Chernovtsy regions — REGNUM) will become more undisguised. Well, it will be a good reason for Moldova to remind of its historical territories, where the Moldavian population still lives being subjected to a forceful Ukrainization by Kiev. Moreover, last year, Romania's President Traian Basescu pronounced those territories as belonging to Moldova. Let me quote him here: ‘If they in Kiev are planning to join Transdnestr to Ukraine, they must take into consideration the necessity to return territories of South Bessarabia and North Bukovina to Moldova.’ However, while Kiev and Chisinau's claims for Transdnestr have no grounds apart from former borders of the former Soviet republics, returning of South Bessarabia and North Bukovina to Moldova has historical, ethnic, culture and language grounds,” Oles Stan concluded.

As REGNUM reported before, on February 3, the International Court of Justice ruled that the Serpent Island cannot be treated as part of Ukraine's coastal line while demarking the midline when delimitating the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone.