Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 31 – Vladimir
Putin’s effort to block Ukraine’s integration with Europe by trying to spark a
civil war in the former Soviet republic has failed, Leonidis Donskis says; and
consequently, Kyiv despite its current difficulties can look forward to
becoming a full member of the European Union sometime within the next ten
years.
Moreover, the former European
Parliament member and scholar at Vitautas the Great University in Kaunas says,
he will not be surprised if Ukraine also becomes part of NATO as well (gordonua.com/news/society/Ex-deputat-evroparlamenta-NATO-poslal-Kremliu-chetkiy-messedzh.html).
What
is regrettable he says, is that Ukraine was “not integrated into NATO
and the European Union earlier.” Had that been the case, “almost 7,000 people
would not have lost their lives,” although their sacrifice, Donskis says, is
hardly in vain. It has woken Europe and the West up to the threat that Putin
constitutes.
The Kremlin leader’s “honeymoon”
with the West is over, he continues; and Europe and the US will never react as
they did when he attacked Georgia in 2008 and say that “’Georgia was not
without sin.’” “Now, it has become entirely clear: Ukraine is absolutely
innocent, and all the fault lies with Russia.”
Unfortunately, Donkis continues,
more people are likely to die in Ukraine because “military actions will
continue. But there will not be a global war [because] Russia does not have the
economic strength for that.”
Today, he argues, “Ukraine is a
large, strong and consolidated country In the Donbas, a kind of new
Trans-Dnistria or frozen conflict has appeared.” That is a defeat for Russia
because it means the rest of Ukraine can develop in its European direction much
as Moldova has rather than be blocked by a Moscow-controlled “fifth column.”
To be sure, the continuing conflict
in the Donbas is “technically” something that blocks Ukraine’s entrance into
NATO, he says, but this is not the case in the US. “I am certain that Europe
will not leave your country but will integrate it. And certainly within ten
years, [Ukraine] will be a member of the EU.”
“The North Atlantic Alliance can say
that first this territorial conflict must be resolved. That will slow the move
to membership for five or ten years but not more,” the Lithuanian analyst
argues.
Ukraine needs to focus on domestic
reforms and to recognize that it will be able to achieve more than it expects
more quickly. After four or five years of hard work, Ukraine will be a totally
new place just as Lithuania was. Not all the problems will be solved, but
people will have gained a sense of self-confidence that will make additional
reforms easier.
NATO is critical. The Baltic
countries know that it is “a real force in the world” and “the only thing which
now saves us.” NATO has displayed its solidarity with its members in the east
and “sent the Kremlin a very clear message: ‘don’t touch or you will face an
entirely different scenario.’”
As
for Europe, “it prefers soft power” and economic leverage. “That is a good
thing, but if we want to establish a real European architecture of political
life (of course, together with Ukraine), this is impossible with such
approaches. Other institutions are needed.”
“The West is hardly weak,
but its institutions are really inadequate,” Donskis says. The UN must be immediately
reformed” so that Russia can’t use its veto to block findings against it. And
the EU must be transformed as well. Whenever there is a crisis, “who solves the
problems?” Not Brussels but Berlin and Paris.Ukraine can play a big role in the revival of the European Union, he argues. “Euroscepticism is a good which is traded in France, the Netherlands and England but not in Ukraine. You believe in the EU and Brussels just as we belived in 2004. This faith will give a new chance for the European Union itself.”
Indeed, he suggests, “only Ukraine is capable of bringing with it the new energy and faith” needed to revive the aging house of Europe.
