'Donetsk People's Republic' Master Thesis 26
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B. G. Alting The DNA of the DNR: Legitimation strategies of the unrecognized ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ Master Thesis 26 November 2018 Thesis supervisors: Dr. M. Bader Prof. Dr. A. W. M. Gerrits Leiden University Faculty of Humanities 36,209 words 0 Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 2-9 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................... 10-25 CHAPTER 3 CONFLICT AND SECURITY .............................................................................. 26-37 CHAPTER 4 STATE BUILDING AND REGIME PERFORMANCE ....................................... 38-46 CHAPTER 5 DEMOCRATIZATION ......................................................................................... 47-57 CHAPTER 6 CULTURE, HISTORY AND IDENTITY .............................................................. 58-65 CHAPTER 7 PATRON STATE ENGAGEMENT ...................................................................... 66-73 CHAPTER 8 INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT ................................................................... 74-81 CHAPTER 9 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 82-88 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 89-101 APPENDIX I: RUSSIAN LANGUAGE DATA SAMPLE ......................................................... 102-120 APPENDIX II: ENGLISH LANGUAGE DATA SAMPLE ........................................................ 121-129 1 Chapter 1: An Introduction to the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ The contemporary world is made up out of sovereign states. The most commonly used definition of a state comes from the Montevideo convention of 1933. It specifies that a state should have the following qualifications: 1) a permanent population 2) a defined territory 3) a government and 4) the capacity to enter into relations with the other states (Montevideo convention 1933). The convention has one additional specification that is vital to our modern understanding of what makes a state: statehood is dependent on the recognition by other states. However, reality does not always correspond to theory. Throughout history entities have existed that have all the qualifications of a state but are not recognized as such by the international community. Well known examples include Taiwan in East Asia, Somaliland in the horn of Africa, and Transnistria in Europe. The concept of legitimacy is central to the scholarly and non-scholarly discussion of unrecognized states. Legitimacy is often understood as ‘the right to rule’ and has an internal (domestic) and external (international) element. In 2014, two new unrecognized states were proclaimed with Russian support in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in the South-East of Ukraine: the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ and the ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’.1 They were widely denounced as illegitimate entities. This thesis will examine legitimacy in the context of one of the newly formed unrecognized states: the DNR. An understanding of the DNR must be informed by the wider context of the conflict in Ukraine, what sparked that conflict, and what it meant for Ukraine-Russia relations. Therefore, before going into the theoretical aspects of legitimacy and outlining the research strategy, the following section provides a short history of the conflict in Ukraine. The Maidan revolution or the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ as it is called in Ukraine, started on November 21, 2013 when a group of protesters gathered in Kyiv’s central square. The square, known as ‘Maidan Nezalezhnosti’ (‘independence square’ in Ukrainian) gave its name to the protests who were quickly dubbed the ‘Maidan’ protests. The decision by president Viktor Yanukovych to refrain from signing an association agreement with the European Union, and to sign an agreement with Russia instead was the trigger. Social media was used to gather protesters on the square, with estimates of up to 200.000 people attending. The 30th 1 In Russian: Донецкая Народная Республика, ‘Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublika’. Луганская Народная Республика. ‘Luhanskaya Narodnaya Respublika’. In this thesis I will use ‘DNR’ and ‘LNR’ respectively for sake of brevity. This does not constitute any recognition of their statehood on my part. Moreover, in writing about any attributes of ‘statehood’ I will avoid from using mitigating terms (‘parliament’ instead of ‘so-called parliament’ for example). Again, this will be for sake of brevity and does not constitute any form of recognition from my part. 2 of November stands out as a turning point in the protests. That night, berkut anti-riot police were ordered to dismantle the camp that protesters had built, and protestors were pushed into other parts of the city. Arguably, this gave new momentum to the protests, and the in the following days more and more people came to gather at ‘Maidan Nezalezhnosti’ with many people from outside of Kyiv attending. There was a noticeable difference in support for the movement geographically. Support was highest in Western and Central regions of the country, and lowest in the Eastern and Southern regions. Particularly in Western Ukraine, there were Maidan protests that attracted tens of thousands of people, with the protests in L’viv attracting the largest crowds (Ishchenko 2016, 458). This stands in stark contrast to the Maidan protests organized in cities in Southern or Eastern Ukraine such as Donetsk, Lugansk, or Simferopol, where attendance was minimal. Indeed, polls seem to show that people in the Eastern and Southern regions were predominantly opposed to the Maidan revolution and subsequent power change (Lyubashenko 2014, 76). This environment set the stage for Russian intervention. Throughout the protests, delegations from countries that supported the protestors came to visit Maidan to express their solidarity with the protesters. Meanwhile, Russia was heavily involved in providing shelter to Yanukovych. When it became clear Yanukovych was out of power, the EU was quick to accept the new government. On the other hand, Russia spoke of an unlawful violent exchange of power and at first backed Yanukovych’ claim that he was still the legitimate president (which he was according to the constitution) (Lyubashenko 2014, 82). Some scholars saw the quick acceptance of the new status quo by the EU and the U.S. as an indicator that the crisis in Ukraine signified a larger crisis in EU-Russia relations (Haukkala 2015, 34; Sakwa 2045). Others shared this point of view but argued that the crisis in Ukraine was the EU’s fault because it had not respected that Ukraine was in Russias privileged zone of influence (Mearsheimer 2014). The EU, which did not think in terms of zones of influence, had underestimated the importance Russia attached to Ukraine. Great power rivalry and zones of influence, concepts people associated with the Cold War, returned to European discourse. The Maidan revolution resulted in a deterioration of relations between Russia and the EU that continues to this day. This crisis was exacerbated by the Russian annexation of Crimea. After the change of power in Kyiv, soldiers without insignia started appearing on the Crimean Peninsula. On February 27, 2014, armed men occupied the parliament and an 3 emergency session was held to disband the government. On March 6, the council of Crimea voted to become part of Russia, and on March 16, a referendum was held for that purpose. Recognized by Russia as legitimate but not by the rest of the world, Russian officials spoke of a 95.5% majority of acceding to Russia (Morris 2014). This figure was widely discredited by Western governments. The EU issued a statement that it was ‘illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognized.’ (Barroso and van Rompuy 2014). Crimea was a turning point in Russian relations with Ukraine, the EU, and the West in general. The takeover of Crimea was coupled with an ‘information war’ offensive in the media that has continued ever since. The annexation emboldened separatists in the Donbas and Southern Ukraine repeated Crimea’s call for annexation. As it became clear that in Kyiv power had changed hands, pro- Russia demonstrations grew bigger in the East and South of the country. On March 4, protesters occupied the Regional Administration building in Donetsk, and their leader, Pavel Gubarev, declared himself ‘people’s governor’. Separatists took over local headquarters of the intelligence service (SBU) and administrative buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts in April. In reaction to this the government in Kyiv started the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operations) on April 15. This marked the start of armed conflict in the Donbas. The separatists organized a referendum on the May 11 in the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk under their control, with the question: ‘"Do you support the declaration of state independence of the Donetsk People's Republic?’’ to which voters could answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. According to the separatists, there was a large turnout and the overwhelming majority voted ‘yes’. Ukraine and Western states did not recognize the results (Vernon 2014). This marked the beginning of the DNR and the LNR. Soon after ATO was announced, peace talks were held in Geneva to stop the conflict from escalating (Davies 2016). The Geneva agreement was quickly broken with each side accusing each other of breaking