Sunday, September 7, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Moscow Commentators Begin Talking about a Federalized Ukraine Without Novorossiya


Paul Goble

 

            Staunton, September 7 – In yet another indication that Vladimir Putin plans to pocket what he has already seized and then move on to take more, Moscow commentators are beginning to talk about the federalization of Ukraine not as a means of dealing with the Donbas but instead after Novorossiya is taken away from it.

 

            On the Svobodnaya pressa portal yesterday, Dmitry Rodionov surveys the support for that highly aggressive posture in an article entitled “The Federalization of Ukraine. A Reset” --even claiming to see evidence that there is growing support for such a policy within Ukraine itself (svpressa.ru/politic/article/97452/).

 

            “In Kyiv,” the portal journalist says, “voices are being raised ever more often about the need” to give up the Donbass, a view that he argues will spread as Ukrainians recognize that “the senselessness and lack of prospects” they have if they fight to keep it within the borders of their country.

 

            He cites one Ukrainian author as having said that “all the problems of the Donbas should be put on Russia’s shoulders,” that he doesn’t want to live inside the same country with people like those in the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, and that Ukraine would benefit by giving it up (mironovka.in.ua/index.php/easyblog/entry/poterya-donbassa-v-strategicheskom-plane-vygodna-ukraine).

 

            To be sure, Rodionov says, that Ukrainian author saw such a sacrifice as only temporary, something necessary until with the help of the West, Ukraine could regain not only the Donbas but Crimea and also “unite the Kuban and Rostov” to Ukraine. 

 

            But he argues that the idea of separating the Donbas as a means of benefiting Ukraine is hardly new.  Various authors have suggested that Kyiv doesn’t need “the ballast” that that Russian-speaking and pro-Moscow area represents just as some in Moldova are prepared to give up Transdniestria in order to get into Europe (professionali.ru/Soobschestva/biznes-klub/ukraina-i-ne-ukraina-gde-prohodit-granitsa/).

 

            Vladimir Kornilov, the director of the Moscow Center for Eurasian Research, told Rodionov that “Kyiv could federalize” Ukraine but that he “does not see any chance to convince the population of Novorossiya” that this would meet their needs: they want out. Thus, federalization now is about the rest of Ukraine, not Novorossiya.

 

            “The issue of offering autonomy to the Donbas is now being actively proposed by Kyiv itself in all international discussions,” Kornilov said. But what the Ukrainian authorities are not talking about is “a mechanism for guaranteeing this autonomy.” And no one can say how or why the Donbas would remain in Ukraine even if it received that.

 

            Federalization  has had a checkered history in Ukraine, Kornilov pointed out. Many supported the idea early on, but after the Orange Revolution, it became “a curse word,” and all polls showed Ukrainians overwhelmingly opposed it. After the loss of Crimea and the beginning of clashes in Donbass, the number of Ukrainian supporters of federalization dropped still further.

 

            “But now,” Kornilov insisted, “when Ukrainian society is escaping from the illusion about the possibility of ‘a blitzkrieg’ in the Donbas, the number of supporters of its autonomy and even separation will grow. This is only a question of time…”

           

            Many think that pro-Moscow forces would have to advance as far as Kyiv to achieve that, but Kornilov argued that much less is needed: an end to Ukraine’s promotion of Russophobia would be enough.

 

            Aleksey Blyumkin, another Russian political analyst, told Rodionov that “the federalization of Ukraine would be the most desirable outcome and correspond to the long-term interests of all its residents” as a means of avoiding the division of Ukraine. But “the window of opportunity for this is already closing.”

 

            The people of the Donbas and Novorossiya more generally, he said, do not trust Kyiv and do not want to live in a Ukraine however organized, and Ukrainians increasingly do not want to deal with them openly and honestly and are likely to become ever more disposed to letting them go their own way.

 

            One should remember that after Ukraine lost Crimea, many said that this would give Ukrainians “a chance to build a normal country.” Now, he said he was “certain,” these same people and others as well will “write more texts explaining” why Ukraine will live better “having lost the Donbas.”

 

            But for such ideas to spread to the entire Ukrainian population, he said, “the war must come into each home” and not remain, as is the case now, simply something Ukrainians watch on television. When a Ukrainian “loses a son and a job and remains without light and water,” then, Blyumkin added, “very many people in Kyiv” will change their views.

 

            They will “suddenly feel themselves ‘Eurasians’ and recall that they have Russian roots,” hardly a message that anyone seeking a genuine and long-lasting ceasefire let alone peace would be sending.

 

 

 

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