Moving West is ‘Lesser Evil’ for Ukraine

David Marples

On March 30, the EU and Ukraine initialed the text of a new agreement that includes a “deep and comprehensive free trade area.” Is Ukraine now moving irrevocably westward?

Of late, one finds many apocalyptic accounts about Ukraine: rampant corruption, likelihood of default on foreign loans, crackdowns on former leaders of the Orange administration such as Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko, the manipulation of elections, and falling popularity for the ruling Regions Party and its president Viktor Yanukovych.

All these factors exist in part or fully, but the crucial question for Ukraine concerns foreign policy: does it move to the EU or become part of the Russian orbit? In the background to this debate is the key component of energy, and specifically payments for Russian gas and oil and whether Ukraine can come up with alternative strategies to its dependence on Moscow.

Evgeny Kurmashov, director of political programs at the Gorshenin Institute, surmises that in his third term Russia president Vladimir Putin will try to increase Russia’s political influence in neighboring states and integrate them into the Russian geopolitical sphere. The various means—the Customs Union, Eurasian Union, gas transit consortium, and CIS free trade zone—are all part of the same Kremlin puzzle.

Generally Ukrainian residents are reticent about a free trade agreement with Russia. A poll conducted among members of the parliament in March indicates that 45.4% of MPs oppose it, and only 21% support it without reservations. Analyst Yuri Matsiyevsky has observed that the reintegration of Ukraine into the post-Soviet space will block Ukraine’s move toward the EU. Yet Yanukovych continues to negotiate with the EU because, according to Matsiyevsky, the degree of antagonism toward it in eastern and southern regions is lower than the degree of rejection of cooperation with Russia in Western Ukraine. It is the “lesser evil” in other words.

Other reasons for a move to Brussels are evident. President Yanukovych and his government are seeking ways to avoid complying with the gas agreement signed by former Prime Minister Tymoshenko and Putin in early 2009 whereby Ukraine agreed to pay a base rate of $450 per thousand cubic meters, well above today’s world price. But the alternatives are problematic.

The exploration of shale gas in southern Ukraine is still being explored—it is prohibitively expensive to produce—but the most far-fetched scheme is one to re-export Russian gas from Germany to Ukraine through an agreement between Ukraine’s Naftohaz and the German company RWE, based in Essen.

Also, the attempt to replace Russian supplies of gas with those from Turkmenistan, following high-level talks between Ukraine and the Central Asian country, is premature. Until the completion of the Trans-Caspian pipeline, Turkmen gas can only reach Ukraine through Russia, thus supplies could be affected at any time.

Still, Ukraine is leaning toward the West, whatever the difficulties involved.

Its economic power structure essentially now comprises three main groups that have managed to prevent serious intrusions from Russian businessmen: these are influential Regions members Rinat Ahmetov and Borys Kolesnikov who control the metallurgy industry; the Rosukrenergo company, headed by Dmytro Firtash; and members of Yanukovych’s own family and friends, who are growing markedly in influence.

What these power bases have in common is a desire to trade with the EU and to avoid as far as possible economic takeovers by Russian oligarchs.

As for the Europeans, they have slowly brought Ukraine into the fold. In 2005, the EU and Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Energy Cooperation that included an Action Plan. On 1 February 2011, Ukraine joined the Energy Community, and Ukraine has taken steps to improve the safety of its nuclear plants (especially in the wake of the Fukushima disaster), to integrate electricity and gas markets, and to improve safety and restructure the Ukrainian coal industry, which has been in decline since the 1980s.

Yet Ukraine is proving an awkward partner. The initialing of the association agreement was delayed because of the EU’s concern about the treatment of Tymoshenko. Ukraine, in short, has been behaving like Belarus, though thus far the EU has refrained from imposing sanctions.

Brussels is also concerned about the astounding scale of corruption in Ukraine, which has darkened a once promising economic outlook. Essentially the government is appeasing the population with higher wages and pensions while depleting foreign currency reserves and coming up with wild solutions to pay off enormous debts—around $15 billion to Russian and European banks, as well as the IMF—and to keep its domestic currency afloat.

A recent report from Kyiv by Zenon Zawada notes Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s announcement on March 12 that he intended to pay back debt to the IMF by requesting another loan from the same agency—a comment later retracted, but revealing nevertheless of the far-fetched economic policies.

In these circumstances, the EU partner grows increasingly frustrated and the Russian side more hopeful; while the oligarchic clans are preoccupied with their internal struggle, a classic case of fiddling while Rome—in this case Kyiv—burns.

This article was first published in the Edmonton Journal, 31 March 2012.

UKRAINE’S GAS PROBLEMS AND HOW TO RESOLVE THEM

David Marples

Ukraine continues to discuss prices for gas and the volume that should be purchased from Russia, which in turn, through the state-run Gazprom, makes demands on its neighbor, while threatening to divert more supplies to its Nord Stream line, with the prospect of the South Stream starting up in the near future. The impasse poses a serious energy dilemma for the Ukrainian government, which imported up to 70% of its gas and 65% of its oil requirements in 2011. Ukraine is by far the biggest consumer of gas in the central European region, but it has been unable to resolve a problem that started with independence and reached an acute level in 2006 and 2009 (see, for example, Jonathan Stern, “Natural Gas Security Problems in Europe: the Russian-Ukrainian Crisis of 2006,” Asia Pacific Review, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2006): 32-59) .

There are a number of issues at stake. First, there is the economic and political relationship between Ukraine and Russia. The latter country is adamant that Ukraine should join its Eurasian Economic Community and that in order for the price of gas to be lowered, it must make some concessions, such as the sale to Russia of Naftohaz, Ukraine’s national oil and gas company. For its part, the Yanukovych administration has a dual complaint: Ukraine agreed to pay $388 per thousand cubic meters of gas (tcm) under the agreement made by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2009, but this level is extraordinarily high for a neighboring state; and it also wishes to reduce obligatory gas imports from Russia to 27 billion cubic meters (bcm) from the 52 bcm stipulated in the contract (RIA Novosti, Feb 1).

Second, Russia has put pressure on Ukraine in other areas too. In early February it instigated a so-called “cheese war,” by prohibiting imports of cheese produced in Ukraine. According to one account, there was more at stake than dairy products—Russia began a similar dispute with Belarus in the summer of 2009 after that country declined to privatize its dairy industry—and the dispute was linked to Russian territorial claims on Crimea. It cites a statement by Stanislav Govorukhin, a Duma deputy who is the head of Vladimir Putin’s electoral headquarters, reportedly commented that Crimea and Sevastopol should be returned to Russia by means of the economic integration of Ukraine with its neighbor, as well as into its religious and cultural-historical space (Glavred, Feb 13, at: http://glavred.info/archive/2012/02/14/161348-2.html).

Govorukhin’s needlessly provocative statement may have been a means to divert attention from the anti-Putin protests taking place prior to the March 2012 presidential elections in Russia. But they nonetheless put further pressure on Ukraine. The same applies to the construction of Nord Stream, which was officially launched in early November last year, and should account for the transport of about one-sixth of Russian gas exports in 2012 through a pipeline from Vyborg, near St. Petersburg, under the Baltic Sea, to Greifswald in eastern Germany. The anticipated capacity of the pipeline, which may be attained by 2015, is 55 bcm, and would allow Russia to transport about one-third of its gas to the countries of the European Union for the next fifty years (Nord-stream.com, Nov 8, 2011). South Stream, a pipeline that is planned between Russia’s Black Sea coast from the Pochinki compressor station south of Novorossiysk to the Romanian coast just north of Varna is anticipated to start construction in 2012 and to be transporting gas by 2015 (http://south-stream.info/index.php?id=10&L=1).

Ukraine’s energy situation was discussed recently at a round-table of the Kyiv-based Gorshenin Institute under the title “Is Gazprom monopolizing the European gas market?” Anatoly Kinakh, former Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy of Ukraine, and the head of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, began somewhat predictably by attacking the 2009 agreement by Tymoshenko, and maintained that the contract needs to be renegotiated with Russia without confrontation because the latter country is Ukraine’s “strategic partner.” He perceived the need to balance the interests of suppliers (Russia and Central Asia), the transit region (Ukraine), and the consumers (countries of the European Union). Ukraine also in his view needs to improve its energy policy by developing energy-saving technology and increasing the consumption of domestic energy resources (Levyi Bereg, Feb 7, and ff., at: http://economics.lb.ua/trades/2012/02/07/135340_gazprom_monopoliziruet.html).

Ivan Plachkov, former Minister of Fuel and Energy, and a board trustee member of Kyivenergo, is much in agreement with Kinakh, and he asks how Ukraine might lower its dependence on Gazprom. First, he believes, Ukraine can reduce its consumption, which is 4-5 times more gas per unit of GDP than the average in Europe. The situation would stabilize if Ukraine could cut consumption by 50%. He suggests also reforming Naftohaz, and allowing more gas traders access to the Ukrainian market. There should also be more exploration of shale gas in the Black Sea region as well as reliance on existing energy resources of coal, oil, and nuclear power. His comments, however, raise the issue of whether Ukraine would be permitted to reduce the amount of gas it purchases from Gazprom. Another speaker, Volodymyr Saprykin, who is Director of Energy Programs as the Razumkov Center, notes that the Kharkiv Accords, while not a favorable agreement, at least allowed for a reduction of $100 in the price of gas and elimination of penalties for not purchasing the minimum volume. He also advocates increasing the strategic reserves of oil and gas.

One speaker in the round-table was more sanguine about the prospect of developing domestic resources of gas. Yurii Korol’chuk of the Institute of Energy Research maintains it is impractical to produce shale gas, construct a liquefied natural gas terminal, or carry out explorations of the Black Sea littoral because Ukraine lacks money for such projects. Preferable in his opinion is to raise energy efficiency. Valery Borovyk of the “New Energy of Ukraine” alliance thinks that the issue is not only the fact that Gazprom can influence European officials, but also that it has clout among Ukrainian officials, especially those in the energy sector and government, who have no interest in lowering domestic gas consumption. However, people should not be alarmed by the construction of the Nord Stream and the South Stream (carrying Russian gas under the Black Sea to Romania and thence to other European countries). He believes that Nord Stream can divert a maximum of 15% of gas supplies from Ukraine, whereas the South Stream project is likely to collapse because gas consumption worldwide will fall in the wake of the economic crisis.

Are there any other alternatives for Ukraine? One analyst notes that the year 2011 was important for keeping the country on course for integration into European structures. Ukraine also joined the European Energy Committee and made progress on the issue of liberalizing the EU visa regime. But despite such progress and what she describes as “titanic efforts of several ministries,” the goal of integration is more distant than it was at the start of 2011. Western leaders are very concerned about the increasing authoritarianism in Ukraine, the imprisonment and ill treatment of Tymoshenko, and President Viktor Yanukovych’s defiant refusal to take seriously the criticisms of his European counterparts. As a result Ukraine has frittered its first year in the Energy Community, and the dialogue on visa issues has stalled and will not be resolved by the time Euro-2012 begins in June. Perhaps most significantly, Ukraine is strategically dependent on Russia, a country that has long forgotten Kyiv’s past concessions made against its national interests, as demonstrated by the “cheese war.” Yet there are few alternative openings: the United States is losing interest in Ukraine and few practical steps have been taken toward deepening relations with China. In Silina’s view, Ukraine does not have a foreign policy doctrine (Tatyana Silina, Zerkalo Nedeli, Feb 10, at: http://zn.ua/POLITICS/my_sami_zakryli_vorota,_my_sami-97143.html).

Her article raises another key question: that of Ukraine’s failure, vis-à-vis Russia, to gain more publicity for its part in past gas wars. Part of the problem is the close relationship between Gazprom and local companies and influential statespersons in the EU, particularly in Germany and France. The Europeans prioritize gas supplies over regional squabbles, and in such situations tend to side with the supplier rather than the country providing the conduit. They are also in favor of the development of alternative paths such as Nord Stream and South Stream that will cut into Ukraine’s role as the dominant pipeline provider. Thus Ukraine needs not only to build up its domestic resources, but also to cut back significantly on the amount of energy it uses. Added to that, the Yanukovych leadership needs to boost its public image, and could make a significant start by releasing political opponents such as Tymoshenko and former Minister of Interior Yurii Lutsenko. To add to its embarrassment, the European Court of Human Rights is likely to announce its decision on the Tymoshenko case on the eve of or during the forthcoming parliamentary election campaign (Glavcom.ua, Feb 13, at http://glavcom.ua/vblog/2471.html).

There is little indication, however, that such steps will be taken or even that they are being considered. Morally, and in terms of human rights, there is little to distinguish between the current leaderships of Ukraine and Russia and accordingly neither Brussels nor Washington are likely to endanger their relationship with Moscow by offering strong support for Ukraine’s position in its energy battles with Russia. The problems are not new. They were evident as soon as Ukraine began its independent existence in late 1991, as illustrated by the problems faced by its first president Leonid Kravchuk. That they remain even more acute twenty years later is a sad reflection of the failure of all the administrations to date to devise a viable energy policy, let alone a solution to dependence on Russia. It signifies that Ukraine enters every discussion as the weaker partner in what is essentially a power struggle on several levels and with few clear rules.

RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: A NEW STAGE IN THE GAS WAR

David Marples

Introduction

The public furor over the trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tended to overshadow another critical issue, namely that of gas and energy relations between Ukraine and Russia. Indeed in many respects it is a question that Ukrainian leaders have been obliged to address since the start of independence twenty years ago. Europeans are justifiably nervous about the prospect of another gas war between Russia and Ukraine. Each side accuses the other: the Russians maintain that Ukraine’ behavior has been duplicitous and childish; the Ukrainians complain that they are paying prices for gas that are far higher than those for some European consumers, such as Germany and Italy, thanks to the gas deal negotiated between Tymoshenko and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2009.

At issue are the following. Rather than signing an agreement to join the Russian-led Customs Union, and following the stipulations of the 2009 agreement that Ukraine has to buy a minimum of 33 billion cubic meters of gas annually and will be paying $400 per cubic meter by the end of 2011, Ukraine has threatened to seek arbitration from an international court in Stockholm, purchase gas from Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan, cut down gas consumption, and find more domestic sources that could alleviate the situation. Its pursuit of associate membership of the EU continues, although it is threatened by the publicity surrounding the trial of Tymoshenko, which is unacceptable to many Europeans and appears contrived. Russia in turn has opposed the trial, not because of affection or support for the former Prime Minister, but because the outcome could conceivably affect gas relations with Ukraine. If the 2009 deal is found to be illegal (thereby confirming the “guilt” of Tymoshenko), then it could be abrogated and negotiations on gas prices would need to begin anew.

Russian Perspectives

In early September, a weekly experts panel on Russia Profile discussed the situation from Russia’s perspective, while taking into account some of the more recent maneuvers by the respective governments: thus for Russia the goals have been closer integration, to be attained by Ukraine joining the Customs Union or by the merger of Ukraine’s Naftohaz with Russia’s Gazprom, or by Ukraine allowing the latter control of the gas pipeline to Europe or its gas storage enterprises. If such moves were accepted, it is implied, then Ukraine would be in a better position to negotiate the price it pays for Russian gas. The situation is complicated, as pointed out by Vlad Ivanenko, by the fact that Russia also continues to improve its connections with EU countries, most notably Germany, thus nullifying the benefits of Ukraine’s forthcoming Association Agreement with the EU (Russia Profile, Sept 9).

Alexandre Strokanov, Director of the Institute of Russian Language, History, and Culture at Lyndon State College in Vermont, sees the situation as follows: the CIS is basically defunct, but most “Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian people” are in favor of closer integration. He sees such integration as beneficial for all, and regards the Ukrainian position of promoting both EU membership and closer ties with Russia as contradictory. Russia’s position in his view is “much more clear and understandable” and is based on the 2009 agreement, and, in short, a contract is a contract and cannot simply be ignored with demands to lower prices. Vladimir Belaeff of the Global Society Institute in San Francisco argues on similar grounds that Russia has been a good neighbor, bestowing largesse on Ukraine in the expectation of friendly relations in return. But Ukraine has not reciprocated (Russia Profile, Sept 9).

Lastly James Jatras, Deputy Director of the American Institute in Kyiv, complains that Ukraine is relaying on “legal gimmicks” to change the current situation: “The prospect of Ukraine obtaining the lower gas prices it so desperately needs to revitalize its economy would greatly improve if Kiev would negotiate seriously with Moscow.” The logical way to do this would be for Ukraine to join the Customs Union that Russia has formed with Kazakhstan and Belarus, after which it could receive the same prices for gas as the Russian Federation. Alternatively by agreeing to a merger between Naftohaz and Gazprom, it would also be possible for the Ukrainian government to acquire the best possible price for gas (Russia Profile, Sept 9). Underlying all these comments—as some interviewees acknowledge—is the simple equation that Russia is going to sell the gas and the Europeans, especially the Germans, intend to buy. Hence if a new gas war should break out, Russia has the option of switching to the Nordstream gas line (and later the South Stream line) and cutting Ukraine out of the equation altogether. Hence if Ukraine does not bargain in good faith, it could conceivably lose its supply of gas.

The experts’ panel also rejects as a pipe dream Ukraine’s alternative sources of gas, such as the shale experiments in the Donbas region. At best this would be a long-term phenomenon, and it cannot affect the current situation, i.e. that Ukraine is dependent on its Russian neighbor. Support for integration, however, even in Belarus, has fallen constantly since independence 20 years ago. There is no indication that residents of Ukraine would support membership of either the Customs Union or the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), despite improved relations with Russia being one of the original platforms of Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential elections. In fact, Yanukovych has stated recently Ukraine will not pay heed to ultimatums from Moscow that are “inappropriate and humiliating for us” (Krymskaya Pravda, Sept 6). From the viewpoint of Kyiv, what is occurring is a form of neocolonialism, by which Russia makes demands and Ukraine is expected to follow. That is one reason why Ukraine is trying to find ways to extricate itself from an agreement it made two years ago; one that seemed reasonable at the time, but now appears unfavorable.

Ukrainian Perspectives

Ukrainian views are some distance away from those of the experts’ panel, which it should be added, are probably more moderate than some of the statespersons in Russia, not excluding President Dmitry Medvedev. Yuliya Mostova sees the Russian position, sardonically, as “Either we get everything, or you get nothing.” However, she believes that Yanukovych considers an agreement with Russia still possible for several reasons. First, the South Stream pipeline remains in the air because of opposition from Turkey, the key player in the Black Sea region. Second, revisions of agreements signed with Gazprom are hardly new, and have been explored by several European states hitherto. Terms are thus negotiable. Third, Turkmenistan is dissatisfied with its current relationship with Gazprom, and Yanukovych’s visit to Ashgabat on September 12-13 is a signal that the Turkmens are willing to discuss the issue. Tymoshenko’s nemesis, Dmytro Firtash, she anticipates, will play an important role in these negotiations with his company RosUkrEnergo. Fourth, by starting what she terms a “cold war” with Yanukovych, the Russians appear inconsistent in the eyes of their own public, since for years, the Ukrainian leader has been portrayed as a close friend of the Russian people. Lastly, it could be possible for Russians to purchase shares in Naftohaz without taking over the entire company. The latter scenario would signify a loss of sovereignty for Ukraine (Zerkalo Nedeli, Sept 2).

The legal aspects of the dispute were made more complex by the announcement on September 2 by Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov that Ukraine intends to break up Naftohaz into smaller units (Interfax, Sept 2). In Ukraine’s view, this would render null and void existing agreements with Russia. Moscow disagrees, and Gazprom’s Sergey Kupriyanov commented that any reorganization obligates the continuation of contractual rights, which must be passed over to the successor units. The Russian side believes that its position rests on solid legal grounds, and thus, as stated by President Medvedev, if Ukraine wants a discount on gas prices, then it should consider membership of the Customs Union. Naftohaz head, Oleh Dubyna, maintains that in 2009, Tymoshenko misled him when she claimed that the Ukrainian government had authorized the signing of the gas contract with Russia. This was denied in court by former president Viktor Yushchenko, who testified against Tymoshenko, his former ally in the 2004 Orange Revolution (Nikolay Zakrevskiy, “Ukrainu utomil gazovyi mezal’yans,” Obozrevatel’, Sept 5).

Undoubtedly, the Yanukovych administration is struggling to come up with a solution to its energy problems. The trial of Tymoshenko is an extreme manifestation of its dilemma and arguably one that has badly backfired. On the other hand, negotiating with Russia is problematic as new forms of pressure are being constantly applied. These are both direct and in more subtle forms. On September 8, the Moscow City Duma annulled its funding of the Black Sea Fleet in the 2011 budget year, a total of R70.6 million ($2.3 million), generally used for repairing barracks and schools for children of sailors (Krymskaya Pravda, Sept 8). More ominously, Aleksey Urin, advisor to the Embassy of Russia in Ukraine, stated that Russia would consider annulling the Kharkiv Accords (which extended the Russian Black Sea Fleet bases in Sevastopol until 2042) if Ukraine challenged the existing gas contracts in court (http://rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/07sep2011/ooreen.html). Another alternative, outlined by analyst Vitaliy Portnikov, would be for Russia to agree to annul the Kharkiv Accords, limit the sojourn of the Black Sea Fleet to 2017, and then negotiate a new agreement with Yanukovych’s successor as president in due course (http://rus.newsru.ua/columnists/08Sep2011/kharkov.html)–one implication here is that Russian withdrawal of support for Yanukovych would help to ensure his demise.

Conclusion

Despite the adamant Russian view that existing contracts are unchangeable, neither side can claim that laws are static in contemporary Russia and Ukraine. Both sides have amended constitutions, renegotiated existing agreements, and made contradictory statements. In this case the difficulty is clear: Russia is the provider of the resources and Ukraine the purchaser. Ukraine needs Russian gas, as do the Europeans, and yet its maneuvers suggest certain ambivalence as to its priorities and future directions. Like his predecessors Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, Yanukovych has opted for a so-called “multi-vectored” foreign policy, which only works if there are no decisive steps taken in one direction or the other. The Russian side recognizes, however, the innate incongruence in EU policy, i.e. that although Ukraine may be accepted into some form of associate membership, individual countries will trade directly with Russia, and bilateral relations—such as that between Russia and Germany—may take precedence, thus undermining the significance of a choice for Ukraine between West and East.

Secondly, the EU and Russia, for diverse reasons, are likely to condemn a guilty verdict in the Tymoshenko trial. The EU perceives the proceedings as a show trial, one conducted to remove the leader of the opposition from the political scene prior to the 2012 parliamentary elections. Russia is concerned that her conviction could nullify the trade agreement of 2009, as well as the proposed merger of Gazprom and Naftohaz, and lead to a reduction of the amount of gas that Ukraine purchases annually. Thus the trial will cast a shadow over the Yanukovych presidency internationally and reduce the credibility of his administration at a time when Ukraine is preparing to host the Euro-2012 soccer competition next summer.

Thirdly, the arguments of the Russian experts cited above notwithstanding, the relationship with Russia has proved difficult for several of its neighbors, not just Ukraine. Belarus has had similar problems over gas prices, and the result has been the forthcoming takeover of its gas transit company Beltransgaz by Gazprom, even though the initial agreement was for 50% ownership by 2011 (RIA Novosti, Aug 17). These are not negotiations in the normal sense of the word: meetings and discussions are followed by insinuations and warnings, including the annulment of the Kharkiv Accords, and the ultimate threat of cutting off gas supplies altogether. Admittedly, the position of Ukraine has been inconsistent and the decision to dismantle Naftohaz is a crude and obvious subterfuge. But it is also a sign of desperation.

Fourthly, for many years it has been unclear to many observers how Gazprom decides the prices for gas and who pays what price. Today, Ukraine pays more than Germany for Russian gas; and Belarus pays less (though the price is rising). What is the logic behind price setting? Why is it not dependent on market relations so that there is one price for consumers within Russia and one for foreign purchasers? Negotiations with Gazprom, further, seem to be concluded with takeovers of key transit companies or the gas enterprises of neighboring states. And since Gazprom is no longer a private enterprise but an arm of the Russian government, then it is difficult to dispute the fact that a Gazprom-controlled factory is in essence a Russian one, thus rendering the rhetoric of “merger” misleading. A merger signifies integration in an entity that can be perceived as the successor to the CIS.

All these issues were inherited by the Yanukovych regime, and like his predecessors he has applied clumsy and often incoherent policies. For any Ukrainian government, but especially one operating in the current harsh economic climate, the problem of self-sufficiency in energy is paramount. But there are no obvious solutions, either in new gas and oil exploration or in the further development of nuclear power—all Ukraine’s existing nuclear plants are of Russian design—as the latter would require two decades to take effect. That being said, it is hard to avoid the impression of the current Ukrainian administration as somewhat analogous in its methods to that of Medvedev and Putin’s Russia, of an increasingly authoritarian regime that is nonetheless anxious to appease its potential European allies, while imposing order within and undermining the painstakingly constructed democratic structure.

Perhaps that is why Yanukovych and his associates continue to believe that a new agreement can be reached with Russia. The two regimes currently in place in the respective countries have much in common. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian side has limited options, and few bargaining chips that can be used for negotiation and its targeting of Tymoshenko has alienated its main potential allies in Europe. Unfortunately, the end result may be not only the downfall of an unlamented leadership but the “return” of Ukraine to the Russian sphere of interest, one that is guided not be egalitarianism and equal partnership, but economic and political goals that are perceived as in the “common” rather than national interest. That is the stark reality facing the Ukrainian government today.

STASIUK BLOG NOTES, 1/11

David Marples

Recent opinion polls suggest that the number of Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine is rising, despite the recent closure of several schools in Makiivka.

According to the Razumkov Center, in the early years of the 21st century, the number of ethnic Ukrainians who spoke Russian was 3% higher than the number of Ukrainian speakers. However, today, 60% of residents of Ukraine consider Ukrainian to be their native language. When translated into the language of everyday usage, 53.3% of the general population speaks Ukrainian, and 44.5% Russian (L’vivs’ka poshta, Aug 25).

These figures are supported by a poll conducted by the Research and Branding Group (RBD) between August 12 and 22, and encompassing just over 2,000 respondents. The poll revealed that at home, 47% spoke Ukrainian, 37% Russian, and 15% spoke both languages. In terms of the language used at school or at work, 45% said Ukrainian, 35% Russian, and 18% both languages. Once again the poll indicates the growing use of Ukrainian, even though the current government has not actively promoted native language usage, and the majority of the current Cabinet is Russian speaking (Ezhenedel’nik, Sept 6).

In 2009, in a similar poll,RBD found that 56% of respondents supported official bilingualism, whereas only 41% considered that Ukrainian should be the sole state language. Today, those figures are more or less equal: 49% back bilingualism and 48% would prefer Ukrainian to be the exclusive language (Ezhenedel’nik, Sept 6). The resurgence of support for the Ukrainian language comes despite the fact that the local government in Makiivka accepted a decision last spring to shut down four Ukrainian schools. As reported by Anatoly Lukashyk, to the consternation of parents the resolution was accepted without any public discussion, and backed up by the district court despite protests of parents. President Viktor Yanukovych noted parents’ concerns but chose not to contest the decision. However, School No. 44 continues to function as a result of the strong stance taken by the parents in support of Ukrainian-language education (L’vivs’ka poshta, Sept 1).

In a related article, Lukashyk also notes that according to the Levada Center, whereas Russians believe that relations with Ukraine are better than in 2007, still 39% perceive them as cold or unfriendly, and only 28% see them as warm and friendly. Russians also have little time for Ukrainian leaders, particularly the leader of the opposition, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is “trusted” by 7% and distrusted by 71%. The respective figures for President Yanukovych are 33% and 50%. A plurality of Russians (40%) approves of the actions taken against Tymoshenko, whereas 25% disapprove; a rather surprising figure considering that the Russian government has also been very critical of her trial (L’vivs’ka poshta, Sept 1).

What can one conclude from these recent polls? They suggest that the role of the government in guiding language usage is at best ephemeral and that the progress of Ukraine toward a Ukrainophone environment continues the path that was inaugurated in the late 1980s, despite a relatively authoritarian and unhelpful regime in Kyiv. It is well known that for the Russians, Viktor Yushchenko as president became unacceptable and relations were virtually severed between the two neighbors by 2010. However, despite early indications, the relationship with President Yanukovych is anything but smooth, and Ukraine continues to build on the cultural foundations initiated two decades ago. Slowly but inexorably the Ukrainian language is taking root.

Stasiuk Blog Notes will appear occasionally throughout the year. The Program acknowledges the assistance of Oleksandr Melnyk, PhD candidate, University of Toronto, in compiling materials.

Gas Fuels Ukraine’s Political Strife

David Marples

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko is on trial in Kyiv for negotiating a gas deal with Russia two years ago that was allegedly unfavorable to Ukraine. Last week she was hauled off to jail for her behavior in the courtroom, which included refusing to stand when the judge entered the room and verbally abusing some of the witnesses, including current prime minister Nikolai Azarov for speaking in Russian.

International opinion has condemned the administration of President Viktor Yanukovych for what appears to be a politically based trial. One analyst commented that with this trial the Ukrainian government has “crossed the Rubicon” in its slide from democracy to authoritarianism.

These issues are less clear-cut than they seem.

On the face of it the charges are far-fetched. Tymoshenko negotiated a deal as head of the Ukrainian government. Moreover, it ended an impasse with Russia that had led to cutoffs of gas supplies to several European countries in successive winters. However, the background is considerably more complicated.

Several issues are involved: conditions for the sale of gas; the price of gas; the nature of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine; and the bitter personal rivalry between the president of Ukraine and the leader of the opposition.

The essence of the 2008-09 talks between Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftohaz was to eliminate the middleman, in the shape of Dmytro Firtash, who reaped a fortune through his company RosUkrEnergo, which had acquired the right under former president Viktor Yushchenko to purchase gas from Russia and resell it to Ukraine. Tymoshenko justifiably considered such an intermediary superfluous and even dangerous.

At the beginning of 2009, the Ukrainian delegation walked out of the talks on the demand of Yushchenko. However, Tymoshenko then led a personal mission and a contract was signed on Jan. 19. But once she lost her position as prime minister, Firtash was reinstalled, ironically under Yushchenko’s former 2004 rival and new president, Yanukovych.

By the agreement of Jan. 19, Russia and Ukraine established a fixed price of gas until 2020 of $450 per thousand cubic meters. At the time the price seemed accurate. Today it seems inflated and shackling. It is much higher than the price at which Russia sells gas to other countries of Europe, for example.

In April 2010, Yanukovych met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss the deal. The revised version linked the sale of gas to prolonging the stay of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It lowered the price below the world level, but Russia has consistently requested further talks on the issue.

Herein lies another issue, namely the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. Yanukovych is often accused of selling out Ukraine’s interests to Russia. In fact, he is clinging onto Naftohaz for dear life, while the Russians are constantly demanding its merger with Gazprom. The Tymoshenko deal is often the Russians’ starting point for new discussions.

In late July, Russia cancelled plans for Medvedev to attend a naval parade in Sevastopol after the Ukrainian government rejected another proposal to merge the two gas companies. However, Moscow has since explored another avenue, namely revisiting the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian border.

Although ostensibly the border between Russia and Ukraine was guaranteed by former Russian president Boris Yeltsin back in November 1990, neither Medvedev nor Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accepted this as definitive. The stumbling block is the border in the area of Kerch and the Azov Sea, which Russia would like to declare “open water.”

The diplomatic maneuvering is not very subtle: if Ukraine comes to the table to discuss a merger of Naftohaz and Gazprom — in reality a virtual takeover by the Russian company — then the border question can be quietly dropped. Given the current Russian leadership’s penchant for re-examining the issue of borders — after the war in Georgia three years ago it recognized two breakaway “republics” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia—the Ukrainians have to tread very carefully indeed.

None of these events should detract from the unpleasantness of the Yanukovych administration, but there is no question that his government has an reasonable desire to distance itself from the expensive gas deal negotiated in early 2009. Instead, it faces a loud and well-coordinated sideshow on the part of the ebullient Tymoshenko, who found time before her arrest to make her case on a YouTube video. Like the astute politician she is, she has exploited an opportunity to pose as a martyr for Ukrainian democracy, thereby reigniting what seemed to be a fading political future.

No doubt she deserves that chance and Ukraine can only benefit from a stronger opposition. On the other hand, the external danger is equally obvious and will only increase if the EU turns against Ukraine, as it has done against Belarus in recent months.

Thus far, the Ukrainian government has avoided commitment to Russia’s customs union (known as the Common Economic Space). But pressure is building. In the fall, a meeting of the Russia-Ukraine interstate commission will take place. During his meeting with Yanukovych at Sochi earlier this month, Medvedev made the following comment: “If you don’t mind, we’ll talk about whether Ukraine finds it reasonable to be part of any alliance with Russia.”

Under these circumstances, the stupidity of trying to remove Tymoshenko and her 2009 gas deal from the equation is understandable, if not forgivable.

This article appeared originally in the EDMONTON JOURNAL, 15 August 2011.

VIRTUAL EURO-INTEGRATION

Mykola Riabchuk

On May 20, after four weeks of hesitation, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed into the law the parliamentary decision on the official use of red flags. A few days later, the opposition appealed to the Constitutional Court against the controversial decision. By June 17, with unusual speed, the judges examined the case and deemed the law unconstitutional.

Very few people believe today that any Ukrainian court, including the Constitutional (refilled last year with presidential loyalists), is able to pass any independent decision to contradict whatever may be the president’s whim. In this recent case, neither the court’s ruling nor its timing were incidental. The ruling has clearly met Yanukovych’s need to correct the mistake of his associates, who had badly underestimated the destructive power of the parliamentary motion and allowed the pro-Kremlin lobbyists to pass it through.

The timing was also not incidental. It clearly met two urgent political needs: first, to avoid new violent clashes in L’viv and elsewhere on June 22 (the day when the so called “Great Patriotic War” began 70 years ago) similar to those that happened back on May 9 when Russian nationalists did their best to provoke Ukrainian counterparts in their major stronghold. And secondly, the deadline for the ruling was June 21, the date of Yanukovych’s visit to Strasbourg and his official presentation at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The European MPs who had accumulated many unpleasant questions for the Ukrainian president regarding his authoritarian rule, selective application of justice and persecution of political opponents, had to be countered by the appearance of a moderate politician strongly committed to the rule of law and with no wish to influence the independent judiciary in his country.

The first goal was largely achieved and the earlier status quo reestablished, meaning that Soviet symbols are neither forbidden nor mandatory. The pro-Russian radicals, without official support and encouragement, failed to make any significant disturbances in L’viv and elsewhere, to the noticeable disappointment of numerous Russian TV crews who came to L’viv to gather new evidence of rabid Ukrainian “nationalism” and “neo-Nazism.”

The second goal appeared more difficult to achieve since all the policies and practical steps of the Ukrainian authorities are the antithesis of the officially professed rule of law and independent justice. Whatever soothing words Viktor Yanukovych may have delivered at Strasbourg, a single call of his delegate from the embassy to a French MP Francois Rochebloine, with a strange request to clarify beforehand what question he was going to put to the Ukrainian president during the meeting, tells much more about the real style of Ukrainian politics and its neo-Soviet practices http://gazeta.ua/articles/387449. If a European MP can be dogged this way, one can easily imagine even more unscrupulous pressure of the same acolytes against Ukrainian politicians, journalists, media owners, and businessmen.

Of much higher importance than the empty words of the president was a minor clash between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations at the PACE concerning the Russia-sponsored draft resolution “On ways of opposing the manifestations of neo-Nazism and right-wing radicalism” that targeted specifically Ukraine (and four other European countries) as arguably not persecuting sufficiently neo-Nazis and xenophobes and referring inter alia to the May 9 events in L’viv http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/167142.html. The significance of the Strasbourg event is that not only members of Ukrainian opposition but also MPs from the ruling Party of Regions, including Yulia Liovochkina (a sister of Serhiy Liovochkin, the head of Yanukovych’s administration), spoke unanimously against the Russian document http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/06/22/6321051/. Yet they hardly felt any sympathy for the Ukrainian nationalists condemned in the Russian draft. Nor did they seem to care much about any idealistic stuff like “the truth” or the fair image of the country. Rather this is simply not the way in which the “pragmatists” from the Party of Regions tend to feel or behave.

The reason for their sudden “patriotic” move is likely the same as that behind Yanukovych’s burial of Moscow-sponsored red flags by the whimsical decision of the Constitutional Court. They have probably come to understand gradually that they have acquired too negative an international image to afford its further deterioration by either red-flag clashes or a neo-Nazi witch-hunt. This may signify an important shift in the previous, largely confrontational policy of the Party of Regions. The “pragmatists” within this heterogeneous group may come to recognize that both Russia and the pro-Russian lobby in Ukraine are pushing them toward international isolation, which means effectively full dependence on Moscow. Transforming Ukraine into another Belarus seems to be the ultimate goal of Russian and pro-Russian “technologists.” Domestically, this requires escalation of conflicts and an increase of governmental coercion. Internationally, it means endowing Ukraine with the image of a failed state, either with neo-Soviet or neo-fascist tendencies, or both.

Such a development clearly tends to spoil the favorite game of Ukrainian oligarchs, carried out under the aegis of “European integration.” It is a virtual game that does not require any action, reforms, transparency, rule of law, or fair political and economic competition. Ukrainian oligarchs, especially those from Donbas that run the country, have never loved honest competition, striving instead to establish monopolies wherever possible by whatever means. They have learned how to play by rules but they despise such methods. They love the virtual “European integration” because it requires no deeds, just words. And it brings them certainty and much-needed security – for their property, bank accounts, and personal dolce vita in the West.

It is like a safety belt, a password that conveys a key message to the EU officials: “We might be bad boys but we are YOUR bad boys. We are not as ugly as that last European dictator Lukashenko, so, whatever we do in our country, please, do not ban us and our families from entering the EU.”

The Kuchma-style “multi-vector” policy seems to be the best option for Ukrainian oligarchs. Back in mid-May, the secretary of the National Defense and Security Council of Ukraine Rayisa Bohatyryova declared something that would have been impossible to imagine one year earlier, during Yanukovych’s imaginary honeymoon with Putin: “We cannot change our foreign policy objective after each election. Consistency of foreign policy is the basis for a country’s predictability.”

“On the one hand,” she argued, “the Russian Federation wants to pull us into the Russian World as soon as possible, and Russia is swiftly moving towards strengthening its international position. On the other hand, we hear that countries like the USA and our other strategic partners are gradually losing interest in Ukraine. The European Union is losing interest, too.” Thus, she concluded, Ukraine is an independent state that should defend its own national interests in the international arena after working out its singular position. Moreover, she stressed that such a position should be elaborated in cooperation with the opposition. (Interfax-Ukraine, May 18, 2011).

Whether the “pragmatists” within the Party of Regions are able to maneuver the country towards more flexible “multi-vectored” politics is not yet clear. On one hand, they face a very strong Russian political, economic and intelligence lobby within their own ranks. And on the other hand, they have already given too many trump cards to Moscow, lost too many possible allies, and made too many enemies both within the country and abroad. And even if they manage to shift their politics towards a “multi-vectored” foreign policy, it would not signify any authentic European integration. As under Kuchma, so today, under Yanukovych, it is simply not on the agenda for one obvious reason. All the practices, habits, and thoughts of the so-called “Ukrainian elite” are worlds apart from those associated today with “Europeans.”

The V-Day Spectacle and Beyond

Mykola Riabchuk

“Show,” “spectacle,” “theater,” and “performance” seem to be the most popular metaphors employed by Ukrainian observers to describe the May 9 clashes in L’viv between local nationalists and Russian barnstormers who came with red flags from Odesa and the Crimea to celebrate Victory Day in a city that has a substantially different view of the “victory” and a radically different view of red flags.

The “theatrical” metaphors should not undermine the seriousness of the conflict and its consequences for Ukraine’s future. Rather, they signal the staged, prefabricated character of the event, pointing to its Kyiv directors and, arguably, Moscow architects.

The stage for the conflict was set on April 21 when the Ukrainian parliament amended the 2000 law on commemoration of victory in the so-called “Great Patriotic War” of 1941-1945. A politically crucial request was added to raise the red Soviet flag (euphemistically defined as the “Flag of the Victory”) on all official buildings and sites, and to use it at all official ceremonies on V-Day and at relevant events, alongside the national yellow-and-blue flag.

Neither Ukrainian MPs nor the president needed to have been great statesmen to understand the provocative and subversive character of this suggestion. Even if they watched only Russian TV and used no other sources of information, they would certainly have known that the Soviet flag is absolutely unacceptable for a significant portion of the Ukrainian population, primarily in the western but also in the central part of the country. They should certainly have known that for millions of Ukrainians the red flag is first and foremost the symbol of occupation, of terror and genocide, Gulag and Holodomor, Russification, and national humiliation.

For many Ukrainians, like for Poles and the Balts, the Second World War on their territory was a clash of two equally dreadful predators, the Nazis and Bolsheviks. Which of the two was more oppressive might be an interesting question for academic debates, but it is of little relevance for people who feel today that the Nazi regime is dead and buried, while the Soviet regime, in its Putinist neo-imperial reincarnation, is alive and well and still threatens their shaky stability and sovereignty by various means.

This is why a significant portion of Ukrainians does not buy the Stalinist notion of the “Great Patriotic War” and rejects defiantly Russian attempts to capitalize politically on the historical victory by promoting particular nationalistic and imperialistic agenda.

So, the main question is not whether president Yanukovych and his Party of Regions (in fact, the party of one region, mostly comprised of the Donbas) share the Russian nationalistic view of the Second World War as a great victory of the Soviet (read Russian) people and the proof of their superiority over their neighbors, thus legitimizing their current “privileged interests” in the region. This might well be true taking into account the provincial character of the ruling Donbas “elite,” their extremely low cultural and educational level, poor knowledge of both national and global history and the outside world in general, the profound entrenchment of Soviet values and stereotypes in their minds, and, of course, their sheer opportunism driven by multiple business (political-cum-economic) interests. Thus, the real question is not about their views and commitments, whatever they are, but about their complete ignorance of the beliefs of the other part of society that makes up, by various surveys, between one quarter and one half of the national population.

Why have the “Regionals” reintroduced the red flag that is a clear irritant for so many co-citizens? Is it just an attempt to appease and to mobilize their Sovietophile electorate at the cost of the perceived anti-Soviet minority? Is it a symbolical gesture to indulge Russia in exchange for some personal/corporate benefits? Is it merely a maneuver to divert public attention from the dramatic failures of their social and economic policies, from the rampant corruption within their own ranks and growing international criticism of their heavy-handed dealing with opposition? Or, maybe, as Alexander Motyl suggests, it is a part of a wider strategy: to undermine the Ukrainian, i.e. largely pro-European and anti-Soviet identity, and thereby to weaken the social base of the Orange opponents?

All these assumptions may hold some truth but they hardly justify the costs to be inevitably paid for the presumed benefits. In long run, the Sovietophile policies would definitely subvert Ukraine’s European integration, preclude any chances to become a part of the first world, and deadlock it perhaps forever in the Russia-dominated “Eurasian” space of backwardness and despotism. This actually might not be a problem for the ruling “elite” since they personally joined the EU long ago, keeping their accounts, families, and real estate rather in the hostile West rather than in friendly Russia. But the real cost of contentious, divisive policies stubbornly pursued by the Donbas “elite” might be the division of the country at best or its “Ulsterization” at worst.

One may find some disturbing analogies between Russian supremacists waving red flags in Western Ukrainian cities and Ulster unionists marching with their flags through the Catholic quarters to celebrate the 1688 historical victory and symbolic dominance of the colonizers over the aborigines. Aborigines apparently dislike it and react emotionally, as happened in Lviv, to the great joy of Moscow propagandists who represent Ukrainians’ outrage at imperial symbols as a crypto-fascist denial of the “Great Victory” and another proof of solidarity with the defeated Nazis arguably inherent in Western Ukraine. “Perception of past Nazi collaborators divides Ukraine” ran the headline of Russia Today, the leading Kremlin mouthpiece, clearly outlining how the clashes in Lviv should be interpreted for both the domestic and international market.

Both the Russians and foreigners buy the news at face value. Even the respectable BBC informed its readers about the “clashes between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian activists,” as if “pro-Russianness” was the main feature of rabidly chauvinistic and Ukrainophobic provocateurs purposely brought to L’viv from southeastern Ukraine. The pre-war Sudetenland Nazis might have been labeled “pro-German activists” by the same logic and with the same precision.

The Russian intent to deepen the Ukrainian divide has become an obsession, as well as efforts to discredit any strong anti-Soviet, pro-European Ukrainian identity as rabidly anti-Russian, xenophobic, and crypto-fascist. These intents may perfectly resonate with the Party of Regions’ desire to marginalize the political opposition by a complex two-fold strategy. One aspect was mentioned already: re-Sovietization and Russification of Ukraine as a way to weaken Ukrainian identity and undermine the power-base of the Orange opponents. The other aspect is aimed at promotion and covert support of radical nationalists in Western Ukraine in order to undermine Ukrainian moderates as real political rivals with potentially a much broader electoral base all over the country.

But the price for this perfidious game might be too high. And there are some signs that the Party of Regions, despite appearances to the contrary, is not homogenous and monolithic in this regard. First, Viktor Yanukovych opted not to sign the controversial decree on the red flag’s official usage and relied on so-called legal expertise. He condemned the violence in Lviv and promised a “determined response to those who want to bask in a bloody fire” but did not specify the culprits. In fact, his reference to “some “activists” [that] are trying again to split the Ukrainian people,” and to the “attempts to exploit politically the tragedies of the twentieth century” can be applied to both sides http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/20032.html . Hanna Herman, his top adviser, expressed this idea unequivocally by saying that the both sides of the conflict deserve each other: “Яке їхало таке здибало” (“Like guests, like hosts”).

Oleksandr Yefremov, the head of the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, seemed to backtrack when he stated that ”probably we have to stipulate this [the red flag official status] not by law but by parliamentary decree and to think more deeply about this matter” http://gazeta.ua/articles/politics/382050. And the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to its Russian counterpart with a sharp—albeit wrapped in diplomatic wording—call to tone down anti-Ukrainian hysteria in the Russian mass media and pay more attention to nationalistic and xenophobic excesses in Russia itself. The statement implies that Russia, unlike Ukraine, has not yet got rid of “politicians who earn political dividends through provoking tensions in bilateral relations.” Still worse, some Russian politicians try to “divide peoples into more or less worthy heirs of the victory over fascism” http://www.mfa.gov.ua/mfa/en/publication/content/53249.htm.

Ukrainian TV, even though largely state-controlled, covered the May 9 events in L’viv in a much more balanced and moderate way than Russian TV networks, engaged in overtly propagandistic Galicia-bashing and anti-nationalistic witch-hunts, in which “anti-nationalism” was as subtle a substitute for anti-Ukrainian angst as Soviet “anti-Zionism” for anti-Semitism.

It is not clear yet whether we are witnessing some splits within the ruling team between the pro-Moscow hawks and more pragmatic doves, or this reflects some backtracking from too rough and assertive anti-Ukrainian policies of today’s mostly Russian and Russophone “elite,” or perhaps some hesitation evoked by the obvious fact that re-Sovietization in Ukraine, despite initial expectations, has not proceeded as smoothly as in Russia and Belarus. One thing is clear, however: the Genie of Russian/Russophone nationalism in Ukraine has been released from the Soviet bottle and is very unlikely to be put back. What looked like mere Sovietophile nostalgia throughout the 1990s has been institutionalized recently as a vociferous political movement, with very strong Russian and probably FSB connections and even stronger Ukrainophobic zeal. This might be a greater challenge for any Ukrainian government than the antithetical and ideological Frankenstein from the Ukrainian far right cherished covertly by the Party of Regions.

Whatever Viktor Yanukovych does with the as yet unsigned law, he will encounter a problem. The red flag has been used already without his signature and is likely to be re-deployed in the future. The regional authorities in Luhansk have already declared they are not going to remove the red flags at least until June 22 – the day when the “Great Patriotic War” began. They may well extend, in good faith, the presence of these flags indefinitely, or even substitute them for the national flags.

In the longer term, they may have no need for a national president in remote Kyiv.

Does Ukraine Have a Future?

David Marples

Ukraine is currently undergoing a crisis, according to several of its leading intellectuals. It is not an economic quandary, but rather one of self-perception and future path. Six years after the Orange Revolution had appeared to put an end to a neo-Soviet leadership, the country has yet to establish a national identity and a clear direction. One of its leading writers comments that although Ukraine is celebrating its 20th year of independence, it will cease to exist in 20 years’ time.

Are such statements credible? Why is there such a crisis of identity today?

In terms of politics, there is no question that the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych has reversed some of the gains made in 2004-05. Both Western analyst Alexander Motyl and Ukrainian writer Mykola Riabchuk have highlighted the cronyism and corruption of the Yanukovych team.

But it was author and poet Yuri Andrukhovych who expressed the “doomsday scenario” in an interview on the website www.polit.ua (Ukrainian Politics) on April 5. Noting that Ukraine is divided today between “Soviet Russians and Ukrainians,” he maintained that opponents of the country’s independence are as numerous as its supporters. In this situation normal development is impossible. Instead Ukraine is being dragged into what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian world” under the leadership of its East Ukrainian clan.

Writing on March 18 on the website “Current Politics in Ukraine” (http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com/), Riabchuk observes that the leading Ukrainian oligarchs are afraid of a pro-Western policy, open competition, and the rule of law and thus abandoned the more moderate and centrist position they had held under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004) and opted instead to back the Russophile group that is currently in power, which relies on tight control and brutal crackdowns against opponents in the best of Soviet traditions.

Regarding the pro-Ukraine policies heralded by the Orange Revolution, Kyrylo Halushko, a sociologist from the Drahomaniv National University in Kyiv, speaking at the University of Alberta on April 7, commented that they were identified closely with the personal fortunes of President Viktor Yushchenko and thus disappeared from view once the latter”s popularity began to drop sharply. Thus national symbols such as Ivan Mazepa, Symon Petlyura, and the Famine-Holodomor of 1933 are barely recognized in contemporary school textbooks.

An additional problem has been the figure responsible for those textbooks, Dmytro Tabachnyk, Ukraine’s Minister of Education and Science, Youth and Sports. In fact Tabachnyk, who has even been chided by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov for antagonizing teachers, symbolizes what critics perceive as the fundamentally anti-Ukrainian nature of the Yanukovych Cabinet.

How can Ukraine attain a national identity if its national leaders deny that one exists?

A study conducted several years ago by scholar Yaroslav Hrytsak contrasted popular opinion in two antithetical cities, namely Hrytsak’s native L’viv and Donetsk; one Ukrainian-speaking, Europe-oriented and pressing hard for recognition of nationalist heroes; the other Russian-speaking, Sovietized, and supportive of the Red Army heroes of the “Great Patriotic War.”

The point, however, is not that both identities exist—they surely do—but that they represent the extremities. Most Ukrainians are not interested in going back to the Soviet Union and the younger generation cannot even remember it.

Moreover, even the Yanukovych government wishes to join the Free Trade Area of the European Union. It is not yet confined within what Andrukhovych calls “the Russian space.” It has not even joined the Common Economic Space with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrivesvisited in Kyiv in April 2011, with a mission to coax Yanukovych to integrate the Ukrainian economy more closely with Moscow. Economic pressure is today’s substitute for the more forcible methods of the Soviet era. Already there is talk that the agreement on gas prices might be waived, and Ukraine could pay $US 350 per 1,000 cubic meters rather than its current $260.

Ukraine’s situation admittedly is troubling, but even the Donetsk group currently in control has its own priorities, and these are national by default. They have no wish to be subsumed to the interests of their larger neighbor.

Ultimately then, Ukraine may be defined not for what it is, but what it is not. And the key goal for Ukrainian intellectuals should be to find issues of common consent to identify what is Ukraine without alienating a large portion of the population. The recent past remains too divisive to be used as a basis.

The first task is to build up a strong opposition force that embraces democracy and the centrism of the Kuchma era without the corruption. The removal of Tabachnyk should be the first task. And focus should be on the parliamentary election set for October 28, 2012. Given the growing unpopularity of the government, there is a real opportunity to bring change.

The response to Andrukhovych is encapsulated by the title of Ukraine’s national anthem: Ukraine is not yet dead!

This article first appeared in the Edmonton Journal, 13 April 2011. Copyright David Marples.

Pandora’s Box and the Moscow Orchestra

Mykola Riabchuk

On February 25, on the first anniversary of his presidency, Viktor Yanukovych invited his three predecessors to his office to “discuss current issues and the future development of the Ukrainian state” http://www.president.gov.ua/news/19454.html. This brief item of information on the president’s official website was illustrated with a photo of the smiling participants at the meeting—Viktor Yushchenko on the left, Leonid Kravchuk on the right, and Leonid Kuchma across the round-table from the incumbent. None of them, with the exception probably of the host, realized that behind its cheerful façade, the meeting resembled one of those Byzantine banquets that would end with the poisoning, slaughtering, or impaling of the distinguished guests.

A month later, one of the participants of the meeting, ex-president Leonid Kuchma, may understand that metaphor. On March 24, he was summoned for interrogation to the prosecutor’s office charged with the abuse of power and implicated in the killing of investigative journalist Heorhy Gongadze back in September 2000. In Yanukovych’s Ukraine, where the judiciary is just a part of the executive fully subordinated to the president, and where the Prosecutor General is his bosom buddy (“a member of president’s team,” as he characterized himself proudly in public), hardly anyone believes that the case against Leonid Kuchma was launched without the direct blessing of Yanukovych.

Speculation revolves mostly around the question why Yanukovych has made this dubious step and what consequences may follow. The alleged reasons typically include Yanukovych’s desire to divert public attention from his domestic and international failures, to disprove accusations against his government about selective justice, and to intimidate opponents and mobilize supporters by proving that the president is tough but just.

Yulia Mostova highlights another reason why Yanukovych might want to prosecute Kuchma: revenge for the perceived humiliation during the Orange Revolution, when the incumbent refused to use force against the protesters and pass on the office to the president-elect, opting instead for negotiation and compromise that ended up with the repeated second round of the election and Yanukovych’s defeat. If the price of becoming the pick-up successor to Leonid Kuchma was 400 million thanks, as Mostova implies, the reasons for revenge might be even more serious http://www.dt.ua/articles/78263.

Remarkably, not a single expert or commentator expressed the opinion that Yanukovych was driven in his decision by some idealistic desire for justice or the practical need for house-cleaning. In view of all Yanukovych’s other deeds, it is really difficult to sell such a nice story to anyone, either at home or abroad. This does not preclude, however, a smart usage of all these arguments by some people around Yanukovych to persuade him to launch the case against Leonid Kuchma. This might well be in the interests of these people but is hardly in the interests of Yanukovych himself for the following reasons.

First, because the propaganda effect of this step, in terms of positive image-building for Yanukovych, is negligible. No one considers it an act of justice and proof of the equality of all Ukrainian citizens before the law. All the policies of Ukrainian authorities suggest the opposite from all regions and walks of life – every day and every hour.

Second, Kuchma can hardly be sentenced by any court, however “executive” they are in Ukraine, because all the people to whom he may have given a direct order (or “suggestion”) to kill Gongadze, are dead and would not be able to testify. And the records, presumably gathered from the tape recordings by Kuchma’s guard Mykola Melnychenko, even if accepted as evidence (that itself is very problematic), do not contain any direct order to carry out murder.

Third and most important, by initiating the murder case, Yanukovych very unwisely draws public attention to his own conversations with Kuchma recorded by Melnychenko, which are not just deplorable but definitely merit a criminal investigation (intimidation of judges, blackmail, bribery, large-scale corruption, etc). Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, who mentioned Melnychenko’s records among the possible evidence against Kuchma, has inadvertently opened a Pandora’s box since this very evidence could be used against dozens of Ukrainian officials who discussed a variety of criminal plans with Kuchma. (Almost all are alive and well, and now follow their new master, Yanukovych). There is little surprise that opposition MP Yuri Hrymchak has already submitted an official request to the Prosecutor General demanding an investigation of many more episodes recorded by Melnychenko that testify to criminal conspiracy and activity of other members of Kuchma’s team, including current Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Yanukovych himself http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/03/25/6054029/.

And, finally, Yanukovych apparently has created the precedent of prosecuting ex-presidents that may eventually be applied against him (at least as a tool of psychological pressure and possible blackmail) http://www.dt.ua/articles/78776.

So, if the trial does not serve reliably Yanukovych’s personal interests and if the public interests are not, in principle, his concern, the question arises who is most likely to benefit from the dubious special operation and how?

Dr. Andrij Zhalko-Tytarenko, former head of the Ukrainian Space Agency and the former Ukrainian Director of the Science and Technology Center of Ukraine in Kyiv, considers the entire “Melnychenko affair” (“Kuchma-gate”) a provocation of the Russian secret services aimed at establishing full control over Leonid Kuchma. The theory is barely new since many experts have argued that Kuchma had no real reasons to physically destroy Gongadze and that he was merely framed by some powerful and influential enemies seeking to compromise him. The only weak element in this theory is the involvement of the leading Ukrainian police officers, including the late Minister of Interior Yury Kravchenko, in Gongadze’s abduction and killing. None would have dared to play into Russian hands without blessing from above—if not from Kuchma, at least from the minister who may have acted (or pretended to act) on Kuchma’s behalf. He could probably have done so only with a clear perspective to replace Kuchma as president, which seems very unlikely under those circumstances.

Zhalko-Tytarenko hypothesizes that the current re-launch of the Gongadze case is part of the Russian domestic power game. According to his theory, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev may be planning to run for a second term and needs to convince the two-time former president, Vladimir Putin, not to run. “If Kuchma will face murder charges (it is too late for abuse of power charges), he will have no choice but to provide all the names that he certainly knows from Ukrainian secret service reports.” This may hold a certain grain of truth provided that Melnychenko’s records contain, inter alia, some very unpleasant information for Mr. Putin discovered by the SBU about his connections with the notorious Semion Mogilevich and involvement in laundering drug money through the St.-Petersburg company SPAG www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca/pdf/P_Koshiw_Danyliw07.pdf.

Zhalko-Tytarenko might be right about Medvedev’s sophistication and even ambitions but hardly about his real influence and use of independent resources to launch such a complicated manipulative game. Rather, the Russian element in the story is simpler and more traditional. The Kremlin people in Yanukovych’s team persuaded him to make one more self-defeating step—exactly in the same way they persuaded him to give ministerial posts to Messrs. Yezhel, Tabachnyk, and Khoroshkovsky, to promote the Russian church in Ukraine at the cost of all other denominations, to suppress the Ukrainian language, culture, and identity, to violate and manipulate the constitution, to make a Russian citizen the head of his bodyguards, to detain one of Angela Merkel’s men at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport on the eve of his own official visit to Germany, and to make many more stupid maneuvers that not a single professional politician would ever commit. The goal of the manipulators is clear: to undermine Yanukovych’s authority, to compromise him both domestically and internationally, and to render him another “Lukashenko,” ostracized by the West and completely dependent on Moscow.

Taras Chornovil, Yanukovych’s former insider, defines these people as the “Moscow Quartet”: Serhy Liovochkin, Valery Khoroshkovsky, Dmytro Firtash, and Yury Boyko. All are reportedly involved in murky gas deals with Russia, fully controlled by Putin and Mogilevich as Gazprom’s shadow owners. We can hardly obtain proof of these speculations but we are likely to see the results of this and many more «special operations” carried out by the “Moscow Orchestra” (rather than a humble “quartet”).

The Kuchma murder case will not end in the foreseeable future, but will rather be used to compromise (and probably to blackmail) the entire “elite,” including Yanukovych himself. This might be well a part of the strategy of “directed chaos” that includes also the creation of fake “nationalist” and “extremist” groups, planting bombs (the explosions at apartment blocks in Russia in 1999 that preceded Putin’s election provide a fitting precedent) and many more http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/100803/. Back in 2004, the Moscow “political technologists” tried to implement such a strategy in Ukraine to promote the candidacy of Leonid Kuchma for a third presidential term. The “directed chaos,” however, veered out of their control and resulted in an authentic mass uprising, i.e. the Orange Revolution. Remarkably, one of the leading Moscow “technologists” of that time, Igor Shuvalov, serves today as an “adviser” to Serhy Liovochkin and, at the same time, to the leading Ukrainian TV channel “Inter” owned—inevitably—by SBU chief Valery Khoroshkovsky http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/04/1/6073286/.

Besides the clear political goal—to strengthen the authoritarian power of a rogue president completely dependent on Moscow—the team may pursue a more practical and palpable goal: to eliminate as many political-cum-economic players as possible from the forthcoming privatization of Ukraine’s last asset, its arable land (the protracted moratorium on its sale is expected to be lifted at the appropriate moment).

In a recent interview, Leonid Kravchuk, a former communist apparatchik and perhaps the smartest of all Ukrainian presidents, suggested that: “the system has already gnawed away Yanukovych’s legs and is approaching his belly.” So, he must “either destroy the system or concentrate all power in his hands and become a totalitarian leader” http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/04/4/6077221/. The latter, Kravchuk believes, is unlikely because Ukrainians would not accept it. He may be right but the problem is that Yanukovych is listening not to Ukraine’s first president, but rather to the Moscow Orchestra.

Beauty and the Beasts

Mykola Riabchuk

In a recent interview with TVi – one of the few independent channels not yet completely domesticated by the authorities – Hanna Herman, the deputy head of the omnipotent presidential administration, recognized that Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians are, in fact, second-rate citizens in Ukraine, with a very weak social and economic position vis-à-vis the dominant Russophones and therefore with a structurally restrained ability to influence the political, economic, and cultural life of the country.

Here are her comments verbatim:

“Rich people are mostly Russian-speaking, while a great many citizens of Ukraine with Ukrainian mentality are poor people. This is the legacy of the first Ukrainian leaders. Whereas Vyacheslav Chornovil [a former political prisoner and one of the leaders of national-democratic movement during perestroika and the early years of Ukrainian independence] led us to meetings, where we sang Chervona kalyna [a patriotic song], the Komsomol functionaries have seized banks, privatized factories, and now they are wealthy, influential, and dictate fashions” http://ua.korrespondent.net/ukraine/1194816-german-ukrayinomovni-gromadyani-ne-mayut-finansovogo-vplivu-v-krayini.

Hanna Herman may know what she is talking about. As a journalist and democratic activist, she supported the anti-communist, pro-independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Eventually, she headed the Ukrainian service of the Radio Liberty in Kyiv, but unexpectedly switched sides in 2004 and became a close associate of Viktor Yanukovych – a presidential hopeful whose victory in the forthcoming elections looked, at the time, to have been firmly secured. Whether her choice was ideological, or purely mercantile, or, as some authors suggest, intimately personal, is not that important. What really matters is the fact that she is one of a very few intellectuals, liberals, and genuine Ukrainian-speakers within the profoundly illiberal, anti-intellectual, and predominantly anti-Ukrainophone team. Either by chance or choice or the party assignment, she serves as the human face of the rather ugly political-cum-economic group that runs the country.

As a person with some Ukrainophile and liberal-intellectual background, she who certainly cannot deny the conspicuous disparity between the two major ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Yet, as a person who switched sides and joined, to put it delicately, the dominant group, she tries to justify her dubious move with some rational statements. Ukrainophones, she implies, are in a backward position not because of colonial legacy and particular policies of tsars and commissars, and certainly not because of today’s policies of Viktor Yanukovych and his Ukrainophobic associates. Ukrainophones are socially handicapped, first and foremost, because they sang patriotic songs with their gullible leaders and cared too much about national symbolism, while the former Soviet nomenklatura seized power and property and effectively transformed the political dominance of the Russophone Soviet elite into an economic one.

Implicitly, this indulges Ms Herman who was probably right to leave the national democrats since they were hopeless idealists who were unable to bring about any real changes, and to join the tough “pragmatists” from Donetsk who understand what real life means and who can, with her help, be cultured, enlightened and perhaps Ukrainized, at least politically, to comprehend the words “national interest” and launch ultimately the much-needed modernization/Westernization of the country.

One can only wish her good luck on her project, even though the idea of acculturating and gentrifying the tough guys from the Party of Regions looks nearly as utopian as singing “Chervona kalyna” with Vyacheslav Chornovil. Even should Hanna Herman, by mesmerizing, magic, or other means, succeed in transforming her patron-cum-pupil into a real gem (or, as she put it in an earlier interview, a “true diamond”), the Komsomol functionaries who captured the state and created, with criminals, today’s oligarchy, would not disappear. Nor is likely to disappear their profound contempt, even hatred for all those natives who are usually nicknamed “lokhi,” “byki,” “raguli,” “kuguty,” “zhloby,” “bandery,” or “svidomity” – in short, subhumans. Actually, it was Viktor Yanukovych himself who back in 2004 inflamed the xenophobic feelings of his Russian-speaking electorate by describing his political opponents as “goats who spoil our life” (“goats”, in Russian criminal argot, is a strong derogative like “assholes” or worse).

The contempt should not necessarily be interpreted as racial, or ethnic. It can be considered as merely the class superiority of haves over have-nots, advanced over backward, urbanized over rural, central over provincial. Yet, in Ukraine, these worlds and terms largely coincide. The two centuries of settler colonization resulted in thorough Russification of urban centers and complete marginalization of the Ukrainophone folk, primarily as kolkhoz slaves and unqualified workers — illegal migrants from the rural “third world” to the urban “first world,” in which “propiska” was institutionalized as the ersatz-visa system.

For most of Ukrainophones, the Russian language was the only vehicle for social advancement and higher cultural status. In many cases, they were forced to adopt not only the language of their colonizers but also their superior attitude towards uncultured “kolkhoz” aborigines; they internalized the negative self-image imposed upon them by the dominant group and contributed themselves to the further Russification of their defiant or less educated countrymen.

Hanna Herman revealed a profound truth – that there are no oligarchs, no “rich people” with Ukrainian identity (or, as she put it, “Ukrainian mentality”). And the problem is not only, and not so much, that they do not speak Ukrainian as their major language. There are quite a few Russophones in Ukraine who are politically Ukrainian and, vice-versa, but there are quite a few Ukrainophones who are politically Soviet or ambiguously “East Slavonic.” The main problem with the Ukrainian post-Soviet “elite” is that they are predominantly Soviet-speaking and their major identity is primarily off-shore.

Most of them live with their families in London, Monaco, or Geneva, and consider Ukraine just a place from which to extract money. Of course, since they have captured the state, they need to promote some statebuilding and to construct a nation with a rather Russophone or Ukrainophone cultural core. For years, as sheer opportunists, they had manipulated both groups and the overall project, until the vague balance of forces shifted dangerously during the Orange revolution toward the Ukrainian, i.e. anti-Eurasian/pro-European side. The prospect of Westernization, i.e., of real reforms, transparency, rule of law, and fair political and economic competition, frightened most Ukrainian oligarchs. They invested heavily in a counter-revolution and, after its victory, abandoned a middle-line policy of manipulation as just too risky and unpredictable. They gave up the traditional Kuchma-style “centrist” position between the two camps – the position of self-appointed peacekeepers and intermediaries. Instead, they placed their stakes on the Russophile side that had been traditionally more Sovietized, paternalistic and obedient, and therefore looked more likely to support or, at least, accept their thuggish rule. Indeed, this is largely the same core electorate that supports Mr. Putin in Russia and Mr. Lukashenko in Belarus. In Ukraine, however, the promotion of homo sovieticus requires the marginalization of homo anti-sovieticus, which is largely concentrated within the Ukrainophile camp and which significantly exceeds, in every respect, the similar anti-incumbent camps in Russia and Belarus.

Hanna Herman seems sincerely to support a centrist line aimed at engagement rather than containment of Ukrainophones, aimed at their political cooptation rather than marginalization. In the same TVi interview she defined her political mission as “to defend the interests of the people who did not vote for V.Yanukovych [...] because they merely did not know him well enough… Yushchenko failed to become a leader of the whole nation. And I would not like our current president to repeat this mistake” http://news.liga.net/news/N1107113.html.

This might be a good idea since Yanukovych was elected a president by only 49% of the voters, who make up just one-third of Ukraine’s adult population. The only problem is that this appealing notion is alien to the basic instincts and monopolistic habits of the ruling “elite” that not only despises Ukrainophones as an inferior race but also considers them, not unreasonably, as pro-Western agents and a major threat to their authoritarian dominance.

Hanna Herman is undoubtedly a worldly person, and she does her PR job pretty well:

“We need professionals, the so-called Harvard boys, those young Ukrainians who have received a good academic training. These well-educated Ukrainians with practical experience have a different vision of the world and Ukraine and Ukraine’s place it should come to power. I think that in the near future the president will introduce his new team” http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2011/01/06/265602.

Who knows? Miracles do happen. Maybe she has really discovered some hidden essence behind Mr Yanukovych’s personality, a diamond that will emerge like a phoenix from ashes, at a secret time X, to usher in a truly new team and to build a really new country. Still, the question remains – what will he do with his old team? Or, if one dares to put it differently, what will the old team then do with the president himself and with his sweetheart, the well-meaning and delightful deputy head of his administration?