Tracing the Origins of the Ukrainian Crisis Back

chapter 11 Multiple Identities in a Unitary State: Tracing the Origins of the Ukrainian Crisis Back

Simone Stefan

1 Introduction

The Ukrainian political crisis that exploded after the so-called ‘Euromaidan’ uprising, in 2013 and 2014, and the overthrow of then-President Viktor Yanukovych (without following the legal procedure provided by Article 111 of the Constitution) rekindled the separatist sentiment in some areas of the country, in particular Crimea and Donbass (the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk). While Crimea’s secession and its annexation by the Russian Federation happened in a quasi-peaceful way, with the immediate interven- tion of the Russian armed forces (violating international law) and weak armed opposition on the part of Kyiv, the proclamation of independence by the so- called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk evoked a reaction from the Ukrainian Government and strong armed resistance. The clash between seces- sionist forces, supported by the Russian Federation, and the Ukrainian army, with the participation of extreme-right paramilitary groups,1 became a proper civil war with a growing number of civilian casualties. The aim of this chapter is to analyse whether the unitary structure of the state, as designed in the 1996 Constitution, applied in a country with deep regional differences and whether the absence of effective political-administrative decen- tralisation could have contributed to the development of the crisis.

2 Ukraine’s Complexity: Minority, Linguistic and National Identity Issues

Ukraine is a complex country, considering its population, its regional structure and historical development. The first element that is important to note is the

1 For an analysis of the composition of the opposing fronts, see I. Katchanovski, “The Separatist Conflict in Donbass: A Violent Break-Up of Ukraine?” presented at the international confer- ence “Negotiating Borders: Comparing the Experience of Canada, Europe and Ukraine”, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (Edmonton: 16–17 October 2014).

220 Stefan consistent presence of national and linguistic minorities. The 2001 census2 recorded several national groups: the biggest is Ukrainian (37.5 million, 77.8 per cent of the entire population), followed by a Russian minority (8.3 million, 17.3 per cent); smaller represented groups included Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Jews (populations between 100,000 and 300,000); Armenians, Greeks, Tatars, Roma, Azeris, Georgians, Germans, Gagauz, (30,000–100,000); Estonians, Kurds, Karaim, Komi-Permians, Kyrgyz, and others (fewer than 30,000). Article 2 of the Law on the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereinafter ecrml)3 reports 13 linguistic minorities (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Greek, Jew, Crimean Tatar, Moldavian, German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Slovak and Hungarian). In response to criticism from the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (hereinafter fcnm), which regards the list as incomplete,4 the Ukrainian Government stressed: “persons belonging to the 130 ‘nationali- ties’ arising out of the census” should be considered protected under the Convention.5 Several minorities are dispersed throughout the entire territory of the country, while others are concentrated in specific areas: for example, the Russian minority (the biggest one) is mostly concentrated in Crimea (where Russians make up the majority of its population: Crimea is the only region with a non- Ukrainian majority) and in other eastern regions, the Crimean Tatars in Crimea, the Hungarians and the Slovaks in Transcarpathia, the Romanians in Bukovina and in the Odessa oblast, the Bulgarians also in the oblast of Odessa.6 Even if Crimea is the only region with a non-Ukrainian national majority, we can find districts where minorities make up the majority of the local population, such

2 Всеукраїнский перепис населення, Державний комітет статистики України [State Committee of Statistics of Ukraine, “All-Ukrainian Census”], http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua (accessed 30 April 2015). 3 Закон України про ратифікацію Європейської хартії регіональних мов або мов меншин, N. 802-IV, 15.05.2005 року, Відомості Верховної Ради України (ВВР), 2003, N 30, ст. 259 [Law of Ukraine on Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, N. 802-IV, 15 May 2005, Bulletin of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, 2003, N. 30, 259]. 4 Advisory Committee fcnm, Second Opinion on Ukraine (30 May 2008), ACFC/OP/II(2008)004. 5 Ibid., at para. 33. 6 For a detailed classification, see V. Stepanenko, “A State to Build, a Nation to Form: Ethno- Policy in Ukraine”, in A.M. Biro and P. Kovacs (eds.), Diversity in Action: Local Public Management of Multi-Ethnic Communities (Budapest: lgi Books Open Society Institute, 2001) 309–346, at 311.