#1
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
www.carnegiecouncil.org
August 19, 2015
Bringing Ukraine Back Into Focus: How to End the New Cold War and Provide Effective Political Assistance to Ukraine
By Nicolai N. Petro
Nicolai N. Petro is a professor of comparative and international politics at the University of Rhode Island. From July 2013 to July 2014, he was a Fulbright Research Scholar affiliated with I. L. Mechnikov National University in Odessa, Ukraine. In 1989 and 1990, Petro served as an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. While in this role, he served as special assistant for policy in the office of Soviet Union affairs in the U.S. Department of State, and as temporary political attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. In addition, Petro has monitored local elections in central Russia, Belarus, and Latvia and in 2001-2002, he served as staff consultant to the municipal research and training center Dialog, and advisor to the mayor of the Russian city of Novgorod the Great. Petro has received two Fulbright awards (one to Russia and one to Ukraine); a Thornton D. Hooper International Affairs Fellowship at the Foreign Policy Research Institute; and research awards from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Petro's articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Washington Times, and many other American and Russian publications. He has authored or co-authored eight books, including Crafting Democracy: How Novgorod has Coped with Rapid Social Change, The Rebirth of Russian Democracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture, and Russian Foreign Policy: From Empire to Nation-State, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein.
This article first appeared as part of the Bow Group's research paper titled "The Sanctions on Russia." [Petro: "Although it was written back in May, the past ten weeks spent in Ukraine have only reinforced my original assessment."]
Britain's foremost expert on Russian and European politics, Professor Richard Sakwa, has precisely articulated why all attempts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine have ended in failure:
"The Ukraine conflict is the child of the cold peace. Although there are profound internal contradictions in the Ukrainian model of state development, these would not have assumed such disastrous forms if the geopolitics of post-Cold War Europe had been sorted out earlier."1
In other words, they fail because there is insufficient recognition of the fact that we are actually dealing with two crises that must be addressed simultaneously.
The first crisis is the longstanding conflict within Ukraine over whether post-Soviet Ukraine should be a monocultural or bicultural nation. For many in western and central Ukraine, including the historical regions of Galicia, Volyn, and Podolye, being Ukrainian has long meant suppressing Russian culture so that Ukrainian culture can thrive in its stead. Here, creating a Ukraine that is Russia's antithesis is often referred to as making a "civilizational choice."
By contrast, for many in eastern and southern Ukraine, including the historical regions of Donbass, Novorossiya, Slobozhanshchina, and Crimea, being Ukrainian means being part of a distinct nation that lives in close harmony with Russia. Although they do not wish to join Russia, neither do they wish to be forced to forsake Russian culture in order to be considered loyal Ukrainians. As a rule, people in these regions do not accept the idea that there is any civilizational choice to make, but if forced to choose between a Ukraine in NATO or the EU, and a Ukraine in alliance with Russia, they tend to prefer Russia by a wide margin.2
The second crisis, which has been superimposed onto the first, is the crisis in Russian relations with the West. It also has deep historical and cultural roots.3
These two crises came together with explosive impact when President Yanukovych was ousted from office on Feb 22, 2014. Many residents of western and central Ukraine refer to these events as a "revolution of dignity," while many in the east and south regard it as a coup d'état.
The United States and many Western European nations immediately recognized Yanukovych's ouster as legitimate, whereas Russia did not. Thanks to this split, the divergent narratives of Ukrainian identity became an integral part of the ongoing conflict between Russia and the West, transforming the domestic struggle over the legitimacy of the new Ukrainian government into a proxy war (some scholars even refer to it as "the New Cold War") over Ukraine's proper allegiance and role in world affairs.4
This crisis can only be resolved if all parties involved, both domestic and foreign, uncouple the domestic crisis from the international crisis. Only then will it be possible to replace divisive nationalism with a unifying civic culture that encompasses both the Russian and Ukrainian speaking communities, which is the sine qua non for long term social and political stability in Ukraine.
Is Ukraine "Cleft" or "Torn?"5
Mutually exclusive nationalist rhetoric currently dominates political discourse within and about Ukraine, fulfilling a scenario discussed by the late Samuel P. Huntington two decades ago. At that time, Huntington highlighted Ukraine as an example of a "cleft country," and within Ukraine he even singled out Crimea as a region of particular contention.6
At first glance, everything that has happened in Ukraine since 2013 seems to confirm Huntington's thesis that clashes within cleft countries are the result of being "territorially bestride the fault lines between civilizations."7
The situation is not much different in what Huntington calls "torn countries." The key distinction here is that, while people in cleft countries disagree about who they are, people in torn countries agree on who they are, but disagree with their elites about which civilization they should belong to. Conflict within torn countries is therefore typically driven by elites who wish to shift their country's identity from one civilization to another.
Cleft countries often resolve their conflict by separation, whereas torn countries strive to preserve national unity at all costs. For a torn country to succeed in shifting identity, Huntington says, three things are needed. First, the political and economic elite of the country must be "enthusiastic" about this move. Second, the public must acquiesce to the redefinition of its identity. Third, elites within the host civilization must be willing to accept the new convert. To date, says Huntington writing in 2007, there have been no successful examples of such a shift.8
Sociological surveys, voting patterns, and regionally distinctive religious preferences all point to Ukraine being a rather typical cleft country, but for reasons having to do with nationalism, nostalgia, and a fear of reliving the trauma of the breakup of the USSR, Ukraine's national elites also have a pronounced aversion to separating along ethno-linguistic lines.9
As Oles Buzina, a Ukrainian writer recently murdered in Kiev once wrote: "Our debates are not between the government and her Majesty's opposition, not between two schools of a respected science, but between two different countries. As if a contemporary evolutionary biologist could have a discussion with an inquisitor from the Middle Ages. . . At best they will simply choose to ignore each other. At worst, one of them will smash the other's skull without, by the way, having proved anything to his opponent."10
In order to preserve national unity while maintaining their often contradictory regional narratives about Ukrainian identity, they have alternated the presidency, thereby preventing the consolidation of one narrative at the expense of the other. The resulting political gridlock was Ukraine's way of avoiding civil war, which many believed would erupt if one side were to dominate and turn its definition of Ukrainian identity into a test of civic loyalty.
The violent ouster of the Yanukovych government ended this delicate balance, and the civil war came. Following Huntington's logic, the conflict in Ukraine can now have one of only two possible outcomes. The first is the separation of Ukraine into two territories corresponding to their predominant cultural identity. The second is the subjugation of one cultural identity by the other.
Neither of these, however, is likely to succeed because both parts of Ukraine claim to speak for the whole. Thus, even if the rebellious Donbass were to achieve independence, its current leaders would strive for a united Ukraine that is far closer to Russia than many western Ukrainians are comfortable with.11 Meanwhile, the government in Kiev is so intent on severing all ties between Ukraine and Russia that it is, quite literally, building a wall to keep the two countries apart.
The second possible outcome would involve the victory of one regional elite over the other and the imposition of its narrative on the recalcitrant portion of the population. Even in the event of complete military victory by Kiev over the rebels in Donbass, however, this option is unlikely to lead to political stability.
First, because of the breadth of local support demonstrated by the resistance, which even local Ukrainian officials now acknowledge.12 Moreover, polls taken over the past year show that local attitudes against re-integration into Ukraine have hardened as the death toll and damages have risen.13
Second, such a victory would most likely result in underground resistance to the imposition of the Galician Ukrainian narrative. Kiev would have to respond by replacing most of the current political and economic elite, and imposing its will through military occupation.14 Such institutionalized subjugation of the local population is likely to spawn a permanent subculture of resentment.
The practical difficulties of dividing Ukraine, or imposing a single identity, serve to underscore a key point-Ukraine owes its current identity to both Europe and Russia. Asking it to choose between them is therefore asking it to deny part of its heritage.
On the other hand, the fact that these two populations, which are roughly comparable in size, managed to avoid civil war for the past quarter of a century suggests that they complement each other in important ways. This suggests that social peace lies in identifying ways that reinforce that complementarity, such as fostering a civic culture that respects Ukraine's bicultural identity. While promoting an inclusive Ukrainian civic culture might seem fanciful today, given the ongoing war, it is the only alternative to separation or suppression.
In keeping with the need to address both the internal and international aspects of this conflict, I see two core components to such an alternative. The first involves promoting a civic culture through constitutional reform. The second-treating economic recovery as an opportunity to transform Ukraine from an international source of contention into a joint international project.
Part I: Promoting a Civic Culture through Constitutional Reform
Conflating cultural identity with citizenship is almost always a recipe for disaster. It inevitably alienates minorities and undermines the very national unity being sought. A better alternative is to make cultural pluralism serve the security interests of the nation.
The value of "cultural security" has long been touted by international relations theorists of the Copenhagen School.15 Whereas traditional realism treats minority concerns as a challenge to state authority, the Copenhagen School argues that in today's global environment it is no longer possible to reduce security to the nation-state level. Additional security challenges arise from the existence of both subnational and metanational identities.
Traditionally the security of the state has been bought at the expense of minorities, but the Copenhagen School argues that states are better off if they anticipate the needs of their minorities before they can be undermined by them. As Barry Buzan and Ole Waever put it, security theory must "leave room for a concept of politics detached from the state, and for circumstances in which identity politics [is] about maintaining difference rather than finding a collective image."16
Ukraine's security is threatened not just externally, but also by the ongoing conflict over identity-both at the subnational level, where cohesion and loyalty are essential for a society's survival, and at the national level, where security threats have arisen because of divided cultural loyalties. The solution lies in encouraging the formation of overlapping identities that do not necessarily coincide with the boundaries of nation-states. This can be done by promoting an inclusive Ukrainian civic culture.
In their classic study, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, political scientists Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba describe a civic culture as the result of the proper mixture of three disparate components that are always present in the general political culture-parochial, subject, and participant.
Counterintuitively, they find that stable democracy does not result from having homogeneous political or cultural attitudes, but from society's ability to develop institutions that not only manage these conflicting elements within a culture, but also preserve a balance among them.17 A society that tries to isolate or diminish the political influence of its parochial (minority) cultural or religious communities is therefore not only undermining human rights, but also undermining its prospects for stable democracy.
Despite all its flaws, the Minsk Accords recognize this basic liberal truth by calling for the diversity of religions, languages, and cultures within Ukraine to be enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution.18 While disagreement still rages on how much local self-government should be granted to regions, both sides have agreed that constitutional reform must be based on the principle of what President Poroshenko calls "deep decentralization." Moreover, by signing the latest accords, most of which they proposed, Donbass rebel leaders have officially acknowledged that if meaningful local autonomy were constitutionally enshrined, it would suffice to assuage their concerns regarding the preservation of the Russian language and the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).19
Many observers doubt that this will be enough to preserve Ukraine's territorial integrity. Some have suggested that Ukraine look at the border regions of Alsace/Elsass or Alto Adige/Sued Tirol, where special privileges have been established for the local population. The divisions within Ukraine, however, are even more complicated. We are talking not just about border regions, but large swaths of the country, including most Ukrainian cities, higher educational institutions, and cultural venues, where the Russian language predominates in daily use.20
Ukrainian legislation, adopted with great difficulty in 2012, already permits some regional bilingualism, similar to the Spanish policy of "territorial bilingualism." In Spain, while Spanish is the national language, other languages are recognized as official in the regions where they are spoken, and regional governments are allowed to determine the status of those languages and adjudicate disputes. However, its critics say that the policy has resulted in regional languages becoming the vehicle for nationalists who argue that their linguistic rights, while guaranteed regionally, are slighted elsewhere in the country. Such nationalists then make the case that their full cultural identity can only be realized through a separation from Spain.21 Precisely the same argument has been made by nationalists in Ukraine.
A better model for developing linguistic harmony might be Canada, where English overshadows French culture in a manner very similar to the way Russian does in Ukraine. In Canada, regional language laws are applied asymmetrically. Most provinces are officially English speaking, but provide some services in French; the province of Quebec is officially French speaking, but provides some services in English; just two provinces are officially bilingual. Official bilingualism at the national level, however, guarantees everyone equal access to key federal services wherever they may live, and is widely credited for having preserved national unity.
A constitutional reform that addresses the language issue in a way that will guarantee equal rights for all Ukrainians, regardless of where they reside, would thus seem to be the best way to foster both unity and equality. Ideally, it should include a statement about the cultural rights of all citizens that, while guaranteeing an individual's right to his or her cultural, linguistic, or religious heritage, would avoid linking these with citizenship or national identity.
In sum, when proposing constitutional reforms it is important to keep two points in mind. First, security and cultural identity are inextricably connected. It is therefore no coincidence that decentralization, language, and religion have been driving forces in this rebellion.
Second, the views of the parties have become so polarized during this conflict that no agreement will ever fully satisfy their mutually exclusive visions of Ukrainian identity. The better option is therefore replacing the current emphasis on building a distinctive Ukrainian cultural identity with an emphasis on building an inclusive Ukrainian civic identity.
Such an approach should satisfy the key external parties as well. The stated objective of Russian policy in Ukraine is to safeguard the rights of Russian-speaking citizens. Although Russia would prefer a federal solution, by signing the latest protocols adopted in Minks on February 12, 2015, it has accepted "deep decentralization" as sufficient, provided that the regions directly affected have a voice in the constitutional reform process.
In theory, this approach should also be supported by the EU, which has always placed special emphasis on minority rights.22 As then president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, stated in the programmatic speech that led to the creation of the European Neighborhood Policy:
"The Union makes borders less meaningful, so being a minority within a single Member State is less of a problem. In our Union, everyone is-in a sense-in a minority. And in our Union, no state can lord it over the others. Fundamentally, no religious, ethnic, cultural or other component must be able to dictate to others, but all must have equal dignity. That is why I call our Union a 'Union of minorities'."23
The key external actors therefore have good reason to apply their full efforts to achieving a constitutional accord that focuses not just on the narrow issue of regional autonomy, but also provides a comprehensive settlement of the cultural issues that have for too long been the "third rail" of Ukrainian politics.
Part II: Making Ukraine's Economic Recovery an International Project
Even if a constitutional settlement is achieved, however, Ukraine will remain a source of global conflict between the West and Russia, as it already was before the onset of the current crisis.24 The current crisis has only intensified the existing conflict, with many Western officials now echoing the sentiments of Ukrainian politicians who place Ukraine at the center of a twilight struggle with Russia for the salvation of Western civilization.25
Any long-term solution must therefore also channel relations between Russia and the West into a new and more constructive pattern. A good way to do this would be to make Russia an integral part of the West's overall strategy for Ukraine's political and economic survival.
It must first be acknowledged that Ukraine's economic survival depends not on Western bailouts, but on renewing Russian investments there. This point was reinforced recently by a World Bank report that projected deep cuts in Ukraine's GDP in 2015 because of the deterioration in its trade relations with Russia.26
In fact, in the current context Russian economic investment and support has become more vital to Ukraine. As one recent study notes, despite temporary tariff preferences introduced last year to encourage Ukrainian exports to the EU, many regions of Ukraine are now more dependent on Russia than they were a year ago.27 And as the Ukrainian economy continues to shrink, more and more families find themselves relying on remittances from migrant workers, the majority of whom still find work in Russia.28
The Ukrainian government has responded by severing even economically sensible ties with Russia, thereby damaging the country's economic recovery, and further alienating the population in the more industrialized regions of the country.29 Western governments should follow the lead of the IMF and the World Bank, and insist that economic rationality take precedence over economic nationalism. Simply put, this means publicly recognizing Russia's enduring importance to the Ukrainian economy.30
Since stabilizing the Ukrainian economy is a task that Western financial institutions cannot afford on their own, securing Russia's assistance offers a rare opportunity for practical cooperation.31 Since the collapse of Ukraine is something that both Russia and the West say they are eager to avoid, it makes eminent sense to forge a clear program for the economic recovery of Ukraine that Russia and the West can implement together.
By demonstrating political maturity, overcoming the Ukrainian government's ideological resistance to Russian investment in Ukraine would also go a long way toward restoring international investor confidence in the country. In the long term it might even lay the foundation for transforming the current Eastern Partnership program from its current confrontational "two against one" stance, into a trilateral EU-Russia-Ukraine partnership. This would be consistent with the long-term strategic objective of reducing tariff barriers between with European Union and the Eurasian Union, which was proposed by Russian president Putin in 2010, and recently revived by German Chancellor Merkel.32
Conversely, if Ukraine's markets with Russia are not preserved, warns pro-Maidan political analyst Vadim Karasyov, Ukraine could simply lose its industrial base, which is heavily dependent on the Russian market. "A one-time great industrial power," he writes, would then "end up joining Europe as an agricultural country."33
Conclusion: Bringing Ukraine Back into Focus
All of the above of course presumes that the parties in the conflict actually wish to work out a mutually acceptable compromise. While the latest protocols to the Minsk Accords suggest that such a willingness exists on paper, it is still not clear if there is in fact sufficient political support to implement them.
The Ukrainian parliament, for example, has recently passed legislation that calls into question its willingness to countenance true autonomy, which is a sine qua non for Donbass. For its part, some Donbass leaders continue to argue for a campaign to liberate Kiev and thus expand the civil war.
Another troubling trend is the persistent desire to write one's political opponents out of Ukrainian history.34 As Ukrainian historian Egor Stadnyi points out, such efforts to legislate the "correct" interpretation of history have more in common with the Soviet era than with contemporary Europe.35
This brings us to the core impediment to resolving the crisis-the absence of a true dialogue among Ukrainians. Such a dialogue is absolutely essential if Ukraine is to develop a unifying civic culture that encompasses both its Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking communities.
While many useful institutional and constitutional reforms can be proposed, none of this will matter if Ukrainian elites persist in trying to promote national unity by imposing highly divisive national symbols, rallying around an "eternal enemy" (Russia), and insisting on a new national identity as a litmus test of loyalty.36 This can only lead Ukraine back to the two options envisioned by Huntington: separation or suppression.
The way out of this conundrum is to change the political discourse from one that focuses on the differences between Eastern and Western Ukraine, into one that highlights what they have in common.
To accomplish this, however, important constituencies in Western Ukraine will have to give up their dream of a Ukraine that is Russia's perennial nemesis, just as their counterparts in Eastern Ukraine will have to give up their dream of Ukraine someday re-forging a common state with Russia. But, while acknowledging, as the former president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma wrote in his famous 2003 book, that "Ukraine is not Russia," it would be foolhardy to ignore that it has profound religious, cultural, and historical ties with Russia.
Given Russia's nearly ubiquitous cultural presence in Ukraine, building a Ukrainian national identity at the expense of Russian would be like trying to build Canadian identity around anti-Americanism and a refusal to speak English. Even if it could somehow be done, the social, psychological, and economic scars left by the process would last for generations.
In the long run, therefore, Ukraine will thrive only if its bicultural and bilingual identity is seen as a source of strength, rather than as a weakness to be eradicated. External actors who seek to promote a viable and sovereign Ukraine should therefore do everything in their power to promote a political settlement on principles of mutual cultural respect, since this is the best hope for preserving Ukrainian statehood.
Unfortunately, there are many in West who believe that acknowledging even the legitimate grievances of Eastern Ukrainians is somehow tantamount to "rewarding Russia." They have lost sight of what is in the best interests of Ukraine, because their focus is on Russia. Western analysts can bring Ukraine back into focus by doing four things:
First, stop talking about Ukrainian identity as if it were a monolithic concept, rather than two closely related, but distinct, cultural heritages.
Second, oppose attempts to ignore or minimize the importance of the Russian cultural component of Ukrainian national identity. Historically such efforts have always resulted in bloodshed.
Third, stop trying to force Ukrainians to choose between Europe and Russia. Instead, adopt a broader view of European identity that accepts both Russia and Ukraine as quintessential parts of Europe.
Finally, recognize that all actors share a common interest in resolving this crisis through a direct dialogue of the conflicting parties. Tension between Russia and the West merely allows domestic actors to lobby external patrons for support, and avoid the direct negotiations that must precede any peace settlement.
"The cold peace was always pregnant with conflict," Richard Sakwa writes, "and it has now given birth."37 Likewise, however, a resolution of the current conflict in Ukraine also contains the potential for resolving the broader geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West. All that remains to be seen is whether current political leaders are any better than their predecessors at recognizing this potential, and at preventing another division of Europe.
NOTES
1 Richard Sakwa, "Back to the Wall: Myths and Mistakes that Made the Ukraine Crisis, Russian Politics, vol. 1, no.1 (January 2016), forthcoming.
2 Nicolai N. Petro, "The Real War in Ukraine: The Battle over Ukrainian Identity," The National Interest, December 4, 2014. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-real-war-ukraine-the-battle-over-ukrainian-identity-11782.
3 David S. Foglesong, The American Mission and the "Evil Empire." New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Martin Malia, Russia under Western Eyes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999
4 Robert Legvold, "Why the new Cold War matters," CNN, January 15, 2015. http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/15/news/economy/davos-cold-war-opinion/; Stephen Cohen, "The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy," The Nation, August 12, 2014. http://www.thenation.com/article/180942/new-cold-war-and-necessity-patriotic-heresy#.
5 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, Simon and Schuster, 2007 p. 138.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid, p. 137.
8 Ibid, p. 139.
9 Roger Annis, "Most Ukrainians want a negotiated settlement to the war in eastern Ukraine," Rabble.ca, May 4, 2015. http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/roger-annis/2015/05/most-ukrainians-want-negotiated-settlement-to-war-eastern-ukraine.
10 Oles Buzina, Ukraina-ne Galichina (part 3), September 28. 2010. http://from-ua.com/voice/0cc62ac1c167b.html
11 This does not appear to be true for Crimea, which is the only region of Ukraine where a majority of the population identifies itself as ethnically Russian. Konstantin Kosaretsky, "German sociologists on Crimea's choice," Oriental Review, February 10, 2015. http://orientalreview.org/2015/02/10/german-sociologists-on-crimeas-choice/.
12 Donbass leaders appointed by Kiev, like Sergei Taruta and Alexander Kikhtenko, concede that the rebels enjoy significant local support. Sergei Taruta, "Esli my ostavim v Donbasse vyzhzhennuyu zemnlyu, to vete unichtozhit vsyu Ukrainu," Zerkalo nedeli, April 29, 2015. http://gazeta.zn.ua/internal/sergey-taruta-dazhe-esli-shahterov-segodnya-ispolzuyut-eto-ne-isklyuchaet-ih-realnyh-problem-nuzhen-dialog-a-ne-ultimatumy-_.html; and "Situatsiya v Donbasse," Analitik, February 12, 2015. http://www.analitik.org.ua/current-omment/int/54d9fa99d6369/. Ukrainian military officials regularly estimate the percentage of local fighters among the rebels at between 75 percent and 80 percent. "Turchinov dolozhil Verkhovnoi rade o 'rossiiskikh voiskakh' v Donbasse," Regnum, January 15, 2015. http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/1884696.html; "V Minoborony ob'yasnili slova Muzhenko," BigMir, January 30, 2015. http://news.bigmir.net/ukraine/874055-V-Minoborony-ob-jasnili-slova-Muzhenko-o-tom--chto-Ukraina-ne-vojuet-s-armiej-RF; "Ukraine military says almost 9,000 Russian troops in country's east," 5 Kanal TV (Kyiv), May 14, 2015. Both Richard Sakwa and Canadian historian and former military intelligence analyst Paul Robinson, however, put the percentage of local fighters among the rebels at closer to 90 percent. Nick Miller, "Russia expert warns Western powers 'are in the logic of 1914' on Putin, Ukraine," Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2015. http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-expert-warns-western-powers-are-in-the-logic-of-1914-on-putin-ukraine-20150306-13wzq0.html. Halyna Mokrushyna, "A Very Difficult Task of Reconciling Donbas and Euromaidan Ukraine," Truth-Out, December 18, 2014. http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/28067-a-very-difficult-task-of-reconciling-donbas-and-euromaidan-ukraine-an-academic-viewpoint#.
13 Nicolai N. Petro, "Understanding the Other Ukraine: Identity and Allegiance in Russophone Ukraine," E-IR.info, March 13, 2105. http://www.e-ir.info/2015/03/13/understanding-the-other-ukraine-identity-and-allegiance-in-russophone-ukraine/.
14 The Parliamentary accords signed on November 21, 2014 contain, as a key provision, the military redistricting of the country to ensure "a permanent military presence in the East." "Opublikovan tekst koalitsionnogo soglasheniya," Vesti Ukrainy, November 21, 2014. http://vesti-ukr.com/strana/78557-opublikovan-tekst-koalicionnogo-soglashenija.
15 Nicolai N. Petro, "The Cultural Basis of European Security: Analysis and Implication for Ukraine" Sotsialna ekonomika, No.1 (2009), pp. 35-41. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1954831.
16 Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, "Slippery? Contradictory? Sociologically untenable? The Copenhagen school replies," Review of International Studies (1997), vol. 23, p. 248.
17 Harry Eckstein, "Social Science As Cultural Science, Rational Choice As Metaphysics," in Culture Matters: Essays in Honor of Aaron Wildavsky, eds. Richard J. Ellis and Michael Thompson (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 30-31.
18 "Minsk agreement on Ukraine crisis," The Telegraph (UK), February 12, 2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11408266/Minsk-agreement-on-Ukraine-crisis-text-in-full.html.
19 Nicolai N. Petro, "Ukraine or the Rebels: Who Won in Minsk?," The National Interest, February 13, 2015. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/ukraine-or-the-rebels-who-won-minsk-12247.
20 Nicolai Petro, "Ukraine's Ongoing Struggle with its Russian Identity, World Politics Review, May 6, 2014. https://www.academia.edu/11573468/Ukraine_s_Ongoing_Struggle_with_its_Russian_Identity.
21 Mercé Villarubias, "Un nuevo actor lingüístico en España," El Pais, Apirl 20, 2015. http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/20/opinion/1429555677_470139.html.
22 Daria Chernyshova, "Ukraine Decentralization Key to Peace Process - Council of Europe Chief," Sputnik, April 21, 2015. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150421/1021183646.html.
23 "President Prodi's Speech on 'Europe and peace' at the University of Ulster," , April 1, 2004. http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_3372_en.htm.
24 See Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Premature Partnership," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Mar.-Apr., 1994). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1994-03-01/premature-partnership; Nicolai Petro, "Reversing Field: A Ukraine-Russia Relationship America Can Support," The American Interest, vol. 6, No. 2 (November-December 2010), pp. 37-42. http://www.the-american-interest.com/2010/11/01/reversing-field/.
25 Fred Weir, "Walled off: In non-rebel eastern Ukraine, frustrations with Kiev mount," Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 2015. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0422/Walled-off-In-non-rebel-eastern-Ukraine-frustrations-with-Kiev-mount; John Herbst at al., "The Ukraine Crisis: Withstand and Deter Russian Aggression," The Atlantic Council, February 5, 2015. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/transcripts/the-ukraine-crisis-withstand-and-deter-russian-aggression.
26 Szu Ping Chan, "Ukraine's conflict with Russia leaves economy in ruins," The Daily Telegraph (UK) April 29, 2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11570683/Ukraines-conflict-with-Russia-leaves-economy-in-ruins.html.
27 "Vneshnaya torgovlya ukrainskykh regionov," Evropeiskaya pravda, December 17, 2014. http://www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/articles/2014/12/17/7028821/.
28 "Iz kakikh stran ukraintsy poluchayut dengi," Vesti Ukrainy, April 1, 2015. http://vesti-ukr.com/infografika/94626-iz-kakih-stran-ukraincy-poluchajut-dengi.
29 Taruta, "Esli my ostavim v Donbasse vyzhzhennuyu zemnlyu," Zerkalo nedeli, April 29, 2015.
30 Ed Adamczyk, "Ukraine economy would have collapsed without Russian aid, IMF chief says," UPI, April 4, 2014. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/04/04/Ukraine-economy-would-have-collapsed-without-Russian-aid-IMF-chief-says/2821396632040/.
31 "Ukraine's Economy Needs Russia," Stratfor, Feb 18, 2015. https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/ukraines-economy-needs-russia
32 "'From Lisbon to Vladivostok': Putin Envisions a Russia-EU Free Trade Zone," Spiegel, November 25, 2010. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html; Justin Huggler, "Ukraine crisis: Angela Merkel 'offers Russia free trade deal for peace," The Telegraph, January 23, 2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11365674/Ukraine-crisis-Angela-Merkel-offers-Russia-free-trade-deal-for-peace.html.
33 Weir, "Walled off," Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 2015.
34 Fred Brendle, "In Western Ukraine the Holocaust Has Been Erased from History," Russia Insider, December 26, 2014. http://russia-insider.com/en/2014/12/22/2112; Andrew Kramer, "Ukraine Separatists Rewrite History of 1930s Famine," New York Times, April 29, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/world/europe/ukraine-separatists-rewrite-history-of-1930s-famine.html?_r=0.
35 Egor Stadnyi, "Chto nam ne skazali o dekommunizatsii?" Ukrainska pravda, April 20, 2015. http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/columns/2015/04/20/7065289/.
36 Halyna Coynash, "'Decommunization Laws:' Deeply Divisize and Destined for Strasboug," Krytyka, May 2015. http://krytyka.com/en/solutions/opinions/decommunization-laws-deeply-divisive-and-destined-strasbourg.
37 Sakwa, "Back to the Wall," Russian Politics, forthcoming.
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#2
Russian Foreign Ministry
www.mid.ru
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Moscow. August 17, 2015. (excerpt re Ukraine)
Comments on Ukraine
Question: Half a year has passed since the signing of the Minsk agreements. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently described the situation as "explosive". Do you think it is necessary to hold a new summit in the Normandy format? There are appeals for an emergency meeting of Kiev's representatives with those of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics. Is this possible?
Sergey Lavrov: Indeed, we are concerned regarding the implementation of the February 12 Minsk agreements. I regularly discuss this issue with my colleagues. Literally the other day, I spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. We informed Paris about our assessments - on par with Germany and Russia, France is a kind of guarantor of the Minsk accords.
The situation at the frontline rather than the line of contact is disturbing. Talks on demilitarizing Shyrokyne and withdrawing we! apons with a calibre under 100 mm to a distance of 15 km on each side were held for a long time in response to the appeals of the Normandy Four, but no agreement was reached because Kiev continuously changed its position. As you know, the self-defence fighters followed with unilateral steps - they left Shyrokyne and withdrew weapons from it to a distance of three km. We hoped that the Ukrainian armed forces would welcome this goodwill gesture, but this did not happen. Ukrainian regular troops entered Shyrokyne to replace the fighters from the so-called voluntary Azov battalion. There are reports about the arrival of sea soldiers there, which also suggests certain conclusions. The agreement on the withdrawal of troops that was about to be made was not signed at the Contact Group meeting because Ukraine changed its position at the last moment and relinquished preliminary accords. When asked what prompted this step, the Ukrainian representatives replied: "We endorsed something! here as it was but Kiev told us we did the wrong thing."
We are concerned about the developments over the past few days, which are very similar to military actions. This is what happened in August 2014 when the Ukrainian army received an order to attack. When the attack broke down, Ukraine agreed to talks and Minsk-1 was held. The same happened last January when another attempt was made to resolve the issue by force but it fell through. Ukraine again agreed to talks and Minsk-2 took place.
We think it is not worth staging experiments and pushing luck. The sides should simply fulfil what they agreed on in Minsk. I'm referring not only to the de-escalation of military tensions, but also to the start of the political process described in detail in the Minsk agreements.
Instead of constitutional amendments that would define the rights of the territories controlled by the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR that were formulated textually by the German and French leaders at the talks in Minsk on February 12, let me repeat that these ri! ghts should be sealed in the Constitution. So, instead of making the relevant amendments, they first adopt in the Fundamental Law some transitional provisions to the effect that sometime in the future some territories somewhere in Ukraine will receive a special status. Later on, this amorphous promise was transferred from transitional provisions to another section of the Constitution.
Kiev declares that it has complied with its commitments while US Vice President Joe Biden sends greetings to the Verkhovna Rada, praising Ukraine for resolving the decentralization issue. So, it was enough just to promise something in the vein of local self-government sometime in the future in some part of Ukraine.
Russia prepared a detailed unofficial document (about eight pages), analysing to which extent the actions of the Ukrainian authorities match the commitments, primarily political ones, assumed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko under the Minsk accords. We transferr! ed this document to the members of the Normandy Four, including Ukraine and the United States.
Is it necessary to use the Normandy format? Yes, I think it is, because after all of the Normandy Four supported the agreements signed on February 12 by the representatives of Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk with the participation of Russia and the OSCE. The Normandy Four, primarily, Germany and France, are responsible for the implementation of these agreements by the Ukrainian authorities. We will be prepared to hold meetings at an expert level to begin with to present two documents: the Minsk Package of Measures and the Verkhovna Rada-adopted constitutional amendments on the conducting of local elections in Donbass and the granting of a special status to its territories. A simple comparison of President Poroshenko's commitments and Kiev's deeds should be an amusing undertaking. We are ready to discuss this with those that guaranteed Ukraine's bona fide actions.
As for direct talks between Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk, this is the gist of all o! f the agreements concluded in Minsk and without this we will move nowhere. There is a Contact Group with four subgroups. All efforts to overcome the obstacles in the way of implementing the February 12 Package of Measures can only be held under the auspices of these subgroups. The Ukrainian side is continuously trying to either avoid such contacts or impose on others an approach according to which all issues should be resolved without Donetsk and Luhansk that should merely be faced with a fait accompli. All of this gives food for alarm.
I hope that the series of meetings of the Contact Group and its subgroups scheduled next week will overcome the trend of Kiev's renunciation of a direct dialogue. I also hope that we will help develop such a dialogue in cooperation with our partners in the Normandy format and our US colleagues who reassured us of their sincere desire to see the complete implementation of the Minsk-2 agreements.
Regrettably, for the time being, ! we are witnessing attempts by the Ukrainian leaders to escalate tensions with totally incredible, delirious statements. I will quote an excerpt from the Ukrainian president's recent interview with the newspaper Liberation. When asked about his opinion on Russia's policy, Mr Poroshenko replied: "Well, Putin wants all of Europe. Can Russia launch aggression against Finland? Yes, it can. And what about the Baltic countries? Of course. And what about the countries in the Black Sea basin? Yes. This is why Ukraine is fighting not only for its own sovereignty and integrity but also for the democracy, freedom and security of the entire European continent."
Obviously, a man who makes such unprovoked statements (he asks himself if President Putin is ready to attack all of Europe and he himself replies affirmatively) is sooner trying to support Russophobia in the West and artificially escalate tensions to divert attention from his inability to fulfil everything he has signed for.
We are concerned about the lack of negotiability regarding th! e current Ukrainian authorities. This is why we hope that the Normandy Four are bound to see all of these games and Russia's sincere efforts to ensure the implementation of the Minsk accords by all sides. We hope they understand the game that the Ukrainian leaders are trying to involve everyone in.
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#3
Militia identify location Kiev shelled Mariupol from
MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. The intelligence service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has identified the location of the artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, from where they shell Mariupol, spokesman for the DPR Defense Ministy Eduard Basurin told reporters on Wednesday.
"The intelligence service of the DPR militias has confirmed the location of the Ukrainian army's artillery west of the populated locality of Primorskoye [20 kilometers northeast of Mariupol on the line of demarcation], at the road junction from where they shell the city of Mariupol," Donetsk News Agency quotes him as saying.
"To carry out its provocations, the regime of [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko resorts to killing civilians, not only in Donbas but also in the territory controlled by it," Basurin said.
Earlier on Wednesday, DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko said that Mariupol was shelled from the Ukrainian positions near the frontline. He noted that the remaining military equipment of the Donetsk republic within the contact line in the south of the republic was not capable of reaching this area.
On Monday, the US State Department accused militiamen of making attacks in the north and east of Mariupol. The militia in turn blamed Kiev for the shellings.
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#4
Kiev forces violate ceasefire regime 22 times over last 24 hours - DPR defense ministry
MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. Ukrainian Armed Forces violated ceasefire regime 22 times over the last 24 hours, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) defense ministry said on Wednesday.
"The situation in the Donetsk People's Republic remains critical. Ukrainian forces continued to shell settlements of the republic despite the presence on our territory of Deputy Chief Monitor of OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] Special Monitoring Mission Alexander Hug," Donetsk News Agency quoted DPR defense ministry as saying. "Ukrainian forces violated ceasefire regime 22 times over the last 24 hours," the ministry added.
The Kiev forces shelled Petrovsky and Kuybyshevsky districts and airport in Donetsk, towns of Makeevka and Dokuchaevsk, and settlements of Yasnoye, Zhabichevo, Belaya Kamenko, Sakhanka and Spartak.
"Twelve artillery shells of 152 mm and 122m caliber were fired on the territory of the republic, along with 23 tank shells, 55 mines of 82mm and 120mm caliber, grenade launchers and small arms," the DPR defense ministry said.
Seven civilians were injured in shellings by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk's Petrovsky district, DPR defense ministry spokesman Eduard Basurin said.
Seventeen people were killed in shellings by Ukrainian forces over last week, and 45 more were injured, Basurin noted. "The total number of victims in bloody shellings over the last week is as follows - 17 civilians were killed, 45 people were injured," Donetsk News Agency quoted Basurin as saying.
Last week, DPR office of human rights ombudsperson said that almost 1,300 people have been killed in shellings by Ukraine forces in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) since the beginning of 2015.
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#5
Leaders of Germany, France should cause Ukraine to fulfill Minsk agreements - Purgin
MOSCOW. Aug 19 (Interfax) - The DPR is hoping that a possible meeting between the heads of the "Normandy four" countries will help form ways of coming out of the deadlock situation in Donbas in regards to the non-fulfillment by Kyiv of the Minsk agreements.
"What I was talking about earlier is now happening. The ball is now on the side of the 'Normandy group'. The guarantors of the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements should intervene because the situation has deadlocked. Any political solution to come out of the current deadlock made in the negotiations in the 'Normandy format' will have a positive effect on the situation in the region," Andrei Purgin, speaker of the DPR People's Council, told Interfax.
He assumed that the meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which precedes the negotiations between the heads of the "Normandy four" countries, may be aimed at intensifying Kyiv's actions to observe the Minsk agreements.
"I don't rule out that the leaders of France and Germany in this meeting intend to explain to Poroshenko the importance of observing the Minsk agreements for European security. Ukraine is now, unfortunately, not observing these agreements. There is a need for a political solution by the guarantor countries to cause Ukraine to implement the Minsk package of measures," he said.
Some media earlier reported, citing the German Cabinet of Ministers, that Germany does not rule out a meeting between the leaders of the "Normandy four" countries after the negotiations between Merkel, Hollande and Poroshenko in Berlin.
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#6
Christian Science Monitor
August 18, 2015
A return to war in Ukraine? Kiev, rebels trade accusations of buildup.
Both Ukraine's government and its rebel provinces have rebuilt their militaries, raising the stakes should the latest violence turn into all out combat.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent
MOSCOW - Fighting in eastern Ukraine throughout the summer has provided a daily litany of ceasefire violations. But the latest surge in fighting has moved beyond that. Now it appears that both sides are accusing the other of preparing to break out of the collapsing Minsk-II peace accord by launching a full-scale offensive.
And whether either or both sides are preparing to restart the conflict, it is a fight that neither Russia nor the West want to see.
The only part of the Minsk agreement that has worked to any degree is its imposition of a ceasefire and a pullback of heavy weapons from the line of contact, and even that appears to be unraveling. The deal's political prescriptions, which called for the gradual reintegration of the rebel statelets of Donetsk and Luhansk into Ukraine through local elections, along with gradual restoration of economic links, and the return of border control to Kiev by year's end, have failed to make it out of the starting gate.
Now, mutual recriminations between Kiev and Moscow are intensifying, as a decision whether or not to renew sanctions comes at the end of the year.
The US and European Union have made clear they will lift anti-Russia sanctions only if Minsk is "fully implemented." Moscow and Kiev continue to accuse each other of willfully sabotaging the deal.
"It's now one hundred percent clear that Minsk will not be implemented, and peoples' minds are turning to what happens when that becomes officially clear on Dec. 31," says Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs columnist with the liberal Moscow daily Kommersant. "Will the West ramp up sanctions, double down on attempts to isolate Russia, and deepen the cold war atmosphere? Or will there be a return to the bargaining table, maybe some kind of Minsk-III, that addresses all the flaws of the previous one? We do not know, and there seems to be no big appetite in Russia or the West for either of those paths."
Rebuilt and rearmed
Another possibility, increasingly mentioned amid the growing turmoil in eastern Ukraine, is a return to the battlefield by rebels or Kiev, in a bid to reset the options.
In the past year Ukrainian rebels, with Russian help, have built up their forces from a gaggle of ragtag irregulars to what even Kiev admits is probably now a modern, disciplined army of 40,000, suitable for a "midsized European state."
Ukraine's own army has been greatly strengthened through six waves of military "mobilization." It has received limited arms deliveries and significant training from the US, Canada and other Western nations, and could now be ready for a full assault on the rebel strongholds despite reports of widespread draft dodging, desertion, and public apathy.
On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged that Kiev is preparing for a final showdown. He said the current situation is like a year ago, when Ukrainian forces were decisively defeated by rebels - almost certainly backed by regular Russian forces - as they attempted to encircle the rebel capital of Donetsk.
"[In August 2014] Ukrainian military was commanded to advance, but the offensive died out and they Kiev agreed to negotiate. That was Minsk-I," Mr. Lavrov said, implying that any fresh offensive by Ukraine would meet a similar fate.
For its part, Kiev accuses Russia of massing 50,000 troops on its border in a bid to pressure Ukraine. In a Facebook posting, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko slammed Vladimir Putin for visiting Crimea on Monday, which Mr. Putin said was to "promote tourism."
Mr. Poroshenko also warned that Russian backing for east Ukraine rebels is "a challenge to the civilized world and the continuation of the scenario to fuel tensions."
'Not ready for genuine compromise'
Mr. Strokan suggests the moods in Kiev and Moscow mirror each other, and both believe time is on their side. In Kiev there is a feeling that, with the West behind them and sanctions hammering Russia's economy, Putin's days must be numbered. In Moscow there is a sense, bolstered by daily media stories of economic doom in Ukraine, that the Kiev government cannot survive for much longer.
"There's a certain amount of truth in both views, actually. Neither side can really afford a return to full-scale war right now. So they talk war instead," he says.
"But the basic problem remains. Minsk is not working, the clock is ticking, and neither side is prepared for genuine compromise. What is it going to be? Without a strong new diplomatic effort backed by the West and Russia to impose a political settlement, I'm afraid more war looks like the default setting."
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#7
Sputnik
August 19, 2015
Kiev Gathers Huge 65,000-Strong Army on Frontline Near Donetsk
With the Minsk ceasefire agreements formally still in force, the situation in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region remains extremely tense amid reports about Kiev's mass troop deployments in the area.
In violation of the Minsk ceasefire agreements, the Armed Forces of Ukraine has deployed heavy weapons and a large number of troops to the frontline in eastern Ukraine's Donbass region, Russian media outlets said.
The reports came amid intensified artillery shelling exchanges between the warring sides in the area, including near the city of Mariupol.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine has deployed a considerable number of men along the entire frontline, estimated to comprise of about 65,000 soldiers and officers of different subordination, level of training and motivation.
This number includes between 68 and 70 battalions, comprised of 26 battalion groups plus separate company units.
The Ukrainian army's General Staff finally shifted to the battalion group tactics, reshuffling various kinds of troops after defeat in Debaltsevo.
Given this development, the army's recent shelling of the village of Sartana on the outskirts of Mariupol can be seen as nothing more than an attempt to drill the interaction of these battalion groups.
Right now, several army brigades remain on the frontline, including the 24th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade and the 92nd Motorized Infantry Brigade, armed with eighteen Grad multiple launch rocket systems and self-propelled artillery platforms, as well as six tanks, ten armored personnel carriers, six howitzers, anti-aircraft guns, plus lots of small arms and anti-tank weapons.
The army's air assault troops are represented by the elite 80th brigade, which suffered heavy losses during fighting near Lugansk airport last year.
These troops also comprise the 122nd separate battalion and the 95th separate airmobile brigade and the 25th brigade, which is equipped with mothballed armored personnel carriers, including the BTR-70.
The battalion groups include a whole array of company units related to tank, artillery, marine and National Guard troops as well as special units of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry.
All of these brigades form a 65,000-strong army, which includes more than 400 tanks, about 2,400 armored vehicles, 132 Grad multiple launch rocket systems and over 800 guns and mortars.
The current situation is reminiscent of autumn 2014, which also saw heavy shelling between the conflicting parties and the massive deployment of troops near the frontline.
Compared to last year, however, the situation on the current frontline remains more stable despite a spate of hot spots in the area and the increasing accumulation of troops and heavy weapons there.
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#8
New York Times
August 19, 2015
Attacks, and Accusations, Escalate in Eastern Ukraine
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW - Fighting between government forces and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine has escalated sharply in recent days, with each side blaming the other for the violence.
At least nine people were killed in artillery strikes on Monday in villages and towns on both sides of a cease-fire line, and United States officials have said that one three-day period of fighting along the front last week was the most intense since a February cease-fire.
Neither side has openly renounced the cease-fire, but European monitors of the accord say both have been pulling heavy weapons out of storage sites and putting them to use.
The United States State Department blamed Russia and pro-Russian rebels for the uptick in violence. American officials have characterized the fighting as possibly a new attempt by Russia to destabilize the Ukrainian government.
"Russia and the separatists are launching these attacks, just as they escalated the conflict last August," the department's spokesman, John Kirby, told reporters in Washington. "Efforts by Russia and separatists to grab more territory will be met with further costs."
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday blamed Ukraine. After emerging from a dive in a miniature submarine in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed last year, Mr. Putin said that, "regrettably, we are now seeing this conflict escalation and the blame lies not with the Donbas militia but with the rival side."
Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said on Monday that the Ukrainian authorities had failed to carry out the political points of the February cease-fire, which he said called for Kiev to cede power to the two separatist regions.
The Ukrainians, he said, are "more concerned over how to keep alive Russophobia in the West and how to artificially whip up tension."
Before the latest escalation, four vehicles belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were burned outside the Park Inn hotel in Donetsk, limiting the group's ability to monitor rebel military actions.
Ivica Dacic, the foreign minister of Serbia, which holds the chairmanship of the O.S.C.E., issued a statement last week condemning the arsons and subsequent resumption of fighting, at the time focused around one village, Starohnativka, northeast of the strategic Ukrainian-controlled port of Mariupol.
Since then, skirmishes have become general along the length of the front, the European monitoring mission's statements suggest.
On Saturday, European monitors reported hearing 184 explosions in Donetsk that were consistent with mortar fire on the front that runs through the city's outlying northwestern districts. South of Donetsk, along a river that roughly defines the front line, monitors found fresh craters from howitzers and rocket artillery on both sides.
On the government side, monitors noted that the Ukrainian Army had removed eight Grad rocket-launching trucks from a holding area, where they had been taken to comply with the cease-fire.
The separatist news agency DAN reported that artillery fire killed three people in the town of Horlivka and two in Donetsk.
The Ukrainian Army reported that one soldier was killed in the fighting, and officials said that two people were killed overnight Monday from shelling in a Ukrainian-held village on the outskirts of Mariupol. A third resident of the village, a mother who had been caught in the open with her 10-year-old daughter while running for cover, died on Tuesday in a hospital.
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#9
Donbas starts delivering coal to Ukraine
KIEV, August 19. /TASS/. Donbas has started supplying anthracite coal to Ukraine by restored railroad.
"On August 16-18, DTEK company made first deliveries of anthracite coal [to Ukraine] via Nikitovka-Mayorskaya railroad passage. Eight-five wagons (5,900 tons) were delivered. Resuming traffic on this part of railroad which was destroyed in military actions in 2014, will allow to increase export of coal from the confrontation zone by around 300,000 tons per month. It is planned that at the first stage, the passage will be able to let through 3 pairs of trains per day, and later the number can be increased to 7 pairs of trains and more," the company's press service said.
The Nikitovka-Mayorskaya passage is the only operating station for delivering coal from Donbas to Kiev. DTEK press service added that 300 wagons of coal cannot be delivered to Kryvui Roh thermal power station through Yasinovataya-Skotovataya railroad passage. Traffic on this part of the railroad was suspended because of continuous shellings.
More than 2 million tons of coal are stored at warehouses in Donbas at the moment, DTEK said.
Restoring railroad infrastructure in DPR
At the beginning of August, chairperson of DPR people's committee on budget, finances and economic policy Marina Zheynova said that restoration of Nikitovka-Mayorsk part of the Donetsk railroad located near the contact line near Gorlovka will have a positive effect on the economic situation in DPR.
"To transport cargoes by trucks, it is necessary to go through many checkpoints. Also, the volume of cargoes transported by railroad is significantly bigger. These difficulties will be removed right away. Goods, both food and non-food, will start flowing, and passenger transport will be improved. This is a very good thing," Donetsk News Agency quoted Zheynova as saying.
Zheynova also expressed hope that Ukraine will take part in financing the demining and restoration of the aforementioned part of the railroad.
Contact Group's sub-group on economic issues discussed prospects of demining and restoring the Nikitovka-Mayorsk part of the Donetsk railroad at a meeting on August 3 in Minsk. OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Ukraine) Special Representative in Ukraine Martin Sajdik said that the schedule for demining and restoring railroad infrastructure will be developed soon. He added that all works will be carried out with participation of all sides, included the Donetsk railroad.
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#10
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
August 18, 2015
Meet pro-Kiev and pro-Russian battalions fighting in Ukraine
RD Explainer: Called by many a new type of war, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine has a number of volunteer groups fighting on both sides. Here's an overview of just the most important volunteer battalions in the conflict.
By Cameron Gordon Judge-Becker
Cameron Gordon Judge-Becker is a rising junior at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, where he studies political science and the Russian language. For the month of June, Cameron worked as Russia Direct's first summer intern, and will return to Russia in September 2015 to continue his Russian language studies at Novgorod State University
The war in Eastern Ukraine is a complicated and multi-faceted issue, receiving immense media attention but little analysis of the groups actually fighting the war. As the conflict has expanded and intensified, the chain of command on both sides has fragmented.
Forces of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk primarily consist of local volunteers, while pro-Kiev volunteer battalions fight alongside the Ukrainian army. In this explainer, Russia Direct analyzes the current command structures of the combatants of Donbas.
What should we call it: a conflict, a war, or an anti-terrorist operation?
The war in Eastern Ukraine has several names. Depending on one's point of view and political orientation, it can be called the war in Donbas, the war in Ukraine, or the war in Novorossiya. In Ukraine, it is called an anti-terrorist operation (ATO).
Where is the fighting?
The main conflict zone is concentrated in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, which encompasses the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, two areas with a dominant majority of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.
What started the war?
During the 2014 unrest in Ukraine following the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych, pro-Russian and anti-government protesters in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts demanded a status referendum akin to the one that took place in Crimea preceding its incorporation by Russia. The protests escalated into armed conflict in April of 2014.
Who are the "pro-Russian separatists?"
Combatants in the so-called Armed Forces of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (also called the "Novorossiyan Armed Forces") are typically labeled as pro-Russian separatists. This force is divided into the Donbas People's Militia and the Luhansk People's Militia, which together are comprised of several dozen groups of combatants.
What are the most significant separatist groups?
The Oplot Battalion was formed by Alexander Zakharchenko, who now serves as the prime minister of the self-declared Donbas People's Republic. It was one of the first rebel groups, and is currently commanded by Mikhail Tikhonov.
The Vostok Brigade was formed by Alexander Khodakovsky, who defected from the Ukrainian Security Forces. Khodakovsky admitted the rebels' possession of Buk surface-to-air missile launchers at the time of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 tragedy. The Vostok brigade is regarded as a special operations group with foreign troops in its ranks.
The Russian Orthodox Army has up to 4,000 soldiers and is motivated by a sense of "lost honor and glory" caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The group's on-site commander is Mikhail Veri, however Ukrainian officials have said that former Russian intelligence officer Igor Strelkov (whose real name is Igor Girkin) is the unit's "undisputed commander." Strelkov is currently the defense minister of the self-declared Donbas People's Republic.
Voshod Battalion was formed in June 2014 from around 300 volunteers. It provides assistance and security to those leaving the war zone. Its indirect commander is Valery Kaurov.
The Sparta and Somalia Battalions fought for and currently hold the strategically important Donetsk International Airport. Sparta's commander is Arceny Pavlov and Somalia Battalion's commander is Mikhail Tolstukh. They are known by the nicknames Motorola and Givi, respectively. Their troops are often seen wearing advanced body armor and utilizing sophisticated Russian weapons and vehicles.
The Army of the South East comprises the bulk of the forces fighting in the Luhansk oblast. Consisting of several thousand members, the army is made up of over one dozen small battalions. After the death of its first commander Alexey Mozgovoi, Sergei Ignatov has taken command of the group.
How many pro-Russian separatists are there?
The Russian government-owned TASS News Agency reported in July 2014 that around 20,000 volunteer soldiers are fighting for the separatist cause in the Donbas region.
Who are the pro-Kiev groups?
There are at least 50 Ukrainian pro-Kiev rebel groups, though their chain of command is more unified than their opponents, as the Ukrainian National Guard and Ministry of Internal Affairs have incorporated several militias into their own command structure.
What are the most important pro-Ukrainian groups?
Dnieper-1 was one of the first volunteer units in Ukraine, being founded in April of 2014. The battalion claims to have enlisted 5,000 men, and reports to Ukraine's Interior Ministry. Its commander, Yuri Bereza, is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament.
Praviy Sektor is a Ukrainian volunteer corps that is recognized as an extremist organization in Russia.The corps is led by Dmitry Yarosh, former leader of the far-right nationalist organization Trizub ("Trident"), who is now a parliament member. Praviy Sector does not report to any formal Ukrainian institution.
The Saint Mary Battalion is a volunteer militia with a radical Christian ideology. Its political officer, Vitaly Chornly, has described the group as a "Christian Taliban." The battalion reports to Ukraine's Interior Ministry and is commanded by Alexei Serdyuk. In June, the battalion gained media attention by capturing a Russian intelligence group. The total size of the battalion is approximately 100 people.
The Sich Battalion was formed in June 2014 by the Svoboda political party, a far-right nationalist group. The battalion numbers some 50 men, some of whom are Iraq war veterans. Battalion is not subject to the orders of Kiev officials
The Donbas Battalion was initially led by Semen Semenchenko, who now serves in the Ukrainian parliament. It is now headed by lieutenant colonel Vyacheslav Vlasenko. The battalion made headlines when it turned back humanitarian aid destined for the Donetsk oblast. The Battalion reports to the National Guard of the Interior Ministry. In January 2015, a section of this battalion became part of the Ministry of Defense.
The Azov Battalion originated from a paramilitary national socialist group called "Patriot of Ukraine," which propagated slogans of white supremacy, racial purity, the need for authoritarian power and a centralized national economy. Its soldiers have modern body armor and military vehicles, and were active in the battles of Mariupol, a coastal city 70 miles south of Donetsk. The far-right militia's commander is Ukrainian Parliament member Andrei Biletsky, who is also the head of the ultra-right neo-Nazi organizations "Social-National Assembly" and "Patriot of Ukraine." The Azov Battalion reports to the National Guard of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine.
What is happening in Donbas now?
Fighting in the region has continued despite the Minsk II summit involving the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, which attempted to facilitate a ceasefire. However, the intensity of the fighting decreased after Minsk II.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) continue to monitor the conflict zone and have reported artillery fire in the Donetsk Airport area. Momentum in the conflict has stagnated as both sides dig into positions and resort to trench warfare.
Since the beginning of June 2015, the situation has become more strained. Both sides condemn each other for ceasefire violations.
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#11 Russia Insider www.russia-insider.com August 19, 2015 New Aussie Film on Ukraine Civilian Bombings: a PR Disaster for The US / EU It was only a matter of time until this set off a political bomb By RI Staff [Video here http://russia-insider.com/en/new-aussie-film-ukraine-civilian-bombings-pr-disaster-us-eu/ri9276] One of the more extraordinary aspects of the Ukraine war has been the brutal war crimes committed against civilians, by and large exclusively by one side: Kiev. No less extraordinary has been the refusal of the western media to cover this story, thereby leaving most people in the West simply unaware of the extent of the horrors being perpetrated in their name, funded and cheered on by their leaders. Most of the politicians are as misled as the general populace because they also get their facts from the media. This situation has always struck us here at RI as a political time bomb waiting to go off, because the story is just too big, too ugly, too heart-breaking, and too widespread to be swept under the rug, and there are too many outlets happy to cover it - Russian state media for starters, but also the enormous alternative media. It was just waiting for the right voice and the right tragic personal story to relate, the Rosa Parks of Donbas. That voice might well be a young Australian amateur filmmaker named Chris Nolan who has been posting excellent short films to Youtube for over a year now, describing the Kiev revolution (Maidan), and the ensuing war. Nolan is a musician in a rock band in Brisbane who makes the films in his free time using footage he finds on the internet. In his latest film, he tells the story of Anna Tuv who has become a hero in the global anti-Kiev community and in Russia. Tuv lost her husband, two children, and her arm when her house was shelled. She is just one of thousands who suffered similar horrors. Her personal story has become a symbol of the insane criminality being pushed by Kiev, and indirectly by Obama, Merkel and Cameron. Watch the trailer, it is very well done. |
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Putin: Threat of external forces destabilizing situation in Crimea remains
SEVASTOPOL, August 19. /TASS/. Outside forces are training saboteurs for subversive activities in Crimea, and these risks should be taken into account, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at a security meeting in Crimea.
"It is evident that the threat on the part of external forces to destabilize in this or that way the situation on the peninsula remains: either to play a nationalistic card or, using these or those mistakes, blunders, inefficient actions of the authorities, to direct the citizens' just concern to a destructive alley," Putin said.
He said "some capital cities speak openly on this subject, speaking of the necessity to conduct subversive activities; relevant structures are being formed, personnel for acts of sabotage, radical propaganda is recruited and trained."
Putin said the actions evidently aim at "rocking the situation, hindering normal life of people, the social and economic development of the region."
"It's necessary to take into account all these risks and react in a proper way - for both federal and local power bodies," the president said. He noted that "nothing should be exaggerated or fomented, but it's necessary to keep everything in mind and be ready and react promptly."
The meeting on coordination of activities of law enforcement bodies of the Russian Federation and local authorities of the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol to ensure law and order on the peninsula was attended by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, presidential administration chief Sergey Ivanov, and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin, a number of government members and regional officials were also present.
Putin calls for strengthening border control to prevent drug trafficking and smuggling into Crimea
The president said it is necessary to strengthen the border control in Crimea to prevent drug trafficking and imports of illegal products.
"I ask you to take measures to increase the customs and other types of control at the checkpoints," he said. "We are talking about terminating drug trafficking and preventing imports of low-quality or illegal products into Crimea," the president said.
According to the president, greater attention should be paid to compliance with law during the transportation of passengers and cargo.
Putin suggested discussing at the meeting the issues pertaining to compliance with law and order on the peninsula and seeing how the federal and law enforcement agencies cooperate with the local authorities in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, "what additional decisions and measures are needed in this direction.".
Criminogenic situation in Crimea under control
Putin noted that the criminogenic situation in Crimea is under control.
"In general, the criminogenic situation on the peninsula is under control," Putin said stressing that this is the result of efforts made over the last 1.5 years on integrating Crimea into Russia's legal system and strengthening law enforcement agencies.
"Along with that, the current situation demands utmost concentration and attention from everybody, effective preventive work in several different spheres," the president added.
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#13
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 18, 2015
Russia must force Ukraine to peace
KM.ru
http://www.km.ru/world/2015/08/04/protivostoyanie-na-ukraine-2013-2015/762490-minskii-protsess-diplomatiya-bessilna
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski
In the interview with KM.RU political scientist, Director of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, member of the Public chamber of the Russian Federation, Valery Korovin noted that diplomatic efforts to resolve a conflict between Kiev and Novorossiya are almost exhausted:
In my view, the leadership of the DPR and LPR is simply compelled to conduct all of these clearly fruitless negotiations because Russia insists on it threatening to otherwise stop supporting these new and still unrecognized republics.
But negotiations with Ukraine cannot lead to any positive result due to the fact that there is no mechanism for forcing Kiev to fulfill their signed agreements, and this is beautifully demonstrated by the fate of the document conventionally referred to as "Minsk-2."
Only Russia and the USA can force Kiev to fulfill its commitments, but the latter remains the interested party and the sponsor of the coup in Ukraine and the ongoing civil war in the East. Accordingly, we cannot seriously consider them among the parties which will make Poroshenko to follow the agreements reached to the letter.
Thus there remains only Russia, which has two ways of forcing Ukraine to peace. The first is a peaceful method which Moscow is in fact implementing today by forcing the representatives of DPR and LPR to conduct negotiations. This course is based upon constant appeals to the UN, the OSCE, and international law in general. Meanwhile, Russia is seeking to exhaust all the possibilities for peace in Ukraine which are theoretically provided by international law.
Present negotiations in the framework of a contact group once again showed the inadequacy of this course. Therefore, logically, we come to the second option - forcing Kiev to peace by military means.
This can be a direct entry of Russian troops into the territory of DPR and LPR with the goal of preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and the introduction of a peacekeeping contingent from the CSTO countries. Also, we could talk about comprehensive military support to the army of Novorossiya by means of equipment and specialists.
All this, it's true, could have been done without the resistance of the "international community" in the spring-summer of last year but, alas, the window of opportunity has been missed.
Now, having exhausted all possibilities to agree on a resolution of the conflict "in an amicable way", facing the blatant incapacity of international law, and understanding the interest of the US in further fueling the conflict in Ukraine, we should decide on the option of coercing Ukraine to peace.
Either we decide, or we will suffer the most colossal defeat in our entire history...
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#14
Izvestia
August 11, 2015
Russian former leader of Ukraine rebels eyes scenarios for separatist regions
Oleh Tsaryov, former member of the Ukrainian parliament: Agreements are not for implementation
For more than a year Russia has at all levels been talking about a single and indivisible Ukraine (excluding Crimea). For a year now the word Novorossiya has not been used on federal TV channels. For more than a year Russia has been trying to convince the entire world that, not just in words, but also in practice, it favours a settlement of the conflict where the Donetsk Basin (Donbass) remains part of Ukraine.
A step-by-step plan, not just to end the military confrontation, but also to make it possible to find a political solution to the conflict, has been laid down in Minsk.
Not so long ago [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko reported at an internal meeting that he had read the Minsk agreements. Do not be surprised.
In the times of [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych, when the Association Agreement with the EU was signed, no one among the top officials, or even second-and third-tier officials, read it. We received the text from the Europeans and had it translated into Russian, but no government member I knew read it.
It is good that Poroshenko has read the agreement. It means that he will know that the transfer of control over the border in the DNR and LNR [Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics"] area to Ukraine will only happen at the very end.
It is supposed to happen not just after the end of the military confrontation and the implementation of the economic unblocking of the region - once pensions and wages start being paid and problems with the movement of people are resolved - but also after the entire list of items for a political settlement stipulated in the agreements has been implemented.
And this means that, first, elections are to be held in the DNR and LNR under a law specially passed by the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament], having first been agreed with the republics.
And second, changes to the Ukrainian Constitution - agreed in advance with the DNR and LNR - legalizing the special status of this region are to be introduced and approved by the Verkhovna Rada and signed by the president (if the procedure is followed, this will take between six months and one year).
The fact that Poroshenko has finally read the agreements does not mean that he will stop demanding that he should be given control over the border immediately. We can see that hysteria over the implementation of the agreement - it amounts to capitulation, which is unacceptable - is being whipped up in Ukrainian society.
We can see that the new judges of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court, elected by this government, have spoken against the changes concerning the special status of the republics that the Verkhovna Rada passed under pressure from [US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria] Nuland. All of this looks as if they are preparing the public for a situation where the changes to the constitution will not be approved. The time needed to agree the text [of the bill] on elections in the republics and then vote on it is running out fast.
At all recent talks in Minsk, the Ukrainian side, despite numerous reminders, has been studiously avoiding the subject of the election law. It can be assumed with a certain degree of probability that the law on elections in individual areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions will not be approved.
Let us imagine what will happen when the time to hold elections in the republics approaches while the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine still has not passed the election law. I think that Petro Poroshenko will request that the elections be postponed and will promise that the law will be approved.
How you think will the authorities of the republics and Russia behave?
The republics have held a referendum, formed supreme councils, and elected heads of the republics. In order to build a full power vertical in the republics, all that is lacking is properly held elections to local councils. The leadership of the republics has a growing understanding that it is no longer possible to remain in a state of limbo.
I think it is likely that no one will believe Poroshenko and the elections will be held under the laws of the republics. After that, it will be possible to consider the Minsk agreements dead and buried, and one step will remain before the republics are recognized.
Will Russia take it?
On the one hand, recognition of the republics by Russia can stop the military confrontation.
On the other hand, this step by Russia is all that those wishing to drastically ratchet up the sanctions against it are waiting for.
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that Russia could in the end decide not to recognize the republics. This would at least leave the door open for other possible negotiations, in other formats and on other terms. But Russia will not interfere with the republics building their independence de facto, without them being recognized de jure.
Furthermore, I think many people already realize that events may unfold according to the scenario I have described. In order to be able to exist autonomously, the republics will need to guarantee two basic attributes of statehood - the security of their citizens and the inviolability of their property.
They will also need to start registering their citizens by issuing them with some kind of identity documents or passports and to register property. After registration, registered enterprises should be barred from making payments into the Ukrainian budget. Something similar to an own national bank will need to be set up, with a facility to make payments at least to Russia. Enterprises in the republics should be given the opportunity to legally export their goods at least to Russia.
And international payments and exports to Russia can be easily made, for example, with the help of South Ossetia, which has already been recognized by Russia. Goods and money could go to South Ossetia just notionally, but after these manipulations they could be sent wherever necessary. Such a scheme would not allow complaints to be made against Russia anywhere, in any way.
Let me reiterate that I am merely considering possible scenarios. There are many outstanding issues that can still be discussed. If events unfold in this manner, sanctions are likely to be imposed on the republics. This may lead to the republics being unable to export their goods to many countries.
Let me remind you that oligarchs own many enterprises in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which are mainly involved in exports.
Even if there are no sanctions, which I highly doubt, what certificates of origin will exporters attach to agreements? What will happen to these companies if, as a result, their output decreases sharply? Will the republics nationalize these enterprises?
The future will answer these and other questions. I am not ruling out the possibility that because of the military escalation, caused by Ukraine's attempt to derail the forthcoming local elections, economic issues will be sidelined.
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#15
Sputnik
August 19, 2015
The 'Cheap EU Gas for Ukraine' Myth Debunked: Kiev Pays $75Mln More in Q2
Ukraine's national oil and gas company, Naftogas of Ukraine, has made public the cost at which it purchased gas through the reverse flow from Europe: as it turned out, there were no gains and the company actually lost $75 million through its so-called strategy of "diversification of its natural gas suppliers."
Ukraine's national oil and gas company has revealed the true cost at which it purchased the reverse gas from Europe in the second quarter of the year.
As it turned out, the average price of European gas without transportation was $267 per 1,000 of cubic meters and $275 - including transportation towards the national border.
Interestingly, Russia's Gazprom previously offered $247 for the same amount, but its proposal was rejected with a demand for a larger discount.
"The revealed data proves that Naftogaz of Ukraine has lost out from the purchase of the reverse gas from Europe," Yuri Korolchuk, Ukrainian expert of the Energy Strategies Institute, commented to Russia's Regnum new agency.
"With an average price at $275 the company purchased 2.68 billion cubic meters for a total of $737 million. At the same time Gazprom offered $247 per 1,000 cubic meters. So, the same amount of gas could have been purchased for $662 million," he is quoted as saying.
"Thus, in the second quarter of the year Naftogas lost $75 million (1.65 billion Ukrainian hryvnias). Is this a significant amount? With an expected deficit of 94 billion hryvnias ($4.24 billion) in 2015, this isn't much. But, on the other hand, it proves the saying "low overpays."
"The admittance of the overpay means dispelling the myth of cheaper reverse gas flow from the European Union," he added.
"Since 2012 Ukraine has had an opportunity to purchase cheaper European gas as opposed to what it deemed as more expensive Russian gas.
However the purchase of the European gas has become more of a political and, likely, a corrupt process, affecting the decisions to buy more expensive reverse gas. Thus the idea of reverse gas as an alternative to Russian gas can be discounted and could be seen as more of a "soap bubble", which can burst at any moment."
Overpaying for gas by $75 million in just the second quarter alone is a loss for Ukraine, he said. And the sale of more expensive gas by a national company in the national currency can by no means be called diversification.
On July 1, Ukraine suspended gas purchases from Russia's energy company Gazprom because the two countries were unable to reach an agreement covering the third quarter of 2015. At present, Ukraine receives reverse gas flows from Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has proposed lowering the minimum allowable temperature in dwellings with central heating to 16 degrees Celsius this winter, with the Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Health now tasked with reviewing existing norms, Ukrainian media have reported.
During the June 30 round of gas talks in Vienna, Kiev demanded a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic meters, which exceeded the Russian discount offer by $70.
Earlier in May, President Poroshenko vowed to pay $245 per thousand cubic meters for the gas it will get through reverse flow from Europe as the country wanted to diversify its natural gas supply away from Russia.
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#16
Ukraine fails to fall in with private creditors so far - media
KIEV, August 19. /TASS/. Ukraine's Finance Ministry continues talks with private creditors on the country's debt restructuring, Deputy Finance Minister Igor Umansky said on Wednesday.
"The head of Ukraine's Finance Ministry returned to the country on August 16. The talks are constantly on over the phone and on Skype," Umansky was quoted as saying by Ukrinform news agency.
The talks with creditors started on August 12 in California's San Mateo where Franklin Templeton is headquartered. Kiev was represented by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an American-born Ukrainian investment banker. On August 14, the sides said they had failed to reach an agreement and will continue negotiations.
The meeting followed 4 months of tough consultations. Ukraine wants 40% of its external debt to be written off, while its creditors are ready to cut it only by 10%.
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#17
Kyiv Post
August 19, 2015
Prospects of $15 billion in debt relief for Ukraine still too close to call
By Timothy Ash
Timothy Ash, a long-time analyst of Ukrainian political and economic life, works for Nomura International.
Editor's Note: Ukraine is currently negotiating with creditors to find $15 billion in debt relief by 2019.
I think I am probably closer to the Ukrainian situation than most people out there and I am finding the endgame in terms of deal/debt moratorium hard to call.
We seem to be on a knife edge, and it could still go either way.
One big positive and really refreshing thing in my mind is that there does not appear to be any leaks of information out of the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance - I think there have been concerns over this in the past (pre-EuroMaidan Revolution).
This time around there is isn't much in terms of the usual wink, wink and the whole thing is being undertaken in a pretty professional way. Some might dispute this, given market price action in recent weeks, as Ukraine 17s push up to 58 cents (pricing in a very favorable deal now for bondholders). That might just be a case of investors talking up their books.
This week seems to be decision day, either-way, so we will presumably find out, one way or another - guess there is a desire to make the decision before the Ukraine 21 coupon payment next week, and in time to manage scenarios relating to the Ukraine September 17s.
What seems clear now is that bondholders are negotiating very hard, and not being overly generous (from a Ukrainian perspective - I am sure they would say otherwise) - that's reflected in price action over recent weeks, as optimism has built over a bondholder friendly deal, hence the 18 cent rally in Ukraine 17s from the year lows in July.
The question for the Ministry of Finance is is this deal the best they can get in the circumstances, or could they get something better by moving to a moratorium, and playing for time. I guess also they have to figure out just how damaging a moratorium would be - I tend to think not as damaging as some might suggest. I guess weighing up the pros and cons of cutting a deal now:
(Cons) How does this a deal on the terms currently being mooted change anything? The 10-15 cents hair cut currently mentioned in the media is hardly generous, and seemingly does not really address underlying debt sustainability concerns. If this is delivered, the question will be still how exactly is Ukraine going to meet IMF targets in terms of the public sector debt/gross domestic product ratio? Concerns over debt sustainability could linger, undermining confidence, and we have seen in the past both with the International Monetary Fund/Stand-By Arrangement in 2014, and also with the Greek support package, that unless you address underlying problems at the outset, the risks are that they come back to haunt you. I guess if a deal is done, the MOF/IMF will focus on the other aspects including coupon reduction, and maturity extension, hence addressing liquidity issues. IMF shareholders might be concerned that this deal still raises concern over the sustainability of the EFF, and whether they are going to get paid - official/private sector tensions could play out there.
(Cons) How is the politics of this going to play domestically? With the IMF, et al, seemingly calling for a greater reduction in the stock of debt, to ensure debt sustainability, questions will be asked as to why Ukraine cut a deal so easily? Is there really so much downside for Ukraine from a debt moratorium - but rather does it just improve the negotiating position with little collateral damage. This could still play very poorly back at home - and especially given that Ukraine 15s - the Russian bail bond - is being rolled into this deal. Russia is going to be offered the same terms, not that they are likely to accept in almost any reasonable scenario. There are hence likely to be significant holdouts anyway - Russia might try calling a default in any event. But in dimes and nickels, 40 cents off the Russia 15s is USD1.2bn in face value reduction, 15 cents off is just USD450m in face value reduction, in theory paying Russia an additional USD750m than might have been the case. That is a big number, given the challenges facing Ukraine. That said, Russia might never be paid anyway, if it ends up being a holdout.
(Pros) "We are the good guys" - I think the MOF and the Ukrainian government are minded to be investor friendly - this is not an Argentina, where bondholders are still viewed as the enemy. There is hence a desire to cut a deal which creates positive market sentiment/momentum - some have argued a larger haircut actually creates a better base for future investment, as it improves Ukraine's ratios in a more meaningful way. This was evident in the Ukreximbank deals early in the year - many people argued that these actually undermined the sovereign's negotiating position as somewhat perversely holders of a sovereign quasi entities' debt got better terms than the sovereign. Perhaps the government wants to see some easy wins - to sell the line that they quickly cut a deal with bondholders (albeit the question still is is this a good deal for Ukraine) so as to move on and focus on other reform priorities. And therein there is lots to do.
(Pros) "A bird in the hand" - I guess there is probably a feeling that the deal now at least gives Ukraine some easing of the debt service burden, and taking this now, might be better than the prospect of perhaps something better in the future. In the interim, Ukraine could get into a long drawn out legal battle with bondholders, leaving a pall of uncertainty hanging over the credit.
(Pros) "The powers of persuasion" - no doubt large bondholders can be very persuasive on a MOF when one is locked in a room for an extended period of time. They can offer to support/or not future market access. Whether the sanction is meaningful at this point is debatable, given that Ukraine is not assumed to have market access until very late in the EFF. A lot can change there in terms of personnel on both sides of the negotiating table - a bird in the hand, the other way around.
As noted above, this could go either way now. It is binary. In terms of bond performance, a deal would see benchmark Ukraine 17s rally up through 60 (from 58) - a lot is already in the price, but there will be some temporary positive momentum associated with a deal. A moratorium would likely see prices drop back down to 40 cents, albeit this could still then create a new level for the sides to come back to the table later in the year, and to still cut a deal, but on terms more favourable to Ukraine. Looking at pricing it is pretty assymetrical at this point - if you bought at the lows, it might make sense to book profits. If you have firmer conviction as to how this will pan out - you're probably belted in for the ride anyway.
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#18 Facebook August 18, 2015 Ukraine and NATO By Ivan Katchanovski Ivan Katchanovski teaches at the School of Political Studies and the department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of "Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova" and the co-author of "Historical Dictionary of Ukraine, Second Edition. In another illustration of the Western media problematic coverage of Ukraine, Foreign Policy published another article misrepresenting political developments in Ukraine. This publication by a Ukrainian trade analyst is based on his incorrect and plainly incompetent analysis of the DIF/Razumkov Center poll data. His claims that Ukraine now loves NATO with 64% support accession of NATO membership in a hypothetical referendum and that "the drastic change in the public opinion has accelerated in the past several months" are flawed. In addition to excluding separatist-held Donbas and Russian-annexed Crimea, these poll results excluded those who said that they would not vote in such a referendum. While 77% of the respondents in Western Ukraine intended to vote in such a referendum, 42% in the South and a minority of the respondents in government-controlled Donbas, expressed similar intentions. This is another evidence of significant political alienation and reluctance to express anti-government opinion in the East and the South. The poll data show that while support for NATO membership increased since the "Euromaidan," significant regional divisions concerning this issue remain. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/13/surprise-ukraine-loves-nato/ |
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#19
Consortiumnews.com
August 17, 2015
Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17
By Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-years as a CIA analyst, he served as chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, and prepared and personally conducted early morning briefings of the President's Daily Brief. In January 2013, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Exclusive: Propaganda is the life-blood of life-destroying wars, and the U.S. government has reached new heights (or depths) in this art of perception management. A case in point is the media manipulation around last year's Malaysia Airlines shoot-down over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
During a recent interview, I was asked to express my conclusions about the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, prompting me to take another hard look at Official Washington's dubious claims - pointing the finger of blame at eastern Ukrainian rebels and Moscow - based on shaky evidence regarding who was responsible for this terrible tragedy.
Unlike serious professional investigative reporters, intelligence analysts often are required by policymakers to reach rapid judgments without the twin luxuries of enough time and conclusive evidence. Having spent almost 30 years in the business of intelligence analysis, I have faced that uncomfortable challenge more times than I wish to remember.
So, I know what it feels like to confront issues of considerable consequence like the shoot-down of MH-17 and the killing of 298 passengers and crew amid intense pressure to choreograph the judgments to the propagandistic music favored by senior officials who want the U.S. "enemy" - in this case, nuclear-armed Russia and its Western-demonized President Vladimir Putin - to somehow be responsible. In such situations, the easiest and safest (career-wise) move is to twirl your analysis to the preferred tune or at least sit this jig out.
But the trust-us-it-was-Putin marathon dance has now run for 13 months - and it's getting tiresome to hear the P.R. people in the office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper still claiming that the U.S. intelligence community has not revised or updated its analysis of the incident since July 22, 2014, just five days after the crash.
Back then, Clapper's office, trying to back up Secretary of State John Kerry's anti-Russian rush to judgment, cited very sketchy evidence - in both senses of the word - drawn heavily from "social media" accounts. Obviously, the high-priced and high-caliber U.S. intelligence community has learned much more about this very sensitive case since that time, but the administration won't tell the American people and the world. The DNI's office still refers inquiring reporters back to the outdated report from more than a year ago.
None of this behavior would make much sense if the later U.S. intelligence data supported the hasty finger-pointing toward Putin and the rebels. If more solid and persuasive intelligence corroborated those initial assumptions, you'd think U.S. government officials would be falling over themselves to leak the evidence and declare "we told you so." And the DNI office's claim that it doesn't want to prejudice the MH-17 investigation doesn't hold water either - since the initial rush to judgment did exactly that.
So, despite the discomfort attached to making judgments with little reliable evidence - and at the risk of sounding like former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - it seems high time to address what we know, what we don't know, and why it may be that we don't know what we don't know.
Those caveats notwithstanding I would say it is a safe bet that the hard technical intelligence evidence upon which professional intelligence analysts prefer to rely does not support Secretary of State Kerry's unseemly rush to judgment in blaming the Russian side just three days after the shoot-down.
'An Extraordinary Tool'?
When the tragedy occurred U.S. intelligence collection assets were focused laser-like on the Ukraine-Russia border region where the passenger plane crashed. Besides collection from overhead imagery and sensors, U.S. intelligence presumably would have electronic intercepts of communications as well as information from human sources inside many of the various factions.
That would mean that hundreds of intelligence analysts are likely to have precise knowledge regarding how MH-17 was shot down and by whom. Though there may be some difference of opinion among analysts about how to read the evidence - as there often is - it is out of the question that the intelligence community would withhold this data from President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and other top officials.
Thus, it is a virtual certainty that the Obama administration has far more conclusive evidence than the "social media" cited by Kerry in casting suspicions on the rebels and Moscow when he made the rounds of Sunday talk shows just three days after the crash. On NBC's "Meet the Press," Kerry told David Gregory that "social media" is an "extraordinary tool." The question is, a tool for what?
The DNI report two days later rehashed many of the "social media" references that Kerry cited and added some circumstantial evidence about Russia providing other forms of military equipment to the rebels. But the DNI report contains no mention of Russia supplying a Buk anti-aircraft missile system that Kerry and the DNI cited as the suspected weapon that downed the plane.
So, why does the administration continue refusing to go beyond such dubious sources and shaky information in attributing blame for the shoot-down? Why not fill in the many blanks with actual and hard U.S. intelligence data that would have been available and examined over the following days and weeks? Did the Russians supply a Buk or other missile battery that would be capable of hitting MH-17 flying at 33,000 feet? Yes or no.
If not supplied by the Russians, did the rebels capture a Buk or similar missile battery from the Ukrainians who had them in their own inventory? Or did some element of the Ukrainian government - possibly associated with one of Ukraine's corrupt oligarchs - fire the missile, either mistaking the Malaysian plane for a Russian one or calculating how the tragedy could be played for propaganda purposes? Or was it some other sinister motive?
Without doubt, the U.S. government has evidence that could support or refute any one of those possibilities, but it won't tell you even in some declassified summary form. Why? Is it somehow unpatriotic to speculate that John Kerry, with his checkered reputation for truth-telling regarding Syria and other foreign crises, chose right off the bat to turn the MH-17 tragedy to Washington's propaganda advantage, an exercise in "soft power" to throw Putin on the defensive and rally Europe behind U.S. economic sanctions to punish Russia for supporting ethnic Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine resisting the new U.S.-arranged political order in Kiev?
By taking a leaf out of the Bush-Cheney-Tony-Blair playbook, Kerry could "fix the intelligence around the policy" of Putin-bashing. Given the anti-Putin bias rampant in the mainstream Western media, that wouldn't be a hard sell. And, it wasn't. The "mainstream" stenographers/journalists quickly accepted that "social media" was indeed a dandy source to rely on - and have never pressed the U.S. government to release any of its intelligence data.
Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the MH-17 shoot-down, there were signs that honest intelligence analysts were not comfortable letting themselves be used as they and other colleagues had been before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
To buttress Kerry's shaky case, DNI Clapper arranged a flimsy "Government Assessment" - reprising many of Kerry's references to "social media" - that was briefed to a few hand-picked Establishment reporters two days after Kerry starred on Sunday TV. The little-noticed distinction was that this report was not the customary "Intelligence Assessment" (the genre that has been de rigueur in such circumstances in the past).
The key difference between the traditional "Intelligence Assessment" and this relatively new creation, a "Government Assessment," is that the latter genre is put together by senior White House bureaucrats or other political appointees, not senior intelligence analysts. Another significant difference is that an "Intelligence Assessment" often includes alternative views, either in the text or in footnotes, detailing disagreements among intelligence analysts, thus revealing where the case may be weak or in dispute.
The absence of an "Intelligence Assessment" suggested that honest intelligence analysts were resisting a knee-jerk indictment of Russia - just as they did after the first time Kerry pulled this "Government Assessment" arrow out of his quiver trying to stick the blame for an Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus on the Syrian government.
Kerry cited this pseudo-intelligence product, which contained not a single verifiable fact, to take the United States to the brink of war against President Bashar al-Assad's military, a fateful decision that was only headed off at the last minute after President Barack Obama was made aware of grave doubts among U.S. intelligence analysts about whodunit. Kerry's sarin case has since collapsed. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case."]
The sarin and MH-17 cases reveal the continuing struggles between opportunistic political operatives and professional intelligence analysts over how to deal with geopolitical information that can either inform U.S. foreign policy objectively or be exploited to advance some propaganda agenda. Clearly, this struggle did not end after CIA analysts were pressured into giving President George W. Bush the fraudulent - not "mistaken" - evidence that he used to make the case for invading Iraq in 2003.
But so soon after that disgraceful episode, the White House and State Department run the risk that some honest intelligence analysts would blow the whistle, especially given the dangerously blasé attitude in Establishment Washington toward the dangers of escalating the Ukraine confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Given the very high stakes, perhaps an intelligence professional or two will summon the courage to step up to this challenge.
Falling in Line
For now, the rest of us are told to be satisfied with the Sunday media circus orchestrated by Kerry on July 20, 2014, with the able assistance of eager-to-please pundits. A review of the transcripts of the CBS, NBC, and ABC Sunday follies reveals a remarkable - if not unprecedented - consistency in approach by CBS's Bob Schieffer, NBC's David Gregory (ably egged on by Andrea Mitchell), and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, all of whom hewed faithfully to a script apparently given them with two main talking points: (1) blame Putin; and (2) frame the shoot-down as a "wake-up call" (Kerry used the words repeatedly) for European governments to impose tight economic sanctions on Russia.
If the U.S. government's hope was that the combination of Kerry's hasty judgment and the DNI's supportive "Government Assessment" would pin the P.R. blame for MH-17 on Putin and Russia, the gambit clearly worked. The U.S. had imposed serious economic sanctions on Russia the day before the shoot-down - but the Europeans were hesitant. Yet, in the MH-17 aftermath, both U.S. and European media were filled with outrage against Putin for supposedly murdering 298 innocents.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders, who had been resisting imposing strong economic sanctions because of Germany's and the European Union's lucrative trade with Russia, let themselves be bulldozed, just two weeks after the shoot-down, into going along with mutually harmful sanctions that have hurt Russia but also have shaken the EU's fragile economic recovery.
Thus started a new, noxious phase in the burgeoning confrontation between Russia and the West, a crisis that was originally precipitated by a Western-orchestrated coup d'état in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, ousting Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych and touching off the current civil war that has witnessed some of the worst bloodshed inside Europe in decades..
It may seem odd that those European leaders allowed themselves to be snookered so swiftly. Did their own intelligence services not caution them against acquiescing over "intelligence" from social media? But the tidal wave of anti-Putin fury in the MH-17 aftermath was hard if not impossible for any Western politician to resist.
Just One Specific Question?
Yet, can the U.S. concealment of its MH-17 intelligence continue indefinitely? Some points beg for answers. For instance, besides describing social media as "an extraordinary tool," Kerry told David Gregory on July 20, 2014: "We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar."
Odd that neither Gregory nor other "mainstream" stenographers have thought to ask Kerry, then or since, to share what he says he "knows" with the American people and the world - if only out of, well, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. If Kerry has sources beyond "social media" for what he claims to "know" and they support his instant claims of Russian culpability, then the importance of his accusations dictates that he describe exactly what he pretends to know and how. But Kerry has been silent on this topic.
If, on the other hand, the real intelligence does not support the brief that Kerry argued right after the shoot-down, well, the truth will ultimately be hard to suppress. Angela Merkel and other leaders with damaged trade ties with Russia may ultimately demand an explanation. Can it be that it will take current European leaders a couple of years to realize they've been had - again?
The U.S. government also is likely to face growing public skepticism for using social media to pin the blame on Moscow for the downing of MH-17 - not only to justify imposing economic sanctions, but also to stoke increased hostility toward Russia.
The Obama administration and the mainstream media may try to pretend that no doubt exists - that the "group think" on Russia's guilt is ironclad. And it seems likely that the official investigations now being conducted by the U.S.-propped-up government in Ukraine and other close U.S. allies will struggle to build a circumstantial case keeping the Putin-did-it narrative alive.
But chickens have a way of coming home to roost.
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#20
www.paulcraigroberts.org
August 18, 2015
Minsk Agreement Has Failed
Will the failure lead to Putin's failure?
By Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business. He is chairman of The Institute for Political Economy.
It appears that the Russian government has made a mistake with regard to its approach to the breakaway Republics consisting of Russian peoples in former Russian territories who reject being governed by the anti-Russian coup government installed in Kiev by Washington. The Russian government could have ended the crisis by accepting the requests of these territories to be reunited with Russia. Instead, the Russian government opted for a diplomatic approach-hands off Donetsk and Luhansk-and this diplomacy has now failed. The coup government in Kiev never had any intention of keeping the Minsk agreement, and Washington had no intention of permitting the Minsk agreement to be kept. Apparently, even the realistic Putin succumbed to wishful thinking.
The Minsk agreement, which the Russian government backed for diplomatic reasons, has served to allow Washington time to train, equip, and mobilize much stronger forces now preparing to resume the attack on Donetsk and Luhansk. If these Republics are overrun, Vladimir Putin and Russia itself will lose all credibility. Whether Putin realizes it or not, Russia's credibility is at stake on the Donetsk frontier, not in diplomatic meetings with Washington's European vassals who are powerless to act outside of Washington's control. If Washington prevails in Ukraine, Russia and China can forget about the BRICS and Eurasian trade groups offering alternatives to Washington's economic hegemony. Washington intends to ensure its hegemony by prevailing in Ukraine.
In his description of the situation, the leader of the Donetsk Republic appears to be worn down by having lost the advantages over Ukraine that Donetsk had prior to the failed Minsk agreement: http://russia-insider.com/en/moscows-top-man-donbass-says-all-out-war-will-start-soon-video/ri9255 Perhaps he is thinking of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar when Cassius says to Brutus, "There is a tide in the affairs of men which, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries."
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#21 The Bow Group (UK) www.bowgroup.org August 12, 2015 Russian sanctions could cost West over $700bn, say analysts - The Ukrainian crisis must now be used as an opportunity for reforming Russia By Adriel Kasonta The Bow Group is the United Kingdom's oldest conservative think tank. Founded in 1951, the Bow Group exists to publish the research of its members, stimulate policy debate through an events programme and to provide an intellectual home to conservatives in the United Kingdom. Although firmly housed in the conservative family, the Bow Group does not take a corporate view and it represents all strands of conservative opinion. [Full text of report here http://www.bowgroup.org/sites/bowgroup.uat.pleasetest.co.uk/files/Bow%20Group%20-%20Sanctions%20on%20Russia%20-%20Adriel%20Kasonta.pdf] A report released today calls for a diplomatic offensive on Russia in a bid to arrest the implosion of Ukraine, and estimates the potential cost of sanctions against Russia to the West as being over $700bn. Russia must be involved in negotiating a European co-operation agreement with Ukraine, given the extensive history of Russian involvement in the region and the large Russian population within Ukraine's borders. The report is authored by Adriel Kasonta and a group of professionals and academics with first-hand experience of Eastern Europe. It addresses the historical and cultural contexts of the contemporary tensions, and considers those tensions as economic and political problems capable of peaceful solution. Following a recent House of Lords report on ending the violence, the report calls for greater structural aid to Ukraine, deeper engagement with Central and Eastern Europe, and the use of Ukraine as a door to European influence and reform in Russia herself. Quotes from the report: Estimated financial costs of sanctions "The costs to Europe include €120bn worth of exports to Russia are in danger, a total volume of business of €326bn, almost 2 million jobs are at risk, as well as potential default on $147bn of Russian debt held by EU banks. "The cost to the UK alone: €8.6bn of total exports, 119,000 jobs at stake, £27bn of Russian capital invested in the UK. "Cost to the US: total trade worth $137bn, $38bn US exports to Russia, up to $30bn US capital tied up in Russia." "This results in a total potential exposure of approximately $755bn to Western economies" The geopolitical effects of sanctions "Sanctions have led to a noticeable shift in the Russian economy orientation from the West to the BRICS countries and former Soviet Union republics. Shortly after the second round of sanctions, Russia signed a valuable natural gas agreement with China worth $400 billion, in order to lessen its economic dependence on the EU. As a result of this agreement, Russia will, from 2018, have an alternative market in China for its natural gas. Russia has also received a political support from the Chinese vice premier, Wang Yang, who expressly stated on 11 October that China "strongly opposes" sanctions against Russia. "This may create a potential threat to the West if Russia continues to develop its alliance with the BRICS, and China in particular. If BRICS countries continue to replace Western exports to Russia, which are banned (albeit at higher costs for Russian consumers), sanctions will be less effective. "On 8 August 2014, as a response to the Western sanctions, Russia announced an immediate embargo on "certain meat, dairy, fruit, vegetable and processed food products from the EU, USA, Canada, Australia and Norway. The EU is the most affected amongst the listed countries and, in particular, Poland, Lithuania and Germany, as the EU products amount to 73% of imports that were banned by Russian Embargo. This is expected as the EU alone represents 86% of Russia's total imports from the above-mentioned countries and 43% of entire Russian imports from the world. "It is absolutely necessary to find a non-military solution on satisfactory terms acceptable for Ukraine, Russia and the West by the end of 2015, otherwise the Ukrainian economy will have very high potential to default. There must be reached a diplomatic compromise, which will allow Russia to remain an influential political player in Eastern Europe, while letting Ukraine choose its own internal political regime and foreign policy orientation. Political assistance to Ukraine "The practical difficulties of dividing Ukraine, or imposing a single identity, serve to underscore a key point--Ukraine owes its current identity to both Europe and Russia. Asking it to choose between them is therefore asking it to deny part of its heritage. "Given Russia's nearly ubiquitous cultural presence in Ukraine, building a Ukrainian national identity at the expense of Russian would be like trying to build Canadian identity around anti-Americanism and a refusal to speak English. Even if it could somehow be done, the social, psychological, and economic scars left by the process would last for generations. "Conflating cultural identity with citizenship is almost always a recipe for disaster. It inevitably alienates minorities and undermines the very national unity being sought. A better alternative is to make cultural pluralism serve the security interests of the nation. "The better option is therefore replacing the current emphasis on building a distinctive Ukrainian cultural identity with an emphasis on building an inclusive Ukrainian civic identity. "It must first be acknowledged that Ukraine's economic survival depends not on Western bailouts, but on renewing Russian investments there. "And as the Ukrainian economy continues to shrink, more and more families find themselves relying on remittances from migrant workers, the majority of whom still find work in Russia. "By demonstrating political maturity, overcoming the Ukrainian government's ideological resistance to Russian investment in Ukraine would also go a long way toward restoring international investor confidence in the country. In the long term it might even lay the foundation for transforming the current Eastern Partnership program from its current confrontational "two against one" stance, into a trilateral EU-Russia-Ukraine partnership. This would be consistent with the long term strategic objective of reducing tariff barriers between with European Union and the Eurasian Union, which was proposed by Russian president Putin in 2010, and recently revived by German Chancellor Merkel. Economic assistance to Ukraine "Russia, together with the EU, would have to come to an actual agreement in respect to the crisis in Ukraine. Russia would have to make assurances in respect to its non-intervention in the conflict as well as the political and international affairs of Ukraine. On the other hand, the West would have to assure the Russian government that the vital Russian interests in the region will be preserved. Economic aid should be one of the most important matters on the agenda. While the US, Europe, and the IMF continue to provide financial assistance to Ukraine, there is a need for a comprehensive package provided by both Russia and the West. "Tension in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions has been decreased. Many experts agree that Russia does not intend to escalate the conflict further in those regions or even to support an establishment of "Novorossiya" state in the occupied territory. "According to a social survey, many Ukrainians believe that the best way to resolve the conflict is to negotiate a settlement with the separatists and Russia. "The other step would be to establish more beneficial terms on Ukrainian energy debts, as Ukraine would be able to use these funds to address the current economic crisis. In return, Ukraine would be able to guarantee Russia's continued access to the energy delivery infrastructure and Ukrainian export market. It is also important to Ukraine to restore stable trade relations with Russia, as reorientation of Ukrainian exports towards other markets will require more time and investments." |
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#22
VoxUkraine
http://voxukraine.org
August 17, 2015
Ukraine Needs Decentralization to Develop Future Democratic Leaders
By Tymofiy Mylovanov (University of Pittsburgh), Roger Myerson (University of Chicago, Nobel prize laureate 2007), Gerard Roland (University of California Berkeley)
The authors don`t work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have no relevant affiliations.
Reforms for decentralization ask the highest national leaders to relinquish a part of their power, so that locally elected officials can take some responsibility for serving their communities. No political leader is ever eager to give away any part of his power, but decentralization may be the essential key on which the success of all other reforms in Ukraine will depend.
In the long run, any institution of government can be corrupted if voters cannot find a steady supply of political leaders who have demonstrated an effective ability to serve the public rather than special interests. This essential supply of proven democratic leadership can develop best in responsible institutions of local government, where local leaders who provide better public services can become strong candidates for higher offices. In a centralized state that lacks such a source of proven competitive alternatives for national leadership, the fruits of reform may be disappointing.
Since President Yanukovich was ousted in February 2014, politicians have ostensibly worked to cleanse and rebuild Ukraine's governance structures, but their commitment to decentralization has been questionable, and the progress of reform has been slow. Some parties of the governing coalition have publicly campaigned against the coalition's structural economic reforms or have refused to support critical legislation. Scandals, populist speeches, and public finger pointing are becoming daily routine. There are accusations of corruption among the new political elite. The public is becoming disappointed with the new government.
This brings a sense of deja vu. The Orange Revolution in 2004-2005 had renewed the composition of the country's political leadership, but the new politicians failed to deliver the deep reforms needed, and instead spent most of their effort fighting each other, and eventually lost public support.
Ukraine must find a way to avoid repeating the failure of the Orange Revolution. Now is the time to lay foundations for sound political institutions that will foster constructive political competition and produce and protect leaders that serve the interests of the public.
The disappointing performance of national elites is only possible because they do not fear that the voters could easily replace them with someone better. Because of this lack of fear, democratic competition fails to discipline politicians against corruption. The root of the problem is that Ukraine needs a reservoir of good quality independent politicians, so that voters can have a choice among many potential leaders who can credibly promise good government in place of the incumbent national leaders. The threat of such outside political competition would discipline political elites and focus their attention on serving the public.
Creating such a reservoir of good quality politicians is one of the biggest challenges for the young Ukrainian democracy. In today's Ukraine, any well-intentioned politician who wants to become nationally known must seek political support from one of the key players, be it the president, the prime minister, a powerful oligarch, or a leader of a political party. The circle of these players is limited and their political support is not free - it is traded for loyalty and a non-threatening mediocre political record. The incumbent political elites control the entry into the national politics, and it is in their best interest to ensure that these newcomers are not a threat.
Thus, Ukrainians today should think how national politics can be made more competitive and how society can reduce the control over entry into national politics by incumbent leaders. The political process should be transformed to create a steady supply of good and independent politicians who have proven their ability to manage public resources and provide good public service.
Good independent political leaders do not emerge out of a vacuum. Being a politician in a democracy is a complicated job. An effective politician needs to be able to listen to voters, do effective campaigns, win elections, broker political agreements that have majority support in elected councils, reject bad ideas and make good compromises, communicate relentlessly with the public to explain policies that have been decided, monitor implementation of policies, take responsibility for mistakes, and train future politicians. One should not be surprised that in the post-Soviet context and the general atmosphere of corruption that emerged in the last 25 years, talented people who wanted to serve their country did not have that many chances to learn the job of being a politician in a well-functioning democracy.
Maidan 2013-2014 offers a unique opportunity for activist members of civil society to develop experience and learn the job of being professional political leaders. By giving real powers to the local and oblast level and by having free and honest elections at these levels, one can create opportunities for hundreds of talented people to learn the job of politicians, thereby creating a pool of skilled politicians, the best of which may be chosen by voters to become future leaders of the country. Without empowering local politicians, Ukraine will not be able to mature into a well-functioning democracy, and the hopes of the Maidan to transform Ukraine in a modern European democracy may not be fulfilled.
Incumbent political leaders may object to devolving real power from the Center, since doing so limits their control over who enters local and national politics and on what terms. More political competition poses a direct threat to the interests of current political leaders. Thus, some of the most powerful people in Ukraine may be inclined to oppose and resist any real decentralization of power.
Of course, leaders will not say that they oppose a reform simply because it would reduce their power, although members of any powerful group might naturally tell themselves nobody else could be trusted to exercise their power as well as they can. Opposition to reforms will be publicly justified by focusing on potential risks and costs of the reforms.
Some might argue that decentralization could encourage separatism. But Ukrainians saw last year that vulnerability to separatism was actually increased by centralization in regions that lacked any strong local leaders willing to defend Ukraine against insurgents. Democratic decentralization would guarantee that every region has some popularly elected local leaders with real power and thus with a real stake in Ukraine worth defending.
There is a legitimate concern that local councils and governments may be taken over by oligarchs or corrupt individuals. This is always a danger in a democracy. Nevertheless, there are standard solutions to this problem. Strong national anti-corruption, security, and police forces can ensure that corrupt oligarchs and politicians are arrested and prosecuted, and that the local democratic process is clean.
In the future, as the security risks in the country decrease, the local political process will discipline politicians even without support from national law enforcing institutions. Voters can always punish elected leaders who behaved badly, and accountability to voters will create incentives for elected leaders to behave better. Ultimately the best defense against corrupt local oligarchs is a functioning system of local democracy that makes responsible local officials accountable to local voters.
But the benefits of local accountability go further than that. When politics is decentralized, voters can compare the performance of elected leaders in their region with the performance of elected leaders in other regions. This will make voters even more demanding of elected politicians. This indirect competition gives an additional incentive for elected leaders to behave well.
Last but not least, as discussed above, experience of democracy at the local level provides a very good preparation for leadership at a higher level of power. In the United States, many presidents and candidates for presidency have had prior experience as governor of a US state. Being a governor provides experience of executive leadership. Most importantly, voters can select, among various candidates, ones who performed better than others in local government. This should be also true for Ukraine. Decentralized politics should thus not only increase accountability of local officials, but should also develop strong candidates for higher office who prove their qualifications even as they serve their communities.
The Verkhovna Rada has issued a draft decentralization reform bill for broader discussion and evaluation. People may debate whether the bill's provision for powerful centrally-appointed prefects is a prudent defense against rogue local councils or a mechanism for maintaining central control with an appearance of decentralization. Ultimately, the citizens of Ukraine must judge what is the best way to make Ukrainian politics more competitive and Ukrainian politicians more accountable.
But the debate on decentralization should not be dominated by only by voices with a vested interest in central power. In the local elections that are planned for later this year, candidates for local office should offer their perspectives on proposed decentralization reforms. As local and national politicians debate alternative decentralization plans, voters in Ukraine should look for an appropriately balanced distribution of power between their elected national officials and their elected local officials. In such a balance, the national government must maintain supreme power to serve and protect the broad interests of the entire country, but locally elected leaders should be given some real power to serve the needs of their communities. The national leaders who support such decentralization, even though it may reduce some of their powers, will greatly deserve the gratitude of the nation.
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#23
Atlantic Council
www.atlanticcouncil.org
August 17, 2015
Ukraine's Fall Elections Matter More Than You Think
BY BRIAN MEFFORD
Brian Mefford is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. He is a business and political consultant who is based in Kyiv, Ukraine. This article has been adapted from Brian Mefford's blog.
With less than 80 days before election day in Ukraine, mayoral races are already heating up. Parliament approved a new election law that does two things: Ukraine will use an open-list system and the country will hold runoffs for mayors in larger cities. These two features combined with the potential decentralization reforms being debated by parliament make the October 25 local elections more important than previous ones.
The Communist Party and Right Sector won't participate in the elections. On July 24 the courts banned the Communist Party of Ukraine. There were concerns that the bad economy might persuade older voters to vote red, sending obstinate representatives to local councils who would block reforms. Right Sector announced that it will not participate in the elections, focusing instead on a nationwide referendum.
The new election law has a number of drawbacks, and there is no organized effort to educate voters about the new open-list system. The new system means that voters will select a party and then select their candidate from the party list. Those parties that receive five percent will receive seats on the local councils and the seats will be distributed based on the voters' selections within the party list-rather than a closed-list system where the party bosses predetermine the order on the list. The change will dramatically delay the vote counting process. Historically, final tallies have been intentionally delayed long enough for international and domestic observers to go home, and then the commissioners have a free hand to produce the results they desire. The most undemocratic provision of the new law prohibits candidates from running as independents and bans blocs where multiple parties unite into a single list. It also bans internally displaced persons-more than 1.38 million people-from voting.
Despite its drawbacks, the law mandates that at least 30 percent of each list include candidates of different gender. In practical terms, at least three of every ten candidates on a party's list must be women.
In cities with more than 90,000 people, if no candidate receives 50 percent plus one vote, the law requires a runoff for the top two vote getters. Forty-seven cities meet that criteria and given Ukraine's divided electoral history, 80 percent of those cities will likely have runoffs. The runoff requirement forces candidates to build coalitions and make compromises. If pro-European candidates were allowed to run as independents or in blocs, they would have a better chance of winning in the east and south. In Odesa for example, Eduard Hurvits' rating is much higher than any of the parties in the government coalition (Poroshenko bloc, People's Front, Samopomich, etc). If Hurvits was allowed to run as an independent, he would be likely to receive more votes than under a party label.
While registration doesn't close until the end of September, these four races are worth watching:
1. Kyiv-Vitaly Klitchko's re-election will be far tougher than his election last year. Mayor Klitchko won a majority in May 2014 following an election deal with Petro Poroshenko which united the two men's parties into a single bloc. The deal brought Poroshenko and Klitchko to power and blocked Yulia Tymoshenko from making a comeback. But Tymoshenko may challenge Klitchko this fall. Tymoshenko's Motherland Party is popular in Kyiv, although it has never won a mayoral election. Tymoshenko's recent populist rhetoric has helped double her numbers, from five percent in October 2014 to more than 10 percent today. While mayor of Kyiv may seem like a step down, it would give her a nationwide office going into the next election. She'd also be trading up: Mayor of Kyiv is more prestigious post than the leader of a small, junior coalition partner in parliament. The risk for Tymoshenko is that if she loses, it is likely the final nail in her political coffin. Voters have taken an increasingly negative view of her and despite her recent populist surge, her unfavorable rating remains above 50 percent.
Klitchko has adjusted to the demands of running a big city. He received praise for convincing the Euromaidan protestors to close the camp. While he has made some positive strides in e-governance and modernizing the city's operations, his team has not effectively communicating those successes to voters. Consequently, his popularity has declined.
Ihor Shevchenko and Gennadiy Korban may enter the race. Shevchenko, recently sacked as Ecology Minister by parliament, may face a criminal investigation over his conduct at the Ministry. But that has not prevented Shevchenko from purchasing billboards urging lustration. After his loss in the Special Parliamentary Election in Chernihiv last month, Gennadiy Korban was nominated as Ukrop's mayoral candidate for Kyiv. While both Shevchenko and Korban have deep pockets to compete, neither has any real support in Kyiv. Restaurateur Sergiy Gusovskiy is also considering a race as Samopomich's candidate. He currently serves on the city council and is a rising star.
2. Odesa-Incumbent Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov faces a rematch with three time former Mayor Eduard Hurvits. The two squared off last May and despite an exit poll showing Hurvits leading by seven percent, Trukhanov was declared the winner.
Hurvits, 67, ran a poor campaign in 2014 and underestimated Trukhanov's tenacity. Trukhanov, a former Regions Party MP, is closely linked to the mafia. However, Trukhanov has navigated a careful, independent course as mayor in an effort to avoid angering Kyiv and to placate Odesa's Governor Mikhail Saakashvili. With a quarter of Odesa's electorate ethnically Russian, Trukhanov maintains an adequate base of support. Another key factor in Trukhanov's victory over Hurvits last May was the financial backing of oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Before politics, Trukhanov was Deputy Head of the Odesa Port and is a close associate of Kolomoyskyi.
Hurvits was elected as Odesa's first democratic mayor in 1994 and earned a reputation as a reformer and effective manager. He was re-elected in 1998, only to be de-registered by a court order. Hurvits then survived three assassination attempts and saw two of his assistants disappear. Nonetheless, Hurvits placed second in a fraudulent 2002 poll. However in May 2005, a court ruling declared the results invalid and Hurvits the rightful winner. Hurvits was easily re-elected in 2006 and served until 2010 after losing in a controversial election that lacked transparency.
Trukhanov leads slightly in the polls. If Saakashvili is able to use the administrative apparatus to ensure a fair election, Hurvits will likely come out on top.
3. Kharkiv-Controversial Mayor Gennadiy Kernes is in the driver's seat for re-election. His flirtation with separatism, pending criminal charges for his role in pressuring Euromaidan activists, and survival of an assassin's bullet all seem to add to his allure. A recent poll put him at 64 percent against a scattered field of single-digit opponents. Though his 2010 victory over Arsen Avakov was narrow, Kernes has consolidated his support within the business community and the city's pro-Russian population. Governor Igor Raynin wants oblast deputy Oleksandr Davtyan to challenge Kernes, but barring something unforeseen, he will be a sacrificial lamb. Perhaps the only real intrigue is which party Kernes will run on.
4. Lviv-Incumbent Andriy Sadoviy will seek a third term as Lviv's mayor. Unlike his re-election in 2010, Sadoviy is now a national figure who wields influence in parliament through his Samopomich faction. Conversely, some voters feel that Sadoviy is distracted by politics in Kyiv and no longer an effective mayor. His most likely opponent is Poroshenko-backed MP Oksana Yurinets, who crushed her People's Front opponent by a 42 to 20 margin in the 2014 elections. Svoboda is also likely to field a candidate against Sadoviy since the mayor has been a fierce rival.
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#24
Kyiv Post
August 19, 2015
Yatsenyuk, suspecting aid fraud, wants re-registration of war refugees
By Veronika Melkozerova
People who have fled from Ukraine's Donbas and Crimea to government-controlled areas should be re-registered to crack down on suspected aid fraud, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said during a cabinet meeting on Aug. 19.
The prime minister said he was seriously concerned that the 1.4 million figure of officially registered internally displaced persons in Ukraine was greatly overblown.
At the cabinet meeting, Yatsenyuk said Interior Minister Arsen Avakov should check the actual residences of internationally displaced persons against the places they indicated on their certificates of eligibility for social benefits.
"Some of them continue to live on territories occupied by separatists, but come to Ukraine to get state aid. And that's Hr 884 per person per month. Big money," said Yatsenyuk.
The prime minister said the state should establish which war refugees actually do require Ukrainian government help, and which are abusing the state's aid.
There have been previous concerns that state aid to internally displaced person was being abused in Ukraine: Former Minister for Social Issues Lyudmyla Denysova at a press conference at the beginning of 2015 said there were three times more applicants for state aid than the number of those who were officially registered as IDPs.
And in March the government ordered the local authorities to check information provided by IDPs about their current place of residence.
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#25
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 18, 2015
Yatsenyuk will flee the ruins of Ukraine because "it's not his historical homeland"
Politonline.ru
http://www.politonline.ru/comments/22882949.html
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski
Kolomoysky owned TV channel "1+1" showed a government meeting, where Yatsenyuk sensationally responded to the statement of a minister that "we have to live in this country." He blurted out: "Ukraine is not my historical homeland and I don't intend to live here."
According to the channel, the prime minister frankly stated at a cabinet meeting that "after resignation he will immediately leave the country," and journalists have noted that he "has increasingly begun to show signs of hysteria and apparently intends to prematurely resign."
Indeed, the reasons are clear - in only the first half of this year, Ukraine's GDP has collapsed 15%, although the worst forecast of the IMF only predicted 9%. The net outflow of investments for only the first six months of 2015 amounted to approximately $3 billion, and investments amounted to a billion - this is less than in any year in the history of Ukraine.
Prime Minister Yatsenyuk also admitted on channel ICTV that the control of state corporations and the national treasury has been passed to the West. Earlier, several foreigners had been appointed as ministers to the cabinet of Ukraine.
In the US, Yatsenyuk, "remarkably" addressed and explained everything to representatives of US investment circles, who later quoted his words on Facebook:
"We will be glad to see you as investors who will acquire Ukrainian state companies."
As they say in social media, "this is a unique nation of Maidanites (they are already not Ukrainians, but a separate biological species) which is the only in history to have fought not for freedom and independence, but for the possibility to be given into slavery."
We think everybody knows about how Europe has proposed that Yuzhmash stops producing rocket technology and starts making ... dog collars. But in the end the news agencies report: "Ukrainian citizens have begun to shoplift as a result of the deepening economic crisis" - acting as the "leaders" of such theft "are pensioners, who are secretly taking vegetables, sausages, and meat." This is European integration!
Well if the economic Euroeintegration for which the Maidan took place didn't happen, what about membership in NATO and a visa-free entry into the EU? Who cares who died and for what when such derban [grab/snatch/seizure/appropriation - tr.] is going on?
Well, there's no wonder. Especially not against the background that the head of the CIA has come to instruct the special services of Ukraine, the Pentagon - the Ukrainian military, and Yatsenyuk is not at all ashamed to recognize that "Western inspectors" will oversee every state service. And how the Prime Minister went to the businessmen, threw up his hands, and said that Ukraine "had to accept" the simply horrific conditions of the IMF in order to receive credits - remember? And what about the 47% shadow economy?
By only the first quarter of the year, the economy had contracted by 17.2%. With the hikes in prices for everything and everyone, the real incomes of the population have catastrophically diminished, people are being literally impoverished and are miserable. In less than the past half year, inflation in Ukraine has increased by 10 times. By the end of the year, the IMF, seeing such "successes," will forecast an inflation of 46%, but "the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk was able to beat the record," - says the press. The press reminds that "at the present time, Ukraine is actually living on the verge of default," and trust in the banking system of the country is equivalent to the trust in...Nigeria.
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#26
Kyiv Post
August 18, 2015
Mobilization wave comes up 13,000 men short
Experts blamed a fall in patriotism in Ukraine for the failure of the sixth mobilization.
By Denys Krasnikov
Ukraine wound up the sixth part of its partial mobilization campaign on Aug. 17, and experts say it's been the least successful one so far.
Starting on June 19, the two-month long mobilization drafted only 60 percent of the targeted number of men into the Ukrainian army, or 13,000 out of a planned 25,000.
The mobilization was not aimed at increasing the size of Ukraine's army. Instead, paratroopers, tankmen and artillerymen who were called up for military service last year were to have been demobbed and replaced by fresh draftees.
Experts blamed a fall in patriotism in Ukraine for the failure of the sixth mobilization.
"By the end of the six wave (of mobilization), the government had managed to call up only 13,000 out of 25,000 people," said Mykola Sungurovsky, Director of Military Programs at the Razumkova Center non-governmental think tank. "If the government doesn't want to take charge of the war, there's no use asking the people to do it instead."
But the deputy head of the Ukrainian General Staff's mobilization department, Olexander Pravdyvets, thinks the problem is not just one of a lack of patriotism.
"Draft evaders usually tend not to open the door to accept their call-up papers. They quit their jobs, or even flee the country," he said at a briefing on Aug. 18.
Although Pravdyvets said the government has no plans to implement a seventh or an eighth conscription campaign this year, Deputy Minister of Defense Petro Mekhed said a further escalation of the conflict in the war zone might force the government to call up more people.
"Depending on the situation in the east of Ukraine, it is possible that there will be a seventh, eighth and ninth (conscription campaign)," Mekhed said at a briefing on Aug. 11.
One way out of Ukraine's conscription problems might be for the country to have an entirely professional army working on contract, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on July 30 in comments on his Facebook page.
"It's much more effective to create a smaller, but more professional army, well trained and equipped," Avakov. "We can't afford not to have professional army."
Presidential Adviser Yury Biryukov told the Hromadske television channel in an interview on Aug. 4 that such an army was beyond Ukraine's current means. "It will cost approximately Hr 100 billion per year. How would it be possible, given that the overall Ukrainian budget is Hr 40 billion?" Biryukov said.
Around 100,000 people were recruited during the three conscription campaigns in 2014. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Services increased its overall strength from 130,000 to 232,000 soldiers.
The government had planned to increase this to 250,000 in 2015.
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#27
Fort Russ/Liga.net (Kyiv)
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 17, 2015
Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions: Brainwashed Nazi Marauders pt. I
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski
Roman Chernyshev for ИА ЛIГАБiзнесIнформ
Reposted by FLB.ru
http://flb.ru/infoprint/59742.html
"On the blood of their soldiers"
Roman Chernyshev, a Ukrainian journalist for the information agency "LigaBusinessInform" [Liga.net-Kyiv] conducted an interview with two officers who at different times were dismissed after voluntary service in one of the special battalions in the ATO zone.
Ilya is a career war psychologist and Sergey is a spetsnaz officer who for objective reasons wished to be presented in this text under a pseudonym. However, there is no doubt as to his qualifications and combat experience. Their tales of the war differ radically from the official reports and posts by politicians, bureaucrats, and various advisers on different social networks.
The text does not mention the names of parties, geographical points or unfortunate heroes which were mentioned in the interview with the officers. However, to the reader interested in the situation, it won't be difficult to find out and figure out everything from the context...
This is an assessment by military personnel with combat experience in Donbass. (The text is abridged, with Ukro-nationalist-toxic passages omitted).
"The battalion was formed under sponsor patronage"
Q.: What were you doing in the ATO and what positions did you have?
Sergey: I was that guy who stood at the source of one of the special battalions of the interior ministry. I was the deputy commander for combat training, but I did everything - formed and trained - because the battalion commander dodged. Everyday he would reply: "I'm in command." But as they dropped him off at the ATO zone, he was in a drunken tailspin for two weeks...medicated and then taken out of this state. The battalion commanders largely have party sponsors, like the one we have, and they assigned him to us for an eye. The leader of the party liked him, so they simply showed him and brought him in and that's it - fight.
Ilya: I was a psychologist-officer in the same division.
Q.: Before this, did you have war experience?
Sergey: Participation in war? Of course not. With whom had Ukraine fought before this? We had the experience of many years of training, participation in special operations, and work in the regions of increased military danger.
Ilya: I had no combat experience or special training. I'm a career officer - a psychologist who served in the air force.
Q.: Tell us about the battalion
Sergey: The battalion was formed under the sponsored patronage of a certain political force. At first we thought that it represented something, a kind of patriotic start. Although even then we suspected that, in fact, it was an aid to the party, above all a PR project.
Q.: And how did you end up in the battalion?
Sergey: Around the end of May and the start of June, 2014, a comrade from the special forces, where we both once served, called me and invited me to organize and lead the work in forming a new special battalion. I agreed, as I was just about to return to service. When you're offered something with which you can busy yourself and which you love, and, what's more, pay is promised then why not? There's no question. The task was to prepare 200 people of the special battalion.
They lodged us outside of Kiev and led me to the first turnout, before which I had no idea that they had already formalized the militia in school and given out ID's. That's it, it was too late to refuse them and, what's more, it wasn't I who picked them and I hadn't seen them face-to-face at all. I take my first look - 180 kilos, third degree obesity, but they tell me: 'he's a patriot and on the Maidan he took a shield from a Berkut.' And there stood yet another personage, from head to toe covered in tattoos, a convict in for 12 years for racially motivated murder. Later, however, he turned out to be a sensible guy. Then comes another group, almost straight from the Maidan, with shields and helmets. Not wanting to study, they say:
"Give me a machine gun and I'll go shoot Moskal (derogatory slang for Russians - trans)."
No discipline whatsoever. Here's the group that I had to prepare....
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#28
Fort Russ//Liga.net (Kyiv)
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 17, 2015
Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions: Brainwashed Nazi Marauders pt. II
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski
Roman Chernyshev for ИА ЛIГАБiзнесIнформ
Reposted by FLB.ru
http://flb.ru/infoprint/59742.html
"On the blood of their soldiers"
....Then in the office I'm telling the deputy: "Who are you collecting? To fight alongside them is impossible. How can they be given weapons?" They replied to me:
"They're patriots, they proved themselves on Maidan."
Six weeks later, they were given guns. I'm supposed to teach people how to fight, but in my hands I have only five weight-and-size mockups, which I can count on my fingers.
Q.: In the end, who and how many did you manage to prepare?
Sergey: After three months, I managed to prepare 40 normal fighters who were ready for deployment to the ATO. This given that they received weapons six weeks before the planned deployment. Yet there still had to be another of the same amount in order to complete the training after two weeks. For us, the norm for shooting a machine gun was 1500 shots for each fighter and up to 600 for a pistol. Plus classes on tactics, physical training, special medical training, and a bit of special engineering, but the minimum of models were lacking. But before the official dispatch from the Interior Ministry comes the distribution list - it's necessary to send 80 men.
Q.: Did deputies help?
Sergey: That's a different story. They helped and did a lot of PR about the fact that deputies were supplying the army with ammunition. A deputy would come with journalists and present bulletproof vests in front of camera flashes and I would tell him: " "What are you bringing? This is outright bullshit, even if the military was consulted about it. This is gear with ricochet - the plate will withstand, but a shot in the front of the chest will ricochet and hit the chin, and if shot in the back, then in the leg and ass." The deputy would leave silently - to him it was unimportant what he brought, but important that his cameras caught it all.
They sent us to the ATO zone with pistols and assault rifles. In order to beat the state to send a few machine guns and grenades, the whole country had to be told on the Shuster TV show that they were sending us virtually unarmed. Only then did the Interior Ministry issue several PKK (light machine guns).
Q.: Where did they send you in the ATO zone?
Sergey: On September 1, 2014, we arrived at one of the pathetically liberated cities. For almost 90 people, we didn't have any kind of serviceable transport besides an ambulance for wounded. And here comes the convoy the next morning: two empty buses and some kind of officer from headquarters and, without presenting any sort of documents, says: "You're ordered to head to Avdeevka, load up." And from there, just on the eve, one of the territorial defense battalions of the UAF withdrew. And the idea spread among soldiers after Ilovaysk: retreat and entrench along the Dnepr. Everyone awaited a mass-scale invasion by the Russians.
I said: "I have 85 people who have never been under fire, no kind of transport whatsoever, four light machine guns, no cover, and not a single RPG against tanks." This officer spoke to me plainly: "I don't give a f**k what you have and what you don't have - there's an order: get your things to Avdeevka. Your task is to patrol the streets and what will happen there with you doesn't mean a f**k to me." That's verbatim. After this phrase, my attitude towards this war and to all the flashy patriotism seriously changed.
Of course, we didn't go there, because I had a written order: stay put in the ATO and await refitting, and I don't take vocal orders. I saved people and in response, as I later learned, the fighters repeating the party curators behind our backs said "Our commanders are scared to fight."
When they were taken to the ATO from Kiev, I personally called the mothers of the fighters, especially those for whom it was their only son: "You don't mind that your son is going off to war?" And when the mother says to you in tears: "I entrust the life of my son to God and you"....Oh well, forget about it.
So here it is. That officer from the HQ left, and our deputy-sponsors called me and said: 'Khloptsi (slang for 'Ukrainians' - trans.), what's with you guys? Stand for your native land!' Only then did I understand that the sponsors needed ritual sacrifices on the eve of parliamentary elections.
Q.: What did you do while based in the ATO?
Sergey: We allegedly went around sweeping villages in the Donetsk region, but in fact "sweeping" only sounds beautiful, and really what it is is "putting checkmarks," a simulation of intense activity. We came to some village (there our battalion came under the command of the National Guard of the Interior Ministry), and the command was this: sweep the village in 15 minutes, i.e. identify the separatist camp. How is it possible to sweep a village in 15 minutes? We walked around and left, and the report states that "forces of the ATO swept such and such populated areas and everything is peaceful there". ....
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#29
Fort Russ/Liga.net (Kyiv)
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
August 17, 2015
Ukrainian Volunteer Battalions: Brainwashed Nazi Marauders pt. III
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski
Roman Chernyshev for ИА ЛIГАБiзнесIнформ
Reposted by FLB.ru
http://flb.ru/infoprint/59742.html
"On the blood of their soldiers"
... Later came another task, again neither by the ATO or the Ministry of Interior, but by party sponsors - "create a sabotage and reconnaissance group [DRG - rus.] in the battalion." Then, the theme of sabotage and reconnaissance groups was really popular and there was even a rumor that our DRG's are operating among "separatists" and cutting them up with knifes. That's bullshit. The deputy-sponsors come and say to me: "Are you creating a DRG?" I say: "Of course not. Do you even know at all what that is? In order to make the people in a DRG work together on a subconscious level and understand each other on the go, they need to be trained for years." They replied to me:
"You're not a patriot. We'll find someone who will make one."
As a result, one officer from the battalion volunteered for the job. And then it turns out that he confused "sabotage and reconnaissance group" with "investigation and search activities." So everything died down, but the sponsors reported in the media that "a sabotage and reconnaissance group has been created at the base of the ATO."
In general, we served in this manner for several months up until the first rotation, and then we gathered ourselves to go for the second rotation to Kurakhovo. The battalion commander says: "You guys go alone, I'm not going. I have an assignment from the General." An assignment is an assignment, so we went alone. Soon it became clear that there was no such assignment from the General. The battalion commander, ordered to the ATO, was vacationing in Sharm el-Sheikh [Egypt], and coordinated through Facebook.
Q.: What did you do in Kurakhovo district?
Sergey: We guarded the dam. But by astonishing coincidence, nearby was located a thermoelectric plant of one of the odious oligarchs. Coincidence? I think not, given that I never saw the written order. Command put forth a fait accompli - well, you guys have an order to work in the Donetsk region, so there's no problem whatsoever with that check point near the thermoelectric plant. This is how the war is being conducted, so you understand.
Q.: To fight is what you really prepared for. Did you get the chance?
Sergey: We entered the ATO zone all loaded up. I don't think anyone went out to defend bushes, drink, and loot. I decided to take 5-10 soldiers and bring them to the frontline position outside the Donetsk Airport so that they would at least feel a bit of what war is like. Otherwise, everyone drank too much.
Ilya: In war, a person is under constant emotional stress. It's important not to sit idly so that the stress doesn't turn into depression or, vice-versa, into inappropriate activity. To some extent it's easier to fight than to be in constant state of readiness and wait to be deployed on an assignment.
Sergey: The practice of commanders at the ATO was such: either they'll send you directly on wheels to the meet-grinder, or you'll sit and defend the bushes on the secondary and tertiary lines. We ourselves looked for proper application. The understanding was that we had no single plan or coordination. And this despite the fact that we periodically participated in meetings, including those held at the HQ in the ATO.
Q.: How and why did you resign?
Sergey: I didn't want to serve in a sluggish brothel with no combat missions for which we were ready and for which we had originally trained fighters. Fighting with alcoholic battalion commanders and putting up with a lack of guarantees from the central command, personnel policies, and the endless PR of the sponsors - this is not in our understanding of what fighting means.
Ilya: A few dozen fighters left. All of them informed the authorities of their decision beforehand. As expected, openly and honestly.
Sergey: Still "off the record," we were told: so this is how it turns out; the normal officers are leaving, and the pussies are staying in the battalion. That's how it is.
Q.: The party sponsors stayed with the battalion?
Sergey: It was said that for some time they ceased to sponsor the battalion. But in recent months, aid has been renewed. But that's not the point: why do we need party, ideological battalions at all? Which state goals can justify them?
It's impossible to gather villagers, take tractor drivers from their tractors, put guns in their hands, and await instant victories...In Slavyansk in springtime, 2014, my comrade was killed and at his funeral I resolved to return to the army. I went to his "office" and there they told me: "If you want to, then tomorrow. But really, do you need to? Here, people are writing streams of reports about what happened in Slavyansk." Because there our groups have been simply betrayed and gave in to slaughter. For some reason, instead of throwing all resources into the army, the special forces, and finding smart people in the reserve, they started to carry out a senseless mobilization of people who had never held a weapon in their hands. And those who are on a special list at the SBU and the army - no one pulled up their data.
Q. What exactly is this special list?
Sergey: War veterans and experienced spetsnaz soldiers who have the experience of combat operations in hot spots around the world under their belt. They weren't even summ No one among my friends from spetsnaz was invited... [Not ideologically reliable? It's fitting considering a large share of security forces has been 'lustrated' - ed.] Instead, we started to create the wild paramilitary ideological battalions.
Ilya: And they gave the secret order: don't touch these "wild cops."
Sergey: They assign a five-times convicted person to be company commander or they turn a con artist and professional swindler into a battalion commander. He says that he's a captain, so they give him epaulets just for his voice, yet we have people with two degrees, after military academy, and deputy colonels of spetsnaz, who are going to the ATO under the rank of police officers.
Ilya: The leaders of the ultra-right movements, repeat offenders, fraudsters, and just outright losers from peacetime have become battalion commanders. Anyone, just not those who have training and adequate experience. Yes, and the sponsors of the formations were often those who, just a few months before, served the prior "criminal authorities." And here these hastily created divisions are thrown to the East...and then: Saur-Mogila, Ilovaysk...Then the battalion commanders, on their blood of their own soldiers and thanks to the money of sponsors, come into parliament. And they've abandoned their battalions. Is this not how it has turned out?
They tell us about Russian aggression. Then a question to our leadership: in half a year, how many [Russians] have been taken captive in this, as we say, war with Russia? 10 paratroopers, 2 spetsnaz and recently some major who took a wrong turn? And if there were someone else, then why would we exchange them so slyly? What kind of war is this?
Q.: Do you have a negative view of all volunteer battalions, or are there exceptions?
Sergey: The Right Sector (The Volunteer Ukrainian Corps, DUK - rus). Of course, this isn't totally the case with them. A corps is bigger than a division, it can be 20 or 25 thousand people. In the best case there is a well-equipped and manned company of up to 130 people....But in general Right Sector is a very heterogeneous and mythologized organization, including by the Russian channels. And anyone and anybody tries to squeeze and climb in there. And then you have such situations like Mukhachevo.
Ilya: In the summer of last year, there was an official information that up to 30% of the personnel of volunteer formations was not at the location of their units. And that's with weapons and militia ID's. I personally held this paper in my hands for official use. A year has passed, and I can already say that, in general, there it also said that newly created police and territorial defense units in the ATO are not in their places of deployment and they are fulfilling tasks not assigned to them by anyone.
Sergey: And what do you want from hastily assembled battalions? In general, volunteer battalions in Ukraine are too exaggerated, politicized, and poorly trained. Overall, I can't name a single volunteer battalion of which Ukraine can be proud for being an exceptionally trained and effective fighting unit. People just don't know the truth.
Outside the Donetsk airport, 30,000 rounds of ammunition went flying in a week. A normal division could keep the defense for a month with this amount. But here they're just shooting the sky from the trench: "Ribbon for ribbon of ammo, come on!" We don't have an ammunitions factory in Ukraine. One was in Lugansk, but it "walked away." Yet they're complaining: "You understand, we're patriots, but they're not giving me ammunition to shoot the Moskal."
The main Nazis turn out to be the main cowards
Q.: Putinist propaganda claims that the fight is with Nazism in Ukraine
Sergey: In the ATO zone there's enough riffraff. One of my guys took part in a Nazi march at the base for which he almost got one in the face. I said: "My grandfather fought at Stalingrad - if I hear it again, I'll tear off your head." But the main "Nazis" turn out to be the main cowards. Costumed bullshit with tattoos who Sieg Heil for their selfies and who aren't capable to fight for their beliefs, which, naturally, I don't share.
Q. Was it often necessary to beat your fighters?
Sergey: I beat them.
Ilya: Here we need to distinguish between respect for the subordinate, senseless humiliation and harsh disciplinary process which prevents anarchy in combat operations.
Sergey: That's the only way you could make a disciplined soldier from yesterday's collective farmer. I had to beat them because they mocked captives. Although, by law, I had the right to prosecute them.
Q.: Maybe some more details here?
Sergey: I don't want to make any problems for myself. I'll say this: volunteer battalions quickly feel impunity when they get weapons. But I drove ("drove" in the sense of handling livestock - trans) my guys and I had at least some discipline, and in other battalions this is at times even encouraged.
Q.: Your words sound like a report on Russian television...
Sergey: Because they don't talk about this here [in Ukraine]. These are our 'patriots', our 'heroes of the nation', they are 'incapable' of this.
In September, 2014, I went to the base of "Aidar" and my hair stood on end. Part of the battalion is simply an organized crime group. Melnichuk should be 'hanged'. On Aidar's list, there are 1200 people somewhere, but really 100 people are fighting while the rest are engaged in crime under the guise of a badge. It's impossible to give such battalions a status. It was necessary to nip such things in the bud, and not wait when they set tires on fire in front of the Ministry of Defense. Do you know how another "celebrated" battalion carried out sweeps? They throw a grenade in the window and a grenade in the basement without looking. They don't even leave cats alive.
Typographic map
Q. How do you appraise the level of command at the ATO?
Sergey: The command of the ATO is unprofessional. A security chief at an HQ of one of the sectors couldn't even read a map. In October, 2014, when the ATO had already been going for half a year, the first joint meeting between the Interior Ministry, the UAF, and the SBU took place.
Ilya: Yes. How do you appraise a commander who says: "typographic map"? That's more about maps, by the way. for our sweeps, they gave us the maps of the Soviet General Staff, in which a rail line was marked in the district where we worked. But on the ground, all that's been left of it for already 30 years are decaying sleeping cars. In another instance, the groups were issued a Motorola for communication as an old man would get. For communication between our officers who went in different groups, we had our own radio station. Well, and a third was given: for communication with the commander of the scouts of the National Guard to whom we ran into...How can we talk about commanding when we didn't have a unified communication system? This is a literal example of explaining "on your toes" what's really happening there.
Q.: And general Muzhenko?
Sergey: On the conscience of Muzhenko are Donetsk airport, Debaltsevo, and Ilovaysk. Enough has been written and said about this man and his leadership talent without us. He's the chief of the General Staff to this day...
Ilya: "The brain of the army" with a horizon of thought on the level of a commander of an individual battalion.
Q.: Do political sponsors pay extra for serving in their battalions?"
Sergey: The pay wasn't bad, but the sponsors and not the state paid. Officers were paid an extra 1,500 to 5,000 dollars a month.
Q.: Can American instructors pull our army together?
Sergey: When was the last time Americans fought an equal? The Second World War. Any armed conflict in the past 30 years involving the USA was waged under an overwhelming superiority of America in the air and in precision weapons. I saw this in the Middle East and I know what I'm talking about. A group of their infantry doesn't enter a combat zone before even the air has been purged. If there's no cover, they generally refuse to work. The USA doesn't fight like we do in Donbass. The Taliban took a base from them in Afghanistan, so they tried to storm it, and it didn't work out, but the inevitable loss is unacceptable. So they struck it with a high-precision missile from an aircraft - that's it. There's no base, and no Taliban.
Ilya: In a TV show, an official from the Ministry of Defense asked the general of the UAF the question: Where did the 70% of the weapons, which only in 2014 were transferred to the army, go? Our tank colonels can't operate a tank cannon. Right at the front, at Donetsk airport, the commander of one of the regiments of the Intelligence Division of the General Staff was compelled to teach fighters how to shoot a grenade launcher.
Q.: The question begs: were you on the Maidan?
Sergey: Why does the Maidan matter here? How is this connected with my ability and desire to fight for Ukraine? No, of course I remember: "He who doesn't jump is a Moskal!" You can call me a vatnik (derogatory slang for people from Donbass and Russia- trans.) now. But, in my opinion, we've already jumped enough. A hurried jump to war.
Ilya: I was on the Maidan. I didn't throw cocktails. I helped as I could, like many people from Kiev. And after the Maidan, I was in Donetsk, Lugansk, and in other cities. I passed through 22 road blocks of the DPR/LPR and met with one of the current "leaders" of the DPR. We wanted peace. But in the end, we got this murky war named with three letters.
Q.: Your forecast: what will happen with this war after a year?
Sergey: I can't predict. I'll tell you exactly that the situation in general doesn't depend on us. Such a situation of low-intensity warfare is favorable to many on both sides - in terms of contraband, to those sitting in the trenches, to those writing off munitions and in terms of other delights of the "hybrid war."
Ilya: Clearly, both sides are trying to underestimate their losses and exaggerate the losses of the enemy. The combat losses of UAF and other security forces is still subject to calculation. It's most likely that they are understated two to two and a half times. But there are losses which are very difficult to assess. First of all, no kind of accounting has been conducted in the volunteer formations. Not of weapons, not of personnel. There were no logs of combat activities. They've tried to retroactively organize them for people already killed.
Q.: Are there any achievements of Ukraine which you can't deny? What is your attitude towards volunteers?
Sergey: Yes, there are very idealistic people, and they really help the military, sometimes not even realizing that their assistance is not concretely needed by those divisions of marauders and alcoholics. But this is not the fault of volunteers. In the beginning the volunteer movement was welcome. But after a year and a half of war, it's nonsense. Citizens are paying taxes and going to war, and the state is required to provide all that's necessary to the military. We have a beautiful country, but a hideous state.
Ilya: I'll add that not everything volunteers bring goes on the balance of the units. That is, it may be stolen. It's nothing. You're going for a rotation or demobilization and you take everything you can and that's it.
Sergey: I don't want to go chase after looters and carry out work for alcoholic battalion commanders.
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