#1_1-8

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
CLOSE UP No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 7
hope historians are aware of why
students need to know history in
general and the history of philosophy
in particular. Whenever people
gain independence, they always
find new opportunities.
“I am an optimist by nature –
like Leibniz, I am sure that we are
living in ‘the best of all possible
worlds.’ At the unification ceremony,
our rector, Ihor Koval, quoted
Winston Churchill quite to the
point: ‘an optimist sees the opportunity
in every difficulty.’ It is in
this key that one should interpret
critical remarks in our conversation.
“Undoubtedly, the current
leadership has done what all the
previous ones failed to do. There is
certain progress, and it would be
wrong to slow it down – I believe
we will never return to the Russian
Empire. In spite of all the
alarms, I don’t think Russia will
try to continue its advance and
seize Ukraine. If people knit together
on the basis of the rejection
of and hatred for others, they are
sick people in a sick society. Unfortunately,
today’s Russia is predominantly
a sick society. Ukraine
must not become a similar one. As
a separate nation and state,
Ukraine needs its own values –
more exalted than those of imperial
awareness.”
■ The Day’s REFERENCE
Serhii SEKUNDANT graduated
from the Philosophy Faculty
and the Candidate and Doctor of
Sciences School of Moscow Mikhail
Lomonosov State University. He
began to work at Odesa Illia Mechnikov
State University in 1982.
Successfully defended the Candidate
of Sciences dissertation “The
Problem of Proving Scholarly
Knowledge in the Methodical Philosophy
of Hugo Dingler” in 1983
and the Doctor of Sciences dissertation
“The Normative and Critical
Foundations of Leibniz’s Epistemology”
in 2015. Teaches the
courses “Philosophy of the East,”
“German Classical Philosophy,”
“The Problems of Indian Philosophy,”
“The Philosophical and
Methodological Problems of Historical
and Philosophical Research,”
“Phenomenology of
Husserl,” “Contemporary Concepts
of the History of Philosophy,”
and “The Theory and Practice
of Argumentation.” The
sphere of academic interests: the
history of philosophical methodology,
logic and epistemology; the
theory of argumentation; philosophical
and methodological problems
of the history of philosophy;
researching the nature of philosophical
and religious knowledge;
the making and the specifics of ancient
Indian philosophy and religion;
a comparative analysis of the
philosophical and religious tradition
in the East and the West.
Author of over 100 scholarly publications.
Author of two individual
monographs: Critique and Method.
The Problem of a Critical Method
in 17th-18th-Century German Philosophy
(Kyiv, Dukh i Litera,
2012) and Leibniz’s Epistemology
in its Normative and Critical Foundations
(Odesa, Pechatny Dom,
2013). Member of the Philosophy
Faculty’s Academic Board, co-organizer
of the international school
of religious studies “Vaishnavism
Across the Centuries,” director of
the German Philosophy Research
Center at the Philosophy Faculty
of Odesa National Illia Mechnikov
University. Winner of the National
Philosophy Prize 2016 (established
by the Hryhorii Skovoroda
Institute of Philosophy, the
Ukrainian Philosophical Foundation,
and the N.V. Panina Sociological
Center) in the Maria Zlotina
nomination “For Best Philosophical
Monograph.”
(To be continued)
By Valentyn TORBA, The Day
This Tuesday, the Verkhovna Rada is
to consider the bill No. 7163,
dealing with the restoration of
Ukraine’s sovereignty. This document
is sometimes referred to as
the “reintegration” bill, although its very
title clearly points to the fact of occupation.
This draft law has seen many changes
over the long time it has been in preparation.
However, are the Ukrainian
government and public really aware of all
the subtle and painful nuances associated
with the very process of restoring the
territorial integrity of our nation?
Let us recall that the Verkhovna Rada
passed the bill, initiated by President of
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, in the first
reading on October 6, 2017. This document,
in particular, regulates the legal basis
for the use of the Ukrainian Armed
Forces in the east of the country and officially
labels the Russian Federation as
the aggressor.
In turn, the Verkhovna Rada Committee
on National Security and Defense inserted
238 amendments into the bill back
on November 15, 2017. Importantly, the
MPs stressed the need to emphasize not only
the issue of the occupied Donbas, but that
of Crimea as well. Thus, the committee decided
to insert into the document the mention
of Russian-annexed Crimea and to add
to the preamble a reference to the date of
occupation, which is considered to start on
February 20, 2014. Also, a mention of the
Minsk Agreements has been erased from
the bill, since, according to experts, it
could have come to be treated as a legal
recognition of their legitimacy.
On January 10, President Poroshenko
met with representatives of Ukraine in the
Trilateral Contact Group on the Peaceful
Settlement of the Donbas Crisis. It is indicative
that such a meeting took place just
before the vote on the draft law on de-occupation.
Leonid Kuchma, Iryna Herashchenko,
Yevhen Marchuk, Volodymyr
Horbulin, and other figures took part in the
event.
Herashchenko stresses that for the humanitarian
group, the second wave of
hostage release is a key priority for the near
future. Let us recall that former Prime
Minister of Ukraine, Head of the SBU,
Minister of Defense and Secretary of the
National Security and Defense Council
Yevhen MARCHUK, currently serving
as a representative of Ukraine in the Tripartite
Contact Group in Minsk, noted at
the International Conference on Maritime
Security last December that Ukraine and
the rest of the world needed to seize every
opportunity for maintaining dialog with
the Russian Federation. Marchuk then
compared a totally isolated Russia to a
black hole. Such a state of affairs, in his
opinion, may have much too negative consequences.
● “WE HAVE NO PRESCRIBED
MECHANISM FOR THE
RETURN OF OUR LAND”
“I can clearly say that the draft law on
de-occupation must be adopted, no ifs or
buts about it,” The Day heard from member
of the coordination council of The
Power of Law NGO, former head of the
Luhansk Oblast State Administration Iryna
VERYHINA. “We need it, if only to finally
call the war a war. From this term,
everything else is derived, including in the
legal field. I emphasize, we are not conducting
some anti-terrorist operation
(ATO), but waging a real war. And we also
have to determine in the legal field
that a part of our territory is occupied. I
emphasize that it is occupation of Ukrainian
territory by the Russian Federation,
which should carry the corresponding legal
consequences. The only thing that
worries me is that we have no prescribed
mechanism for the return of our land. That
is why we in the Power of Law NGO have
created an appropriate public platform
for de-occupation and reintegration of
our territories. Together with the public,
we have to find the appropriate ways of
restoring our sovereignty. As we have
seen, the public is often more active than
state institutions. Perhaps the process of
returning the territories will not happen as
quickly as we would like. But this will surely
happen. And here it is important not to
We need clear guidelines
The Verkhovna Rada is to consider a bill on the
restoration of sovereignty of Ukraine on January 16
forget that the occupiers must compensate
for damages suffered by Ukrainians. After
all, it is Russia that is to blame for material
and moral losses suffered by millions
of Ukrainians. And that is why Russia
should compensate them in full. I would
like to emphasize that Crimea and the
Donbas cannot be treated separately. The
sovereignty of our state is held sacred by
Ukrainians. It affects not only certain
territories, but also the integrity of the
state as a whole. Therefore, this bill should
have been passed a long time ago. Unfortunately,
there are certain political speculations
around it. It should have been enacted
as early as last year, but we see that
political horse-trading is continuing.
Everything depends on the will of the
president. If he makes a decision, then the
bill will be passed into law. It turns out that
we can trade with the occupier nation, but
cannot call the war a war. And it is internally
displaced persons (IDPs), once again,
who become hostages of such a policy. I
would like to emphasize separately that I
want to see IDPs getting back their voting
rights at the legislative level. This is a big
problem, because we have a lot of Ukrainian
citizens who are effectively barred from influencing
the nation’s politics.”
● “THE GOVERNMENT IS JUST
FAKING ATTEMPTS TO
RESTORE THE TERRITORIAL
INTEGRITY OF OUR STATE”
In his turn, Candidate of Law, senior
research fellow of the Koretsky Institute
of State and Law of the National
Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Mykola
SIRYI emphasized in his comments for
The Day the basic conceptual tasks associated
with the restoration of state sovereignty:
“Even if we are talking about a
purely legal aspect of the issue, we still
have to proceed from the objective of
restoring the territorial integrity of this
country,” Siryi said. “This is the basic
question from which all other means of its
implementation should derive. So far, I do
not see an answer to this question being offered.
We often talk about the international
community now, which seems to be
the guarantor of this objective being
reached. Of course, this is an important
tool, but it cannot be, so to speak, the principal
one. The real basis is our desire to restore
sovereignty. Therefore, any talk of
reintegration without a clear strategy
for the restoration of sovereignty is somewhat
meaningless. The only goal that
this bill can achieve is the recognition of
the fact of occupation of our territory. The
Ukrainian state should establish the nature
of relations with Ukrainians who
have found themselves in the occupied territory,
which would bring us closer to
restoring the territorial integrity of our
state. This is the crux of the matter, and
it is in this context that legislative and executive
decisions should be made. So far,
it seems that the government is just faking
attempts to restore the territorial
integrity of our state. They are making
waves in the media space, but it does
nothing to restore the abovementioned integrity.
We must clearly understand that
we have now two levels of relations – with
the aggressor and with the people who live
under occupation. This requires a clear
strategy at the national level and principles
that need to be unfailingly respected.
The aggressor will abandon our territories
when it really feels our strength. And we
must demonstrate our ability to protect
ourselves in every possible way. Ukrainians
who find themselves in the occupied
territory, in turn, should feel that the
greater Ukraine has not forgotten about
them. Their connections with the greater
Ukraine should not weaken, but, on the
contrary, grow stronger. For example, the
question arises: where will children who
remain in the occupied territory go to
study? We must also give a thought to the
situation where people are forced to go to
the occupied territory because of family
circumstances. In which hospitals should
they be treated, Ukrainian or Russian
ones? All these questions should be answered
by the Ukrainian state. And the
context for these answers, I emphasize,
should be making Russia to perceive
Ukraine as a serious military adversary.”
● “WHILE PERFECTING
THE DRAFT LAW ‘ON
DE-OCCUPATION,’
NOBODY HAS CROSSED
THE RED LINE”
International lawyer Volodymyr VA-
SYLENKO, who has been directly involved
with drafting the bill “On the Peculiarities
of State Policy on the Restoration of the
State Sovereignty of Ukraine over the
Temporarily Occupied Territory of the
Donetsk and Luhansk Regions of Ukraine,”
has noted that, despite attempts to radically
remake the bill, it has not undergone
any major changes.
THE DAY AFTER ANOTHER SHELLING. AVDIIVKA, FEBRUARY 2, 2017
“Talking about the draft law on de-occupation,
which has been published on the
website of the Verkhovna Rada, I should
say that it is acceptable in principle,” Vasylenko
commented for The Day. “However,
it needs some cosmetic clarifications
that should improve the legal technique
on the issue. The fact that this bill has
been met with unconstructive noise means
that Russian agents in Ukraine are working
at full capacity. For them, the adoption
of this bill is a thorn in their side, because
it is this bill that, if adopted, will
effectively protect the interests of
Ukraine. After all, this bill clearly defines
the real state of affairs, namely the reality
of the war and the occupation of
Ukrainian territories. Prior to this, there
was a fog of definitions in which it was
unknown who fought whom, and the
Russian Federation in general seemed to
have nothing to do with it. Worse still, the
Russian Federation is artificially positioning
itself as a peacekeeper who only
seeks to help Ukraine. This is wrong, and
we have to make it clear on all levels, including
in the legal dimension. As for the
draft law itself, in fact, there have been
many amendments proposed to it. Those
passing the common sense test have been
inserted into it. A lot of compromise
proposals have made it to the text as well.
There is nothing strange about this, and
this work does not contradict the essence
of the law. I hope that the draft law will
be adopted on January 16. It should be
noted separately that the just-mentioned
bill makes no mention of the Minsk Agreements.
But this does not mean that
Ukraine refuses to comply with its obligations.
At the same time, we must understand
that the security issue must be
resolved first and foremost in the framework
of the Minsk Agreements. The second
point is that all political issues should
be dealt with on the basis of universally
accepted principles of international law.
In the process of drafting the bill, I have
really had to persuade some politicians of
the need for appropriate wording. I have
also had to make certain compromises, but
nobody has crossed the ‘red line.’”
Thus, this week, the Verkhovna Rada
will have an opportunity to put an end to
the abstract definitions that have plagued
Ukraine since 2014. The ATO will then be
officially called a war, and the de facto occupation
will be de jure recognized as
such. This, in turn, should also affect the
legal aspect of the matter, since the wording
and definitions used determine the consequences
in terms of bringing claims of
damage against the aggressor. As practice
shows, NGOs take initiative and come
ahead of government representatives in
this field.
Photo by Yevhen MALOLIETKA
XIX INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
PHOTO — - 2017