Ukraine: stakes are high

S P SETH

Even as the US secretary of state and Russian foreign minister start talks for a possible resolution of the Ukrainian crisis, the fate of Crimea is truly sealed. The recent overwhelming vote in Crimea in favor of Russia has clinched the issue as far as Moscow is concerned, notwithstanding its rejection by the US and Europe. Earlier, a UN Security Council resolution to declare the planned referendum illegal was vetoed by Russia, exercising its right as one of the five permanent members. Interestingly China, that has been voting with Russia on the Syrian question, another contested issue, abstained on the matter. It is not difficult to see China’s sensitivity on matters of territorial integrity, with Tibet and Taiwan always under the microscope of the US and its European allies. But Beijing did make the point earlier about western interference in Ukraine making it a complex issue.

The US and Europe have separately imposed sanctions on certain high officials and advisers, believed to have been involved in the Putin regime’s Crimea policy. The sanctions might be tightened and expanded if Moscow were to interfere in the Russian majority eastern Ukraine. So far, it is only Crimea that Russia wanted. But Moscow remains committed to protect ethnic Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine, if necessary. The US and Europe are now more concerned about possible incursions into eastern Ukraine.

In his address to the Russian parliament on Crimea’s referendum and Moscow’s acceptance of it, President Putin played to the gallery and received rapturous applause when he said that Crimea had always been an inalienable part of Russia. Broadly speaking, it is historically true. It was only in the fifties that the then Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Crimea under Ukraine’s charge. At that time, it was more like administrative reorganization because nobody imagined that the Soviet Union would collapse in 1991, resulting in the creation of new independent states, like Ukraine and others. Since it also housed Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol, Russia was granted a lease by the newly independent Ukraine to continue operating it.

With the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych regime in February amid much rejoicing in Kiev, and Russia calling it a coup, the seeds of a split in the country between its western and eastern regions (majority ethnic Russian) were sown. Although Putin has assured that Moscow is not looking to split Ukraine, he has also said, repeated by his foreign minister only the other day, that Russia would protect ethnic Russians, if necessary.

Putin made some important points in his parliamentary address. First, he accused the west of hypocrisy citing their endorsement of Kosovo’s referendum for independence from Serbia while denying the same right of self-determination to Crimea. Second, he said that the west had “crossed the line” over Ukraine and behaved “irresponsibly”. He was apparently referring to the overthrow of President Yanukovych regime with western encouragement, and its replacement by an interim government that included “neo-Nazis” and anti-Russian radicals. Though Moscow might be exaggerating this, but the Right-wing parties/groups and their militias played a prominent role in creating an environment of ethnic Ukrainian nationalism even to the point of wanting to remove Russian as one of the country’s two languages, though saner heads prevailed and it was dropped.

Recognizing Russia’s concerns, Ukraine’s interim prime minister recently sought to assure Moscow on two points. First that Kiev was not seeking to join NATO and, two, that the Ukrainian government would disarm nationalist militias. In a way, this vindicated Russia’s position that radical nationalists might have hijacked the new order in Ukraine. Indeed, the interim government has four cabinet ministers from the extreme right party, Svoboda (Freedom), a successor to Socio-National Party of Ukraine, a neo-Nazi outfit. Interestingly, some of the radical nationalist militias seem to be now turning on the interim government.

The point here is: has the west overplayed its cards? It would seem so, even though there is so much talk of punishing Russia through sanctions and international isolation. As pointed out earlier, the overthrow of Yanukovych from the country’s Russian-majority eastern region, however corrupt and politically inept he was, reduced Ukraine to a nationalist project with ethnic Russians feeling unsafe. For instance, only in 2010, Yanukovych was elected president of the country with a vote across all the regions, indicating that only four years ago the country was pretty much a functioning democracy with both ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians largely committed to a united Ukraine. But then came the protests and violence, with western encouragement, for union with EU that would, most likely, lead to membership of the NATO military club at some point. It is not entirely surprising that after the experience of NATO’s eastward expansion to encircle Russia, Moscow decided to take a stand in Ukraine when it sought to join EU.

With things already messed up in Ukraine, now the tiny state of Moldova and Georgia also want to integrate with European Union. Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region is keen to integrate with Russia. As it is surrounded by Ukraine blocking supplies and utilities, this is another flashpoint. Russia is not going to take lightly the entry of Moldova and Georgia into EU, with prospects of its further encirclement. And if one looks at significant Russian minority in Estonia feeling discriminated, the whole EU and NATO expansion eastward is going to be a constant point of friction and, possible, conflict. As for Georgia, Russian forces already rebuffed it in 2008 when it sought to occupy its separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Because of the Crimea developments, the Baltic countries, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and Poland, a former Soviet satellite and Warsaw Pact member, are feeling nervous and vulnerable from their Russian neighbour. This led the US Vice President, Joe Biden, to pay them a visit to assure them of US support. Washington has also sent some fighter planes to fly over their air space as a gesture of support, as well as promising other military measures. As a counterpoint, Russia too dispatched a few warplanes to patrol the sky over its ally, Belarus.

At the same time, the US and EU are continuing to slap a string of sanctions. There are also indications that they might target Putin, within Russia, as receiving pots of money from oil interests owned and controlled by his cronies. In other words, things are likely to get hotter as time goes by. One strongly hopes that it will not escalate into some kind of military brinkmanship on either side, and that the new talks between the US and Russia will shift it to a diplomatic course.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au