Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 5 – Both the supporters and
opponents of an EU-Ukraine association agreement appear to think that such an
accord means that Ukraine will soon be a member of the European Union, but that
is not so, Aleksey Shiropayev says. And a continuing failure to understand that
could lead to disaster in both Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
In an essay yesterday on
Rufabula.com, Shiropayev, one of Russia’s leading theorists on regionalism,
says that he is “certain that if a poll was taken, the majority of people in
both camps would say that what [an association agreement] means is the
membership of Ukraine in the EU.” But “this is not the case” (rufabula.com/articles/2013/12/04/ukrainian-choice).
The EU isn’t all that interested in
taking in new members anytime soon, he continues, and assuming otherwise could
lead in Ukraine to expectations that will not be met and in Russia to actions
that could not only threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine but lead to the
disintegration of the Russian Federation itself.
The limited meaning of the association
agreement becomes clear, Shiropayev suggests, if one takes the time to go
through the 236-page document itself which is available online at comeuroint.rada.gov.ua/komevroint/doccatalog/document?id=56219
and which highlights how much Ukraine would have to change before closer
integration with the EU would be possible.
Indeed, he says, it is clear that this
agreement is “not a path to heaven on earth strewn with rose petals but only
the first step toward economic and political freedom. At the present time, this
is not a bad thing ... and thus it is the best choice for Ukraine and a road in
the correct direction.”
Unfortunately, many Ukrainians expect
and many Russians fear that it means more than that, and because they do, the
former are adopting one form of apocalyptic thinking and the latter another,
with Ukrainians assuming that this accord will solve all their problems and
Russians concluding that they act forcefully and immediately to block it.
And that pattern, Shiropayev makes clear
in an interview he gave to Znak.com is particularly fraught with dangers for
the current regime in the Russian Federation because “the integration of
Ukraine in Europe means the collapse of the entire imperialist conception of
Putin” (znak.com/urfo/articles/02-12-20-04/101600.html).
What is happening in Ukraine now, he
says, is “the logical continuation of the processes of the collapse of the Soviet
empire.” More than that, “Ukraine is now seeking to correct its historic
mistake, made in the 17th century when under the pressure of
political circumstances, Khmelnitsky was forced to go ‘under the hand of
Moscow.’”
In short, what is happening is that “Ukraine
is overcoming its colonial past and returning to Europe where it once was.” Of
course, Moscow will oppose this not only because Ukraine’s choice means “the demise
of the official Russian historical conception” of a Russian people including
Ukrainians and Belarusian “but also the collapse of the entire neo-imperialist
policy of Putin.”
Putin understands this, and
Shiropayev says that the Kremlin leader may have forced Viktor Yanukovich to
use force against the demonstrators “in order to finally bury the Ukrainian
president in the eyes of the West and attach him for life to the Kremlin,” as a
dictator that Putin can hold onto only in this way.
Moreover, there is a risk that
Moscow will seek to “provoke the division of Ukraine into two parts East and
West with the succeeding ‘voluntary re-unification’ of the Eastern part with
Russia.” That would leave Ukraine in an impossible situation, but Shiropayev
says it would also have an extremely negative impact on Russia itself.
Ukrainians “must integrate in Europe,” and “the
greater part of the population of Ukraine is inclined toward the European
choice.” That is true even in the Eastern
part of Ukraine and in Crimea, Shiropayev argues, although it is entirely
possible that Moscow will seek to “ignite” opposition in these regions.
The
European Union is not without its own problems, the Russian analyst says, but
they are “incomparably” less than those of the USSR are Putin’s Eurasian
Union. The EU is “all the same the free
world,” and “if Ukraine wants to restore its European identity and overcome its
colonial past, it does not have an alternative to European integration.”
Ukrainians
are taking this step, he continues, not because of some “’psychological complex’”
as some Russians suggest but because “Ukrainians are really a different people
with their own special history and values which were formed in the context of
European history.” Russians need to
accept that.
The
impact of Ukrainian events on Russia itself, however, could be even more
fateful. Unfortunately, Shiropayev says,
“the Russian opposition does not fully recognize the importance of the events
in Ukraine.” If that happens, this will mean not only a defeat for Putin and
his imperial conception, but it will call into question Russia’s domestic
arrangements.
In
the first instance, those will involve the issues of federalism, something the
regime is now so frightened of that it wants to criminalize any discussion of
reordering the country except according to its own ideas. But “history shows
that attempts to put back in a bottle ideas that have escaped like a genie do
not lead to anything good.”
The real reason the Kremlin is afraid of any
talk about federalism lies in what it understands the phase “united and
indivisible” Russia. It means by that
not political unity but rather the access of the oligarchic elites to the
country as a trough for their feeding. Any challenge to that arrangement is
thus something the Kremlin will oppose.
Noting
that he is not a separatist but rather a committed federalism, Shiropayev says
that he is convinced that “Russia must become a genuine Federation on the basis
of agreement” between the center and the regions. At present, there is no
federalism in Russia now; there is only “the traditional tsarist system of
power.”
To
develop, Russia must become a genuine federation. If it doesn’t, then it will
face the threat of “disintegration,” Shirpopayev says. And the main “stimulator” of that are not
some kind of separatists domestic or with foreign support but “the Kremlin
itself with its policy of an imperial tightening of the screws,” something Ukrainian
events are leading it to do even more.
Instead,
Shiropayev concludes with a rhetorical question: “Is it not time for us to
think about ‘a United States of Russia,” about a country that would be
attractive to its neighbors rather than one that is driving them and many of
its own residents away as fast as they can go?
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