by Derek Davison
While the world’s attention has largely shifted to events in Iraq following last week’s capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the crisis in Ukraine continues unabated. Ukraine’s relations with Russia are deteriorating, and recent events may have pushed the country closer than [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
While the world’s attention has largely shifted to events in Iraq following last week’s capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the crisis in Ukraine continues unabated. Ukraine’s relations with Russia are deteriorating, and recent events may have pushed the country closer than ever to a civil war.
The latest military salvo in the growing conflict between Kiev and separatist, pro-Russian militias in the eastern part of the country occurred on June 14, when separatists using shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles brought down a Ukrainian military plane that was attempting to land in the eastern city of Luhansk. All 49 people aboard the flight were killed and the ordinance it was carrying exploded. The self-proclaimed “Luhansk People’s Republic” claimed responsibility for the attack. New Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed retribution. A day earlier, on June 13, Ukrainian government forces took control of the port city of Mariupol, in Donetsk Province.
On June 16, Poroshenko called for a cease-fire with separatists that could be the first step toward a negotiated peace settlement, but said that it would be conditioned on Ukrainian troops regaining control of the country’s 2000 km (1240 mile) land border with Russia. That could take a while; there has been active fighting in the border region between the Ukrainian army and separatist fighters, but according to Poroshenko, the government has only regained control of around 250 km of the border. Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declared that as many as four million people in the Donetsk region are now at risk of losing their access to fresh water, since a pumping station near the city of Slaviansk had been damaged and repairs are being interrupted by sporadic outbreaks of fighting. On June 17, a reporter and sound engineer for the Russian state TV outlet Rossiya were killed by mortar fire outside of Luhansk, leading the OSCE to call for an investigation into the circumstances of their deaths.
Although the separatists who downed the plane claim that their anti-aircraft arms were taken from Ukrainian arsenals, the Ukrainian government, the United States, and NATO are accusing Russia of supplying advanced weaponry to the separatists, which Russia has denied. These accusations included the charge that three Soviet-era T-64 tanks crossed the Russian border and were later observed being operated by separatist forces, although there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding this claim. Images taken from civilian satellites and released by NATO over the weekend appear to show three tanks being loaded onto a trailer at a Russian military staging area near the Ukrainian border on June 11, and videos posted to YouTube later that day show T-64 tanks on the streets of two pro-Russian cities in eastern Ukraine, accompanied by a truck waving the Russian flag. This is a circumstantial case at best; T-64 tanks are still operated by the Ukrainian military, and the tanks seen in the YouTube videos could have been taken from the Ukrainian army by the separatists, although they do not appear to display the typical Ukrainian military markings and camouflage pattern. It must also be noted that previous supposed visual evidence of Russian military assets in Ukraine has been proven inaccurate.
Kiev’s relationship with Moscow also continues to fray on economic and diplomatic fronts. The most recent demonstration of this occurred on Monday when Russian energy corporation Gazprom announced it has cut all natural gas shipments to Ukraine. Negotiations over Ukraine’s total debt to the Russian firm, estimated at just under $4.5 billion, reached another impasse when the two sides could not agree on the settlement of $1.95 billion in immediately outstanding charges before the June 16 deadline. Gazprom has filed a suit against Ukraine’s gas firm Naftogaz over the debt in a Stockholm court, but Naftogaz has countersued, seeking $6 billion in repayment for what it calls “overpayments” since 2010 and a ruling that will force Gazprom to offer Ukraine substantially reduced gas prices. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk meanwhile accused Russia of manipulating the gas situation to “destroy Ukraine,” while his Russian counterpart, Dimitri Medvedev, suggested that Ukraine’s government is not up to the task of running the country.
While there is no immediate risk to Ukrainian citizens from Gazprom’s decision to shut the gas off, since relatively little gas is used during the warm summer months, the country is well short of the amount of gas it would need to stockpile to get through the winter; so an extended dispute could have a very damaging impact. Also at possible risk are Russian gas shipments to the rest of Europe, half of which flow through Ukraine; Gazprom will continue to supply enough gas through Ukraine’s pipelines to meet European demand, but warned Ukrainians not to tap into that supply. An explosion hit the West Siberian gas pipeline today in the central Ukrainian Poltova Province, but it is not yet clear how much damage the explosion caused, and there is no indication as to its cause.
Tensions in Kiev have also boiled over. On June 14, after the downing of a jet in Luhansk, a crowd of anti-Russia demonstrators attacked the Russian embassy, shattering windows and briefly raising the Ukrainian flag over the building. Russia formally protested the attack, and the United States called on the Ukrainian government to provide adequate security for the Russian embassy. Ukraine’s interim foreign minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, while speaking to the crowd of demonstrators in an effort to halt the attack, reportedly used an anatomical slur in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which drew further condemnation from Russian leaders.
Despite the deserved attention on Iraq’s growing crisis, the situation in Ukraine continues to develop and should not be overlooked. Its ramifications for European stability and world energy markets are too important to ignore.
This article was first published by LobeLog and was reprinted here with permission.
A pro-Russian protestor yells at Ukrainian riot police outside the regional administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on March 22, 2014. Credit: Zack Baddorf/IPS.
]]>by Derek Davison
Ukrainians took to the polls May 25 to elect a new president, the chocolate magnate and former foreign minister, Petro Poroshenko. But the election was marred by violence involving pro-Russian separatists in the country’s beleaguered eastern Donbas region, even as Russia itself appeared ready to reduce tensions.
With [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
Ukrainians took to the polls May 25 to elect a new president, the chocolate magnate and former foreign minister, Petro Poroshenko. But the election was marred by violence involving pro-Russian separatists in the country’s beleaguered eastern Donbas region, even as Russia itself appeared ready to reduce tensions.
With a reported 55% voter turnout, Poroshenko was the overwhelming victor, taking 54% of the vote, compared to the 13% received by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Turnout was depressed especially in the eastern part of the country where pro-Russia militias and their supporters boycotted the vote and the continued unrest forced the closure of as much as 75% of the region’s polling places. The results were a blow to far-right parties Svoboda and Right Sector, the candidates of which each received only around 1% of the vote a piece. But another far-right candidate, Oleh Lyashko, finished in third place with just over 8% of the vote.
At the same time that Poroshenko was celebrating his victory, violence in the Donbas city of Donetsk moved the country closer to civil war. A group of pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic reportedly took control of part of the city’s airport, prompting an assault by Ukrainian security forces that reclaimed the airport and may have killed as many as 35 separatists and 40 people overall. This was the most violent clash in the crisis since May 2, when more than 40 people were killed in Odessa after a pro-Ukrainian mob forced a crowd of pro-Russian protesters into a government building and set it on fire. Today separatists also reportedly shot down a Ukrainian military helicopter near the city of Slovyansk, killing 14 people, including a high-ranking general in the Ukrainian National Guard.
Poroshenko’s immediate concern is bringing an end to the violence in Donbas and trying to restore some unity to the country, but it’s unclear how he will accomplish those aims. He insists that his first trip as president will be to the Donbas region and that his government will offer amnesty to separatists who agree to stop fighting, but he has also vowed to give “no quarter” to those who do not. Poroshenko must also find a way to achieve closer ties to the European Union, which is his stated preference, while repairing Kiev’s fractured ties to Moscow — essential if Ukraine is to have any kind of national security. This process may already be happening; on Wednesday Ukraine’s Naftogaz natural gas company reportedly reached an EU-brokered deal with the Russian gas firm Gazprom to settle a substantial portion of Ukraine’s $3.5 billion debt to the Russian company. Poroshenko has promised to begin a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as possible.
Recent Russian rhetoric suggests that Poroshenko will find a willing partner in that dialogue. Late last week, Putin said his government would “respect” the outcome of Ukraine’s presidential vote. Prior to a May 11 secession referendum in the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin had urged separatists to postpone the vote (they ignored his request). Most significantly, Putin has said he is ordering Russian troops on the Ukrainian border to withdraw, and while this is not the first time he has claimed to have ordered such a withdrawal, this time there are apparently some signs of movement. There is substantial reason to believe that, despite Poroshenko’s clear preference for closer Ukrainian ties to Europe, he and Putin will be able to work with one another. Ongoing tensions in eastern Ukraine are going to complicate that process, however, as Russian officials have called on Kiev to cease its military operations against separatists.
Now that the election is over, Ukraine has the opportunity to quell the unrest it has been plagued by since the Euromaidan protests ousted the elected Yanukovych and installed a caretaker government in Kiev with dubious legitimacy and almost non-existent support in eastern Ukrainian. But is Poroshenko the right person for that job? He has been a fixture in Ukrainian politics since he was first elected to parliament in 1998, serving in the cabinets of former presidents (and bitter rivals) Viktor Yushchenko and Yanukovych. He is believed to have helped fund the Euromaidan movement, but was not active in the protests. He has advocated closer ties with the EU but has considerable business interests in Russia via his Roshen Confectionary Corporation. He has no political ties to radical right-wing elements in Ukrainian politics that could alienate him from the pro-Russia east. On paper, then, Poroshenko has the credentials of someone who can appeal to all sides of the current conflict, particularly if he is prepared to offer eastern Ukrainians the kind of regional autonomy and Russian-language rights that he talked about during the campaign.
In reality, however, Poroshenko faces considerable, possibly insurmountable, challenges, and it’s not yet clear how he plans to tackle them. Despite the immediate urgency of the situation, he must be willing to proceed slowly in terms of bringing the breakaway Donbas region back under control. Moving rapidly to end the crisis means more military force, which will not improve Kiev’s image in the east and may cause Russia to re-engage in the crisis. Poroshenko must also work with Putin to start normalizing Ukrainian-Russian relations; Ukraine’s national security depends on repairing those ties, and its already weak economy depends on reaching a favorable deal with Gazprom to retire Ukraine’s massive debt and keep gas prices at a reasonable level. Poroshenko should also take steps to improve that weak economy, to combat corruption, and make the reforms that will distinguish his government from the Yushchenko and Yanukovych administrations. If, as seems likely, Poroshenko pursues a course of neoliberal IMF-driven austerity — the same broadly neoliberal agenda that his failed predecessors followed — then he may quickly find himself on the wrong side of Ukrainian public opinion.
Photo Credit: Mstyslav Chernov
]]>