Window on Eurasia: Crimean Tatars Reaffirm Choice to Pursue Autonomy within Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 30 – Refat Chubarov, the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, reaffirmed in comments to the BBC that the Crimean Tatar nation does not recognize Russia’s annexation of their homeland and that they are recommitting themselves to the establishment of a national-territorial autonomy in Crimea.

            In making these decisions, the Kurultay, which is the broader assembly of the Crimean Tatars, directed the Mejlis to develop relations with the United Nations, the OSCE, and others as well as with the governments of individual countries and to call on these bodies and countries to support “the right of the Crimean Tatar people to self-determination” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5337C84D1A9A2).

            “Crimea is the historical territory on which the Crimean Tatar ethnos was formed and which had its own national statehood,” Chubarov said. In their actions now, he continued, they proceed from the fact that “in our days a change in the status of Crimea has been carried out without the agreement and clearly expressed will of the Crimean Tatar people.”

            Many, perhaps the overwhelming majority of Crimean Tatars did not take part in that Russian-organized measure, and when Moscow announced that the annexation of the peninsula had been approved, the Crimean Tatars announced their intention to renew the efforts of their own national liberation movement. This declaration appears to be a confirmation of that.

            Moscow is certain to be furious about this given that the Crimean Tatars do have allies outside their homeland, Turkey in the first instance but also the Turkic republics within the Russian Federation and in Central Asia. Moreover, it gives Kyiv additional leverage against Moscow which has insisted that the Anschluss of Crimea is an act of national self-determination.

            In responding to the principled position of the Crimean Tatars, the Kremlin continues to find itself confronted with a Hobson’s choice: if it fails to make concessions to the Crimean Tatars, it will enflame opinion among them and only spark more sympathy among these various allies.

            But if it does make concessions of any kind to the Crimean Tatars, Moscow will infuriate the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea which the Russian government had forced to offer more to the Crimean Tatars before the referendum in the hopes of attracting more of that nation to its “referendum.”

            More than that, if it makes such concessions, Vladimir Putin and his regime will simultaneously undercut the Russian nationalist rhetoric that they have been playing up  and trigger demands by Turkic groups within the Russian Federation for greater autonomy on the Crimean model.

            There are two places in particular where the latter is likely to occur: among the Chuvash, a Christian Turkic nation in the Middle Volga whose members have been increasingly angry about how Moscow has treated them, and the Balkars and Karachays in the North Caucasus, two Turkic nations currently locked in Stalin-created bi-national republics with Circassian groups.

            Given the position the Crimean Tatars have adopted, the crisis point with regard to them is likely to be reached very soon.  They, like other residents of Crimea, have been told that they have 30 days to take Russian citizenship or face the prospect that they will be treated as migrants (on their own land) with significantly reduced rights.

            Few Crimean Tatars are likely going to be willing to change their citizenship status especially after the Kurultay declaration and even though some of their Russian neighbors have sparked fears about what people are already calling “a soft deportation” to other parts of Ukraine by their question: “when are you going to leave because we like your house?”

             

Window on Eurasia: North Caucasus 'Calm' Exists Only in the Russian Media

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 30 – A serious consequence of a crisis like the ongoing one in Ukraine is that it absorbs so much media space that little or none is left for other events and developments, creating a situation that may benefit some and harm others even when no overt falsification of the news is involved.

            When not covering a story serves the interests of government officials who control much of the media, this problem is even more dangerous because it allows them to argue often quite successfully that if there are no reports of any problems, then there aren’t any problems and officials deserve credit for that.

            That is exactly what is happening in the North Caucasus now. After receiving intense coverage because of the  Sochi Olympics, Musa Musayev, a Daghestani journalist says, in the last month, the security situation there “has fallen out of the information space” and “the appearance of stability has been created” (vestikavkaza.ru/articles/Dagestan-Zatishe-mnimoe-ili-realnoe-1.html).

            “The reality however is very different,” Musayev says.  The Russian force structures have launched numerous special operations, “but the media aren’t reporting them.” Part of this reflects the attention being given to Ukraine, but part of it is the result of “unwritten instructions” that the authorities have given journalists.

            As far as one can judge, Musayev says, there has been an improvement in the security situation but not nearly as great a one as the media reports suggest. The bands of militants appear to be smaller in size, but they are still attracting “not only local residents but young peoplefrom  other regions of Russia and even from abroad.”

            A more important shift, judging from arrest and casualty reports, he continues, is that the militant groups have “ceased to be the unquestioned masters of the forest and mountain fastnesses” but have chosen to shift their operations “primarily to population points.” That may reflect greater control of the countryside by the siloviki, but it also suggests the militants have more support among the population than the Russian authorities say.

            Last week, the independent Kavka-Uzel.ru news agency reported its own statistics on 5291 casualties (killed and wounded) in the conflicts in the North Caucasus over the last five years. Several of its findings are striking, none more so than the fact that half of these losses were in Daghestan (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/239836/).

            Overall  casualties, at least those being reported, have fallen among siloviki, militants and the civilian population, but last year, after two years of declines, the number of civilian losses “again rose.” Each side in this conflict can be counted on to put its own interpretation on what is happening.

            But one development in the conflict in the region is sufficiently disturbing that it deserves broader attention and condemnation even if there are disagreements on statistics.  It is being reported in local websites and media that the siloviki are now setting fires in highlight Daghestan in an effort to deny the militants cover and force them into open fields where they can be fought.

            At least five such fires have been set so far, and despite the statements of some officials that these are the result of bad fire security, local residents and experts are nearly unanimous that there is no other plausible explanation for the timing, size and location of the fires except siloviki involvement (kavpolit.com/articles/protiv_kogo_gorjat_lesa_dagestana-2305/).

            Bulat Magomedov, a Daghestani historian, says that such a military strategy is nothing new. It was used in the Middle Ages, and it was applied in the North Caucasus by General Yermolov in the 19^th century. He notes, however, that in the past and again possibly now such actions simply increase the readiness of the militants to fight and the support they get from the population.

Window on Eurasia: Has Putin Decided on a New Period of ‘Phony War’?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 29 – Many have drawn parallels between what Vladimir Putin is doing and how the West is reacting with the Cold War or with the appeasement policies of  Munich. But now that Putin has carried out the Crimean Anschluss, a far better analogy for today may be to “the phony war” between the German occupation of Poland and Hitler’s attacks to the West.

            That war, which lasted for just over seven months between October 1939 and the spring of 1940, did not involve major military actions by the Western powers despite the fact that they had declared war on Germany following Hitler’s invasion and destruction of Poland, a campaign in which Stalin and the international communist movement was his ally.

Winston Churchill called this period “the Twilight War,” the Poles called it “the strange war,” and some wits at the time called it “the Bore war.”  The term, “phony war,” has attracted many claims of paternity, but it appears that it was first suggested by US Senator William Borah in September 1939.

 One feature of that period was military preparations for what many but not all had come to believe would be another act of aggression by Hitler, but another feature, one that should not be forgotten in the current context, were suggestions by some commentators and activists that there shouldn’t be a war at all because Hitler had taken all he wanted.

That view of course was promoted by the Communist parties in the West because at that time the Soviet Union was an ally of Nazi Germany. But it was also pushed by some who still feared a repetition of 1914 and wanted to avoid a conflict at all costs and some who argued that the West, having “slept” while Hitler re-armed, wasn’t ready to take him on.

As a result, in those months, some in Western countries, however upset they may have been by the destruction of Poland, openly wondered whether Munich-fashion some new accommodation could be found especially when they managed to convince themselves that Hitler wasn’t about to move forward.

Such views were increasingly marginalized 70 years ago as Western governments recognized that Hitler’s large-scale troop movements and re-armament programs left little doubt as to where he was headed and largely ended in the spring of 1940 when German forces moved West – although communist groups continued to oppose fighting Germany even then.

Now, after Putin has occupied Crimea under his self-supplied fig leaf of a pseudo-referendum but not yet sent troops into “Ukraine proper” as many Western commentators say, thus implicitly accepting Moscow’s view, and Putin and his officials have said they aren’t going to invade, some in the West are beginning to echo suggestions of early 1940.

Given the speeded up quality of life and the balance as the only measure of objectivity in reporting, the fact that Putin has not yet invaded the rest of Ukraine and that he and his officials say they won’t is leading more commentators in the West to conclude that he isn’t going to, that we must not “provoke” him by any of our actions, and that we should even seek “a deal.”

One hopes and prays that Putin will not invade the rest of Ukraine or anywhere else, but both his direct military preparations and the xenophobic nationalism he and his Kremlin-controlled media have whipped up make it difficult to believe that he will not do so eventually, unless of course he is offered what he wants without having to commit forces.

At various points in the late 1930s, Churchill warned that there would always be the danger that when an aggressor like a snake which has swallowed an egg – pauses to “digest” it, some will suggest that the snake having gotten its fill will change its ways and won’t be interested in any further “meals.” 

                At the time of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, few were prepared to suggest that. But during the phony war, all too many wanted to believe that that round of quiet digestion pointed to a fundamental change of heart by the snake.  Tragically, during the current “phony war,” those who want to deceive themselves on this point appear to be far more numerous.

Window on Eurasia: Feeling Like a Great Power is One Thing; Remaining One is Quite Another, Russian Commentators Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 28 – Russian society is experiencing euphoria over what Vladimir Putin proclaims and many of them feel: With the seizure of Crimea, Russia has regained “the status of a great power.”  But Moscow commentators that warn it is far easier to claim or even believe Russia is again a great power than it is for the country to “retain” that status.

            And they suggest that what will be required for that to happen, according to a survey of opinion of Svetlana Gomzikova of the “Svobodnaya pressa” portal, will require not just money and military victories but the kind of changes in Russia that the Putin regime has been unwilling to make (svpressa.ru/society/article/84527/).

            “In the final analysis,” she says, “euphoria over the unification of Crimea” with the Russian Federation “will pass, but the problems” that Russia faces “will remain in  place” because the “status” of a world power won’t “feed” anyone, pay the bills or even allow the country to remain that for very long.

             Vladimir Shevchenko, a senior scholar at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, tells Gomzikova that “Russia can exist only as a great power. Or it will not exist at all.  This is an axiom which has been confirmed over the course of the centuries of all our history. But in reality, [such a] status doesn’t feed anyone. And it must be confirmed by actions.”

            Among those actions, he suggests, are the following: “rapid re-industrialization,” “the de-offshore-ization of the economy,” and “the creation of an integral conception of development above all for Siberia and the Far East.” He continues that given the failure of “liberal-market doctrine,” Russia needs to put a different doctrine in place.

            “Many already today understand,” Shevchenko continues, “the state must all the same be returned to the economy and correctly mark out the basic directions of development. Business perhaps will decide some partial tasks, but it isn’t solving the main ones.” Among those is moving into the sixth technological generation.

            The US, Germany and Japan have already done so and are developing on the basis of nano-technologies, bio-technologies, information technologies, and convection technologies, he says.  But Russia is “still” just starting in all of these areas.  The country must devote “all its forces” to achieve a breakthrough.

            The West won’t be able to prevent that even if it employs sanctions.  It is simply impossible “to isolate Russia the way the Soviet Union was isolated at the end of the 1940s and in the 1950s.” China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Iran will all continue to work with Russia if Moscow sets the tasks for change.

            Anatoly Stepanov, a historian who edits the Orthodox Russkaya Narodnaya Liniya portal, says that the most important thing Crimea has done is to give Russians “inspiration,” a sense that they can do things on their own and despite obstacles. That had been missing in recent years to Russia’s and Russians’ detriment.

            Crimea also has helped overcome another problem Russia has suffered from over the last 20 years, Stepanov says, the widespread feeling that “the people and supreme power were separated from each other.” That meant that the authorities could not draw on the energy of the population, and the population felt in some ways alienated from their rulers.

            In the wake of Crimea, he continues, the national consciousness of Russians has been renewed, “and before the authorities stands the most important task of preserving that.” The reason is obvious: Russians have been inspired before, only to be let down and thus alienated from the authorities.  One need only look at the trajectory from 1914 to 1917.

                And Valery Skurlatov, who works at the Moscow Institute for Innovative Development, says that Crimea was important but that Crimea alone has not allowed Russia to recover its status as a great power.  That will only be possible if the country undergoes “modernization.” Relying on raw materials leaves it part of the “raw materials periphery” and subject to “foreign markets.”

                Because of the Russia of today has not made that transition, “it is still early to speak about the return of the status of a great power.”  But Crimea could help. It could become an example and a stimulus for the rest of Russia, “a special Russian enclave,” even “’a European Singapore.’”