Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 23 – The West appears
to have accepted the deal Vladimir Putin has been offering the last month,
agreeing not to challenge Russia’s annexation of Crimea de facto in exchange for the Kremlin leader’s declaration that he
will recognize the territorial integrity of the rest of Ukraine and not expand
his campaign against Kyiv, according to Andrey Piontkovsky.
Western leaders, he suggests, see
this arrangement a diplomatic triumph because such a deal has the appearance of
a genuine compromise and relieves them of the need to maintain a hard line
against Russia or even prepare for a military response by allowing them to
declare that “the Ukrainian crisis” has been solved.
This deal, Piontkovsky points out,
leaves Ukraine much weakened in the short term. On the one hand, it does not
require Putin to pull his forces out or stop his efforts to destabilize Ukraine. And on the
other, it forces Kyiv to finance a region that will remain under effective
Russian control, something even the Moldovan government doesn’t have to do in
Transdniestria.
But it does give Ukraine clarity
about exactly what its challenges are and at least potentially time to carry
out the kind of fundamental reforms needed to integrate into Europe, reforms
that if successful would constitute a historic breakthrough and likely lead to
the genuine reintegration of the Donbas and Crimea into Ukraine given Russia’s
inability to do the same.
In a commentary yesterday, the
Russian analyst argues that the basic features of the deal were outlined on
April 19 in Fyodor Lukyanov’s “Moscow Times” article entitled “Putin Wants
Peaceful Coexistence with the West,” the authoritative nature of which was
underscored by its appearance in “Rossiiskaya gazeta” the next day (svoboda.org/articleprintview/27029369.html).
That article made two key points:
First, it asserted that "For the authorities to maintain
the strong anti-Western sentiment they have manufactured, they must now
take the conflict to the next level, and that is dangerous
and extremely expensive.” And
second, it added that "Turning back is impossible. The Crimean
decision is irreversible, without putting the entire political model
at risk. Any backtracking on support for eastern Ukraine would
lead to serious political repercussions at home and would
generally be perceived as a clear defeat for the Kremlin.”
The “tone” of that article,
Piontkovsky points out, was “exclusively businesslike. Tre was no demagogy
about an anti-Russian conspiracy” or anything of the like. In fact, with this
article, Moscow took responsibility for ginning up “the anti-Western hysteria,”
even as it indicated that it wasn’t ready or able to take the conflict to “the
next level of escalation.”
But at the same time, the Russian
analyst notes, the article sent a clear signal that “there could not be any
discussion about the return of Crimea or the weakening of the Russian presence
in separatist territories, above all for internal considerations.” Were those
points to be raised, there would be “a serious political crisis” in Russia itself.
Such “a shocking recognition of the
failure of the ‘Novorossiya’ project and at the same time a demand for recognition of the results
of the expansion already achieved” might seem too much for the market to bear.
But Putin very correctly read his opposite numbers in the contemporary West.
If Western leaders were like the figures presented by Kremlin
propaganda, such an exchange would have been unthinkable. But neither European
leaders nor American ones want to have anything disturb them for long,
Piontkovsky says; and consequently they will do whatever they can to end
tensions, declare a settlement, and go back to business as usual.
The
April “’Putin wants’ memorandum
offered them just such an opportunity: Putin as it were agreed not to go
further. The West can declare its victory achieved by peaceful diplomacy.” And
in one sense, the West did get a victory: Putin will not move into the Baltics
in the near future, something which NATO would have to respond to or cease to
exist.
Not
surprisingly, the Western governments jumped at the opportunity the Kremlin
presented them with. Berlin began putting pressure on Kyiv to accept Putin’s
fundamentally dishonest interpretation of the Minsk accords, and US Secretary
of State John Kerry hurried to meet Putin in Sochi.
It
is important to understand what these moves mean and what they don’t. They clearly
follow Putin’s script, but they don’t mean that the West has decided to throw
over Ukraine or simply leave it to its own devices. Ukraine has enough force of
its own to be a serious player, and the West has made clear that if Putin
launches a new invasion, the West will oppose him.
This set of moves “defines the real
foreign policy context in which in the coming years, the Ukrainian state must
struggle for its existence,” and consequently, “in the relations of Ukraine
with the West there must be all possible clarity,” with Kyiv fully
understanding what the West will and won’t do.
Piontkovsky says that “the West will
not return to Ukraine the territories it has lost as a result of Russian
aggression, but the West is prepared to react to a further Russian escalation
with harsh political and economic measures, including an expansion of arms shipments.”
That is a large part of the reason Moscow has made the concessions it has made.
These are the product not so much of
its fears of Western reaction, the Russian commentator continues, but “above all because the resistance of the Ukrainian army would lead to the losses
of Russian military personnel, something that Russian society would not
accept.”
If Kyiv is wise, it will use this
pause to build up its defense fortifications, given that “no one can guarantee
what will take place tomorrow in the head of a man who is in another
reality.” Putin will certainly continue
his “terrorist and diversionary activity on the territory of all of Ukraine.”
But Kyiv will be able to cope given the lack of support for Moscow in most
places.
“The illusion of the preservation of
the territorial integrity of Ukraine (without Crimea, it would seem)” is what Putin
wants to use to put additional pressure on Kyiv. For a long time, Ukraine was
frightened by the idea that it would face “a second Transdniestria,” but what
it faces now is worse: it has to pay to support people on territories it
doesn’t control.
The Minsk agreements don’t contain
all the things Putin says, Piointkovsky says. “The only provision of the Minsk
accords which really can be realized is the delimitation of Russian and
Ukrainian forces and a ceasefire.” Ukraine must insist that its Western
partners recognize that reality.
But what is most important, the
Russian analyst says, is that Ukraine uses the coming months and years to
“demonstrate to all its citizens, including those who are temporarily occupied
territories, the undoubted and convincing success of economic and political
reforms which will lead to the establishment of a contemporary European state.”
If Kyiv does so, Piontkovsky concludes, “this will be an
event of enormous historical importance for Ukraine, for Russia, for Europe and
for the entire post-Soviet space, an event whose inevitable and natural result
will be the return to Ukraine of territories, traitorously taken away by the Russian
authorities.”
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