The Ukraine List #471 compiled by Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies, U of Ottawa www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca 28 August 2014
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1- Danyliw Mega-Seminar “Ukraine 2014”, 30 October-1 November
2- New York Times: Russian Forces Lead Major New Offensive in Donbas 3- Dominique Arel: There Is A Word For This 4- Dmitry Gorenburg Blog: Russia’s Stealth Invasion of Ukraine 5- The Interpreter: Vedomosti Asks Hard Questions on Russian Soldiers’ Deaths 6- BBC: Reporters “Attacked at Secret Soldier Burials” in Pskov, Russia 7- Timothy Ash: The Battle for Donbas is the Battle for Ukraine 8- Anton Shekhovtsov: The “Russian World” will Destroy Russia 9- Anders Aslund: What Putin Can Learn from Stalin’s Winter War (7 August)
10- Window on Eurasia: 90% Support Ukrainian Independence 11- Window on Eurasia: Moscow Patriarchate’s Position Crumbling in Ukraine 12- Facebook: Arel et al., Slava Ukraini in Kramatorsk—An Exchange
13- Agence France Presse: 2200 Deaths in Donbas, 55% in the Past Month 14- New York Times: Photographing Both Sides in Ukraine 15- Politico: Anna Nemtsova, This Is What a War in Europe Really Looks Like 16- Moscow Times: Kiev Must Show Compassion to Eastern Ukraine 17- Sunday Times (UK): Sick Babies Keft Behind in Luhansk
18- Wall Street Journal: Helping Ukraine Is a U.S. Imperative 19- The Atlantic: The Boistro Group: A 24-Step Plan to Resolve the Ukraine Crisis 20- Sam Greene Blog: What’s Wrong with the Boisto Plan 21- National Interest: Sam Charap, Obama’s Coercion Strategy in Ukraine To Fail
22- VoxUkraine: Kiev People’s Republic—A Threat to Ukraine
1 UKL #471 28 August 2014 23- FT Blog: Jajecznyk and Kuzio, War in Donbas: Time for Diaspora to Step Up
24- New Books: Kurkov, Daubenton 25- New Articles: Dunn/Bobick, Philipps, Wanner 26- Symposium: Negotiating Borders, CIUS, 16-17 October 2014 27- Graduate Student Invitation to Communism and Famine Conference 28- Invitation to Communism and Famine Conference
------Thanks to Anders Aslund, Marta Baziuk, Samuel Charap, Anna Daubenton, Orest Deychakiwsky, Marta Dyczok, Paul Goble, Dmitry Gorenburg, Bohdan Harasymiw, David Johnson (JRL), Ivan Katchanovski, Taras Kuzio, Lubomyr Markevych, Alex Melnyk, Anton Shekhovtsov, Oxana Shevel, Catherine Wanner, and Roman Zurba** ------
#1 The Danyliw Tenth Anniversary Mega-Seminar “Ukraine 2014” will take place at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa, on October 30-November 1, 2014, a few days after the October 26 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The event will bring together more than 40 international guests and feature panels on the War in Donbas, Geopolitics, Media Reporting, 2014 Elections (Presidential and Parliamentary), Regionalism, Economic Reforms, the Civic Revolution, Political Radicalism (Right and Left), Rule of Law and Regime Legitimacy and Canada-Ukraine. The program is still under construction and a preliminary version will be announced soon –DA ------
#2 Ukraine Says Russian Forces Lead Major New Offensive in East ------by Andrew E. Kramer and Michael R. Gordon New York Times, 27 August 2014
NOVOAZOVSK, Ukraine — Tanks, artillery and infantry have crossed from Russia into an unbreached part of eastern Ukraine in recent days, attacking Ukrainian forces and causing panic and wholesale retreat not only in this small border town but also a wide section of territory, in what Ukrainian and Western military officials described on Wednesday as a stealth invasion.
The attacks outside this city and in an area to the north essentially have opened a new, third front in the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russian separatists, along with the fighting outside the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
2 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Exhausted, filthy and dismayed, Ukrainian soldiers staggering out of Novoazovsk for safer territory said Tuesday they were cannon fodder for the forces coming from Russia. As they spoke, tank shells whistled in from the east and exploded nearby.
Some of the retreating Ukrainian soldiers appeared unwilling to fight. The commander of their unit, part of the Ninth Brigade from Vinnytsia, in western Ukraine, barked at the men to turn around, to no effect. “All right,” the commander said. “Anybody who refuses to fight, sit apart from the others.” Eleven men did, while the others returned to the city.
Some troops were in a full, chaotic retreat: a city-busload of them careened past on the highway headed west, purple curtains flapping through windows shot out by gunfire. A Ukrainian military spokesman said Wednesday the army still controlled Novoazvosk but that 13 soldiers had died in the fighting.
The behavior of the Ukrainian forces corroborated assertions by Western and Ukrainian officials that Russia, despite its strenuous denials, is orchestrating a new counteroffensive to help the besieged separatists of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who have been reeling from aggressive Ukrainian military advances in recent weeks.
“Russia is clearly trying to put its finger on the scale to tip things back in favor of its proxies,” said a senior American official. “Artillery barrages and other Russian military actions have taken their toll on the Ukrainian military.”
The Obama administration, which has placed increasingly punitive economic sanctions on Russia because of the Ukraine crisis, asserted over the past few days that the Russians had sent new columns of tanks and armor across the border. “These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday. At the department’s daily briefing in Washington, Ms. Psaki also criticized what she called the Russian government’s “unwillingness to tell the truth” that its military had sent soldiers as deep as 30 miles inside Ukraine territory.
Ms. Psaki apparently was referring to videos of captured Russian soldiers, distributed by Ukraine’s government on Tuesday, that directly challenged President Vladimir V. Putin’s assertions that Russia is a mere bystander in the conflict. The videos were publicized just as Mr. Putin was meeting with his Ukraine counterpart, Petro O. Poroshenko, in Belarus.
Russian forces have been trying to help the separatists break the siege of Luhansk and have been fighting to open a corridor to Donetsk from the Ukrainian-Russian border, Western officials say.
To the south, Russia has been backing a separatist push toward the southern town of Mariupol, a major port on the Sea of Azov, according to Western and Ukrainian officials. The Russian aim, one Western official said, is to open a new front that would divert
3 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Ukrainian forces from Donetsk and Luhansk and to possibly seize an outlet to the sea in the event that Russia tries to establish a separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine.
Some Western officials fear the move might even be a step in what they suspect is a broader Russian strategy to carve out a land link to Crimea, the strategic Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in March, setting off Moscow’s worst crisis with the West since the Cold War.
The Russian military’s use of artillery from locations within Ukraine is of special concern to Western military officials, who say Russian artillery has already been used to shell Ukrainian forces near Luhansk. And along with the antiaircraft systems operated by separatists or Russian forces inside Ukraine, the artillery has the potential to alter the balance of power in the struggle for control of eastern Ukraine.
Russia has denied that it has intervened militarily in Ukraine and the separatists have asserted that they are using captured Ukrainian equipment. But American officials say they are confident that the artillery in Ukraine’s Krasnodon area is Russia’s since Ukrainian forces have not penetrated that deeply into that separatist-controlled region. American officials also say the separatists have no experience in using such weaponry.
“We judge that self-propelled artillery is operated by Russians rather than separatists since no separatist training on this artillery has occurred to date,” an Obama administration official said.
The United States has photographs that show the Russian artillery moved into Ukraine, American officials say. One photo dated Aug. 21, shown to a reporter from The New York Times, shows Russian military units moving self-propelled artillery into Ukraine. Another photo, dated Aug. 23, shows the artillery in firing positions in Ukraine.
Advanced air defenses, including systems not known to be in the Ukrainian arsenal, have also been used to blunt the Ukrainian military’s air power, American officials say. In addition, they said, the Russian military routinely flies drones over Ukraine and shares the intelligence with the separatists.
The Ukrainian retreat from the border area near Novoazovsk, which began on Tuesday, came as Mr. Putin told Mr. Poroshenko that the Ukrainian insurgency was an internal matter and that the Ukrainian government needed to negotiate a cease-fire.
By coupling the Russian military actions with his political talks in Minsk, Mr. Putin appeared to be calculating that Moscow could intervene in eastern Ukraine with conventional Russian forces without risking further Western economic sanctions.
On the highway here, Sgt. Ihor Sharapov, a soldier with the Ukrainian border patrol unit, said he had seen tanks drive across the border but marked with flags of the separatist movement here, the Donetsk People’s Republic.
4 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The group that attacked the city crossed from Russia, and though some soldiers were convinced they had spent two days fighting the Russians, others said they had no way of knowing who was inside the tanks, or the identities of the infantry who crossed the border and advanced toward this town.
“I tell you they are Russians, but this is what proof I have,” said Sgt. Aleksei Panko, holding up his thumb and index finger to form a zero. Sergeant Panko estimated that about 60 armored vehicles crossed near Novoazovsk. “This is what happened: they crossed the border, took up positions and started shooting.”
The Ukrainian Vinnytsia brigade met the cross-border advance over the six miles of countryside separating Novoazovsk from the Russian border, but later retreated to the western edge of town along the Rostov-Mariupol highway, where soldiers were collapsed in exhaustion on the roadside. “This is now a war with Russia,” Sergeant Panko said.
The counteroffensive that Ukrainian officers said was at least in part staged across the border from Russia pushed the Ukrainian army off a 75 mile-long highway from Donetsk south to the Azov Sea.
On Wednesday, it amounted to a no-man’s land of empty villages, roads crisscrossed by armored vehicle treads, felled trees and grass fires burning out of control, and panoramas of sunflower and corn rotting unharvested in the fields.
To the west of the Novoazovsk highway, the contrails of Ukrainian Grad rockets rose toward the sky, and to the east, black smoke from their impacts where Ukrainian soldiers said the newly arrived armored columns were moving near the Russian border.
The countryside was changing hands and the Ukrainians falling back westward, leaving under fire along side roads. One such route was littered with two incinerated Ukrainian army trucks, smoldering in the early evening, and an abandoned armored vehicle.
“The Ukrainians slipped away and the Donetsk People’s Republic hasn’t yet arrived,” said Roman Bespaltsev, a resident of the village of Starobeshovo south of Donetsk. ------
5 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #3 There Is A Word For This ------Dominique Arel Chair of Ukrainian Studies 28 August 2014
Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, tweeted yesterday evening (European time): “We are now evidently seeing fighting between regular Russian and regular Ukrainian forces in Eastern Ukraine. There is a word for this.” Predictably, the debate online is all about how to name what is happening: is it an invasion, an incursion, a diversion, a provocation? (President Putin called it a “rumor”). The politics of naming – as this is what it is: a political process — is paralyzing. It bogged down our understanding of the Bosnian war (was it a civil war? an interstate war? an ethnic war?) and it certainly bogs down our understanding of the Holodomor (is it a genocide, a crime against humanity, a large-scale massacre?). I rather prefer to focus on the facts on the ground, while avoiding the dead-end of seeking to build a consensus on what the “word” should be. Regular Russian forces are now on Ukrainian territory shelling regular Ukrainian troops. This is not merely a pronouncement of the Ukrainian National Security Council which, to put it gently, has been known to exaggerate, but is now averred by a multiplicity of sources: international reporters, NATO, the Pentagon, resilient independent Russian media and the one extant civil institution in Russia that Putin may actually dread, namely, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers. One should add to this growing list of credible sources Oleksandr Zakharchenko, the “Defense Minister” of the “Donetsk National Republic,” who declared today that from the beginning of the conflict up to 4,000 armed men have come from Russia, many actual full-time military (“kradovykh voennykh”), who chose to spend their “vacation” fighting with their brothers in Donbas rather than going to the beach. Zakharchenko may seem unable to grasp Russia’s policy of plausible deniability, but his figure matches the reasonable estimate of analysts—that one-third of the “pro-Russian rebels” were/are actually from Russia and, with their combat experience, professionalism, and top-notch weaponry, contribute disproportionately to the rebels’ fighting force.
Regular Russian forces fighting regular Ukrainian forces, no matter how you call it, is a violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Crimea was the first violation, but there was no fighting. In Donbas, however, we are witnessing the most intense fighting in Europe since the Bosnian war twenty years ago. An average of 15 Ukrainian soldiers are killed every day, higher than daily Soviet losses in Afghanistan in the 1980s, notes Arnaud Dubien, Director of the Observatoire franco-russe in Moscow. How long is it sustainable? The question could also be asked regarding the “pro-Russian” forces. If more than 700 Ukrainian armed men have perished thus far, according to the daily official count of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, there is absolutely no reason to assume that the number of deaths among “rebels” is any less, since – until the sending of Russian troops in the past week – they had been on the run for months, losing three-fourths of their territory in the process, and under constant barrage from the Ukrainian army. More than 700 deaths for
6 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU this much smaller force is huge — wounded Luhansk fighters being treated in a Russian hospital were talking last week about entire units decimated.
It is the very logic of urban warfare to hide figures of casualties among insurgents (much later, the figures will be exaggerated and memorialized). In the Gaza War, which unfolded in parallel to the escalating violence in Donbas, Hamas would not acknowledge a single death among its armed men, until the funerals of three of its top commanders at the very end. This is done to make the number of civilian deaths appear “disproportionate” and politically delegimitate the other side (in this case, Israel). Yet there are reasons to think that the “politics of numbers” may play out differently in Donbas. A UN report, leaked yesterday, puts at 2,200 the number of people who died in Donbas since April, a figure that includes both civilians and armed men (but excludes the nearly 300 fatalities from the Malaysian Airlines flight). Since we know that close to 700 are Ukrainian military, and since it is implausible to expect a lesser number among “pro-Russian” forces, the UN number could give the impression that one-third of fatalities are civilians. The experience of urban warfare elsewhere, especially when imprecise weaponry (the infamous “Grad”) is used, suggests that the civilian toll is likely to be closer to 50%, that is, every second death is civilian. (In Gaza, once the Hamas casualties are factored in, the figure of 80%, repeated by international media, is likely to be brought down closer to 50%).
One certainly cannot blame the UN for underestimating total fatalities: their unique and grim task is to count what can be verified empirically – and with a porous border and an area several times the size of Gaza (depending on rebel territorial control, which had been shrinking) – bodies have literally vanished. With 700 Ukrainian soldiers dead, at least as many “pro-Russian” fighters, and a 50% civilian rate of fatalities, the total figure would bring us closer to 3,000, with well in excess of a thousand civilian deaths. This is a starting point in analyzing the human toll of the ever growing violence in Donbas. The point is certainly not to minimize the civilian dimension of the conflict: a 50% ratio translated in actual numbers is enormous (between ten and fifteen times the fatalities on Maidan) and the abundance of credible stories of human suffering from courageous reporters in the besieged cities makes for grim reading. The point is rather to note that if the Ukrainian army is bleeding at an alarming rate, so is the “pro-Russian” side. This is to keep in mind in evaluating social, political and military costs in the otherwise lopsided nature of a direct Russian-Ukrainian military encounter.
So what to expect? President Putin has demonstrated once again that the diplomatic track is a cover for Russia’s undiplomatic policy on the ground. (One should recall that the stillborn Geneva Accords in April were signed hours after Putin told the world that half of Ukraine is “Novorossia” and should never have been given to Ukraine). The one positive development that came from Minsk is the two hour face-to-face meeting between Putin and Poroshenko, when the diplomatic niceties surely came off. To have a direct channel established between the two leaders is a definite plus. With all the official stonewalling, a unmediated connection could mean quiet and unannounced compromises. On the Western front, on the other hand, the EU and NATO are having back-to-back meetings in the coming days with Ukraine as an official guest and much harder sanctions are likely
7 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU to follow. French President Hollande was skating in the French press this morning, but one would think that the sale of the Mistral warship is now dead in the water. Political Realists will, of course, clamor for a recognition that Russian security interests must be satisfied and that they translate in a demilitarized Donbas, which is codeword for a de facto Transnistria in Donbas, namely, that Ukraine would no longer be in a position to ensure security control over an area where the overhwleming majority of the population is in favor of staying within Ukraine. Ukraine will never accept that and things will get from bad to worse to even worse. ------
#4 Russia’s Stealth Invasion of Ukraine ------by Dmitry Gorenburg Russian Military Reform Blog, 27 August 2014
It appears that the Russian invasion of Ukraine that I have feared since March has now begun in earnest, with the opening of a new front in the vicinity of Mariupol on the shores of the Azov Sea and a major counterattack in Luhansk Oblast leading to the retreat of Ukrainian forces from positions they have occupied (in some cases) since before the June ceasefire. This separatist counter-offensive has generated a lot of discussion among analysts and commentators about whether the forces attacking Novoazovsk and Mariupol belong to regular Russian units or irregular forces, as part of an effort to determine whether or not these new developments amount to a Russian invasion or just a new escalation by separatist forces.
I would argue that the specific provenance of the fighters involved doesn’t actually matter very much in this context. There is no doubt that the forces attacking in the south, near Novoazovsk and Mariupol came directly from Russia, not from territory already controlled by the separatists farther north. To do so, they had to be allowed through the border by Russian border guards. Furthermore, there is also no doubt that they are using weapons and equipment supplied by the Russian government, since they are no longer even trying to claim that the equipment they are using was captured from defeated Ukrainian forces.
In these circumstances, why does it matter which specific people are sitting in the tanks?
And if it did matter, there is now more and more evidence being uncovered in Russian social media and in independent reporting that active duty Russian personnel ARE fighting in Ukraine. This includes the 10 Russian soldiers that the Ukrainian government has claimed to have captured on Ukrainian territory, as well as the various Russian soldiers from units such as the 76th Airborne Division based in Pskov who have been reported to have died recently in unexplained circumstances.
8 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU One can invade a country through a direct frontal assault. Or one can do it in secret, a little bit at a time. The Russian government has chosen the second path. It doesn’t make it any less of an invasion.
It also means that the Minsk talks are almost certainly a diversion, meant to distract Western leaders from the reality of what is happening on the ground. The idea is that as long as world leaders think there is a chance at successful peace talks, they will refrain from strong words or actions condemning what Russia is doing in Ukraine. This seems to be working out for Russia so far, but it should not distract us from events on the ground.
I should be clear that I don’t think Russia is currently planning a full takeover of any part of eastern Ukraine. The goal remains what it has been for months now: to ensure that Ukraine remains unstable and weak. For now, in order to accomplish this goal, Russia needs to make sure the separatists are not defeated and remain a viable force. Both the escalation in assistance and the opening of the new front are a response to the losses that the separatists had suffered in recent weeks.
In the long run, the only acceptable end to the conflict for Russia is one that would either freeze the current situation in place with separatists in control of significant territory in eastern Ukraine (the Transnistria variant) or the removal of the pro-Western Ukrainian government and its replacement by a pro-Russian one. Participants in peace talks have to understand that this is essentially a red line for Moscow. Putin will not allow the restoration of control over eastern Ukraine by the current Ukrainian government by peaceful means and is clearly willing to directly involve Russian forces in military action to ensure that it doesn’t happen through a Ukrainian military victory.
Given Russia’s superior military capabilities this is a war that Ukraine cannot win, at least not by military means. The alternatives are to make a deal with whatever terms are possible or to continue the struggle for a long time, hoping that inflicting a high cost on Russian forces will eventually turn Russians against their government’s adventure. The former will lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian government. The latter will take a very long time at best and result in huge numbers of civilian casualties. ------
9 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #5 Russian Paper Vedomosti Asks Hard Questions of Defense Ministry ------About Soldiers’ Deaths in Ukraine The Interpreter, 27 August 2014
Vedomosti, an independent business publication, has an editorial published today August 27, “From the Editors: Are We at War?”
The editors Pavel Aptekar, Nikolai Epple and Andrei Sinitsyn point out that with a growing number of unanswered questions about Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, with evidence of paratroopers buried in Pskov and prisoners of war interrogated by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), it’s time for the Kremlin to provide some answers.
Yesterday, Sergei Krivenko and Ella Polyakov, two members of the presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights publicly asked questions about the death of nine contract soldiers for the 18th Motorized Rifle Brigade in Rostov Region. (These human rights advocates officially recognized by the Kremlin as consultants explained publicly that they had been quietly seeking answers for weeks.)
Ludmila Bogatenkova, head of the Stavropol Territory Committee for Soldiers’ Mothers, told Gazeta.ru yesterday that 9 soldiers had died in Snezhnoye on the border of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions. The Dagestani journal Chernovik has also asked questions about soldiers from their republic who have apparently been killed in battle, although they were claimed to have died during training.
Vedomosti also asked about reports of the paratroopers of the 76th Assault Guards in Pskov; as we reported, two men, Leonid Kichatkin and Aleksandr Osipov whose documents were found in BMDs seized by Ukrainian army in Lugansk Region were buried in Pskov Region 25 August.
Several dozen paratroopers in a list of men matched to the documents Ukrainian army said were found in the BMDs also have not updated their social media pages since August 16, and have not gotten in touch with relatives and are feared dead or captured.
Finally, today the SBU held a press conference with 9 POWs from the 331st Regiment of the 98th Svirsk Division of the Russian Airborne Troops. The Defense Ministry claims they “lost their way” near the border. The Interpreter has provided a translation of an excerpt of the editorial:
“The reports that several dozen paratroopers have ceased contact since mid-
10 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU August have been appearing in social networks for a week. Russian military spokesmen categorically deny any participation in combat, but don’t tell parents about their missing children -- the mother of yet another contractor for the 76th Guards, Ilya Maksimov, yesterday spoke of this at a press conference in Saratov; he was also “in training in Rostov” and his documents were also discovered by Ukrainian military in a seized armored vehicle. His parents have heard nothing from him since 16 August.
The silence or mumbled commentary from official ministries has only increased the atmosphere of suspicion and forces us to recall unpleasant examples from Russian and Soviet history. The country didn’t know about the secret operations of the Red Army in Afghanistan in 1929 and in Xinjiang in the 1930s. Their participants were forbidden to write to relatives about their real location, letters were sent from the place of deployment after review by the censor. In the same way, the Kremlin was silent about the participation of Soviet soldiers in combat in Korea and Vietnam against the USA, and in Egypt and Syria against Israel.
In the first years of the war in Afghanistan, tens of thousands of officers and draftees were sent there. In the early 1980s, the Soviet media spoke only about the soldiers’ aid to civilian Afghans; civilians learned about combat in this mountainous country from the broadcasts of foreign “voices.” The bodies of those who died were brought back and buried in secret; until the mid-1980s, it was forbidden to mention the place and cause of death.
In Russia, this experience was repeated in November 1994, when military aid for the anti-Dudayev opposition in Chechnya was organized. About 80 officers and ensigns from counter-intelligence were recruited into army units “to service military equipment.” After signing a contract, they personally took part in the failed attempt to storm Grozny 26 November 1994. many of them were killed, and more than 20 were captured. Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said that Russian soldiers were not involved in the storming, and that mercenaries were fighting in Chechnya.
Both Afghanistan and Chechnya would seem to provide lessons on transparency. In both cases, the war and the attempts to hide information about losses among the soldiers enabled the escalation of the crisis in society and the fall of political support of the authorities. In fact, from the bureaucratic perspective, it’s a negative experience -- after all, many careers collapsed when everything was opened up.
After Chechnya, at least some reforms began in the Russian army -- largely fostered by the independent media and civic groups, above all, the committees of soldiers’ mothers. This feedback was not needed by bureaucrats -- there are few independent media left now, and independent NGOs have been put in a difficult position; the dependent ones are silent.
11 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Is Russia fighting in Ukraine? This is a serious legal issue creating problems for specific people.
How will the Ukrainian government treat the POWs, which the Russian government does not acknowledge as their soldiers? Formally, as participants in separatist groups.
If soldiers are having their contracts immediately torn up before being sent on assignment -- who will be responsible for their health and life? The relatives won’t even have grounds to demand compensation from the government. If we are not at war, and our soldiers ended up in Ukrainian captivity -- what is to prevent the Defense Ministry from declaring them deserters and throwing them in prison after they return to the motherland? There is also rich historical experience on that topic.
Perhaps Russian politicians and soldiers are trying to operate “like in Crimea”: the participation of our soldiers was also not admitted there until the right time. “The glorious victory” removed questions of compliance with international and domestic laws from the field of vision of Russians. But in Crimea, they got by without shooting and victims. In the South-East [of Ukraine] it’s completely different, some sort of hypothetical “victory” will not excuse anything. Complete control over information is impossible to achieve. Responsibility for the victims will have to be borne.
#6 Russian reporters ‘attacked at secret soldier burials’ ------BBC.com, 27 August 2014
Russian journalists say they have been attacked while investigating reports that soldiers were secretly buried after being killed in Ukraine.
The paratroopers were buried in a village near the western city of Pskov, where they were based.
What appears to be fresh graves of the killed paratroopers were first spotted in the village by Pskovskaya Guberniya, a local newspaper.
Its journalists say they were attacked at the cemetery.
Ukrainian government officials accuse the Kremlin of helping separatists in eastern Ukraine by sending in military hardware and troops, many of them via the southern region of Rostov.
12 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Russia denies the claims. Asked about allegations of Russian soldiers being involved in fighting in Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference on Tuesday that they amounted to “disinformation”.
“Reporting this is really dangerous,” one of the Pskov journalists told the BBC. Later, two Moscow-based reporters visited the village to investigate the reports. Vladimir Romensky and Ilya Vasyunin say they were approached by two men who told them that they would “never be found” unless they boarded the next train back to Moscow.
Ignoring the threats, the two visited the local cemetery where the soldiers’ graves had reportedly been found.
There, their car was attacked by two men, who pelted it with stones and slashed its tyres. Independent Dozhd TV, for which Mr Romensky works, later posted footage of the attack.
Also in the car were two other journalists who claim that while attempting to visit the cemetery earlier in the day they had been forced into a van and taken to a forest.
Their abductors erased memory cards from their cameras and threatened to kill them should they make the incident public, says one of the reporters, Nina Petlyanova.
Sergei Kovalchenko from Telegraf news agency is another journalist who says he was threatened. He said his memory card was erased by plain-clothed men while visiting the cemetery.
Dozhd TV later said name plates and wreaths had been removed from the graves.
‘Classified’
There has been no official confirmation of the deaths of paratroopers allegedly buried outside Pskov.
However, a military official in Voronezh, a city close to the border with eastern Ukraine, says that an elite airborne platoon commander from Pskov, Anton Korolenko, has been buried there.
He died on 19 August “while carrying out his duties”, the official told local news agency RIA Voronezh, declining to give details. The platoon commander’s relatives also refuse to reveal how he died, saying that this information was “classified”.
13 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU A little later, Ukrainian journalist Roman Bochkala posted photographs of what he said was an armoured personnel carrier seized from the Pskov paratroopers, as well as paperwork and IDs found inside.
Last week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pskov amid speculation that his trip was related to the local troops’ deaths in Ukraine. Earlier, President Vladimir Putin awarded an Order of Suvorov to the Pskovbased 76th airborne division, where Anton Korolenko served, for “bravery and heroism” while performing unspecified tasks.
Reports from Russia also indicate that there has been a sudden and unexplained upsurge in the number of killed or wounded military servicemen.
On Tuesday, Russia’s presidential human rights council said about 100 wounded servicemen had been airlifted to a military hospital in St Petersburg for treatment. Nine soldiers were killed at a training range in Rostov region, it said. Military hospitals in Rostov region and southern Russia were “overflowing”, a council spokeswoman said.
#7 From: Timothy Ash ------Date: Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 5:24 PM
[Timothy Ash is a senior analyst of emerging markets for Standard Bank in London]
Well at least they met, and talked, but the two sides are still miles apart, and it is very difficult to see the basis for a ceasefire, let alone a longer lasting agreement. What the two sides want is diametrically opposed.
The basic problem is that Russia would settle for a ceasefire now, on the ground, which would create a frozen conflict scenario, and then leverage for Moscow to get delivery on its agenda, I.e. No NATO, No EU and No Maydan. The problem is that this would leave.
a large swathe of Donbas still in the hands of the separatists, and let’s face it, de facto Russia. And for Kyiv any scenario which leaves Donbas out of its control is unacceptable as rump Ukraine is probably not sustainable without Donbas.
Investors probably don’t realise that an end to fighting now, and a scenario where Donbas remains in Russian hands probably means that a debt restructuring for rump Ukraine would probably be inevitable. The numbers would simply not add up. In the latter scenario no one is going to invest in the resurrection of Donbas’ industrial capacity or infrastructure when its future and security remains in doubt.
14 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU So for the government in Kyiv the game plan is still trying to win a military victory on the ground, clear Donbas, take back its borders, and then begin rebuilding. Actually in the latter scenario I think reconciliation and reconstruction could be much easier than many people assume - assuming that Russia simply butts out, and gives Ukraine a chance. I even think that Ukraine could get by, and survive and even prosper even through a Russian trade blockade, with Western support for Ukraine - rather as did Georgia under Saakashvili after the 2008 Russian invasion. But simply put Ukraine cannot survive without Donbas. And I would still argue that this is why the bulk of Russian intervention is being targeted at Donbas. The battle for Donbas is turning out to be the battle for Ukraine.
On the ground the last few days have seen a really significant escalation by Russia, with credible reports now of “little green men” appearing accross the border - including South towards Mariupol, which also happens to be the site of a major steel facility.
I would again argue that this is all about stopping the Ukrainian military advance by dissipating their forces, and trying to engineer a frozen conflict on the ground.
One final point on the Minsk peace process. At home now in Ukraine I do not sense a clamour for Poroshenko to reach peace deal at any cost with Russia, e.g. If that means the loss of Donbas. What I sense is a desire for victory. So Poroshenko might struggle to sell any such peace at home, and in advance now of parliamentary elections due on October 26.
So the two scenarios now are either Ukrainian forces carry on to victory, and clear the Donbas, and secure Ukraine’s borders, or Russia forces a stalemate, which would in effect be a Russian victory, via a frozen conflict scenario. The latter scenario would make life very difficult for any future Ukrainian government.
The focus perhaps for the West should be working to encourage Russia to stop interfering in Ukraine’s affairs, and this might require further iterations of sanctions. Unfortunately therein, Europe is clearly split on the issue - but Europe perhaps better understand that without more assertive action, the cost of supporting a Ukraine, without Donbas, could be much higher over the longer term, and as I mentioned above, private sector creditors therein may end up shouldering a much larger slice of the burden in the end, via PSI, which already seems to be happening with respect to Ukraine’s private sector creditors, e.g. Mriya.
15 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #8 The “Russian World” will destroy Russia ------by Anton Shekhovtsov Anton Shekhovtsov’s Blog, 28 August 2014
It has been 14 years since Pyotr Shchedrovitsky wrote that “russkiy mir” (Russian world) could be a potent source of Russia’s modernization. For him, the existence of “russkiy mir” implied the availability of “Russian capital” defined as “an accumulation of cultural, intellectual, human and organizational potentials expressed in the linguistic thinking and communication (humanitarian) resources of the Russian language”. Using this Russian capital and mobilizing the Russian diaspora could be a foundation of the country’s innovation and neo-industrial development.
Yet even then, in 2000, Shchedrovitsky’s modernizing and relatively progressive interpretation of “russkiy mir” was a lone voice in the wilderness of ultranationalist, isolationist and expansionist narratives about “russkiy mir”. Already under President Boris Yeltsin, Russian and Russian-speaking minorities in former Soviet countries were used as tools of political influence and propaganda, but President Vladimir Putin effectively formalized “russkiy mir”, by the end of his second term, as one of the most important socio-political instruments of consolidation and cultural legitimization of his regime.
In foreign policy, this concept means two things. First of all, as a diaspora, “russkiy mir” is supposed to be an agent of Russian soft power in the West in general and Europe in particular. Second, as a geopolitical concept, “russkiy mir” refers to East European countries that Russia wants to keep in its orbit and where it can intervene in case they prefer a different foreign policy.
In domestic policy, this relational concept implies that Russia is a unique civilization in its own right, neither a part of the West nor East. Moreover, Russia, as epitomized by Putin, is not between the West and East; rather it is the West that is to the left of Russia, and it is the East that is to the right of Russia. The latter evaluation is obviously incorrect as Russia’s Cape Dezhnev is the easternmost part of Eurasia, but it is not the East that serves as a reference for “russkiy mir” but the West. Essentially, it is the rejection of the West as a civilizational model and Western values as guiding principles that defines “russkiy mir” in domestic policy.
Domestically, the Kremlin needs the concept of “russkiy mir” as a justification for its failure to deliver good governance despite the favourable economic conditions: the Russian state functions to the benefit of a narrow elite rather than in the service of the public good; the rule of law is weak and the checks and balances system is broken; the government is unaccountable and meaningful competition among political groups is non- existent; civil and political liberties are rapidly shrinking away. As the country has not
16 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU progressed since then President Dmitry Medvedev wrote his wishfully optimistic article “Go Russia!”, Russia can still be described, in Medvedev’s terms, as a backward, primitive economy based on raw materials and endemic corruption, with a weak civil society overwhelmed by paternalistic attitudes and stupefied by low levels of self-organization.
While Medvedev’s article called for modernization of Russia along the Western lines, the concept of “russkiy mir” is intrinsically deemed to declare the current condition as a unique norm and justify Russia’s non-Westernness and non-modernization. It is fair to say, however, that the Kremlin invested heavily in modernization of two spheres: a propaganda machine (prestige projects and state-controlled media at home and abroad) and the country’s repressive apparatus (police and army). In other words, the Kremlin invested in the instruments that help retain power and control the population.
When Russian ultranationalists such as Aleksandr Dugin declare that Donbas is a forefront of “russkiy mir”, they are actually right. A patrimony of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, Donbas suffered the most from his inefficient and corrupt rule, but many people living in Donbas have mastered the way of living in this condition and were afraid of any modernizing changes that the Euromaidan revolutionary movement vociferously demanded. The reason why the pro-Russian separatism was initially relatively successful in Donbas – leaving aside the actual Russian leadership in the separatist movement – and not in any other region of Ukraine is not the imaginary threat to the Russian language or any particular pro-Russian sentiment as such. It is the patriarchal, authoritarian culture that ascertained that people’s survival was only possible in a highly hierarchical structure. Many people in Donbas either got used to this structure or invested a lot of energy in learning how to survive or even succeed in it. Moreover, they held to this patriarchal framework as they did not know – or were never offered – any other approach to organizing their lives. In post-industrial societies these people would be called “losers of modernization”, but since genuine modernization is yet to start in Ukraine, they can be called “cravens of modernization”.
The Russians’ strong support for Ukrainian “cravens of modernization” can be explained not only as an unconscious strategy that defends Russia’s citizens from the realization of their country’s extreme wrongdoing in Ukraine, but also as a way of coping with loneliness in their “russkiy mir” and a wish to believe that “russkiy mir” is a viable and competitive civilizational project. Since Russian-speaking people of Ukrainian Donbas are theoretically considered, by the official foreign policy of Putin’s Russia, an integral part of “russkiy mir”, their acceptance of Western-style modernization would be perceived – especially if this modernization is successful – as an existential drama for the Russians.
However, the threat to the Russians’ self-esteem and to the status of Russia’s culture comes not from the Ukrainians (whether they are Russian speakers or otherwise) who have embraced the European integration project. Rather, it comes from the aggressive and corrupt “russkiy mir” that – in contrast to its alleged aim to promote Russian culture – actually damages Russia’s image in a wider world and has a stagnating effect on the Russians’ socio-cultural development.
17 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The Russians should not delude themselves by pointing to some European societies that may tend to oppose Western sanctions against Russia – this presumable opposition is driven by economic, rather than cultural, concerns. Moreover, the Europeans who oppose sanctions against Russia due to economic concerns will most likely express even more contempt for Russia because it made them feel uncomfortable as they put profit above liberal values.
Putin may never find his “face-saving Ukraine exit”, but the Russians still can. When Putin annexed the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and said that it “was just like Kosovo’s secession from Serbia”, it all looked like a metaphorical quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment: “Shall I dare to stoop down and take, or not? Am I a trembling creature, or have I the right?” (Осмелюсь ли нагнуться и взять или нет? Тварь ли я дрожащая или право имею...). To save their own culture, the Russians need to draw on its vast repository and walk Raskolnikov’s path until the end. Otherwise, “russkiy mir” will destroy Russia.
#9 What Putin Can Learn from Stalin’s Winter War ------by Anders Aslund Real Time Economic Issues Watch, 7 August 2014
As the crisis escalates over Ukraine, it has become increasingly clear that not only the rebel leaders but also most of their 15,000 fighters are Russian citizens. The Ukrainian troops are far more numerous with 40,000 to 60,000 men and demonstrate much better morale. They have recaptured three-quarters of the territory formerly controlled by the Russian insurgents. The Russian-held area has now shrunk to an area where 2 million people used to live. Even so, the West continues to favor a political solution to avert an outright Russian invasion, presuming it would end in a Russian occupation of the country’s east. Yet an outright Russian offensive is far from certain to succeed. To understand why, it is worth reviewing an obscure episode of history, the Soviet-Finnish Winter War in 1939–40, which lasted just over 100 days. The Finns amazed everybody and prevailed over Stalin. The Ukrainians can do even better with President Vladimir Putin.
The origins of the crisis are eerily similar to the events of Ukraine. Initially, Stalin demanded parts of Finland’s territory. Then the Soviets organized a border incident. Their forces bombed their own border guard post, killing four Soviet soldiers, while blaming the Finns. The Russians are doing the same all the time around the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Stalin used this incident as an excuse to withdraw from a non- aggression pact with Finland, just as Putin has cancelled Russia’s 1997 Friendship Treaty with Ukraine.
18 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, claiming its aggression was a legitimate response to domestic dissent in Finland. The next day the Soviet Union formed a puppet government intended to rule Finland after the Red Army had conquered it. It was called the Finnish Democratic Republic and headed by Otto Wille Kuusinen, a Finnish member of Stalin’s Politburo. It served the same function as the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic do today, though Stalin went further in recognizing the Finnish Democratic Republic.
Given that Finland only had a population of 4 million at the time, Stalin did not want to consider the Winter War a real war, only a limited support operation. Therefore, Stalin delegated this task to the Leningrad Military District, but the Finnish soldiers wiped out his first round of soldiers in the extreme cold. In a similar fashion, the Russian military uses irregular mercenaries as gun fodder for their war in Ukraine, and they are dying in unknown masses.
The Finns had to take on the Soviet attack without any hope of significant international support. The international community condemned the Soviet Union. The League of Nations deemed the attack illegal and expelled the Soviet Union swiftly on December 14, 1939. But the Finns had to fight on their own just like the Ukrainians. It was a very bloody war. In the course of three months, the Finnish soldiers killed 127,000 Soviet soldiers while losing 23,000 of their own. Despite deploying 800,000 troops in the end, Stalin failed to conquer Finland. Rather than sacrifice more Russians and aggravate his embarrassment, he yielded to the brave Finns and settled. Rather liberally, he claimed only 11 percent of Finland’s territory in the Moscow Peace Treaty on March 13, 1940. No mediator was needed and hardly any international leader bothered to talk to Stalin. The peace treaty was bitter for Finland, which lost 11 percent of its territory, but it maintained independence. Goliath does not always win.
Ukraine is in a far stronger position than Finland was in 1939. However terrible Putin is, Stalin was incomparably worse. The clownish Moscow PR man Alexander Borodai, who postures as self-appointed “prime minister” in eastern Ukraine, is no Stalinist like Kuusinen. Unlike Putin, Stalin enjoyed some important international support because Nazi Germany recognized Finland as in the Soviet sphere of interest in the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939. Stalin had a clear plan to conquer Finland, while Putin does not seem to know what he wants in Ukraine but is improvising. Ukraine is ten times larger than Finland and Stalin was prepared to sacrifice far larger military resources than Putin is. The Ukrainian troops have already liberated three-quarters of the territory held by the rebels in Donbas and we are waiting for the battle for Donetsk.
Right now, Putin is facing a pivotal choice. Either Russia invades Ukraine with regular military forces on a massive scale, or the Ukrainian military will oust the Russian terrorists. He should take his cue from Stalin in this case. Sometimes it is better to lose face.
19 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #10 Ukrainians Now Almost Unanimous in Supporting Independent Ukraine ------Window on Eurasia, 24 August 2014
Vladimir Putin’s Crimean Anschluss which was intended among other things to highlight or promote divisions among Ukrainians about the status of their country has had exactly the opposite effect: It has boosted the share of supporters of independent statehood from 83 percent to 90 percent, the highest ever.
In reporting the poll results, Valery Khmelko, president of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, said that external threats have caused those who did not support the independence of the country to do so because of threats and to recognize the value of Ukraine for themselves.
But what the figures also show is that -- entirely unintentionally -- Putin has done more than anyone else to promote Ukrainian nation building just as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin did more than anyone else to promote Ukrainian state building by adding territories to it in both the east and west.
After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the share of those supporting its new status fell from 76 percent to 56 percent as a result of a deteriorating in the standard of living and hyper-inflation. But even though the economic situation continued to deteriorate in the mid-1990s, those who wanted to rejoin Russia fell significantly after the 1994 elections.
Following Moscow’s intervention in Chechnya in 1994-1996, the share of Ukrainians supporting Ukrainian statehood rose again, to 71 percent; but during the economic crisis of 1997-1998, it fell to 60 percent. But in 1999-2000, during Putin’s invasion of Chechnya, Ukrainian support for independence returned to 72 percent.
In 2003, Khmelko continued, during the Tuzla island crisis, backing among Ukrainians for state independence rose to 77 percent, although it fell back to 72 percent after the conflict was resolved. Then in August 2008, when Putin invaded Georgia, Ukrainian support for independence rose from 72 percent to 83 percent, receding to 72 percent after the crisis.
“Year after year,” the Kyiv sociologist says, “support for the sovereignty of Ukraine by Ukrainians has grown [but] the process had stabilized. Now, however, the outburst of civic self-consciousness has occurred in connect with direct attacks by Russia on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.”
20 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #11 Moscow Patriarchate’s Position Crumbling in Ukraine ------by Paul Goble Window on Eurasia, 27 September 2014
Seventy of the 125 members of the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate say that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and form on the territory of that country a single autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The survey, which was conducted on an anonymous basis by Metropolitan Sofroniy of Cherkassk and Kanyev, is the latest indication the Moscow Patriarchate’s position in Ukraine is disintegrating.
The priests also said that they wanted to end the hitherto required custom of praying for the health of Moscow Patriarch Kirill during church services, a change that Metropolitan Sofroniy said he would approve. These expressions of Orthodox opinion came during a session when the metropolitan reported on the election of the new head of the UOC MP.
The session generated what the eparchate’s news site said was “a lively discussion,” but the direction that the majority of its clergy is moving was indicated by the references on the site to “the military aggression of Russia” in eastern Ukraine and “the unending armed provocations [by Russia], its massive shootings and support for separatist forces.”
#12 Slava Ukraini in Kramatorsk: An Exchange (Excerpts) ------Dominique Arel, Facebook Post, 26 August:
While the Donetsk “parade of shame” was on full display on Sunday, another parade, truly stunning, took place in Kramatorsk. Who in their right mind would have ever expected several thousands Russian-speaking residents of a midsize Donbas town to drape themselves in the Ukrainian flag? As Alex Melnyk (who found the video) noted, Kramatorsk, along with Slovyansk and Horlivka, was one of Strelkov’s strongholds until July. The war may be bleeding Ukraine -- literally and economically -- but Putin, most unwittingly, may turn out to be one of its most important “nation-builder”. The scene also suggests that the slogan “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!” (Slava Ukrainy! Heoryam slavs!) has now taken a life of its own, far removed from its UPA roots. http://www.kramatorsk.info/view/155282
[Excerpts from the exchange]
21 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Marta Dyczok (U of Western Ontario)
This video was quite widely circulated on 24 Aug 2014. numerous commentators have noted that the ‘Slava Ukraini’ slogan had long ago taken on a new life, it started on the Maidan. while at the time many outside observers believed it had nationalist connotations, people on the Maidan were using it in a new, contemporary way. this was very evident in Odesa in May, and in parts of Donbas afterwards
Ivan Katchanovski (U of Ottawa)
It is doubtful that this parade reflects views of Kramatorsk and Donbas residents and that they embraced the OUN slogan. The Ukrainian government openly cooperates with the far right and employs the divisive symbols of the OUN and the UPA, while separatists in Donbas refer to the Ukrainian forces and the government as the Nazis and fascists.
Oleksandr Melnyk (U of Toronto)
What OUN ideology? Most of the so-called “South-East” is Ukrainian, ethnically and politically. Most normal people everywhere prefer peace to war--it is as simple as that. This outcome in terms of identity formation was not predetermined in Donbass, but it is what it is. By bringing war to local communities, Putin and “DNR”/”LNR” criminals destroyed ambivalence and ideological foundations of “russkiy mir” everywhere in Ukraine outside Crimea, especially among younger people who were for the most part pro-Ukrainian politically anyway.
Per Rudling (U of Lund) …and in Croatia, the slogan “Za Dom - Spremni!” has taken a life of its own, far removed from its Ustasha roots.
The Croatian situation is, of course, quite different, yet, as Florian Bieber suggests, alternative approaches are possible:
“This exchange points to a failure of the state and society to openly deal with the past, both of World War Two and of the war in the 1990s and to build a social consensus that makes the open use of fascist symbols unacceptable.”
Oxana (Tufts U)
I would bet many of these marchers in Kramatorsk do not even know it was once an OUN slogan. Florian’s analysis was informative, but I would disagree with the argument that in Ukraine at least “the main concern is that these symbols become or remain “normal” and part of the mainstream and thus using them does not put you at the margins of society.” If a slogan Slava Ukraini-heroiam slava (which by itself is not offensive or divisive) has acquired a new meaning in a new political context, I do not see a problem with that or with its usage today. The problem, to my mind, would be stifling discussion about the
22 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU acts of groups who used the slogan in the past and white-washing acts of the past users of the slogan - or current users for this matter if they engage in acts that violate democratic rights and principles. Open analysis of the past is needed and actions should be judged, but equating the meaning of the slogan then and now and lamenting its current use is misguided. With that, Slava Ukraini!
Dominique Arel
I think context matters. If Heroyam Slava is chanted in a crowd full of Bandera portraits or Svoboda or Pravy Sektor banners (or with the symbols worn by some of these volunteer battalions), then we truly have a “memory” problem. But to have ordinary Russkoyazhny folks in the depths of provincial Donbas use it, with no OUN-UPA symbols in sight, is something else altogether. The “heroes” in this case are those who stand up to a Russia that insistently calls any “pro-Kyiv” Ukrainian a “fascist”. Of course, Marta Dyczok is right that this does not only apply to Donbas, but the case of Kramatorsk is as clear-cut as it gets. A similar demonstration in that town before 2014, would have attracted dozens of people, a hundred at most. The tectonic plates of identity are shifting.
#13 Death toll soars from fighting in Ukraine: UN report ------AFP, 27 August 2014
Fierce fighting in east Ukraine over the past month has sent the death toll soaring, with at least 36 people killed every day, according to a UN rights report. In four weeks alone, from mid-July to mid-August, at least 1,200 people were killed -- more than double the total casualties in the conflict since it began in April, said the report by UN rights monitors to be released on Friday.
Ukrainian forces have over the past month made headway in their battle to flush out pro- Moscow separatists, regaining control of towns in the east and tightening their blockades around rebel strongholds.
“As a result of the intensified hostilities, there has been an escalation in the number of casualties which has more than doubled in total since the last report” in July, said the 39- page document obtained by AFP.
The one-month death toll of 1,200 did not include the 298 dead from the July 17 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Since April, a total of 2,220 people have been killed, including 23 children. The report implicitly blamed the separatists for the intensified killing, saying they were staging attacks from “densely populated areas, putting the civilian population at risk”.
23 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU But it added that “responsibility for at least some of the resulting casualties and damage lies with Ukrainian armed forces” who have been shelling rebel positions in the cities.
Artillery, tanks, rockets and missiles have been used in the most recent rounds of fighting, with the frontlines moving closer to the suburbs of the main city of Donetsk and Lugansk.
The report seemed to address Ukrainian claims that Russia is arming the rebels, saying that the separatists are “now professionally equipped and appear to benefit from a steady supply of sophisticated weapons and ammunition, enabling them to shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft such as helicopters, fighter jets and transport planes.”
Ukraine has accused Russia of providing the weaponry that allowed rebels to shoot down Flight MH17, but Moscow denies the allegations. An investigation led by the Dutch government is under way.
The report also accused rebel fighters of committing murder, kidnappings, torture and other human rights violations.
At least 468 people remain in captivity, according to the report, the fifth issued by the UN rights monitoring mission.
UN Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic is due to present the report during a visit to Ukraine on Friday.
#14 Photographing Both Sides in Ukraine ------by Mauricio Lima New York Times, 21 August 2014
Q. What have you been photographing during the last week?
A. I’ve been mostly in places where heavy shelling has happened — in Donetsk and outside of the city. Today, I went to an orphanage in Makiivka in the morning. There was intense shelling, mostly incoming rockets and mortars from the Ukrainian army. All of the children were taken to the basement by their teachers and we stayed there for about an hour. A few children started crying. I took some pictures and later I decided to move on and see the damage from the shelling which was very intense.
Then the shelling started again and myself and the two other photographers I was with stopped our car and ran into another basement in an apartment building. There were around 100 people, mostly elderly, a few children and a couple of dogs. We stayed there for a few minutes. I later found out that a few minutes after I left, three people died from the shelling nearby.
24 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Near the railway, I saw one body lying near a small house on the other side of the street. And then I saw the most heartbreaking moment. I was taking pictures of the destruction there and then I saw an older woman coming with a younger man wearing camouflage. She was crying and she was yelling very, very loud. Louder than anyone I have ever heard.
Her son was taking her to see her daughter whose body lay on the ground.
She fell on the ground next to her daughter’s body, shrieking. I took a few pictures and then I decided to leave them there. It was a very intimate moment and the woman was hysterical. Also, we were completely exposed and a firefight erupted nearby.
Q. For the last few weeks the Ukrainian army has been shelling Donetsk while you’ve been staying there?
A. Yes. I’ve not been in actual fighting but I’ve been in shelling over the last two weeks and some of them very close to the scene I was photographing.
Q. Have you seen much of the Ukrainian army?
A. I saw Ukrainian soldiers on checkpoints on the way to Luhansk, but mostly I’ve seen pro-Russian rebels around.
Q. A lot has changed in Donetsk since last spring.
A. Yes, definitely. I spent almost the whole month of May in Donetsk and the city was completely different. People were in the streets, life was completely normal. Now, most of the banks are closed, all the malls are shut and very few shops are open. Only a few supermarkets and gas stations are open in Donetsk. There is a curfew here between 11 o’clock until 6 in the morning.
Q. You were there at the end of the Maidan protests. After the government fell there was a wave of optimism in the square. What is the difference between what you experienced then and what you’re experiencing now?
A. At the end of Maidan, everyone was celebrating. I remember one day I went to photograph one of the Ukrainian self-defense groups that were starting up and one volunteer told me that this is not the end but just the beginning of the war. What’s going on in eastern Ukraine is a direct consequence of what happened with Maidan.
Q. What is the mood now in Donetsk?
A. There is a sort of sadness in the air here. On the weekends, Donetsk is like a ghost city. It’s hard to find people on the street. I hope that the situation can end in a peaceful way.
25 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Q. You worked in Iraq and Afghanistan over many years. How does covering the conflict in Ukraine compare to the other wars that you have covered?
A. In Iraq, most of the time we were worried about hard bombs and suicide attacks by people whom we couldn’t see. In Afghanistan, I couldn’t see any evidence of the Taliban. You realize that they are present in some parts, but I just saw civilians.
In Ukraine you see both sides and you’re able to talk with both sides.
Q. What does that mean to you as a photographer?
A. Sometimes you accumulate too many sad moments.
An 80-year-old Russian-speaking woman was hit by a shell in the backyard of her mother’s house in Donetsk last week. She was injured and crying and desperately trying to clean herself using some water.
You see moments like this and our instinct tells us to hold the camera and press the button. But in that moment she was alone and needed help more than she needed someone in front of her taking her picture.
Then shelling resumed again and everybody was scared and lay down on the ground away from windows. She couldn’t walk so she stayed there.
I held her arm and sat with her on the ground. I brought her a towel and helped her wash. Then the doctors arrived with an ambulance looking for a dead man inside the house.
I asked them to take care of the woman because she was crying and she was still alive and she had several wounds all over her body. Then I started to do what I normally do. I tried to find a good picture.
#15 This Is What a War in Europe Really Looks Like ------by Anna Nemtsova Politico, 17 July 2014
Anna Nemtsova is a correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast based in Moscow. Her work has also appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Foreign Policy, nbcnews.com, Marie Claire and The Guardian.
We were on the road headed out of Donetsk. It was just a few days after the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and the deserted road to the Pervomayskoye region on the
26 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU western outskirts of this mining capital-turned-war zone was bumpy and torn up by tanks. Every few yards there were huge gaps in the asphalt. Gunmen patrolled the roads while other gunmen dug trenches or hung out by mortar cannons. We drove by a couple of bombed rebel checkpoints where gloomy pro-Russian militia checked our documents. At one point, we passed by the blackened, burned remains of a gas station, where several cars had been turned inside out by explosions, as if they were made of paper.
Just two days earlier, we had seen the heartbreaking corpses of burned children from the shot-down Malaysia Air flight, the unlikely collateral damage of this fight between Ukraine and Russia and a region of 8 million people caught between them. Now we were on the road again, and there was more destruction and death—murder by Grad rockets, by mortar and by artillery fire on cities, towns and villages. At times, the scenes this week in the so-called People’s Republic of Donetsk seemed out of World War II. But as real as the carnage is, I still find it very hard to believe we are covering a real and bloody war here in Eastern Ukraine, amid placid fields of blood-red poppies and quiet concrete streetscapes.
My driver, Andrei Popov, a 49-year-old entrepreneur who has spent his life here in the mining region known as the Donbass, grew silent, then exclaimed loudly a short sentence spiced with Russian curses as he pointed at a public minibus badly damaged by shells—the day before he had seen a body covered with a blanket, a passenger from that bus. Our sense of dread worsened as he drove toward his dacha, just four kilometers outside Donetsk, and sure enough the worst of his expectations turned true: The whole small gated community of ramshackle summer cottages looked to have been shelled. Some houses had big holes in the walls, others were missing their roofs. The front wall of my guide’s house was damaged; we found two deep holes in his garden. Luckily, rebels had warned locals to evacuate the day before the fighting on Monday. “Otherwise my neighbors would have been killed, at least 80 percent of them,” Popov said. Then he cursed more as he walked along the road to make sure that no one was left under the ruins: “Is anybody here?” he shouted.
On the day Popov’s dacha got shelled, my colleagues and I had discovered a dead woman, two dead men and destroyed cars and buildings in the middle of Donetsk itself, along the heavily shelled Slavatskaya Street in the area between Donetsk’s railway and bus stations. The woman on the charred ground by a garage could have been my age, though it was hard to say. She was lying on her stomach; the shell had hit her head—it was missing. Her two black shoes, ripped off her feet by the explosion, landed next to each other by her head, as if they had continued to make hurried steps toward some shelter they did not find.
This is the war I have been covering since April, a war that few in the capitals of Europe and America paid much attention to, aside from the occasional hand-wringing over whether and how to sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the ground, over five separate trips totaling a little more than five weeks, I’ve crisscrossed this unhappy patch of Eastern Ukraine, from Donetsk to Luhansk, Slovyansk to Kramatorsk, and many places in between. Much of it at one point or another has been part of the rebel-declared People’s Republic of Donetsk, and since intensive fighting broke out in mid-May an estimated 780
27 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU civilians and an unknown number of separatist fighters have been killed. That makes this war every bit as bloody as the conflict that has erupted over the last couple weeks in Gaza, but until the Malaysia Airlines plane fell from the sky, apparently shot down by the Russian-backed rebels among whom I’ve been traveling, it was far less covered. No one even wanted to call it a real war.
And all the more surreal, it’s a real war that has broken out in the midst of Donetsk, which in addition to being Ukraine’s mining capital, a city with a population of almost 1 million, is a very green city, where even today street workers cut and water beautiful grass lawns and endless flower beds of giant colorful roses. You could not imagine a less likely place for a civil war. Who, six months ago, could have dreamed of Soviet-era Sukhoi jets screeching overhead here, or Ukrainian pilots dropping bombs on their fellow citizens?
Even in April it seemed crazy. Sure, I met many angry, bitter Russian-speaking locals then, who were suspicious of the “Ukrainian nationalists” who had toppled the government back in Kyiv and vowed to turn the country toward Europe and out of Putin’s sphere of influence. And there was no question that violence was being incited by Muscovites, who make up the rebel republic’s leadership, and Russian ideologists, who fan the flames with their calls to create a “Novorossia”—New Russia—out of the entire region. The defense minister of the People’s Republic, Col. Igor Girkin, quit the Russian successor to the KGB, known as the FSB, only last May. The Donetsk People’s Republic’s prime minister, Alexander Borodai, is a former Moscow journalist and analyst. Another Moscow brain, Borodai’s security adviser, Sergei Kavtaradze, studied military history and wrote an academic thesis on civil wars. But even the Russian annexation of the nearby Crimean Peninsula, as much of a jolt as that was, hadn’t led to a real war. Why would this be different?
The first time I witnessed violence in the Donbass, I was shocked by how quickly it caught fire. It was May 1, International Workers Day, traditionally celebrated in some post-Soviet countries by a peaceful demonstration. Families in their best clothes, many holding their children’s hands, waving Russian, Communist and Donetsk People’s Republic flags and balloons, came out to Donetsk’s Lenin Square to hear speeches about “fascist Kyiv” and the upcoming people’s referendum that would liberate the Donbass from Ukraine’s authority. People’s Republic leaders called on the crowd of a couple thousand people to “accurately” walk and take over the central police station and then, also “accurately,” take over the city prosecutor’s building.
The police station did not take much effort—protesters just put their separatist flags on the front wall—but the prosecutors did not surrender easily. Shielded police officers were waiting for the demonstrators at the entrance. It took only a few minutes for the battle to start in earnest: Police fired rubber bullets, smoke and stun grenades at the angry crowd, protesters instantly took apart the pavement and threw bricks at police. One of the women in the crowd—her red blouse messed up, lipstick smeared, still with balloons in her hand—was hit with a rubber bullet on the forehead. I told her that it was probably
28 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU time to take her son away and go to see a doctor. “No, we have to finish what we started,” she yelled, and grabbed another brick.
A few days later, on May 8, more than 40 people, mostly pro-Russian demonstrators, were killed in a horrific fire in the House of Professional Unions in Odessa. That was the turning point in the rising hate for millions of Russian speakers and pro-Kremlin Russians living in Ukraine. The rhetoric immediately jumped from “they don’t make Russian an official language” to “see, now they burn us.” That sad week, I came to write about funerals in Odessa. In vain, I tried to find a pair of friends or lovers who could still converse about their different opinions of the tragic clashes. But opponents were not able to talk with one another, to look in each other’s eyes.
By the end of May, when I returned again, it had become a real war. How, I wondered as the whole place unraveled, can schoolteachers or students buy gas, pour it into a bottle, and burn people? Or take a brick and throw it into a human head?
The chemistry of violence can be studied and explained, Sergei Kavtaradze, one of the Muscovites behind the Donetsk People’s Republic, told me this week, the week of the Flight 17 airplane catastrophe. Kavtaradze would know: He wrote his Ph.D. thesis about modern civil wars, their causes, inspirations and escalation. “It all starts from close contact: somebody who pours gas in a bottle and throws it at his opponent, or takes a stick with a nail protruding out of it, and hits his enemy with it, finds it not difficult to take a Kalashnikov next,” Kavtaradze explained. And what is next, I ask? He rolls a tank over a human body, shoots Grad rockets at residential areas or Buk missiles at a passenger airplane full of innocents?
Our conversation did not exactly give me hope that the terrible tragedy of the downed plane would somehow halt the fighting. “If Ukraine does not leave Donbass, in a month both sides will go deeper into the war to an awful degree that would be a threat to Europe. The world needs to pay attention to it,” Kavtaradze warned.
Looking back at every page of this war, I realize that I’ve covered a series of the most absurd and insane nightmares. To me, day one of the real war was the day of heavy fighting for Donetsk airport, on May 27. About 100 pro-Russian rebels and “volunteers from Russia” were killed that day, marking the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation declared by Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko.
Later, when the city morgue at Kalininskaya Hospital filled up with separatist bodies, leaders of the rogue republic invited us reporters to accompany a truck with 31 red coffins traveling that day to the Russian border, carrying with it a dark message to the Kremlin that hundreds more corpses would soon follow. Their dark message dissolved in a vacuum of silence and secrecy once it crossed the border. Russian state television did not say a word about Russian bodies arriving home; wives of “volunteer” guerrillas—most of them apparently recruited over a Russian social network called Vkontakte.ru—had trouble
29 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU even finding their husband’s bodies. Russia was clearly both spurring the war on and eager to avoid the evidence of it.
As the fighting has unfolded, most of the rebels I have spoken with are locals from the Donbass. They did not want their lives to have anything to do with pro-Western Ukraine. They believed they were fighting to defend their land from Kyiv’s “fascists.” Twice gunmen among these rebels have detained me, both times taking me away in some unknown direction, which felt more like abduction, without telling my colleagues and me where they were taking us, without giving us any chance to make a single phone call.
The first time, they took me and three of my colleagues to a town called Antratsit for several hours; the second time, just last week, they grabbed me and two other journalists at the city morgue, where we had gone to look for bodies of MH17 victims, and brought us to a Ukrainian Security Service base now controlled by separatists in Donetsk. During the few hours we spent with our interrogators, we learned how much they hated Americans. They were mostly young local guys from Sloviansk, a stronghold they lost to “backed by America Ukrainians” earlier this month. The commander who decided whether to arrest and put us in jail or let us go told us that his own house was destroyed by an American bomb. Rebels blame the West and especially America for not trying to understand why somebody genuinely wants to be with Russia, not because of Putin or the Kremlin but because Russia was more like a mother for them.
By mid-July, the death toll of civilians climbed to about 780 dead. Every night I woke up to the sound of Grad missiles or mortar shootings in the city of Donetsk. Was the war worth so many lives? How could it become a norm to fire rockets at residential areas? I kept asking in both Moscow and Kyiv. Irina Bekeshkina, director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation in the Ukrainian capital, no hardline advocate of military action, told me it was just unavoidable. “This is a war Ukraine fights against Russia. If we don’t remove this poisonous Novorossia tumor now, it will cover the entire country with metastases and Ukraine dies,” Bikeshkina said. She was a pacifist by nature, but in this particular case the blood spilled in Donetsk was preventing more blood, she insisted.
How far should Novorossia go, I asked Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov back in Moscow. “Our victorious plan is to first win the war in the Donbass, and go further to make Nikolayev, Kharkiv and Odessa part of Novorossia,” Markov told me, naming other cities in Eastern Ukraine. “On the big scale of things, we fight a war declared by the anti-Russian party in Washington, McCain, Biden and others dreaming to overthrowing Putin.”
In our conversation, Markov never pretended that the Moscow brain was not behind the war in the Donbass. About a month ago, he told me that the rebels’ priority was to make the sky over Donbass “uncomfortable” for Ukrainian airplanes. Shortly after that, rebels learned to shoot down Ukrainian Sukhoi jets, one after another, until, most probably, they shot down Flight 17 by accident.
30 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU But terror tactics and lies are not confined to one side or another in this war. The day after eight people were killed on Luhansk’s central square, I was discussing with my friend, New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise, whether it was a Ukrainian jet or rebels that had been shooting at the square.
Kyiv denied it was a jet, but when we arrived and saw the scene with our own eyes, the picture was more than clear: At least 21 craters were left by the rockets shot from the air. Later, the Western observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe confirmed that rockets from a plane hit the square.
If Kyiv could lie to us once, why could not they lie again? I discussed that with a colleague from Human Rights Watch, Ole Solvang. Human Rights Watch documented at least four cases of Ukrainian forces being responsible for Grad unguided rockets falling on residential areas. “All evidence indicated that Ukrainian forces were behind Grad attacks,” Solvang told me, but when I called the interior and defense ministries of Ukraine, they claimed they were serious about protecting civilians and that they never used Grad rockets in the cities.
It’s not easy to talk about the war, even with close friends back in Kyiv. They never thought the Donbass would understand their revolution, the one that toppled Ukraine’s corrupt pro-Russian leader and attempted to set the country on a new pro-European course, and now, four months into the war, they admit they have no mercy for pro-Russian population. “I don’t feel sorry for them. … They kill our Ukrainian guys. This is war, and in war enemies die,” my good friend, a talented photographer named Maksim, told me.
Not long after I talked with Maksim on the phone from Kyiv, I took a walk around a deserted Donetsk this past Tuesday with Dmitry, a leader of a civil society group called Responsible Citizens. He and five close friends decided to create the group to build a bridge between Kyiv and Donetsk. But when the activists traveled to Kyiv and spoke with officials, they were told the most painful words—that the war was needed to renew the nation. And now Dima, as he is called, is pretty much alone in Donetsk. His friends have all run away from the bombs, beatings and kidnappings. And he is giving up on peace. “We lost our hope for Kyiv. Even if they win the war and come to Donetsk, it will take them ages to win our hearts back,” he told me, an observation that seemed indisputable in a city where headless bodies now lie on street corners and Dutch body parts rot in fields of sunflowers.
31 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #16 Kiev Must Show Compassion to Eastern Ukraine ------By Natalia Antonova Moscow Times, 18 August 2014
Natalia Antonova is an American playwright and journalist.
It’s a cliche to point out that objectivity and common sense are among the first casualties of armed conflict — but it’s important to note that compassion often follows suit as well.
Today, the lack of compassion exemplified by residents of both Moscow and Kiev over the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the future of Ukraine as a whole ought to give us serious pause.
Far beyond abstract politics, the issue of very real, very serious hatred between two “brotherly nations” should concern everyone today, particularly those who don’t want to see further instability on European soil.
In Moscow, I’ve grown tired of explaining that just because I’m critical of current Russian policy on Ukraine doesn’t mean I’m “into Nazism.” I’ve similarly grown tired of pointing out that backing separatists in Ukraine — whether unofficially or officially — may backfire on Russia in the worst possible way, as regional destabilization triggers greater destabilization over time.
But in a similar vein, pointing out the horror of civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine to Kiev residents often results in derision and downright hostility. “Maybe these people should have thought about the consequences before siding with Russian-backed terrorists,” is a refrain one hears too often in Kiev these days.
To be certain, it makes sense for Kievans to be angry. While the West and Russia continue their stand off over Ukraine, the country itself faces an increasingly uncertain future.
The state of the economy is dire. Ukraine’s already unstable social and political environment may worsen when the army’s battle with the separatists is over and “the boys come home from war.” It certainly doesn’t help that the far-right volunteer battalions fighting in eastern Ukraine may want to play a part in postwar politics.
Meanwhile, a war still rages in eastern Ukraine.Among Maidan supporters in Kiev, plenty have friends who are now in the armed forces deployed in eastern Ukraine. Some talk about friends they have lost in battle. It makes sense to be angry when some 19-year-old kid you knew will never come home again.
32 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU It equally makes sense to be angry that, in addition to violence in Kiev last winter, locals had to deal with everything from the humiliating loss of Crimea to increasingly desperate- seeming brawls in the parliament.
To be fair, the parliament did manage to pass an important lustration bill in its first reading last week, although one has to wonder whether the eventual law will be properly enforced.
Yet despite the pain of Kiev’s residents, civilians in eastern Ukraine have emerged as the most vulnerable parties in the entire horrid mess that is the Ukraine crisis so far.
It is sad and telling that the new Ukrainian government was said to have put together an aid convoy for the Donbass region only after the Russians had done the same. It makes Kiev’s move seem like a PR stunt and brings home the fact that civilians in eastern Ukraine have apparently been largely off-the-radar as far as the authorities are concerned.
The bickering over the convoy drives home the point, though, that what we’re seeing in Ukraine right now is not just a local conflict involving some international players. It is also a vicious cycle being simultaneously experienced by two societies — both Russian and Ukrainian — that are growing inured to the idea of destruction and death on their doorstep.
And the less sympathy and support that eastern residents get from Kiev, the less they are going to care about the whole notion of a sovereign Ukraine.
#17 Sick babies left behind in city caught in crossfire ------by Bojan Pancevsk The Sunday Times (UK), 17 August 2014
Lisa and Maria, girls aged 18 months and five months, were left behind at the children’s hospital when incessant shelling forced their families to flee Luhansk, a city in east Ukraine held by Russian-controlled separatists and besieged by government forces, writes Bojan Pancevski.
They could not be evacuated because they suffer from a rare medical condition and can survive only in an intensive care unit. Nurses have stacked sandbags against the window of their room to protect the girls from shrapnel but they know the shockwave from a blast close to the hospital would kill them.
Their plight was discovered by the photojournalist Maria Turchenkova, who spent three nights in the once thriving industrial city to record the suffering of civilians caught in the crossfire between the Russian-controlled rebels and Ukraine’s forces.
33 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU When Turchenkova visited Luhansk last week the roads were blocked and the only way in was by a slow train that crawled past unexploded missiles scattered alongside the track.
She found a European city on the brink of a humanitarian disaster: there is no electricity, gas, fuel or running water. Food and medicine are in short supply. The hospitals, which are at bursting point, turn away the lightly wounded.
The shelling sometimes kills more than a dozen people a day, forcing workers at the city’s morgue to pile bodies on the floor. The suffocating stench of corpses poisons the air hundreds of yards away as there is no power for the refrigeration system.
At the hospital one patient, Sergey, 43, said he had never taken sides in the conflict. Instead he continued doing his job as an emergency worker.
Last month, as he and his team rushed to put out a fire in a residential block, a shell hit their vehicle. Doctors were forced to amputate his right leg just below the knee.
“I’ve got a wife and two young children. I can’t work any more and we’ve got nowhere to go,” he said.
#18 Helping Ukraine Is a U.S. Imperative ------by William J. Perry and George P. Shultz Wall Street Journal, 26 August 2014
Israel and Palestine exchange bombs and rockets for weeks on end, with yet another cease fire announced on Tuesday. A civil war is under way in Iraq; and a Russian military convoy violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine. These events demand a strategic approach on the part of the United States in which we maintain an ability to defend our interests in many places at once. In particular, we are concerned that the events in Ukraine are not receiving the response they deserve.
What is happening? Russia has completely ignored the Budapest Memorandums on Security Assurances of 1994 in which, as a signatory, it agreed not to violate any Ukrainian territory. Russia has taken Crimea and is actively stirring trouble in the eastern part of that country, a blatant violation of solemn vows. One of us, Mr. Perry, participated in the negotiations leading to the Budapest Memorandum, and can testify to the seriousness of that broken promise. He can also testify that both the Russian and American negotiators understood that this Memorandum was critical to Ukraine’s decision to give up its almost 2,000 nuclear weapons.
34 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU If Russia had not agreed to the Budapest Memorandum, it is likely that Ukraine would not have surrendered its nuclear weapons, with the danger of “loose nukes” that deeply concerned both the U.S. and Russia. Even today, a nuclear Ukraine could pose the danger of a serious regional dispute morphing into a nuclear exchange. So Russia got an important security benefit from the Budapest Memorandum, but now is unwilling to pay the price for that benefit, as it promised.
Besides its incursion into Crimea, Russia continues to be provocative militarily in eastern Ukraine by providing equipment, training, and sometimes, in a thinly disguised way, personnel. Last week the Russians sent a large convoy into Ukraine. This convoy was advertised as carrying relief equipment, which may well be true, but has not been verified by any international body. This week, Russia is sending in another convoy, again with the opposition of the Ukrainian government. By these actions, Russia violates Ukraine’s territorial integrity and reneges on the Budapest Memorandum.
The situation demands attention and action. There is no need for American “boots on the ground,” because Ukraine has sizable ground forces, but we—NATO, or the U.S. if NATO is reluctant to act—need to help them with training and equipment that can improve their military performance and allow them to defend their country. Ukraine is a founding member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, so NATO not only has some responsibility to act, but has actually trained together with Ukrainian military forces. The sanctions already applied have hurt Russia’s economic interests but have not stopped Russia’s actions. They need to be strengthened. By our actions we help Ukraine, but we also let Russia know that we will defend our interests and the interests of countries whose territorial integrity is being threatened.
We should reassure the Baltic States by deploying forces in those countries. A permanent deployment would contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act, but a rotating force could be consistent with the Act while indicating to Russia how seriously we take their military actions.
We are not seeking a confrontation; we believe that a good relationship with Russia is profoundly in the interests of the U.S. and a peaceful world order. However, there is little order in a world in which the military force of one country violates the territorial integrity of its neighbor. We believe that an independent Ukraine with its territorial integrity intact can and should emerge.
With its increasing commitment to the rule of law, natural resources and resilient people, Ukraine can produce an economy with which the U.S. and other countries can trade and interact for a better future. Helping Ukraine become a viable rule-of-law state with a flourishing economy will be difficult but is essential. It would be the best rebuff to Russia, and, in the long run, the best stimulus for a similar development in Russia.
35 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #19 The Boistro Group: A 24-Step Plan to Resolve the Ukraine Crisis ------The Atlantic, 26 August 2014
Vladimir Putin may be meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko for peace talks in Belarus on Tuesday, but the conflict between the two countries, and more broadly between Russia and the West, is in fact escalating, with Russia most recently sending aid convoys and apparentmilitary equipment and armored vehicles into Ukrainian territory. Since April, fighting between the Ukrainian military and pro- Russian rebels has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced around 360,000 more. Kiev accuses Moscow of directly and indirectly violating its sovereignty and waging war against it; Moscow accuses Kiev of violently repressing Russian-speakers and creating a humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine.
In an effort to break the impasse, a group of American and Russian experts and former officials-including an ex-director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service and a top Russia advisor to George W. Bush-recently met on an island in Finland. Working as private individuals, in an approach known as “Track II diplomacy,” they developed a roadmap for a possible high-level diplomatic discussion on resolving the crisis in Ukraine. Their ideas- among others, establishing a UN-authorized peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, granting amnesty to combatants who have not committed war crimes, andrespecting Ukrainian legislation on the country’s status as a member of no military alliance-are worth considering, now more than ever.
The Ukraine crisis remains in a highly dangerous phase. Escalating violence on the ground in Ukraine and fears of a descent into a more intense confrontation between Ukraine and Russia have focused the world’s attention.
Despite these tensions, there is reason to believe that all the major parties to the dispute are open to a non-military solution if satisfactory terms can be devised. However, finding those terms has not been easy. A bitter information war obscures ground truth, deepening the gulf between Russia on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other. Voices on each side exaggerate the objectives of the other. Meanwhile, the challenges of reconciliation and building a stable, prosperous Ukraine mount the longer the violence continues. People in eastern Ukraine, whatever their political allegiances, suffer, most the innocent victims of disputes and policies in which they have little voice.
The Ukraine crisis will ultimately end with a diplomatic solution. The only question is how much devastation will occur, and how many future grievances will be born and nurtured, before diplomacy will be able to resolve the crisis. As always, a diplomatic solution will require all sides to make concessions and to focus on their essential needs, not on ideal outcomes or unconditional victory.
36 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU We are not privy to the confidential discussions between our governments. It would help whatever diplomacy may be underway if the public debate in both Russia and the West were focused not so much on fixing blame and stoking passions as finding ways to reduce the risk of further escalation and end the crisis. In that spirit, a group of high-ranking Russian and American experts with strong experience in executive and legislative branches of power and analysis of international relations-with the generous support of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO)-recently met outside Helsinki on an island retreat called Boisto to consider the Ukraine crisis and a way forward. What follows is the fruit of that session: a set of issues for a high-level U.S.- Russian dialogue, which should be part of a larger discussion that must include Ukrainian as well as European representatives. The issues could become a framework for resolving the crisis. We think it especially notable that the group focused part of its efforts on the terms for an enduring and verifiable ceasefire with significant international participation. Obviously, much tough diplomacy would be required to reach agreement on all the issues. But it is time to reinforce the diplomatic effort, starting with a ceasefire, as outlined here.
Boisto Agenda
Elements of an Enduring, Verifiable Ceasefire
1. Ceasefire and ceasefire-monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) 2. Formation and deployment of a UN-authorized peacekeeping mission under Chapter 7 of the UN charter 3. Withdrawal of regular Russian and Ukrainian army units to an agreed distance from conflict zones 4. Removal of Ukrainian National Guard units from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions 5. Establishment of effective border control and halt of illegal trans-border transit of military equipment and personnel 6. Agreed limits on significant armed-forces concentration in the vicinity of the Russian-Ukrainian border 7. Confidence-building measures under OSCE auspices 8. Verified demilitarization of illegal armed groups on both sides under OSCE auspices 9. Formation of new Ukrainian law-enforcement forces in the conflict zone
Humanitarian and Legal Issues
10. Return of and humanitarian assistance for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) 11. Compensation for property losses and reconstruction of housing and commercial property 12. Credible investigation of crimes committed during the crisis 13. Amnesty for combatants not involved in war crimes during the hostilities
37 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Economic Relations
14. Preservation of Russian-Ukrainian economic relations, including defense- industry cooperation in view of the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) and other arrangements 15. Enhancement of energy-related infrastructure and transportation networks 16. International measures against illegal siphoning of gas transit 17. Mutual guarantees for current status of labor migrants
Social and Cultural Issues
18. Protection of the status of the Russian language and of traditional cultural ties between Russia and Ukraine 19. Free access to mass media and television, including Russian mass media and television
Crimea
20. Discussion of the settlement of legal issues pertaining to the status of Crimea 21. Guarantee of uninterrupted water and energy supplies 22. Protection of the rights of ethnic minorities 23. Discussion of access by Ukrainian companies to development of offshore oil and gas reserves
International Status of Ukraine
24. Mutual respect for the non-bloc status of Ukraine as stipulated by Ukrainian legislation
Boisto Working Group
American Participants
1. Thomas Graham-Co-chair of the Boisto Group; managing director of Kissinger Associates; former special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff (2004-2007) 2. Andrew Weiss- Co-chair of the Boisto Group; vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs on the National Security Council staff (1998-2001) 3. Deana Arsenian-Vice president of the International Program and director of the Russia Program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York 4. Rajan Menon-Anne and Bernard Spitzer professor of political science in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York/City University of New York 5. Robert Nurick-Senior fellow at the Atlantic Council
38 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU 6. Jack Snyder-Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations in the Political Science Department at Columbia University
Russian Participants
1. Alexander Dynkin-Co-chair of the Boisto Group; director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO); advisor to the prime minister of Russia (1998-1999) 2. Aleksey Arbatov-Head of the Center for International Security at IMEMO; deputy chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation (1995-2003) 3. Vyacheslav Trubnikov-Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary; member of the IMEMO board of directors; director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (1996 - 2000); first deputy minister of foreign affairs of Russia (2000-2004); four-star general, awarded with Hero of the Russian Federation medal 4. Victor Kremenyuk-Deputy director of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies 5. Artem Malgin-Vice rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University) 6. Feodor Voitolovsky-Deputy director of IMEMO 7. Andrey Ryabov-Editor in chief of the World Economy and International Relations monthly journal
All individuals participated in this working group as individuals. The affiliations are for purposes of identification only and are not intended to signify endorsement of this document by anyone other than those listed above.
#20 What’s Wrong with the Boisto Plan ------by Sam Greene London & Moscow Blog, 26 August 2014 http://moscowonthames.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/whats-wrong-with-the-boisto-plan/
Just before Poroshenko and Putin met in Minsk today, the so-called Boisto Group (named for the Finnish island where the group’s six American and seven Russian foreign policy experts met) released a 24-point conflict-resolution plan that is, I suppose, not entirely without merit. It seeks to establish an immediate and secure cease-fire, and to ensure that economic, ethno-cultural and humanitarian issues are resolved as amicably as possible. Admirably, it insists on the re-establishment of Ukrainian law-enforcement in the Donbas. Equally admirably, it at least recognizes that Crimea is still a problem, by not taking it off the table altogether.
But the plan’s fundamental flaw is that it isn’t, in fact, designed to resolve the conflict: it’s designed to freeze it.
39 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The plan begins by insisting that the Donbas be completely demilitarized, including the withdrawal of all Ukrainian forces. While that can be a reasonable condition to end a civil conflict, it must inherently be a temporary measure: no sovereign state can permanently cede the right to move its own military around its own territory. But the Boisto plan would require exactly that. It does not envisage any political process that would allow Kiev to reassert full control over its territory. If implemented as written, the plan will turn the Donbas into another Transnistria — exactly what Moscow has been hoping to achieve, and exactly what Kiev has been fighting to avoid.
And therein lies perhaps the bigger problem with the plan: it fails to recognize that, whatever bones Russia and the West may have to pick with each other, this is first and foremost a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Putin and Poroshenko certainly understand that: that’s why they’re meeting in Minsk. I have nothing but respect for the members of the Boisto Group, many of whom I know personally and some of whom I count as friends. But there was not one Ukrainian on the island when the Boisto Plan was drafted, and thus it is not entirely surprising that the plan mortgages Ukraine’s political future for the sake of allowing Russia and the West to get back to ‘business as usual.’
#21 Why Obama’s Coercion Strategy in Ukraine Will Fail ------by Samuel Charap National Interest, 4 August 2014
Samuel Charap is Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 has dramatically escalated tensions surrounding the Ukraine crisis. On Tuesday, the EU and the United States enacted unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia, the world’s sixth largest economy. The talk in Western capitals is about the degree of punishment to exact against Russia for its actions and the extent of support to provide to the Ukrainian government, be it political, military or financial. This two-pronged approach has rapidly become conventional wisdom in policy circles.
And it is understandable why the West is responding this way—having annexed a neighbor’s territory, stoked an armed insurgency, and now created the circumstances under which three hundred innocents perished, Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government have left Western leaders little choice. Yet this approach, while morally justified and responsive to the politics of the moment, is likely to backfire with potentially catastrophic consequences.
40 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The outcome demanded by Western officials—and pursued on the ground by the Ukrainian authorities—entails an immediate halt in Russian aid to the insurgents that would allow the government forces to crush the insurgency, establishing full control over Ukraine’s sovereign territory. This outcome is both highly unlikely to come to pass and deeply problematic.
It is improbable because it requires Russia to sit on the sidelines and not take steps to prevent it from materializing. But for President Putin, this scenario represents complete strategic defeat and public humiliation. The insurgency in Ukraine for him is leverage to extract assurances about the country’s future geopolitical and geoeconomic course. If the rebels are crushed, the Kremlin believes it will have “lost” Ukraine to the West, an outcome it cannot accept under any circumstances.
For coercion—accurate shorthand for the Western sanctions strategy—to be effective in ending a conflict, the sides’ interests cannot be completely opposed. As Thomas Schelling, the international relations scholar, observed in his 1967 classic Arms and Influence, “Coercion requires finding a bargain, arranging for him to be better off doing what we want—worse off not doing what we want—when he takes the threatened penalty into account.” However irrational it might seem to the rest of the world, there is no feasible penalty that makes the desired Western outcome in Ukraine acceptable to Moscow. Under those circumstances, Schelling observed, escalation is inevitable: “If his pain were our greatest delight and our satisfaction his greatest woe, we would just proceed to hurt and to frustrate each other.”
Despite the tough new Western sanctions this week, Ukraine simply matters far more to the Russian elite and the Russian people than it does to the United States, the EU foreign- policy establishment or the American or EU citizenry. That is a reality that will not change with time. And it suggests that while Western governments will only take measures that have no significant impact on their economies, Russians—its leadership and people—are willing to pay a price to pursue their goals. In short, absent a negotiation process involving genuine give and take, the strategy of coercion will likely fail to change Russian behavior.
In his remarks announcing the new sanctions on Tuesday, President Obama even suggested that talks are unnecessary:
Obviously, we can’t in the end, make President Putin see [reason]. Ultimately, that’s something that President Putin has to do on his own. But what we can do is make sure that we’ve increased the costs for actions that I think are not only destructive to Ukraine, but ultimately are going to be destructive to Russia as well.
The president of the United States can in fact try to make Putin see reason through (in-person, not over-the-phone) negotiations. But there is no diplomatic process at the moment—and President Obama’s statement implies that the sanctions aren’t even supposed to produce a negotiated outcome.
41 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The desired Western outcome is, therefore, quite a long shot. But it’s also problematic for Ukraine’s future. Even if Russia can somehow be brought to heel, an outright military victory for Kiev in the East—absent an internal political track—could further divide the country, not bring it together. The Ukrainian military, National Guard and paramilitary groups fighting in the East have violated President Petro Poroshenko’s pledge not to attack the two rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Lugansk. In fact, according to a Human Rights Watch report released last week, they are using heavy weapons in civilian-populated areas, including unguided Grad rockets, which killed at least sixteen civilians in Donetsk and surrounding areas over nine days. According to the Ukrainian government’s own reporting, men in camouflage uniforms without identifying badges, most likely pro- government paramilitary forces, are looting and robbing civilians in the areas of the region retaken by Kiev in recent weeks.
In Kiev today, public debate about the way in which the government has used force in the east is practically impossible. One opposition MP was recently physically ejected from the parliament building after decrying the government forces’ killing its own citizens during the operation in the East. Further, Donbas’s central demand for greater autonomy remains unfulfilled. Poroshenko’s proposed decentralization plan has stalled in the parliament and will now likely be delayed until next year at the earliest. Unsurprisingly, Kiev is losing the hearts and minds of its citizens living in the conflict zone. The latest polling from the region indicates that in early July, 37 percent of respondents in Donbas endorsed secession, whereas three months earlier that number was around 30 percent. In his remarks on Tuesday, President Obama suggested that the Ukraine crisis will end only when “the Russians recognize that the best chance for them to have influence inside of Ukraine is by being good neighbors and maintaining trade and commerce, rather than trying to dictate what the Ukrainian people can aspire to.” Certainly such a dramatic change in Moscow’s attitude would be welcome.
Unfortunately, the levers of power that Obama and his European colleagues are willing to exercise will not make it happen. Instead of talking about Putin, they will have to start talking to him in order to avoid even greater catastrophe and suffering in Ukraine.
#22 Kiev People’s Republic: A threat to Ukraine ------by the Editorial Board of VoxUkraine, 27 August 2014
[from Keith Darden: VoxUkraine is run by a group of very bright Ukrainians who are genuinely committed to identifying and fixing Ukraine’s internal problems]
It has been six months since the Maidan movements toppled President Yanukovych. Yet, there has been little progress in reforming the country. In this post, we summarize our obsevartions and dicuss how Ukraine should move forward.
42 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU Observation 1. There is a lack of sense of urgency among players in Kiev.
Ukraine is in danger. There have been no radical reforms since the departure of Yanukovich and after a brief pause the corrupt reactionaries are back and “business as usual” is at full swing. High expectations of local businesses for positive changes are waning quickly. The government, the president, and the new and old political forces are talking a lot about reforms, but instead are reading themselves for the new elections and have put serious reforms on hold until the new distribution of power becomes clear. There is a profound lack of sense of urgency among the players in Kiev. This can prove to be a death sentence for the sovereignty of Ukraine.
The situation is very dramatic. The economy has entered recession and the projected GDP growth is negative, systemic corruption has not been touched, the risk of gas shortage in the winter is growing, foreign exchange market remains turbulent endangering already heavily hit banking, and there is no feasible lasting solution in sight for the war in the East. The capacity of the executive power continues to be extremely limited, with incompetent bureaucrats populating most of the offices, and their incentives have not been aligned with that of the public. The public is increasingly disillusioned with the political will of new government and the president to reform the country, as well as with some of the new wave activists.
Observation 2. The parliamentary elections will be used by the reactionary forces inside and outside of Ukraine to plunge the country into an even deeper crisis.
The looming elections will provide a fertile ground for the conflicts among political forces. Unless the fragmented political groups and organizations that brought about the fall of Yanukovich find a way to overcome their ambitions and organize a joint frontal assault on the existing political and oligarchic elites, the reforms will not happen and the risk of further political and economic disarray will continue to rise. There is strong evidence that old political elites continue to heavily use the all kind of dirty tricks to boost the ratings, such as designing electoral system in their favor, pushing forward populist initiatives, selling the positions in the party lists to the businessmen, and offering popular civil society activists huge sums of money to use their names in the election campaign.
Naturally, the public sees through this pity scheming and will look for an outlet to express their discontent. Coupled with dismal economic situation and the unresolved military and humanitarian crisis, the demand for populist leaders will be high. The tensions will be aggravated by the presence of many armed men in the country. Those fighting in Donbass will come back to Kyiv with legitimate questions – why their friends continued to die and why the new government did little to resolve the issue of its political and executive incompetence.
More importantly, incapable of winning in Ukraine using military, economic, and political force, Russia will resort to stirring up frustration among the public and the Ukrainian military forces with the lack of change in Ukraine, hoping to create another political crisis
43 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU or even a coup. If Russia succeeds and the radical forces within Ukraine openly confront the new government, we see the increasing risk of territorial disintegration of Ukraine.
Observation 3. The government’s and the president’s strategy of waiting until after the elections will not work.
The new government’s and the president’s strategy to avoid this scenario appears to be involving the frustrated political forces, which are at risk of radicalization, into the political process, elections, and ensuring that they get some political power in the new parliament. This is a wise approach. Nevertheless, it is not enough to win over and pacify the key political players. The public will continue to be frustrated by the lack of real change and by the deteriorating economic situation, and will keep the president and, to lesser extent, the government responsible for the failure of the revolution. The president and the government can try to shift the blame to the parliament, which in fat sabotaged many initiatives, but the public is unlikely to be swayed by these “detail.” The president has received the vote of confidence during the presidential election and the people of Ukraine expect him to deliver reforms and resolve the conflict in the East. To survive in the office, the president has no choice, but to unite with the government, and conduct radical reforms now, before the elections.
What can be done?
Designing and implementing reforms is not easy. The capacity of the executive power is extremely limited not only by populist parliament serving vested interests of large- and medium-sized businesses but also by incompetence. Many good reforms are sabotaged by the current bureaucracy. This is natural in the country governed by the phone calls from the top. During the times of crisis, the chains of command become unclear, while the downside risk is high. The understandable reaction of bureaucracy is to do nothing and wait until it understands who will be the next ruler of the country. So, nothing gets done, while tolerance of the society is waning threatening to trigger internal explosion. We offer five suggestions on how to get the reforms going.
Suggestion 1. Undertake responsibility
The president and the government should publicly undertake joint responsibility for reforms and push them forward before parliamentary elections. The united team needs to find a way to introduce necessary changes bypassing de-facto dysfunctional parliament that effectively blocks many positive initiatives, for instance, by issuing special “reforms in war” decree. Such step will likely be strongly opposed by parliament and called “illegitimate”. However, given Ukraine’s imperfect legal system and the on-going war in the east, plausible solution is not impossible to find.
Suggestion 2. Downsize the bureaucracy and bring in a critical mass of new people.
44 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU The problem of the country is the bureaucrats that populate the system of power, not the lack of good ideas about what to do. New people in big numbers should come in the government, while the government should be downsized drastically. New positions should be open to everyone (post position publicly), the selection criteria and the process should be transparent, the focus should be on merit, competence, and not on connections or loyalty to the new government. The salaries should be increased. We need high human capital to flow into the government. Enough good people will figure out what needs to be done anyway and learn the institutional memory from those in the civil service who survive the downsizing.
Suggestion 3. Do “low hanging fruit” reforms as soon as possible, including deregulation and cutting down waste.
Given the level of bureaucracy, distortions and corruption, it should be easy to bring tangible improvement to the everyday life of ordinary Ukrainians. For example, reformers in Georgia fought very hard with everyday instances of corruption (e.g., bribes to traffic police) and, as a result, they got mandate to do more serious reforms. Everything which can be deregulated should be deregulated immediately. The country will not burn if the firemen won’t be allowed to take bribes for violation of the fire code. There will be no cockroaches in cafes and restaurants, if their owners are no longer worn-out by sanitary inspections. Procedures for starting, doing and ending small business should be simplified radically, so that any person, including those fired from the government due to the downsizing, could become a private entrepreneur within several days. This will help to cushion negative impact of economic decline and government downsizing on unemployment and reduce discontent and tensions in the society. Great and detailed plan on deregulation has been already developed (see propositions to the National Reform Council). The government just needs to implement it.
Suggestion 4. Communicate reforms as often as possible.
President Poroshenko has not had an open press conference since he’s been elected (President Obama has a press conference on average every two weeks). Other public officials offer equally rare or sporadic appearance in public. Some of them write blogs and/or Facebook posts, which is clearly positive development, but is not enough to inform the broad public. This staggering lack of communication creates an informational vacuum where the public is unaware of plans for reforms and progress in reforms. Maybe, the government is doing something but the public does not know it and, as a result, is consumed by wild theories of treason, incompetence and corruption. For example, the public learned about the new policy regime of the National Bank of Ukraine (inflation targeting) from the IMF memo! Nobody bothered to explain why inflation targeting is a great idea (it is a great idea) and how it will deliver macroeconomic stability. Instead, the public apparently panicked when the NBU did not keep a fixed exchange rate and interpreted it as a sign of incompetence and corruption. Obviously, such secrecy can be convenient in the sense that one can mask/justify failures, but this approach can backfire and it also undermines the whole idea of Maidan demanding more transparency and
45 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU accountability. Managing expectations by improved communication is a key tool to push reforms through. In fact, Georgia reformers recognized that lack of communication was one of their rare mistakes.
It is crucially important that such communication is done by the owners of the reforms, the president and the government. The President and/or the Prime-Minister should do regular weekly briefings devoted exclusively to reforms. They should explain to the public what has been done in terms of reforms over the past week, what it means for an average Ukrainian and what/when results are expected. The NBU Head should do the same, probably, not as often, but regularly sending necessary signals to the markets and the public.
The authorities need to create a web-portal gathering all reforms-related materials in one place, including transcripts of their speeches, reposts of blogs and Facebook posts, related legislation and explanatory notes to people what to do and where to apply if introduced changes are sabotaged by low-level bureaucrats. There is no need to spend budget money on this. Local news agencies, think tanks and volunteers will be happy to help.
Suggestion 5. Look for multilayered, non-standard solutions. The public should press the government and private institutions to put enormous pressure on (if necessary, fire) all the “reformers,” officials, etc., who lack the sense of urgency or reality. One should encourage experimentation and unorthodox ideas such as employing foreign nationals with established reputation in key areas (financial regulation, courts, police, etc.), running pilot projects in selected districts and oblasts (e.g., creating sheriffs and electing judges in Donbass), developing and publishing rankings of experts and government officials (e.g., the most corrupt/incompetent member of the Cabinet of Ministers), luring back Ukrainian professionals working abroad, etc.
#23 Russia’s war in east Ukraine – time for the diaspora to step up ------by Stefan Jajecznyk and Taras Kuzio Beyond Brics Blog, Financial Times, 27 August 2014
Stefan Jajecznyk is a journalist specialising in the politics of Ukraine and the former Soviet Union; he was a volunteer on the Euromaidan and an observer in Dnipropetrovsk during the May elections. Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta and has travelled extensively to Kiev and eastern Ukraine during the Euromaidan and separatist conflict.
As fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions intensifies, the first foreign member of the Ukrainian military has become a casualty of Russia’s proxy war. Codenamed ‘Franko’, Mark Paslawsky who grew up in the Ukrainian diaspora in New Jersey and was
46 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU a West Point-trained officer in the US Rangers, gave up his US citizenship for a Ukrainian passport and the chance to serve in the Donbas volunteer battalion, one of more than 20 in Ukraine’s newly formed National Guard.
Paslawsky (pictured above) was wounded by shrapnel on August 18 during a firefight with separatists and Russian paratroopers in the outskirts of the regional capital of Luhansk. With no air ambulance available he could not be saved by medics. He was buried this week.
His English language twitter feed (@BSpringnote) offered a rare insight into day-to-day experience on the front line in this conflict that has already claimed the lives of 800 Ukrainian troops and police in five months – 200 more than the number of British soldiers and RUC killed during the ‘Ulster troubles’ over the course of three decades – and those of more than 2, 000 Ukrainian civilians. Paslwasky recorded his frustration with the weaponry available to volunteers, the criminal behaviour of the separatist and Russian forces they fought against and the poor quality of food provided.
Ukrainian volunteer battalions such as his have taken the brunt of the fighting against Russian-backed separatists and Russian ‘green men’. Although Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, attended ceasefire talks in Minsk on Tuesday, on the same day 30 Russian tanks and APCs crossed into the southern Donetsk region; the Azov volunteer battalion is now in a fierce firefight with them. On Monday, similar incursions had resulted in the capture of ten Russian paratroopers.
During Russia’s proxy war in the Donbas more Serbs have gone to fight on the separatist side than members of the Ukrainian diaspora. Paslawsky was the only member of the Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Russian diaspora to have volunteered to fight for Ukraine, an ironic fact considering Ukrainian émigrés were the subject of incessant attacks by Soviet and Russian propaganda for their allegedly ‘extreme nationalism’.
The same Ukrainian diaspora communities who idolise nationalist leaders have been unable to raise significant funds for the Ukrainian military and National Guard. Such funds could have been used to buy bulletproof vests, night vision equipment and medicines and possibly to hire contractors to train and advise the Ukrainian security forces. In Ukraine, volunteers are providing the army with everything from food to body armour to medical kits while, volunteers are increasingly doing the actual fighting, the Kyiv Post has reported.
In the decades following World War II, the first generation émigrés of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUNb) led by assassinated leader Stepan Bandera raised large amounts of money for a ‘Liberation Fund’ to support the fight for Ukrainian independence. The UK, with its unique and extensive community of Ukrainian clubs and bars, was the source of the greatest diaspora contributions to the Fund.
47 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU With Ukraine bankrupt and its military depleted of resources, the Fund would have been ideally placed to provide resources for the country’s first de facto war with Russia since Ukrainian partisans fought Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1940s. But the Fund is either depleted or the younger generation, primarily born in the west and now leading émigré nationalist organisations, are no longer able to solicit large donations. The Ukrainian diaspora community in the UK is in decline and the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain has been quite passive. There are prominent figures in the diaspora communities with ties to Ukrainian nationalist politicians but their silence is deafening. The OUNb – the most vilified of all Ukrainian organisations by the USSR and still by Russia today – resembles a rabbit caught in headlights.
While it cannot be accused of complete inaction, the diaspora’s current fundraising pales in comparison with those of Ukrainian citizens who, despite earning far less than their émigré counterparts, have managed to collect over $2m for the military alone, as well as for medicines and food. The average wage in Ukraine is less than $500 a month.
Nevertheless, Valeriy Padziak, a publisher from Uzhorod currently visiting the University of Toronto, told us that he and many other Ukrainians donate 10 per cent of their salaries each month to the military.
Although there are 1.2m people of Ukrainian decent in Canada, the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (KUK) has been unable to raise $1m (and we have not heard of monthly donations). The majority of those most active in fundraising in the Ukrainian diaspora are from the fourth wave that has recently emigrated from Ukraine. Indeed, protests in Toronto have been low in turnout and dominated by the fourth wave diaspora.
Franko’s example is unlikely to be repeated by other members of the Ukrainian diaspora. But there are other ways they can help. This would require the same levels of leadership, political will and commitment in the Ukrainian diaspora that Ukrainians at home have shown in the face of Russia’s invasion and occupation of Crimea and its undeclared proxy war in the Donbas.
#24 New Book: ------
I Witness A novelist’s enlightening account of life in Kiev during Ukraine’s turmoil The Economist (UK), 9 August 2014
Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev. By Andrey Kurkov. Harvill Secker; 262 pages; £9.99. http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/ukrainian-diaries/9781846559471
48 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU SATIRISTS and surrealists are at once fortunate and challenged in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Their nefarious rulers and eventful politics volunteer themselves for parody, yet the lurid reality often outpaces satire and renders invention superfluous. Thus in his “Ukraine Diaries”—an account of the tumultuous past winter that saw his country’s president ousted and its territory dismembered—Andrey Kurkov whimsically imagines Russian tanks searching for the American commandos who are rumoured to have parachuted into western Ukraine. A few weeks later this fancy is superseded by events, as Russian forces do indeed invade, and Ukraine descends into chaos.
Best known for gently absurdist novels that combine affection for his region with deadpan despair—especially “Death and the Penguin”—Mr Kurkov lives in Kiev, close to Independence Square. That was the centre of the revolution that began last November when Viktor Yanukovych, then Ukraine’s president, rejected a trade deal with the European Union. The idea that the EU could inspire an uprising seemed odd to some observers; Mr Kurkov makes clear that, to Ukrainians weary of venal government, Europe represents the rule of law. His “Ukraine Diaries” contain his daily observations from November until April—by which time the Kremlin had annexed Crimea, and Ukrainian troops were engaging Russian proxies in the east.
One bonus of the diary form is dramatic irony: the reader, unlike the diarist, knows what will happen next. At one point, Mr Kurkov feels sure there will be no war, because those opposed to change are too apathetic to fight. By demonstrating that history is unpredictable, diaries such as his show that it is not inevitable: Ukraine’s rapid degeneration from protest to bloodshed was the result of a chain of errors, which Mr Kurkov’s entries chronicle. Mostly the errors were attributable to Mr Yanukovych, who, by trying to crush dissent, succeeded only in inflaming it.
But perhaps these diaries’ biggest service—one that only this sort of account can offer, more than compensating for the lack of hindsight—is to show how headline history intertwines with ordinary, private lives. “Life goes on,” Mr Kurkov says. “Not once has it stopped.” He drinks coffee and cognac with friends, one of whom gives him a vacuum cleaner. He juggles the demands of elderly parents and adolescent children. The family goes to the dacha for weekends. He struggles to concentrate on his new novel. Amid diplomatic and paramilitary manoeuvres, he organises a paintballing party for his son’s birthday. He takes his family for its annual winter holiday in Crimea, poignantly unaware that because of the annexation this will be their last. “I drove the children to school,” Mr Kurkov writes baldly one day in January, “then went to see the revolution.”
Mr Kurkov quickly adapts to the barricades: “Why does what seemed impossible or crazy before now seem logical?” Then the arrests and beatings escalate to abductions, torture and murder. Festive protests turn violent; instead of donated food, the protesters need bottles for Molotov cocktails. Rumours swirl: of troop movements and massacres, of the mining of metro stations. Thugs patrol the city with truncheons and guns. Russian- literature enthusiasts will be reminded of “The White Guard”, Mikhail Bulgakov’s
49 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU novel of Kiev during the Russian civil war, and of Ivan Bunin’s journal of Odessa during that conflict. In mid-February, Mr Kurkov records, comes a “night of warfare” that “transformed the city centre to ruins”.
Increasingly this carnage crowds out the author’s personal life, though there is a nice vignette in which his daughter asks for extra pocket money, citing the spiralling inflation. Downtown Kiev, he joltingly notices, “looks like a paintball field”. Growing vegetables at the dacha begins to seem less a hobby than a necessity. Mr Kurkov sleeps badly; his eyesight suffers.
And as winter thaws, the focus of his ire shifts. To begin with it is directed at Mr Yanukovych, with his clumsy duplicity and flagrant corruption. “This country has never had such a stupid president,” Mr Kurkov concludes, “capable of radicalising one of the most tolerant populations in the world!” Or, more concisely: “Stupid bastard!” All the same, he is unsentimental about the revolutionaries, some of whom turn to score-settling and extortion. After Mr Yanukovych flees Kiev, however, and Russia’s insidious but deadly invasion begins, the main villain is Vladimir Putin. (The EU’s response is depressingly slow: “As if the news were arriving not by internet but by messengers on horseback.”)
For all their controlled rage and wry wit, nicely captured in Sam Taylor’s translation, Mr Kurkov’s diaries are valuable partly because of who he is. Born in Russia, he writes in Russian and considers himself Russian by background if not citizenship—though now he has “nothing in common with Russia and its politics”. He is an incarnation of a joint culture with a glorious but imperilled heritage. His book is a lament for Ukraine, but also, in the end, for Russia itself—as scarred by Mr Putin’s lies and larceny as Ukraine has been by his war.
#25 New Book: ------
Daubenton, Annie. 2014. Ukraine, l’indépendance à tout prix. Paris: Éditions Buchet- Chastel. http://www.buchetchastel.fr/ukraine-annie-daubenton-9782283027981
Pour « quitter » l’Union soviétique, il ne suffit pas de la désagrégation d’un « bloc », d’un putsch raté et de déclarations de souveraineté. Des murs tombent et des traités sont bons à jeter, mais quels épisodes un État nouveau traverse-t-il en quelque vingt années, fût-il en quête de démocratie et de valeurs européennes ? L’Ukraine aura fait figure de pionnière en matière de subversion – révolution démocratique, révolution civile, « révolution orange » –, elle n’en est pas moins confrontée à toutes les difficultés propres aux pays issus de l’Union soviétique : bataille avec les structures de l’ancien régime, lutte contre la corruption, mutation dans les mentalités. La population parfois freine, puis prend de
50 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU l’avance sur ses dirigeants qui se comportent comme des nouveaux riches de la politique, davantage soucieux d’exhiber le droit que de l’appliquer…
Annie Daubenton explore le kaléidoscope ukrainien en juxtaposant des approches qui touchent à l’histoire, à la vie de la société, à l’analyse des pouvoirs anciens ou nouveaux, sans oublier le caractère romanesque des égarements d’un État qui se cherche. Il en ressort un livre qui éclaire un pays mal connu, sinon sous la forme de quelques clichés – la « révolution orange », Viktor Iouchtchenko, le président au visage grêlé, ou Ioulia Tymochenko, Premier ministre, auréolée d’une natte – pour entrer dans les méandres d’un État en construction où parfois l’absurde le dispute au paradoxe ou à une forme d’idéalisme.
#26 New Articles: ------
Ukraine Crisis: Forum, American Ethnologist, Vol. 41, No. 3 (August 2014)
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn and Michael S. Bobick, The Empire Strikes Back: War without War and Occupation without Occupation in the Russian Sphere of Influence, pp. 405-13
Sarah D. Phillips, The Women’s Squad in Ukraine’s Protests: Feminism, Nationalism, and Militarism on the Maidan, pp. 414-26.
Catherine Wanner, “Fraternal” Nations and Challenges to Sovereignty in Ukraine: The Politics of Linguistic and Religious Ties, pp. 427-39.
#27 Negotiating Borders: Comparing the Experience of Canada, Europe, and Ukraine ------An Important and Timely Symposium CIUS, 16-17 October 2014
Contact: Bohdan Harasymiw; Roman I. Shiyan Tel: (780) 492-6846; (780) 492-6837 E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
15 August 2014.—Recent events in Ukraine, part of which was annexed by Russia, while another part became a war zone owing to the actions of pro-Russian separatists indicated, among other serious consequences a severe crisis of the existing political architecture in Europe, with potentially wider international repercussions. Such principles as
51 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU international security guarantees, the existing friendship and partnership agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and the “inviolability of sovereign borders” norm were effectively trampled by the Russian government in its pursuit of a dangerous revanchist course.
These events also indicated a glaring need for analysis of the past and the present history and dynamics of border relations, for determining both commonalities and regional peculiarities, and, if possible, foreshadowing the future course of international and regional relations.
On 16–17 October 2014, the Centre for Political and Regional Studies at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies will hold an international scholarly conference, “Negotiating Borders: Comparing the Experience of Canada, Europe, and Ukraine,” featuring both early-career and established scholars, who will present their original papers on such topics as geopolitics and regional politics; all-European, regional and trans-border cooperation; borders and international law.
Among those presenting their papers are: James Scott, Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland, and Heather Nicol, Trent University, “Critical Observations on Regional Cooperation: Geopolitics in North America and Europe”; Ilkka Liikanen, Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland, “The Lost Momentum of Wider Europe? Changing Spatial Imaginaries and Sovereignty Concepts of EU External Relations”; Ignacy Jóźwiak, University of Warsaw, “Between Integration and Exclusion. Ukraine and its Western Borders”; James Wesley Scott, Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland, “The Dialogical Production of Geopolitical Identities: The EU viewed by Ukrainian NGOs”; Volodymyr Kulikov, V.N. Karazin National University at Kharkiv, “‘Borders within Borders’: International Mobility of Industrialists and the Transformation of the Urban Landscape in the Industrial South of the Russian Empire”; Stan Fedun, University of Toronto, “Does a Divide Exist? Putin’s Fabrication of an Alternative Regional Reality as Justification for Neo-Soviet Expansionism”; Tatiana Zhurzhenko, IWM—Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, Austria, “Ukraine’s Eastern Borderlands: the End of Ambivalence?”; Taras Kuzio, CIUS, University of Alberta, “The Crimea: From Rhetoric to Annexation, 1991-2014”; Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottawa, “The Separatist Conflict in Donbas: A Violent Break- Up of Ukraine?”; Thomas O. Hueglin, Wilfrid Laurier University, “Border Control – An Extended Federal Solution.” A keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Emmanuel Brunet- Jailly, University of Victoria.
This event will be held in the Maple Leaf Room (Lister Conference Centre) at the U. of Alberta’ main campus.
All are welcome. Admission is free.
To register in advance, contact [email protected], or call 780-492-2972.
52 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU #28 From: Holodomor Research and Education Consortium
I’d like to inform you of an upcoming conference, Communism and Hunger: The Soviet, Kazakh, Ukrainian, and Chinese Famines (September 26 and 27, Toronto) that will bring together leading scholars to examine commonalities and differences in these famines.
In addition, I’d like to bring to your attention a special closed session for graduate students to allow them the opportunity to discuss the conference themes in-depth with our presenters. We would appreciate your assistance in notifying students who might be interested in participating. They can contact me for more information.
For more information about the conference, please visit our website: www.holodomor.ca
Thank you.
Marta Baziuk Holodomor Research and Education Consortium 416 923-4732
------UKL 471, 28 August 2014 ------
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------Dominique Arel, Chair of Ukrainian Studies University of Ottawa 559 King Edward Ave. Ottawa ON K1N 6N5 CANADA tel 613 562 5800 ext. 3692 fax 613 562 5351 ------
53 UKL #471 28 August 2014 BACK TO MENU