Abstract
Geopolitics Takes No Prisoners
In April 2008, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) declared that it would commence the process of admitting Ukraine to the Organisation. Immediately thereafter, Russian President Vladimir Putin was reported to have strongly warned US President Bush that Ukraine’s admission to NATO would lead to a breakup of the country and Russian annexation of Crimea.
About 6 years later, in February 2014, prolonged anti-government agitations climaxed in violent street protests, which replaced the incumbent Ukrainian government with a ‘pro-West’ one, which committed Ukraine to an ‘Association agreement’ with the European Union and to seek membership of NATO. The Russian response was swift: Crimea voted in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and a subsequent Crimean request for accession to Russia was accepted. Armed rebellion quickly followed in parts of eastern Ukraine, which demanded independence and/or accession to Russia. The ensuing bloody conflict continues to this day, killing and displacing civilians, ravaging the Ukrainian economy and sharpening a polarisation of postures between Russia and the G7 countries (and their allies), which has attained Cold War proportions.
Ukraine in the Crossfire is a detailed analysis by Dutch scholar Chris Kaspar de Ploeg, of the Crimea ‘annexation’, its progression to an increasingly messy civil war and the motivations of the external forces involved in it. It is a serious effort to sift facts from the propaganda generated in the information war between the various actors in this drama.
The genesis of the Ukraine issue can be traced back to a promise to Soviet President Gorbachev by German Chancellor Kohl in 1990, that NATO would not move ‘an inch to the east’, if USSR agreed to give up its tutelage over East Germany and accept the reunification of Germany.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent descent of Russia into political, economic and social chaos in the 1990s, the United States saw no need to honour a verbal promise which ran counter to its geopolitical goals. These consisted of ensuring that Russia could never again attain strategic parity with USA and, as a corollary, to bring the expanded European Union more firmly into the Atlantic fold.
This thrust came up against the ambition of President Putin (who assumed office in 2000) to rebuild Russia’s economic strength, recover its national dignity and to regain its status as a great power. Russia interpreted NATO’s eastwards march, its Ballistic Missile Defence deployment near Russia’s borders and its open support for the ‘colour revolutions’ in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan as US-led efforts to contain Russia’s influence to within its own borders. Western interventions in West Asia and active efforts to curb Russia’s energy exports by promoting alternative energy supplies to Europe were similarly viewed with jaundiced eyes by Russia.
Russia’s sensitivity about Ukraine stems from many factors. Besides the intimate ethnic and cultural linkages (and largely because of them), Ukraine was a high-technology defence manufacturing hub of the Soviet Union. Its economic strengths made it a valuable partner in the Eurasian Economic Union that Russia was building with other former Soviet states. From a security perspective, the porous Russia-Ukraine border provides easy access to the insurgency-ridden Caucasus region, to rich hydrocarbons deposits, and even to Moscow. But above all else is the strategic importance of the Crimean port of Sevastopol. This Black Sea naval base is central to Russia’s maritime power projection in Europe and West Asia. NATO presence in Sevastopol would severely contract this power.
De Ploeg documents in detail the tug of war between Russia and the West for Ukraine’s political and economic alignment. On the Russian side were carrots like cheap loans and subsidised gas pricing—and the stick of raising gas prices and import barriers, if Ukraine decided to go the EU way. On the European side was the allure of an ‘Association agreement’, which would break down trade barriers with the EU, but was contingent on economic and governance reform, including stringent (and politically difficult) austerity measures. The additional compensation for this pain was the prospect of a comprehensive European engagement, including close alignment of foreign and security policies.
The progressive increase in the scale of protests against the Ukrainian government in 2013–14 included a steep escalation of violence—not only from the security agencies but also from well-armed protestors. De Ploeg traces the history of the nationalist movements in Ukraine, dominated by fascist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic ideologies which received external support because of their anti-communist and, later, anti-Russian posture. The US trained many of their armed groups ostensibly to counter terrorism and to resist Russian aggression. UK and Canada were willing partners in this exercise, while lethal weapons were supplied by some European countries.
There is no doubt that Ukraine’s government used disproportionate force and issued repressive anti-protest orders, but considerable evidence has emerged of provocations and ‘false flag’ sniper fire by protestors to incite anti-government passions. The leaderships of almost all the parties represented in the present Ukrainian government are alleged to have been involved.
Western governments’ (and particularly US) involvement in Ukrainian politics is well-documented. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland openly said at a public event that the USA had spent over US $5 billion in promoting democracy in Ukraine. European governments also extended financial assistance. De Ploeg has documented instances of direct American control over senior government appointments. A leaked conversation between Assistant Secretary Nuland and the US Ambassador in Kiev shows how the US installed a Prime Minister of its choice. A former employee of the US State Department was appointed Ukraine’s Finance Minister. The Ukrainian parliament granted her Ukrainian citizenship virtually overnight to make her eligible for the position. Mikheil Saakashvili, whom the US helped to make President of Georgia after its Rose revolution of 2003, was appointed Governor of the sensitive Odessa province, adjoining Crimea. A Ukrainian Minister disclosed that the American ambassador periodically got reports of government actions from the President and spelt out US expectations of the government. These expectations apparently also included business interests. A son of US Vice-President Joe Biden and a former aide of Secretary of State John Kerry joined the board of directors of Ukraine’s largest gas company, owned by an oligarch. The company is now the beneficiary of a USAID programme to promote Ukraine’s energy security, which is code for sourcing gas from US, instead of Russia.
Western support to Ukraine includes turning a blind eye to governance and corruption issues. Some members of parliament and government continue to publicly espouse the extreme ideologies of their ultranationalist movements. Members of a party, described in a 2012 European Parliament resolution as ‘racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic’, now occupy important elected and non-elected positions. Armed ultranationalists have got away with coercing parliament, government and courts to force decisions in their favour. US exhortations to curb corruption have not touched the oligarchs, many of whom hold influential positions inside and outside government.
Western governments have also fully backed the Ukraine government in its acts of commission or omission pertaining to eastern Ukraine and Russia, particularly with regard to the Minsk agreements. The agreements between the government and rebel groups were brokered by France, Germany and Russia in 2014 and 2015 after rebel forces had seized control of large areas in eastern Ukraine. They chart out the action required to restore peace, based on a level of autonomy to the rebel provinces within the Ukrainian state. The accords include prisoner swaps, amnesty for combatants, resumption of social and economic services to the public, constitutional guarantees for decentralisation and local elections in rebel territories. The security clauses included withdrawal of heavy weaponry from conflict areas, disarmament of rebel groups and restoring control of the Ukraine-Russia border to the Ukraine government.
Most articles of the Minsk agreements remain unimplemented. Teams of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring the ceasefire regularly report violations on both sides, with each using every opportunity to make territorial gains. The sequencing of the political and security actions stipulated in the agreements remains the fundamental bone of contention. The Ukrainian government argues it can move on political initiatives only when the security clauses are implemented. This misrepresents the Minsk agreements and defies political logic. Once the rebels disarm and let Ukrainian army units man the Russian border, they would have surrendered the territorial gains that brought the government to the negotiating table in the first place. There would remain no incentive for the Kiev government to initiate the measures to grant autonomy to the eastern regions.
Nevertheless, the West has supported the Ukrainian government’s position by blaming the rebels (and, by extension, Russia) for non-compliance of the Minsk accords. De Ploeg concludes that this suits the agenda of both Kiev and many Western governments vis-à-vis Russia.
As the Ukraine impasse continues, questions arise about the continued congruence of American and European interests. Europe and US were united in their initial reaction to the annexation of Crimea. However, realisation soon dawned on much of Europe that the continent was paying a higher political and economic price than the USA. EU’s trade with Russia is about 10 times that of US. Its investments in Russia run into billions of dollars and a-third of its energy imports come from Russia. The standoff with Russia impacts on European corporate interests and aggravates Europe’s refugee crisis. European countries also worry about driving Russia into a closer strategic partnership with China.
The US did not participate in the Minsk peace talks which were led by France and Germany. As negotiations proceeded, evidence emerged that Ukraine’s lack of commitment to the Minsk agreements was encouraged by the US. De Ploeg quotes the example of US satellite images in August 2014 purporting to show an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine. An OSCE delegation, in that location at the time, refuted the allegation. A German parliamentarian once commented that every time there was progress in the negotiations, the Americans would announce a new Russian aggression on Ukraine. It is evident that a number of European powers, including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, want to close the Ukraine chapter and resume normal relations with Russia. The recent string of summit-level exchanges between European countries and Russia support this assessment.
The new imponderable in this equation, explored in the concluding chapter of de Ploeg’s book, is US President Donald Trump. Initial indications that he intended to seek early resolution of contentious issues with Russia have given way to uncertainty. The opposition within US was demonstrated by a visit to Ukraine by Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain in end of 2016, when they exhorted Ukrainian troops to confront Russian aggression, promising to galvanise support for it in the US. After some circumspection in comments on Ukraine, a number of top US officials have now reverted to the earlier line of placing the full onus for Minsk implementation on Russia. It remains to be seen whether the European countries—who are themselves split on approach to Russia—will pursue a more independent line.
Ukraine in the Crossfire is perhaps the first comprehensive exercise to present a different perspective from that which dominates ‘mainstream’ media, academia and political circles. It enables a scholar to juxtapose the ‘alternative facts’ in this book with those more prevalent in the public discourse, to form a more complete picture. A Cold War environment generates mutual demonisation by both sides; objective analysis has to find the reality somewhere between the two extremes.
Meanwhile, where does Ukraine go? De Ploeg’s analysis shows that, whatever the denouement of the crisis, the country faces a difficult future. Thanks to economic mismanagement over decades, its per capita GDP is among the lowest of the post-Soviet States—a shocking fact, given its industrial base, natural resources and human capital. It may take decades to repair the economic devastation wreaked by the present conflict. The fate of the war-ravaged Ukrainian people may draw some crocodile tears but, as de Ploeg concludes, their future will probably be decided ‘in the back rooms of Moscow, Washington and Berlin, rather than on the streets of Kiev and Donetsk’. This is the depressing reality: there are no angels in a geopolitical tussle.
Disclaimer
The views expressed are personal.