tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/ukraine-russia-european-union-9278/articlesUkraine, Russia, European Union – The Conversation2022-10-20T13:14:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920642022-10-20T13:14:32Z2022-10-20T13:14:32ZThe US isn’t at war with Russia, technically – but its support for Ukraine offers a classic case of a proxy war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490452/original/file-20221018-14-2bc3lz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, stands near a damaged residential building in Irpin, Ukraine, on Sept. 8, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-stands-near-a-damaged-residential-picture-id1243043572">Genya Savilov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States and European countries continue to pledge their support to Ukraine as Russia’s invasion drags on into its ninth month – and have backed their alliance with recurrent deliveries of advanced weaponry and money.</p>
<p>But despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to Western powers of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-signs-decree-mobilisation-says-west-wants-destroy-russia-2022-09-21/">nuclear strikes</a>, neither the U.S. nor any Western European country, unified under the <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">military coalition NATO</a>, has actually declared it is part of the war.</p>
<p>The U.S. has provided US$17.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/">since Russia first invaded Ukraine</a> in February 2022. But it can be difficult to track foreign aid and to distinguish between money that governments have promised and actually delivered. Some unofficial estimates place U.S. commitments to Ukraine made in 2022 much higher, at <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/09/10/ukraine-military-aid-weapons-oversight/">$40 billion</a>.</p>
<p>European countries, meanwhile, have collectively donated an estimated 29 billion euros – or more than $28.3 billion – in <a href="https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/">security, financial and humanitarian aid</a> in 2022 – not including additional aid to <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/ua/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2022/10/UNHCR-Ukraine-Weekly-Update-12-October-2022-2.pdf">Ukrainian refugees</a>. </p>
<p>This support has made it possible for Ukraine to fend off a Russian conquest of the country. Without Western aid, equipment and training, Ukraine would likely have already suffered defeat to the Russian incursion. </p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221117546">war and military interventions</a>, <a href="https://facultyprofiles.tufts.edu/monica-toft">I think</a> the situation in Ukraine represents a classic case of a proxy war, in which outsiders give allies money, weapons and other kinds of support – but not at the risk of their own soldiers’ or civilians’ lives. </p>
<p>A better understanding of what proxy wars actually are, and what purpose they serve, provides useful context for the the U.S. and NATO’s current unofficial involvement in the Ukraine war.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An older white man wearing a gray suit is seen talking to a middle-aged Black woman, who is wearing a yellow jacket and a blue shirt." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490451/original/file-20221018-8262-hccuob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Sergiy Kyslytsa, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, speak on Aug. 24, 2022, in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ambassador-sergiy-kyslytsa-permanent-representative-of-ukraine-to-the-picture-id1417682186">Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What proxy wars are</h2>
<p>Proxy wars are armed conflicts in which one nation sends resources other than its own military personnel – like weapons, trainers, advisers, surveillance drones, money or even mercenaries – to support another country fighting in a war. This is often done to achieve a political objective, like regime change in another country. </p>
<p>Most proxy wars feature a government trying to determine an outcome in another country’s war. The U.S., for example, supported France with aircraft, vehicles, and weapons in France’s effort to reestablish control of what was then known as <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/americas-vietnam">Indochina from 1946 to 1954</a>. The Vietnam War started just one year after, in 1955. </p>
<p>Proxy wars allow governments to hurt an adversary without actually declaring war and sending in troops.</p>
<p>Of course, not every government has an equal capacity to financially support other wars. This is why relatively powerful governments with global reach, like the U.S. and the United Kingdom, tend to sponsor proxy wars.</p>
<h2>Why proxy wars are taken on</h2>
<p>Proxy wars became especially useful for the U.S. and other major powers after World War II, because the 1945 United Nations charter outlawed war except <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7">in cases of self-defense</a>. </p>
<p>They also gained prominence because the U.S. and the Soviet Union <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">each possessed</a> nuclear weapons during the Cold War. </p>
<p>That meant any direct clash came with a very large risk of escalating from conventional fighting to a species-ending nuclear war. </p>
<p>Both the U.S. and Soviet Union sponsored proxy wars in places <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/proxy-wars-during-cold-war-africa">like Angola</a>, where communism and oil were both factors, and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-calls-situation-in-el-salvador-a-communist-plot">El Salvador</a>, where the rise of communism was also a concern for the U.S., during the 1970s and 1980s. This involvement was a way for each government to hurt the other’s interests without significantly risking further military escalation. </p>
<p>Proxy wars may also help establish a foreign government’s legitimacy. If the U.S. directly supports one side in a smaller country’s civil war, it may look like a bully. But if the U.S. defends its engagement by saying it is trying to oppose major foreign adversaries like the Soviet Union or China, then meddling in a third country’s affairs can look necessary and vital. </p>
<p>After his initial February 2022 assault of Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/us-steps-up-pressure-russia-over-ukraine-invasion-2022-03-11/">faltered in March</a>, Putin increased his attacks on Western countries, saying that economic sanctions Western countries approved shortly after the invasion were like a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-western-sanctions-are-akin-declaration-war-2022-03-05/">declaration of war</a>.</p>
<p>Putin says that Russia is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/europe/putin-speech-ukraine-russia.html">fighting the West and the U.S.</a> – this could help justify Russia’s losses and maintain domestic support for the war.</p>
<h2>Other kinds of proxy wars</h2>
<p>There are two other main kinds of proxy wars, both intended to accomplish political goals without risking a country’s own people. </p>
<p>The first kind is government support of terrorist groups that attack other governments. Iran’s financial and political <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hezbollah">support of Hezbollah</a> – a Muslim political party and militant group in Lebanon that seeks Israel’s destruction – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/hezbollah-revolutionary-irans-most-successful-export/">is an example</a>. </p>
<p>But while Iran’s use of Hezbollah to attack Israel is by proxy, this wouldn’t exactly count as proxy war. Although terrorism involves lethal armed violence, it doesn’t rise to the level of war, in terms of loss of life and control of territory, for example.</p>
<p>The second form involves supporting an internationally recognized government engaged an international war. This is a rare occurrence, mainly because wars between different countries are more rare than internal conflicts.</p>
<p>Russia’s assault on Ukraine in 2022 is an international war, but NATO cannot <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_192648.htm">easily risk</a> a direct attack on Russia, since Russia has nuclear weapons and is also a permanent member of the <a href="https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/current-members">U.N. Security Council</a>. Russia is also <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/why-ukraine-must-defeat-putin-russia/629940/">unlikely to withdraw</a> from Ukraine short of defeat on the battlefield, making Ukraine an ideal proxy client – or, at least, ideal for NATO, but very costly in terms of human life for Ukraine and Russia.</p>
<p>If <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/87799">NATO succeeds in helping</a> Ukraine defeat Russia, powerful governments are likely to see proxy wars as a useful tool. But if Russia escalates to attacking NATO countries directly, or uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, proxy wars may be replaced by direct confrontation and, by extension, a third world war. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. </p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the conversion of euros to dollars.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Duffy Toft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Giving Ukraine large amounts of money while not actually declaring war on Russia has various benefits for the US and other countries. Chiefly, it could protect US soldiers and civilians.Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838642022-06-16T12:06:11Z2022-06-16T12:06:11ZUkraine war: five issues that could help kickstart peace talks as European leaders head to Kyiv<p>As the leaders of France, Germany and Italy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/16/european-leaders-expected-to-visit-kyiv-to-show-support-for-ukraine">arrive in Kyiv</a> and the EU prepares to rule on Ukraine’s status as an EU candidate, there is renewed focus on what the country’s western neighbours see as the quickest and easiest route to peace. New polling reported in The Times newspaper <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/europe-splits-over-how-war-in-ukraine-should-end-r9qxj25jf">has revealed</a> that most Europeans would be ready to concede territorial losses in Ukraine to bring the conflict to a speedy end.</p>
<p>A survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), has found a <a href="https://ecfr.eu/publication/peace-versus-justice-the-coming-european-split-over-the-war-in-ukraine/">big divide</a> “between those who want to end the war as quickly as possible and those who want Russia to be punished,” according to Mark Leonard, the ECFR’s director.</p>
<p>On the other hand, research reported by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-most-people-refuse-to-compromise-on-territory-but-willingness-to-make-peace-depends-on-their-war-experiences-new-survey-185147">The Conversation</a> has found that most Ukrainians are not willing to concede territory and most want to regain those areas occupied by Russia or pro-Russian forces since 2014. A road to peace looks as distant as ever. But, at the same time, thinking about ways to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement could help the various players – even Russia – to see the bigger picture and the advantages of committing to a negotiated settlement. </p>
<p>A useful principle in peace talks is anchoring proposals on <a href="https://www.pon.harvard.edu/tag/principled-negotiation/">objective criteria</a> – solutions that have worked previously or in different conflicts. These could include peace agreements reached after decades of extensive negotiations elsewhere or key proposals by UN mediators, including security council resolutions where Russia (or the Soviet Union) and the west have explicitly converged to <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/">propose peace settlements</a>. Here are a few ways in which a comprehensive peace package might help all sides rebalance their priorities. </p>
<h2>1. Ukraine’s fast-track EU accession</h2>
<p>Ukraine should be offered <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/European-Union-Enlargement-Case-Cyprus/dp/1403916322">unconditional/preferable terms</a> for EU accession within the next five to ten years. To support Ukraine’s immediate needs, most benefits on trade, aid and free movement could apply immediately as part of a proposed peace plan. Free movement will also help displaced families reunite. The return of refugees from other countries would be made easier if victims do not fear <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/30543/summary">losing their current refugee status</a> when visiting their home communities to assess their options. </p>
<h2>2. Russian gas and oil levy to fund reconstruction</h2>
<p>A levy could be placed on part of Russia’s revenue from oil and gas exports to make it politically feasible for EU countries to resume energy imports. This not be seen primarily <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/how-solve-europe-s-russian-gas-conundrum-tariff">as a tariff</a> but, from the Russian perspective, as an insurance policy for a restored relationship with the west after signing a peace deal. For Ukraine it will effectively finance its reconstruction and support victims of war. A 20% top-up on gas and oil imports from Russia for 30 years could reach around €400 billion (£345 billion). </p>
<p>Along with other contributions (including government and corporate donors) a global reconstruction fund of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/05/04/russias-invasion-has-cost-ukraine-up-to-600-billion-study-suggests/?sh=39d7786b2dda">€500 billion</a> could support infrastructure work in Ukraine and compensate displaced persons with (a minimum of €100,000 per displaced household in line with past European Court of Human Rights <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/405eacda4.pdf">rulings</a>). </p>
<h2>3. Territorial decentralisation</h2>
<p>Territory will be the hardest issue to reach an agreement on – especially when it comes to the future of Crimea. Precedents in similarly complex situations have included elements of <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/60177/1/Ker-Lindsay_Engagement%20without%20recognition.pdf">engagement without recognition</a> meaning that actors would work together but without formally recognising the status of Crimea. </p>
<p>De facto co-sovereignty could restore economic links to Ukraine modelled in a similar way to the relationship between the <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/IE%20GB_980410_Northern%20Ireland%20Agreement.pdf">Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland</a>. In Crimea’s case, this would include dual citizenship and free travel and trade as well as the <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa">principle of consent</a> – for example Crimeans being given the option to rejoin Ukraine in a future referendum.</p>
<p>Donetsk and Luhansk could achieve an autonomous status to be negotiated in the next five years with interim ad hoc status, <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2230797154?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true">common among unrecognised entities</a> lacking diplomatic status but still involved in peace talks, <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/kosovo-resolution1244">as in Kosovo</a>. In addition, the model suggested for surrounding municipalities is for them to be permitted to join new Donetsk and Luhansk regions once the autonomous status has been agreed (Spain, for example, has historically employed a creative process in the formation of <a href="https://www.constitutionaltransitions.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Creation-of-New-Units-June-18.pdf">its constituent units</a> involving municipalities in decision-making and, in some cases, even local referendums). </p>
<h2>4. Inclusive governance model</h2>
<p>Governance talks should mainly include three main areas. First, gender quotas in peace talks, government positions and the supreme court in line with the UN’s landmark resolution on <a href="https://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/">women, peace and security</a>. Second, extended autonomy for Ukranian and Russian linguistic groups in areas such as education and culture, even making Ukraine officially bilingual following <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/history-hall/official-bilingualism/">Canada’s model</a>. Third, a more inclusive political system.</p>
<p>This could either introduce a presidential system where presidents (and vice-presidents) are explicitly incentivised to appeal to constituencies in both east and west. Or it could include a parliamentary system setting cabinet quotas for ethnic communities (as in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Mediating-Power-Sharing-Devolution-and-Consociationalism-in-Deeply-Divided/Cochrane-Loizides-Bodson/p/book/9780367607241">Belgium)</a>) or using a liberal power-sharing formula (as in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/13/4/847/2450836?login=true">Northern Ireland)</a>, based on party strength therefore circumventing the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BUAlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=mcgarry+allison+liberal&source=bl&ots=JXcg6MW7dp&sig=ACfU3U1IQB5wdqPHbPaYWdSLrt8bvc5W9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiBp4en86_4AhWNd8AKHdizCecQ6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=mcgarry%20allison%20liberal&f=false">ethnic quotas problem</a>”. </p>
<h2>5. Security and policing</h2>
<p>The key to security is identifying countries acceptable to both sides to support a UN peacekeeping mission with extensive powers as in <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/bosnia-herzegovina/">Bosnia</a> involving significant intervention and arbitration powers. Ukraine should be able to arm itself as it sees fit – but, as in <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-0-230-50175-1%2F1.pdf">past UN precedents</a>, should accept a period of demilitarisation of areas surrendered by Russia. </p>
<p>At the local level, a peace agreement might stipulate <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Policing-Northern-Ireland-by-John-McGarry-Brendan-OLeary/9780856406485">a mixed police force</a>, along the lines established in Northern Ireland, while at the regional level an <a href="https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Policing-Northern-Ireland-by-John-McGarry-Brendan-OLeary/9780856406485">east-west cooperation and security council</a> should be established involving Nato, Ukraine, the EU and Russia. </p>
<h2>Road to peace</h2>
<p>This is a general template of what a comprehensive peace settlement might look like involving credible safeguards for implementation that most analysts have seen so far <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/un-russia-ukraine-peace-deal-unlikely">as unattainable</a>. </p>
<p>Besides ideas drawn at the diplomatic level, citizen-led proposals, regional expertise and public opinion surveys – especially those who could more precisely identify what kind of <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/95229/3/JCR_Revision_May_30-final.pdf">peace and trade-offs</a> citizens could endorse – should guide this discussion further. </p>
<p>This would enable leaders – and the Ukrainian public – to assess the overall benefits and obligations generated by a comprehensive agreement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neophytos Loizides has previously received funding from the Council of Europe, the British Academy and the US Institute of Peace. </span></em></p>Five ideas based on solutions in other countries that could help bring the various players to the table.Neophytos Loizides, Professor in International Conflict Analysis, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1826542022-05-24T12:28:53Z2022-05-24T12:28:53ZThe big exodus of Ukrainian refugees isn’t an accident – it’s part of Putin’s plan to destabilize Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464400/original/file-20220520-19-2h6lvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainians fleeing the war walk toward a train in Krakow to bring them to Berlin on March 15, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-who-fled-the-war-in-ukraine-walk-towards-a-humanitarian-train-picture-id1385521272?s=2048x2048">Omar Marques/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine">6.3 million Ukrainians</a> have fled their country since Russia first invaded in late February 2022. </p>
<p>The European Union has welcomed Ukrainian refugees, allowing them to enter its 27 member countries <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/stronger-europe-world/eu-solidarity-ukraine/eu-assistance-ukraine/information-people-fleeing-war-ukraine_en">without visas</a> and live and work there <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/05/18/where-is-europe-finding-the-money-to-host-millions-of-ukrainian-refugees">for up to three years</a>. </p>
<p>Everyday <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/03/02/airbnb-european-hosts-ukraine/?sh=7d567555706e">Europeans have also</a> opened their doors – and pockets – to host Ukrainians and help them find day care, for example, and other services. </p>
<p>But there is still an uncomfortable reality: Ukrainian refugees are also Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political pawns, intended to politically destabilize the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. </p>
<p>Many Poles, for example, initially offered to help Ukrainians. But now, more than two months after the war began, <a href="https://vimeo.com/706555046">there are signs</a> that public compassion is fading.</p>
<p>Warsaw’s population has increased 15% since the start of the war, pushing the city’s mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100477111/warsaw-mayor-pleads-for-a-strategic-plan-as-city-continues-to-welcome-refugees">to propose a strategy</a> to handle rising costs.</p>
<p>“Most of the burden is on us,” Trzaskowski said.</p>
<p>Hosting Ukrainian refugees could cost countries more than $30 billion in the first year alone, according to analysis by the nonprofit think tank <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/article/new-analysis-hosting-ukrainian-refugees-could-cost-nations-around-world-estimated-30-billion">Center for Global Development</a>. This could pose <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/business/economy/ukraine-refugee-crisis-europe-economy.html">new challenges</a> for the European economy, which is already under stress with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/business/europe-economy-gdp.html">high inflation</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://works.bepress.com/mark-grey/">scholar of mass migration</a>, I think it is important to understand that there is often a connection between <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/pubhealth/modules/forcedMigration/definitions.html">forced migration</a> – meaning, the migration of people who are often fleeing conflict or environmental disasters – <a href="https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/more-refugees/">and national or regional security</a> concerns.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young woman and man sit on a bed and hold three young children in their laps, looking directly at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464378/original/file-20220519-25-ghhfbr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Ukrainian refugee family from Odesa pictured at the Egros refugee transit center in Iasi, Romania, on May 12, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ukrainian-refugees-elena-sidoroua-her-husband-vladimir-sidoroua-and-picture-id1240633775?s=2048x2048">Kirsty O'Connor/PA Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The link between migration and security</h2>
<p>In recent years, national security experts <a href="https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/more-refugees/">have increasingly</a> considered human migration as a key factor that can influence political stability. </p>
<p>This comes as the number of people forced by mainly violence or climate change to migrate worldwide has nearly doubled from 2010 through 2020 – rising from 41 million to 78.5 million over this time, <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/flagship-reports/globaltrends/globaltrends2019/">according to the United Nations</a>.</p>
<p>In some cases, such as during the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-ie/3ebf9bb60.pdf">Rwandan civil war</a> in the 1990s, political and military leaders forced or encouraged people to migrate to other countries. </p>
<p>A mass migration can work as a political tool in two main ways. First, the sudden arrival of many newcomers can overwhelm housing, health care and other resources and test the patience of receiving populations. </p>
<p>This can place broader pressures on political coalitions like the European Union, which relies on member countries – some of them reluctant – to share the costs of hosting migrants. </p>
<h2>Not the first time</h2>
<p>This is not Putin’s <a href="https://unherd.com/2022/03/vladimir-putins-secret-weapon/">first attempt</a> to use mass migration to advance his political ambitions in Europe. </p>
<p>This kind of tactic dates back to a Soviet-era practice of “<a href="https://euromaidanpress.com/2014/08/09/an-ethnoconflictologist-on-putins-ethnic-engineering/">ethnic engineering</a>,” which means trying to exacerbate political tensions based on people’s different religious, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/02/putin-weaponizing-migrant-crisis-to-hurt-europe.html">According to Western officials</a> and experts, Putin helped create the European 2015 and 2016 migration crisis from the Middle East. An estimated <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2016/08/02/number-of-refugees-to-europe-surges-to-record-1-3-million-in-2015/">1.3 million people seeking</a> asylum – a form of legal protection for people in unsafe situations – and other migrants arrived in Europe around this time. </p>
<p>The majority of migrants were from Syria, as a result of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/syrias-civil-war">deadly civil war</a>. Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad used bombs and other weapons to terrorize civilians and force them to leave their homes for Turkey and European Union countries.</p>
<p>In 2016, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who served as a military commander of NATO at the time, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2016/03/02/putin-weaponizing-migrant-crisis-to-hurt-europe.html">warned that</a> Putin and Assad were “deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.”</p>
<p>In response to the wave of new arrivals, the <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-years-on">European Union agreed</a> to take in Syrian refugees who were in Turkey. But Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic refused to accept <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/05/migration-crisis-europe-leaders-blame-brussels-hungary-germany">the refugees</a>. </p>
<p>This resulted in political tension among EU countries – and a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53925209">rise in anti-migrant</a> and nationalist political parties in places like Italy and Germany, which did accept large numbers of Syrians. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/immigration-worries-drove-the-brexit-vote-then-attitudes-changed/2018/11/16/c216b6a2-bcdb-11e8-8243-f3ae9c99658a_story.html">Public concern about immigration </a> also drove British citizens to vote in 2016 for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Syrian men and boys line up closely in a long row outside white tents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464397/original/file-20220520-27-mt7my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Syrians who fled bombing in Aleppo, Syria, are seen at a tent city near the Turkish-Syrian border in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/syrians-who-fled-bombing-in-aleppo-are-seen-at-a-tent-city-and-close-picture-id509387876?s=2048x2048">Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New forced migrations</h2>
<p>A few months before the Ukraine war, Putin’s migration-as-weapon <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgoldenziel/2021/11/10/belarus-is-weaponizing-migrants-using-putins-playbook-europe-must-legally-fight-back/?sh=5ca44bb31e2a">playbook inspired</a> political ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. </p>
<p>Lukashenko publicly <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/belarus/acaps-briefing-note-belaruspoland-migration-crisis-belarus-poland-border-2-december">promised people</a> from Iraq and other countries <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/belarus-poland-border-crisis-iraqi-refugees-deaths-repatriation-flights/">that if they came</a> to Belarus, he would help them cross into the European Union. Lukashenko provided migrants with free transportation to Belarus <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59206685?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_medium=custom7&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom4=A8DED3CA-409C-11EC-B8B2-788A4744363C&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld">and the Polish border</a>.</p>
<p>But Polish border guards <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1056397123/violence-erupts-at-the-belarus-poland-border-between-guards-and-migrants">violently blocked</a> these migrants from entering their country.</p>
<p>In December 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1062794948/authoritarians-migrants-weapons-white-house-worries">called Lukashenko’s</a> tactic a “hybrid attack.” </p>
<p>“This is not a migration crisis,” von der Leyen said. “This is an attempt by an authoritarian regime to try to destabilize its democratic neighbors. This will not succeed.” </p>
<p>Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are now among the counties <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine">taking in</a> the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees. While Poland has welcomed 3.1 million Ukrainians, Hungary has taken in 550,000 and Slovakia has admitted 391,000.</p>
<p>Keeping in line with Russia’s previous tactics during the Syrian war, the Russian military is again targeting and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-has-switched-tactics-targeting-civilians-ukraine-adviser-says-2022-03-10/">attacking civilians</a> in Ukraine – pushing millions to flee their homes and country. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man dressed in black with a white beard does a magic trick in front of a gym full of children, seated and watching." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464398/original/file-20220520-15-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An American performer with Magicians Without Borders entertains Ukrainian refugee children in Krakow, Poland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/an-american-magician-of-magician-without-borders-tom-verner-refugee-picture-id1240522176?s=2048x2048">Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Welcome wearing out</h2>
<p>While some European communities have called Ukrainians <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/06/ukraine-refugees-warsaw-polish-border/629630/">“guests”</a> and not “refugees,” other local communities are reportedly overwhelmed.</p>
<p>In Warsaw, for example, <a href="https://vimeo.com/706555046">75 new schools</a> will need to be built to educate Ukraine refugee children. </p>
<p>“It’s like sitting on a ticking bomb,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/06/ukraine-refugees-warsaw-polish-border/629630/">said</a> Agnieszka Kosowicz, president of the Warsaw-based nonprofit Polish Migration Forum. “Poles simply don’t have the resources to sustain their initial levels of generosity,” she explained. </p>
<p>So far, European politicians have not called the wave of Ukrainian refugees a crisis. Some experts say this is <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/europes-unified-ukrainian-refugees-exposes-double-standard-nonwhite/story?id=83251970">because</a> Ukrainians are predominantly white and Christian.</p>
<p>Other migration situations show that cultural and ethnic similarities do not always prevent political instability. </p>
<p>In Turkey, for example, most Turkish residents and Syrian refugees are both predominantly Muslim. But public polls <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/tr/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/03/SB-2020-Ingilizce-son.pdf">show a steady decline</a> in tolerance for Syrians over the past 10 years. </p>
<p>Putin knows <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/is-hungary-ukraines-biggest-problem-in-the-european-union/">economic anxieties</a> feed anti-migration rhetoric in Hungary, France and other countries. This can create new threats to EU solidarity, and, by extension, European security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark A. Grey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Putin has a history of forcing civilians to migrate during a conflict, part of a broader strategy to overwhelm other countries with new refugees and destabilize their economies.Mark A. Grey, Professor of Anthropology, University of Northern IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1797542022-03-28T12:37:34Z2022-03-28T12:37:34ZUkrainian female refugees are fleeing a war, but in some cases more violence awaits them where they find shelter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454410/original/file-20220325-25-1t4d9q1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Ukrainian woman who fled the war is pictured with her son after they crossed into Moldova on March 18, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ukrainian-woman-who-fled-the-war-with-her-son-after-crossing-the-picture-id1239316855?s=2048x2048"> Andrea Mancini/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Escaping war is a dangerous endeavor. The <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/berlin-ap-germany-ukraine-interior-ministry-b2037204.html">media have reported</a> about Ukrainian refugee <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2021/10/policy-brief-from-evidence-to-action-tackling-gbv-against-migrant-women-and-girls">women and girls</a> being raped in the places where they sought safety. </p>
<p>Almost all of the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60555472">3.6 million Ukrainians</a> who have left Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, are women and children. Men and boys aged <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/02/25/russia-invasion-ukraine-bans-male-citizens-leaving/6936471001/">18 to 60</a> are required to stay in Ukraine to defend the country against Russian troops.</p>
<p>Desperate to escape Russian <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113782">attacks targeting civilians</a>, these women and children head <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2022/3/6234811a4/poland-welcomes-million-refugees-ukraine.html">primarily to Poland</a> and other European countries with relaxed visa restrictions. </p>
<p>Humanitarian organizations have quickly <a href="https://www.unocha.org/ukraine">set up programs</a> to give Ukrainian refugees necessities like food and shelter. </p>
<p>People worldwide are also offering up free rooms in their homes.</p>
<p>A neuroscientist in Germany wrote on <a href="https://twitter.com/DecisionPark/status/1506772038211584003">Twitter on March 24, 2022</a> that she received a call early one morning, with the caller reminding her that she volunteered to host refugees. Now, a mother with two children and a cat needed help. </p>
<p>“Can you host?‘ 'OK, when?’ … ‘Now.’ 15 min later, they arrived with a volunteer,” the host wrote. </p>
<p>The United Kingdom announced <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/15/uk-refugees-homes-for-ukraine/">a new policy</a> that offers the equivalent of about US$455 per month to local people who host Ukrainians rent-free.</p>
<p>But these efforts, no matter how well-meaning, come with new risks of sexual violence and trafficking for Ukrainian women and girls. While the majority of ordinary people offering support are well-intentioned, even one case of someone using the situation to inflict harm is too many.</p>
<p><a href="https://korbel.du.edu/about/directory/chen-reis">My research</a> suggests <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-abuse-during-humanitarian-operations-still-happens-what-must-be-done-to-end-it-169223">that it is difficult</a> to prevent even humanitarian aid workers themselves from committing abuse against civilians, in part because of <a href="https://fic.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/SAAW-report_5-23.pdf">organizational cultures</a>. </p>
<p>It is even more challenging to prevent and respond to sexual violence when it is committed by people who do not work for an aid agency or nonprofit helping refugees.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three women sit and look to the right attentively." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454412/original/file-20220325-19-p2l4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian women wait with their children at an arrival center for refugees in Dresden, Germany, on March 21, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/march-2022-saxony-dresden-lubmila-from-odessa-and-oksana-wait-with-picture-id1239408079?s=2048x2048">Robert Michael/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding the risk</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-fleeing-war-ukraine-heightened-risk-trafficking-and-exploitation">U.N.</a> has warned that children fleeing Ukraine, especially those separated from family, face a high risk of being <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/former-wa-rep-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-working-to-secure-adoptions-for-ukrainian-children-in-poland/">trafficked</a> for sexual or work purposes. </p>
<p>So far, at least 500 Ukrainian children crossed from Ukraine into Romania <a href="https://wamu.org/story/22/03/19/the-1-5-million-children-who-fled-ukraine-are-at-risk-of-human-trafficking/">on their own</a> from Feb. 24 through March 14. More will likely follow. </p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-crime-germany-migration-135f0b5517568f696a561e0862f4326e">There are also reports</a> of Ukrainian teenage girls being abused by residents in their new countries. In Poland, a man was arrested in mid-March in the rape of a 19-year-old Ukrainian refugee. </p>
<p>“She escaped from war-torn Ukraine, did not speak Polish. She trusted a man who promised to help and shelter her. Unfortunately, all this turned out to be deceitful manipulation,” Polish <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/man-allegedly-rapes-ukrainian-refugee-poland-exploitation-fears-grow-1687468">police reportedly said</a> in a statement.</p>
<p>In Germany, two men reportedly assaulted a Ukrainian teenager who was staying in a hotel boat for refugees, also in mid-March. The German government <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-crime-germany-migration-135f0b5517568f696a561e0862f4326e">has pledged to</a> “ensure that people who seek shelter here are able to get it.” </p>
<p>Experiencing violence as a female migrant or refugee is not uncommon. </p>
<p>An estimated 1 in 5 refugee women and girls experience <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012695/">sexual violence</a> during their journeys from home, as well as in such places as refugee camps and shelters. <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/gender/brief/gender-dimensions-of-forced-displacement-gdfd-research-program">They are also</a> at high risk for <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/human-trafficking.html">human trafficking</a> – the use of force or fraud to transport people for exploitation and profit.</p>
<p>Criminal networks in such places as <a href="https://unu.edu/publications/articles/fleeing-to-mexico-for-safety-the-perilous-journey-for-migrant-women.html">Mexico</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/1/25/rape-abuse-and-violence-female-migrants-journey-to-libya">Libya</a> have also been known to prey upon women and girls along migratory routes. </p>
<p>Aid organizations, governments and nonprofits first give refugees food, shelter and other basic services and do not chiefly focus on ways to prevent or respond to sexual violence. </p>
<h2>The problem remains</h2>
<p>Over the past 20 years there’s been increased attention to aid workers’ committing abuse against the very people they are meant to help. In 2002, accusations emerged of aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers <a href="https://www.peacewomen.org/content/west-africa-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse-10-years">abusing civilians in West Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Sexual violence by humanitarians <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2021/2/11/25-years-of-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse">remains a persistent</a> problem in conflicts and refugee crises all over the world. </p>
<p>The U.N. and other humanitarian groups have worked to improve staff vetting procedures and <a href="https://psea.interagencystandingcommittee.org/safe-accessible-reporting">help make reporting</a> abuse easier for victims, by setting up phone hotlines, for example. These groups have also tried to expand <a href="https://psea.interagencystandingcommittee.org/victim-survivor-centred-assistance">legal aid and mental health resources</a> for survivors. </p>
<p>But these efforts mostly <a href="https://psea.interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/IASCExternalReview_GlobalReportPSEAH_2021_web.pdf">haven’t worked</a>. </p>
<p>Little, meanwhile, is known about how to address situations in which local people abuse women and girls like the Ukrainian teenagers who were reportedly raped in Germany and Poland. </p>
<h2>No way to vet aid</h2>
<p>Currently, there is no centralized system or way to vet people who are independently offering aid to refugees. </p>
<p>Tech-based solutions like online platforms to connect those seeking shelter with volunteers <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90730787/a-wave-of-grassroots-humanitarianism-is-supporting-millions-of-ukrainian-refugees">have been celebrated</a> and promoted on social media platforms, despite the lack of any background checks on individuals opening their homes to reduce the risk of abuse.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/see-what-unicef-blue-dot-refugee-support-center-looks/39710">humanitarian programs</a> that work with refugees focus on giving transportation information and warnings about possible dangers. </p>
<p>This places the burden of remaining safe on the refugees, without providing them with the money and other resources to do so.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman is seen at a doorway, entering a room with a bed and linens, blankets and pillows folded on top of it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454415/original/file-20220325-19-d9einm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainians enter a home offered by a Budapest family on March 6, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/local-family-from-budapest-offer-free-accomodation-and-host-ukrainans-picture-id1381513976?s=2048x2048">Janos Kummer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A way forward</h2>
<p>Lessons from <a href="https://gbvaor.net/">decades of work</a> on sexual violence amid other crises around the world can help <a href="https://www.whatworks.co.za/resources/evidence-reviews/item/662-what-works-to-prevent-violence-against-women-and-girls-in-conflict-and-humanitarian-crisis-synthesis-brief">reduce the risk</a> of abuse for Ukrainian refugees.</p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/supporting-survivors-violence-role-linguistic-and-cultural-mediators-focus-gender-based">female interpreters</a> who have been trained to assist those experiencing sexual violence are essential to helping refugees access services and seek out help in their new countries. </p>
<p>Refugee women themselves are key to preventing and responding to sexual violence, but they need more than just information about risks and how to report assault. They need money to help solve housing problems, for example, that could otherwise lead to <a href="https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Mean-Streets-Urban-GBV-Women.pdf">unsafe situations</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/arts-design-architecture/our-schools/social-sciences/our-research/research-networks/forced-migration-research-network/projects/refugee-women-and-girls">Research in Asia found</a> that community training programs led by female refugees for other refugees improved reporting of violence against women and increased the number of women who sought police, legal or medical help. </p>
<p>I believe Ukrainian refugee women must be supported to benefit from similar opportunities until they can return home. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have consulted for the Women's Refugee Commission and received my PhD from UNSW, though have not been involved in the research cited here. </span></em></p>While most people offering support to Ukrainians are well-intentioned, it’s not always the case. There are a reports of women and girls fleeing Ukraine being raped in their new countries.Chen Reis, Associate Clinical Professor and Director, Humanitarian Assistance Program, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/608312016-06-15T10:11:12Z2016-06-15T10:11:12ZFact Check: does Vladimir Putin really want a Brexit from the European Union?<blockquote>
<p>President Putin would shed no tears if Britain left the European Union. He would see Brexit as a sign of our weakness and the weakness of European solidarity at the very moment we need to maintain our collective strength. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Hilary Benn, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12151574/Vladimir-Putin-would-be-boosted-by-Brexit-Hilary-Benn-claims.html">speaking in February 2016</a>.</strong></p>
<p>The received wisdom in the Brexit debate is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in favour of Britain leaving the EU. Politicians of all shades, from Hilary Benn to Prime Minister David Cameron, have brought up the spectre of Putin to argue the case for voting Remain on June 23. As received wisdoms go, this seems one of the least controversial claims in the Brexit debate. But is it actually true?</p>
<p>If you search Putin’s speeches or official statements since the official announcement of the British referendum in February 2016, you won’t find any mention of it. In fact, Russian officials seem bemused by recurring references to the alleged Russian support for Brexit. Dmitrii Peskov, Putin’s official spokesman, <a href="http://www.interfax.ru/russia/508893">responded</a> to Cameron’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-david-cameron-isis-putin-brexit-a7033741.html">claim</a> that the only world leader that would be happy about Britain leaving the EU is Putin by implying it’s based on an ingrained bias towards Russia:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are already used to the fact that the Russia factor is one of consistent themes in US election campaigns, but the use of the Russia factor or President Putin’s factor in the Brexit debate is a new element for us. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Peskov also stated the official position of the Russian president – that Russia is interested in “building good, partner-like and mutually beneficial relations with all EU countries, individually and collectively.”</p>
<p>Maria Zakharova, the official Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, was more blunt in her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36461020">comments</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Russia is blamed for everything. Not just in Britain, but all over the world … Russia has nothing to do with Brexit. We are not involved in this process in any way. We don’t have any interest in it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Would it be good for Russia?</h2>
<p>Much of the persistent belief in the UK that Russia is rooting for a Brexit comes in the context of the ongoing geopolitical standoff with Russia over Ukraine. Russia’s relations with the West hit a new low in 2014 when Crimea was annexed by Russia and Western countries imposed economic sanctions in response. This caused <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/russias-gdp-falls-37-as-sanctions-and-low-oil-price-take-effect">substantial hardship</a> for the Russian economy, just as it was suffering from the impacts of a collapsing oil price. </p>
<p>By removing one of its most fierce critics from the EU, and causing a deepening crisis of the European project, Brexit might play into Russia’s hands by weakening the European resolve to confront Russia over Ukraine. A Brexit could also make EU membership less attractive to those countries in the former Soviet Union which Russia is keen to keep in its orbit.</p>
<p>In addition to geopolitical calculations, there is also an ideological dimension for Russia’s support for forces likely to support a Brexit. Putin’s third presidential term was marked by a so-called “conservative turn” when Russia’s began to reassert itself as a champion of <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/vladimir-ilyich-putin-the-conservative-lenin/25206293.html">traditional values</a>. This led it to build <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/anton-shekhovtsov/kremlin%E2%80%99s-marriage-of-convenience-with-european-far-right">relations</a> with various conservative forces around the world, particularly in the EU, most of whom are ardent eurosceptics.</p>
<p>Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit leader of the UK Independence Party, publicly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-vladimir-putin-is-the-world-leader-i-most-admire-9224781.html">expressed</a> his admiration for Putin. Marie Le Pen, leader of France’s Front National and vehement critic of the EU, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/08/russia-europe-right-putin-front-national-eu">has links</a> with Russian officials, and her party even <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/national-front-s-russian-loans-cause-uproar-in-european-parliament/">received a loan</a> from a Russian bank in 2014. Russia’s opposition to the liberal ideals behind globalisation, such as multiculturalism, would suggest that Putin is a natural ally of the kind of people who tend to support Brexit.</p>
<h2>Reasons to be cautious</h2>
<p>But there are also strong arguments for the Russian leadership to support Britain remaining in the EU. While certainly wishing for a less antagonistic EU, particularly over its economic sanctions and its opposition to <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-dependency-on-russian-gas-is-not-likely-to-change-any-time-soon-38192">Russia’s dominance</a> in the EU energy sector, the EU remains Russia’s <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/russia/index_en.htm">biggest trading partner</a>. Russia certainly does not want it to <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/037f03fa-2437-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d.html#axzz4BSOeEFHN">disintegrate</a> or experience the fallout from any profound economic or existential issues which a Brexit is likely to cause in Europe.</p>
<p>A turmoil in its biggest trading partner would not be good for Russia’s ailing economy, especially as its economic relations with China – a much touted alternative to the EU in the wake of Western sanctions – <a href="http://carnegie.ru/commentary/2016/04/22/pivot-to-nowhere-realities-of-russia-s-asia-policy/ixfw">have so far failed to take off</a>. Besides, the opposition to Russia on Ukraine is <a href="http://www.transatlanticacademy.org/sites/default/files/publications/Speck_WestResponseUkraine_Apr16_web.pdf">led by Germany</a> rather than the UK, and a Brexit won’t change this.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>While there might be some circumstantial reasons for Russian leadership to welcome a Brexit over the short term, neither Putin nor other high ranking Russian officials have ever said anything on this subject to suggest they actually support Brexit. In fact, there are many reasons for Putin to wish that dangers to the EU from a possible Brexit never materialise.</p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p><em>Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European politics, University of Kent</em></p>
<p>The argument in the article is broadly correct. In formal terms, Russia has remained studiously neutral in the Brexit debate, and so claims by Benn and others that Putin and the Russian leadership would cheer the possible disintegration of the European project are based on conjecture.</p>
<p>Of course, Russia would like to see the sanctions regime lifted, since it considers itself the injured party in the Ukraine crisis. After all, it argues, it was not Russia but the Western powers that encouraged the overthrow of Ukraine’s legitimately elected president, and failed to stand <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/agreement-on-the-settlement-of-crisis-in-ukraine-full-text">by the deal of February 21 2014</a> which Ukrainians had negotiated for the orderly transfer of power. </p>
<p>Russia has indeed been promiscuous in its support for various populist movements in the EU, but this is in keeping with the classic Putinite strategy of keeping all its options open. There is a conservative cultural critique of the EU, but such a critique is not lacking within the EU itself – both <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451">Angela Merkel</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994">David Cameron</a>, for example, have criticised multiculturalism.</p>
<p>The official Russian view on the instability that could be caused by a Brexit is <a href="http://www.russia-direct.org/qa/russia-eu-relations-still-waiting-new-shift-momentum">stated by Vladimir Chizhov</a>, Russia’s permanent representative to the EU: “The spread of panic in Europe regarding Russia causes my deep regret. Why would that be in Russia’s interests to have the European Union disintegrated? Do we need angry and hostile neighbours? No. We are ready to cooperate, but in such a way that our legitimate interests be taken into account.” What, precisely, are these “legitimate interests” is an important question, and one that the EU and Russia will have to work out together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The remain camp argue that Russia is one of only a few countries that favour the UK leaving the EU. We asked two academics.Alexander Titov, Lecturer in Modern European History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/576712016-04-14T11:19:18Z2016-04-14T11:19:18ZUkraine: a counter revolution could be under way in Kiev<p>The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s unruly parliament, voted on April 14 to accept the resignation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the People’s Front party. The prime minister, who has been in post since the Euromaidan uprising in February 2014, <a href="http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/yatsenyuk-steps-down-as-prime-minister-411724.html?utm_campaign=traqli&utm_source=traqli&utm_medium=traqli&source=traqli">reluctantly announced on April 10</a> that he intended to leave office. </p>
<p>President Petro Poroshenko’s eponymous parliamentary bloc <a href="https://next.ft.com/content/641cfae6-ff2f-11e5-99cb-83242733f755?ftcamp=crm/email/_2016___04___20160410__/emailalerts/Keyword_alert/product#axzz45WAhfoVT">narrowly approved</a> the appointment of the current speaker of the parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, who has long been closely associated with the president, as Yatsenyuk’s successor. As horse trading took place in recent days over the ministerial line-up, it was unclear whether Groysman would garner the necessary 226 votes to be confirmed as prime minister, but he was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36043967">finally approved with 257 votes to 50</a>. </p>
<h2>Why Yatsenyuk resigned</h2>
<p>Yatsenyuk bitterly complained that he had been forced out of office by venal personal ambition which had generated what <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-yatseniuk-idUKKCN0X70JM">he termed</a> an “artificial” political crisis. Yet, while Ukrainian politics is pathologically personalised and conducted with a large measure of cash-fuelled political trickery, the political crisis, as he surely knows, is very real.</p>
<p>For a time, the undeclared “war” to defend “European values” against Russian-supplied proxies in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-going-on-in-ukraine-now-51086">Ukrainian Donbas in the east</a> of the country animated the hawkish Yatsenyuk’s People’s Party. It became known as the “war party”. But no amount of patriotic jingoism and cheerleading could disguise the reality that his armed forces had lost militarily on the battlefield, forcing the authorities to accept an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ceasefire-in-eastern-ukraine-is-unravelling-fast-45789">unfavourable ceasefire</a>. The pretence otherwise only made it harder to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dutch-referendum-on-eu-ukraine-treaty-doesnt-signal-a-step-towards-nexit-57460">Dutch “no” vote</a> in a non-binding referendum on April 6 on whether the Netherlands should ratify a deal between the EU and Ukraine came as a shock to the “Euromaidan” revolutionaries who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26304842">ousted</a> the former president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. The Dutch rejection of closer ties with Ukraine will puncture those revoutionaries’ idealism about the country’s rosy relations with Europe, but the “no” vote will have little or no material effect on Ukraine-EU relations.</p>
<p>As prime minister, Yatsenyuk had become a lightning rod for popular dissatisfaction. He was disliked both by that part of the electorate impoverished by austerity measures even more extreme than those demanded by the IMF – and among those frustrated by insufficient reform, particularly in the sphere of the rule of law. Declining living standards and a series of corruption scandals reduced Yatsenyuk’s poll rating <a href="http://ukraine-elections.com.ua/socopros/parlamentskie_vybory">to almost zero</a>. </p>
<p>His government, although conflicted, appeared to pursue the interests of western capital and investors at the expense of Ukrainian business. The political crisis was triggered <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/ukraine-economy-minister-abromavicius-resigns-citing-pressure">by the resignation</a> in February of the Lithuanian-born economy minister, Aivaras Abromavicius who had failed to wrench control over state-owned companies from the state bureaucracy and associated business tycoons in order to free up their privatisation to western investors.</p>
<h2>The return of the oligarchs</h2>
<p>But even though the much vaunted de-oligarchisation policy was largely rhetorical, the deep economic crisis – GDP <a href="http://joinfo.com/world/1015463_ukraine-gdp-falls-almost-10-in-2015.html">fell almost 10%</a> in 2015 – hurt strategic companies owned by influential oligarchs. Despite the fact that the war and austerity-fuelled economic depression may have reached their nadir, the seriously wounded oligarchs have been prompted to protect their interests by re-entering the political fray.</p>
<p>In office, Yatsenyuk shielded Poroshenko from popular criticism, so it was notable that Mustafa Nayyem, the prominent journalist and MP for Poroshenko’s bloc in parliament, <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-07/there-s-no-dutch-treat-for-ukraine-s-poroshenko">blamed the president personally</a> for the Dutch “no” vote last week. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, in the context of a dysfunctional division of constitutional powers, Poroshenko wanted to consolidate power through the formation of a new coalition and government that he can better control. Since the beginning of April, his bloc has persuaded at least ten independent deputies to join its parliamentary faction. His plan was that, in coalition with the People’s Front, they would be able to form a new governing group with at least the necessary 226 votes. In the end an additional 31 deputies voted for Groysman to become prime minister.</p>
<p>However, in choosing to form a new coalition through recruiting individual deputies rather than whole parliamentary factions, as the constitution envisages, Poroshenko is repeating the sleight of hand that the disgraced former president Yanukovych used when he formed a compliant coalition government led by his Party of Regions after his <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8503177.stm">election in 2010</a>. </p>
<h2>What to expect from Groysman</h2>
<p>The Groysman-led coalition government is the first major political re-alignment since Euromaidan. It represents a push back against austerity, the IMF and America’s Ukraine policy. The foreign-born technocrats have been removed from the key economic ministries and replaced by figures from Ukrainian banking and industry.</p>
<p>While the government can be expected to comply with the IMF’s basic conditions on fiscal and monetary policy, it will use its western sponsors’ fear of snap elections and the prolonged political instability to manoeuvre room for pro-growth policies intended to stabilise society.</p>
<p>We could see price reform in the energy sector to increase the profitability of key private, domestically owned companies and the privatisation of state-owned shareholdings to existing majority owners rather than foreign investors. Negotiations over who would fill the economy and energy ministerial portfolios were particularly sensitive. </p>
<p>The new government is likely to be more pragmatic and conciliatory than its predecessor. It might even be able to broaden its political base to countenance constitutional reform to resolve the simmering conflict in the Donbas along the lines envisaged in the Minsk II <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31436513">ceasefire agreement</a>. Groysman’s cabinet includes a deputy prime minster responsible for the separatist-held territories. This could repair economic – if not political – relations with Moscow providing a much needed boost to the economy.</p>
<h2>Porokshenko under pressure</h2>
<p>Porokshenko is already under pressure from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk">Panama Papers</a> for having used an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/04/panama-papers-ukraine-petro-poroshenko-secret-offshore-firm-russia">offshore vehicle</a> to facilitate the sale of his Roshen confectionary company, based in Groysman’s home town of Vinnytsa. He could now be accused of re-establishing the worst elements of Yanukovych’s rule, namely a “party of power” and “crony capitalism”. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether Poroshenko will be any more successful than Yanukovych in persuading his impoverished people that their interests coincide with the interests of the country’s rich political and commercial elites. Populist opposition parties, led by former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and her <em>Batkivshchina</em> party, are likely to energetically campaign for early parliamentary elections.</p>
<p>The first sign of the new coalition’s brittleness could be a split in Poroshenko’s eponymous parliamentary faction. Should this occur, the president would be ever-more tempted to more formally ally with the successor to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions – known as the Opposition Bloc – as well as other oligarchic parties to prop up the new government. Opposition Bloc however might prefer snap elections and the chance to return to power.</p>
<p>We may have only witnessed the beginnings of a counter revolution in Kiev.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Swain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Election of Volodymyr Groysman as prime minister marks the first political realignment since Euromaidan.Adam Swain, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/574602016-04-08T13:21:20Z2016-04-08T13:21:20ZThe Dutch referendum on EU-Ukraine treaty doesn’t signal a step towards Nexit<p>The European Union’s treaty with Ukraine was rebuffed by Dutch voters on April 6 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/06/dutch-voters-reject-closer-eu-links-to-ukraine-in-referendum">with over 60%</a> rejecting it in a low turnout referendum. The government must now reconsider the treaty. Initiators of the referendum hope that it will be a step towards a “Nexit” – the exit of the Netherlands from the EU. But even if more Dutch referendums are possible on EU issues, a withdrawal from Europe is rather unlikely.</p>
<p>On July 1 2015, the Advisory Referendum Act came into force in the Netherlands. If sufficient signatures are collected – 10,000 in four weeks and then 300,000 in the subsequent six weeks – a referendum can now be held on a law or treaty. If the turnout is higher than 30%, the government is formally obliged to reconsider the law or treaty. </p>
<p>The Eurosceptic foundation <a href="https://www.burgercomite-eu.nl/">Burgercomité EU</a> favours the restoration of democratic sovereignty to the Netherlands, as it considers the cession of sovereignty by parliament an “act of treason”. And it perceived the Referendum Act as an opportunity to give the Dutch people a direct voice in the EU, and a way to mobilise opposition against the Netherlands membership of the EU. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/documents-publications/agreements-conventions/agreement/?aid=2013005">Association Treaty</a> between the Ukraine and the EU is the first piece of legislation since July 1 last year that the Burgercomité EU has targeted with the new act. Most parties in both chambers of parliament had supported the treaty in <a href="https://www.eerstekamer.nl/wetsvoorstel/34116_goedkeuring">spring 2015</a>, but it’s no surprise that some voters think differently, because the EU issue has not had much influence on voters’ choice of parties in parliamentary elections.</p>
<p>The satirical blog <a href="http://geenpeil.nl">GeenStijl</a> and the <a href="http://forumvoordemocratie.nl/">Forum voor Democratie</a>, both critical of the democratic nature of the EU, joined the initiative of Burgercomité EU to use the new act to get the reconsidered. GeenStijl provided crucial mobilising power, garnering media attention and collecting signatures digitally. After sufficient signatures were obtained, an independent Referendum Committee determined the referendum question according to the format prescribed by the law. It <a href="http://www.referendum-commissie.nl/">read</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Are you for or against the law ratifying the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Referendum Committee also provided subsidies for campaigners, be they neutral, against or in favour. </p>
<h2>How the referendum unfolded</h2>
<p>The government decided to adopt a low-key campaigning strategy, aiming to keep the turnout below 30%. Enlargement is the least favoured part of European integration among Dutch voters, tying in with concerns about loss of power and identity in an ever-more expanding EU. These concerns contributed strongly to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/02/eu.politics">no vote</a> in the previous referendum on the European Constitution in 2005. </p>
<p>Economic pragmatism has been the <a href="http://www.boombestuurskunde.nl/bestuurskunde/catalogus/van-aanvallen-naar-verdedigen-1#">main argument</a> for supporting European integration from the very beginning among the Dutch public. But Ukraine’s small economy and widespread corruption did not help to convince voters that the Netherlands would benefit from closer ties between the EU and the Ukraine. </p>
<p>Instead, there were worries about financial support for “a second Greece”. This meant the no side had a considerable advantage. The no side, also consisting of the Socialist Party, the Animal Rights Party and the Freedom Party, <a href="https://www.sp.nl/nieuws/2015/10/sp-zegt-nee-tegen-associatieverdrag-met-oekraine">emphasised</a> that the treaty would actually destabilise Ukraine because it would provoke an even more troubled relationship with Russia. It also underlined the need to solve the EU’s own problems before becoming involved more closely with a country at war.</p>
<p>Even if a large majority in parliament supported the EU-Ukraine treaty, only the social-liberal D66 party made some serious efforts to rally support for the yes vote in the referendum, accompanied by foundations such as <a href="http://www.stemvoor.nl/">Stem voor Nederland</a>. They <a href="https://referendum.d66.nl/">emphasised</a> the potential economic benefits, the chance of improving human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the Ukraine, and the possibility of enhancing stability there.</p>
<p>It also had to convince yes voters to vote, however, because some of them hoped that the turnout would remain below 30% if they would stay at home. </p>
<p>The turnout was low, not only because of strategic non-voting, but also because of opposition to the idea of a referendum. Additionally, many voters did not know what to vote: not surprising given the rather low level of information in the country about the EU in general and the Ukraine treaty in particular. </p>
<p>Eventually, more than 60% <a href="http://nos.nl/artikel/2097612-waar-werd-voor-en-waar-werd-tegen-het-verdrag-gestemd.html">rejected</a> the treaty with a 32% turnout. Yes voters were found to be among the highly educated. </p>
<h2>Rule reversal?</h2>
<p>With the 30% turnout threshold narrowly passed, the government is formally obliged to reconsider the ratification of the treaty. Parliamentary elections are looming and must be held by March 2017 at the latest, so political parties have also political reasons to take the no vote seriously. The question is how. </p>
<p>The treaty concerns both EU competences and national competences. If the no vote is considered to be a rejection of the entire treaty, it would require new negotiations between the EU, the EU member states and the Ukraine. Yet the treaty has already been ratified by all the other member states, the European Parliament and the Ukraine. </p>
<p>The parts of the treaty concerning EU competences, such as trade arrangements, have also been provisionally applied since January 2016. And the Dutch government would be even more wary of any new treaty or treaty change, because it could lead to another referendum initiative. </p>
<p>It is therefore more likely that the Dutch government might seek at EU level to state officially it is no proponent of EU enlargement with Ukraine or to be exempted from the national part of the treaty regarding political, defence and legal cooperation. It could do this through a declaration or decision by the Council of the European Union. </p>
<p>The referendum has also led to discussions about the easiness to request a plebiscite, but it will be unlikely that political parties dare to change the rules immediately after the first referendum. Meanwhile, efforts are already underway to launch another referendum initiative as soon as the EU and its member states agree on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – another sticking point. </p>
<p>A referendum on Nexit is legally impossible as there is no law or treaty expected to be adopted on Dutch withdrawal by parliament. Nexit is also unlikely, even though <a href="http://www.scp.nl/Publicaties/Alle_publicaties/Publicaties_2015/Burgerperspectieven_2015_2">24% of the Dutch public</a> thinks the Netherlands would be better off outside the EU. Trust in the EU is particularly low among the less well-educated. Emotional support for the EU is also weak. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the idea that a small trading country would be worse off outside the EU is still widespread. A Nexit is therefore unlikely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hans Vollaard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Explained: the implications of a Eurosceptic victory in the Netherlands vote.Hans Vollaard, Lecturer of Dutch and European Politics, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382882015-03-04T02:32:33Z2015-03-04T02:32:33ZBoris Nemtsov’s warning for Russia: corruption will cause collapse<p>Following Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-death-boris-nemtsov-embodies-the-hope-of-a-better-russia-38242">assassination</a>, various Russian media outlets supporting the government characterised him - as if reading from a script - as a rather <a href="http://www.pravda.ru/world/northamerica/usacanada/28-02-2015/1250545-nissani-0/">insignificant politician</a>. </p>
<p>But as <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31704254">international media coverage of thousands attending his funeral</a> attest, the opposite is true. Nemtsov, a pro-market and pro-democracy campaigner, was one of the most prominent outspoken and charismatic critics of Putin’s regime.</p>
<p>Born in Sochi in 1959, and educated in Nizhniy Novgorod as a physicist, Boris Nemtsov entered his professional life as a promising early career researcher, publishing more than 60 academic well-regarded papers. </p>
<p>But he came to a political prominence in the late 1980s during Gorbachev’s time, as an environmental campaigner in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia’s fifth largest city and an important administrative and transportation hub. Remarkably, the campaign was initiated by Boris’ mother, a medical practitioner, who noted abnormal illness and premature death statistics in the region. </p>
<p>In 1991 Boris was elected a member of the first quasi-democratic parliament of Russian Federation, representing Nizhniy Novgorod. There he became known to President Boris Yeltsin, and was initially appointed and then elected as the Governor of Nizhniy Novgorod region, becoming a member of the Federation Cancel – the upper chamber of the Parliament of Russia. </p>
<p>Then only in his 30s, Boris gained a reputation as an honest provincial governor in the country transitioning to a market economy. He converted Nizhniy Novgorod, closed to foreigners in the Soviet time (Remember Andrei Sakharov was in exile there), into an open city with an international airport. He promoted entrepreneurship. One of his important projects was restoring the historic Nizhniy Novgorod Fair, making it an attractive modern trading place. He also initiated social programs, in particular, social housing. </p>
<p>But perhaps his main achievement was land reform. Long before any legal framework for land property rights was established at the federal level, he managed to make visible progress towards efficient market-based farming replacing the counter-productive collective farm system. </p>
<p>Yeltsin moved him to Moscow and made him First Deputy Prime Minister (the youngest person to gain this position). Initially, Nemtsov’s career flourished, with oversight of important portfolios of fuel, energy, railway transport, anti-monopoly policies and infrastructure. In 1997, Nemtsov was pushed to nominate for presidential elections, although eventually he decided not to run. </p>
<p>But inevitably, Nemtsov was unable to negotiate the corrupted government bureaucracy, Russia’s emerging corporate oligarchs, and the old-style management of public infrastructure. The reform agenda stalled, and his popularity plummeted. </p>
<p>After Nemtsov’s dismissal from the government in 1999 and until his death he became one of the leaders of right pro-market and pro-democracy forces trying to reincarnate the losing popularity democratic movement. He gradually became one of the most active and outspoken critics of Putin’s regime. </p>
<p>In 2008 Nemtsov (with his co-author Vladimir Milov), <a href="http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.133236.html">analysing the first two Putin’s terms as President</a>, concluded that the open corruption of oligarchs who took advantage of economic reforms in early 1990s was replaced, under Putin, with the theft of billions of dollars by the bureaucracy, covered up through multi-step transactions to foreign accounts of trusted beneficiaries. They were especially critical of Kremlin-controlled mass media, where mentioning corruption, especially at the highest levels of power, became taboo. </p>
<p>Two years later the two men published an <a href="http://www.putin-itogi.ru/putin-what-10-years-of-putin-have-brought/">analytical report</a>, supported by solid socio-economic data, charging Putin’s regime, particularly its corruption, with Russia’s decline. They convincingly proved that the country had been dying out demographically; the environment was in catastrophic state; the economy, excluding the natural resource sector had been sliding down; the upgrade of infrastructure had nearly stopped; while inequality dramatically increased; and the social programs, such as housing and age pension system, collapsed. They concluded that “de-putinisation” was the only way out of the dead end Russia was in. </p>
<p>The authorities responded by trying to intimidate Nemtsov, detaining him in December 2010 for his participation in a non-authorised rally. </p>
<p>Most recently, Nemtsov openly supported the democratic revolution in Ukraine, condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in the war in the South East of the country. That appeared to be too much for whoever is responsible for his death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gennadi Kazakevitch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Boris Nemtsov’s warning about the festering bureaucratic corruption under Putin made him powerful enemies.Gennadi Kazakevitch, Deputy Head, Department of Economics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/382122015-03-01T17:08:48Z2015-03-01T17:08:48ZThe murder of Boris Nemtsov – and three other deaths<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73380/original/image-20150301-16163-1g904l5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scene of the crime.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tvoe/16053636114/in/photolist-bVZDjm-r6hhLk-rppnMp-bTTRV4-r6Znnn-r82gy9-rpvrZ1-qsB5Hy-qsPfc8-r82i9y-qsB5e7-qsB5sy-ro1PWL-r8RDp8-rqbKVH-rpADY4-r6ZqDc-ro1Pms-rqbRe8-r8JkKo-ro1LB9-ro1Kx5-r8Jhhw-r8JgCL-rqdstA-qtj1KG-qtwfjR-r8JbEQ">Jay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The shocking murder of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, literally in sight of the Kremlin, clearly marks the beginning of a new era in Russian politics and Russiawatching alike. And it is unlikely to be pretty.</p>
<p>Who killed Nemtsov, who was behind it? At this stage, I have absolutely no idea. The government? I find it hard to think Vladimir Putin would actually order Nemtsov killed, not because the Russian President is a pacifist but because I see no real advantage. </p>
<p>Already people are throwing around the parallel of <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sergey-kirov-murdered">the Kirov murder</a> which at one stroke did away with Stalin’s greatest rival and gave him a pretext for purging the elite. But I don’t think Putin needs any excuses for whatever repressions he may want to carry out, and Nemtsov was certainly no threat. </p>
<p>Besides, for a leader whose legitimacy is in part based on the way he ended the “bespredel”, the overt and violent lawlessness of the 1990s, this happening so close to the seat of power is an embarrassment for Putin. If anything it appears to have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31677506">galvanised the weekend’s protests</a> – turning them into a commemorative event for Nemtsov. </p>
<p>Perhaps it over-zealous security officers doing what they thought would please the boss? Maybe, but we have no reason to believe that. Nationalists or crazies inspired by the new mood of xenophobia and witch-hunting being stoked by the Kremlin? Much more plausible. Oppositionist figures wanting a martyr or, to go to the real extremes of the crazy spectrum, US agents likewise stirring trouble? I don’t believe that for a second.</p>
<p>But we don’t know. We know pretty much nothing but the facts, and so we are all tempted to interpret them based on our assumptions about Russia and Putin and the world. That’s human, and inevitable, and dangerous. And it also points to the fact that this is something of a watershed, marking three things that have been processes rather than sudden events.</p>
<h2>1. The death of neutrality</h2>
<p>It is increasingly difficult not to be on one side or the other. We’ve already seen this over Ukraine (I’ve been castigated as a Kremlin stooge for not using the word “terrorist” to describe the rebels, and a Western shill for claiming that Russian troops are present, all for the same article!), but I think it’s also happening with Russia. </p>
<p>Not to regard Putin as a murderous mafioso-fascist-tyrant-kleptocrat who kills for the hell of it is to be an apologist. To refuse to believe the State Department is actively trying to install Alexei Navalny in the Kremlin makes you a tool of Western “colour revolution”. Analysis increasingly, I’m sorry to say, takes second place to assertion of the world as the observer “knows” it to be.</p>
<h2>2. The death of ‘stuff happens’</h2>
<p>Nothing, it seems, is not part of a plan, a strategy, a ploy or a gambit. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/mh17">MH17</a> was a Ukrainian act of misinformation to demonise the rebels (arrant nonsense). Nemtsov must have been killed by the state because he was under 24/7 surveillance (very doubtful: that would require a massive operation, out of proportion with his actual importance). The truth of the matter is that politicians and government are much less in control of events than they and we might think.</p>
<p>My working hypothesis is that Nemtsov was killed by some murderous mavericks, not government agents, nor opposition fanatics. But the reason they felt obliged to go and gun down a frankly past-his-peak anti-government figure is highly likely to be because of the increasingly toxic political climate that is a clear product of Kremlin agency, in which people like Nemtsov are portrayed as Russophobic minions of the West, enemies of Russia’s people, culture, values and interests. </p>
<p>So, to loop things round, Putin is guilty, I suspect, the same way that tobacco companies are considered guilty of cancer deaths after they may have known about the risks, or any hate-speaker may be when some unhinged acolytes take their sentiments and decide to turn them into bloody action.</p>
<p>So maybe I am implicitly pointing to a third casualty:</p>
<h2>3. The death of optimism</h2>
<p>How does a regime soothe such feverish sentiments? Indeed, can it do so? I do not believe Putin is intent on World War III, or wants to create a neo-Stalinist terror-state, or do any of the other things the more extreme critics aver. But I suspect that in the name of holding onto power (his greatest ambition) and asserting the true sovereignty of Russia (his second greatest), regardless of the opposition of liberals, Ukraine, the West, or whoever, Putin has taken a step too far along a dark and dangerous path for him ever to be able to step back or even, worst yet, stop walking forward.</p>
<p><em>A version of this article also appears at <a href="https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/">In Moscow’s Shadows</a>, Mark Galeotti’s own site.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Galeotti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The death of Boris Nemtsov is a watershed moment for Russia, that also sees the passing of certain assumptions in the country.Mark Galeotti, Professor of Global Affairs, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/372492015-02-17T10:52:41Z2015-02-17T10:52:41ZForecast for Ukraine: stormy with rays of sunshine<p>A year after the <a href="http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/euromaidan-ukraine%E2%80%99s-self-organizing-revolution">Maidan revolution </a>of 2014, Ukraine is at a critical juncture. </p>
<p>The conflict with Russia has been escalating. Estimates of casualties exceed <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50001">5,000</a>, with some reports putting the number at 50,000. The cost of the war in the East is anywhere between <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/transcripts/ukraine-s-economic-reform-insights-from-the-newly-minted-minister-of-finance">US $5-10 million</a>. And despite the ceasefire signed in Minsk February 12, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31495099">fighting</a> on the ground continues. </p>
<p>The Ukrainian currency Hryvna has lost <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7f8f36c4-ad49-11e4-bfcf-00144feab7de.html#axzz3QyqAl819">two thirds</a> of its value in a year and continues to fall. </p>
<p>So far, Ukraine has met its obligations to foreign creditors, but the reserves of the National Bank of Ukraine have been almost <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/foreign-exchange-reserves">depleted</a>. The issue of pervasive <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine">corruption</a> has <a href="http://voxukraine.org/2015/02/03/talk-with-tomas-fiala/">not</a> been addressed. Unfortunately, the new government appointed in early December has <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30846185">little</a> to show so far by way of successful structural reforms.</p>
<p>February, however, has brought some glimmers of hope. </p>
<p>The International Monetary Fund has just <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/europe/imf-approves-17-5-billion-bailout-for-ukraine.html?_r=0">announced</a> a $17.5 billion financial support package to stabilize Ukrainian economy. The newly <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-parliament-approves-prosecutor-general-shokin/26840464.html">appointed</a> General Prosecutor of Ukraine has asked to remove the immunity of several judges in a key court in Kyiv accused of illegal rulings. And despite the problems in implementation at least a new peace agreement attempting to resolve the crisis in the East was actually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/europe/ukraine-talks-cease-fire.html">signed</a> in Minsk. </p>
<p>Yes, the IMF support is spread out over four years and might be not <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/12/10/guest-post-the-cost-of-not-bailing-out-ukraine/">enough</a> to instill confidence into foreign investors and domestic business and consumers. It seems probable that the new peace agreement is <a href="http://eurasiangeopolitics.com/2015/02/12/what-to-make-of-minsk-2/">likely</a> to follow the fate of an earlier cease-fire agreement and fail. And the General Prosecutor’s action could be a <a href="http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/new-prosecutor-general-seeks-arrest-of-coalition-enemies-in-the-judiciary-380453.html">sign</a> of an internal political fight over power rather than a genuine attempt to clamp down on corruption.</p>
<p>But, from our from our daily experience of interacting with policy makers in Kyiv, it does seems clear that Ukraine is undertaking some fundamental steps to become a democratic state. </p>
<h2>Strength born out of crisis</h2>
<p>The conflict in the East and annexation of Crimea has solidified the civil society in their desire to reform the country. </p>
<p>Ukraine has a new president, a new <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/world/europe/ukrainian-parliamentary-elections.html">parliament</a>, and a new <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/sections/europes-east/rada-approves-new-ukraine-government-310538">government</a>, which includes many new faces. </p>
<p>The parliament consists of eight factions, and most of the parties represented in the Ukrainian parliament did not exist a year ago. Several key ministers in the new Ukrainian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Yatsenyuk_Government">government</a> are technocrats, including <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/fastft/244731/foreigners-land-top-minister-posts-ukraine">foreign nationals</a> who were granted Ukrainian citizenship: Finance Minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko">Natalie Jaresko</a>, Health Minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kvitashvili">Alexandr Kvitashvili</a>, and Economy Minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aivaras_Abromavi%C4%8Dius">Aivaras Abromavičius</a>.</p>
<p>These are drastic changes. Take, for instance, Minister Jaresko. She was born in Chicago in 1965, raised and educated in the US, holds a master’s degree in public policy from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Government">John F. Kennedy School of Government</a> in 1989. Jaresko moved to Ukraine in 1992 and had been an investment banker until her appointment to the Ukrainian government in December 2014. Never before has the Ukrainian government had a Harvard-educated finance minister with successful industry experience. </p>
<h2>Gradual not radical change</h2>
<p>The situation with the new government and the parliament, however, is neither black nor white. “There is this tendency to either see the second coming of Christ or the apocalypse when it comes to change in Ukraine,” <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/sunday-review/the-next-battle-for-ukraine.html">says</a> Samuel Charap, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “But the reality up till now is that they have always muddled through.” </p>
<p>Alongside the shiny new technocrats there are also the old timers, most notably in the jobs of president and prime minister. As John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/02/04/economy-second-front-in-ukraine-war/22861353/">puts it</a>, the products of the “old system, .. have been slow to move on necessary reforms…[and] are supported in part by Ukraine’s super-wealthy oligarchs who stand to lose special privileges — such as protection for their businesses, public finance and immunity from prosecution — in a reformed system.” It will take time for them and other veteran elites to adapt or be replaced through political process. </p>
<p>At the same time, the new Ukrainian leadership can – and should – be credited with a number of achievements since it came to power, including:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Fast and efficient renewal of cooperation with the IMF and other Western donors, and commitment to structural reforms.</p></li>
<li><p>The formulation of an anti-corruption <a href="http://www.kyivpost.com/content/company-news/ukraine-parliament-passes-important-laws-to-tackle-corruption-369122.html">strategy</a> that includes transparency <a href="http://voxukraine.org/2014/12/02/getting-to-ultimate-beneficiary-goal-and-means/">measures</a> and an <a href="http://www.fcpablog.com/blog/2015/1/22/ukraine-new-anti-corruption-law-aims-to-clean-up-the-garbage.html">independent bureau</a> tasked with “cleaning up the garbage” (the Ukrainian equivalent of airing dirty laundry.) What is particularly encouraging is that the <a href="http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/anti-corruption-bureau-gets-161-applicants-for-top-job-380451.html">applicants</a> for the top job at the bureau include a number of highly respected and independent individuals with strong track records of fighting corruption. </p></li>
<li><p>Deregulation that includes – among the most important measures – limiting the investigative powers of the Public Prosecutor’s office in order to <a href="http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=20543c57-6694-497e-9351-23eb99314f52">curb</a> that office’s ability to harass business and individuals. </p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20140915IPR62504/html/European-Parliament-ratifies-EU-Ukraine-Association-Agreement">Signing</a> the EU Association Agreement, which provides for political association and free trade between Ukraine and the EU. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Structural reforms key</h2>
<p>Ukraine today is still vulnerable. As we’ve outlined there are structural reforms taking place but are there enough of them and are they taking place fast enough? </p>
<p>It is also the case that every success – and every weakness – of the Ukrainian government will be met by increased pressure from Russia. </p>
<p>In August 2014, Ukraine <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/world/europe/ukraine.html?_r=0">reclaimed</a> territory back from the separatists only to be confronted by what the rest of the world identified as a direct Russian <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/">invasion</a>(although the Kremlin denied this.) In January 2015, as world markets worried about Ukraine’s <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21639565-without-lot-more-western-help-ukraine-faces-default-edge">solvency</a>, Russia threatened an early <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-could-drive-ukraine-bankrupt-by-calling-in-3-billion-loan-2015-1">recall</a> of its US$ 3 billion loan. And then, the following week, more Russian army units were observed <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russias-new-invasion-of-ukraine-should-lead-the-west-to-reassess-its-strategy/2015/01/21/4c146368-a0de-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html">crossing the border </a>into Ukraine, securing additional territorial gains for the separatists. </p>
<p>Ukraine desperately needs help to survive the next several months. It needs time for the civil society to mature and for its governance structures to be cleaned up. When structural reforms get underway, the weather will become less stormy. </p>
<p><em>This article was co-written with Olena Bilan, Dragon Capital and VoxUkraine. The authors would also like to thank Olena Shkarpova and the editorial board of VoxUkraine for help in developing this piece.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tymofiy Mylovanov is a co-founder and a member of the editorial board of VoxUkraine.org, a group of global and local economists, lawyers, and political scientists writing on policy and reforms in Ukraine. </span></em></p>A year after the Maidan revolution of 2014, Ukraine is at a critical juncture. The conflict with Russia has been escalating. Estimates of casualties exceed 5,000, with some reports putting the number at…Tymofiy Mylovanov, Assistant Professor, Economics, University of PittsburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345592014-11-24T15:27:56Z2014-11-24T15:27:56ZThreat of economic ruin could save battle-scarred Ukraine<p>In the year since the conflict in Eastern <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ukraine">Ukraine</a> began, more than 4,000 lives have been lost. Fighting continues despite the ceasefire agreement signed in September 2014 and the major powers involved in the conflict – Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the United States – are no closer to an acceptable diplomatic solution than they were in November 2013.</p>
<p>And while the conflict continues, a major economic crisis is looming. This will hit ordinary people in both Ukraine and Russia and should be a major concern to global powers. At the same time though, it may also provide a way out of the stalemate. </p>
<h2>Superficial friends</h2>
<p>Even though the eyes of the world have been on Ukraine for 12 months, the country appears no more significant in regional and global affairs than it was in autumn 2013. As a sovereign political entity, Ukraine continues to be treated as a secondary power by both the West and Russia. It is a playing card between major powers in the wider geopolitical game. It’s a situation that suits the Kremlin well and does little to resolve the conflict.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for such an eclipse is that the ongoing war aggravates the structural divide between the western and eastern parts of Ukraine. That makes it difficult for the authorities in Kiev to function as a unified political entity.</p>
<p>But it is also an external problem. Europe was quick to support the uprising in Kiev a year ago. It was, after all, prompted by opposition to the then government’s decision to pull out of closer ties with the EU in favour of Russia. But Europe clearly wasn’t prepared for the political realities in the new Ukraine.</p>
<p>Western leaders have made friendly diplomatic gestures to new president Petro Poroshenko and promised financial assistance, but have so far paid little attention to the deteriorating political-economic situation or the social environment inside Ukraine.</p>
<p>Now though, they really need to start taking notice. With output set to contract by 7% this year, the economy is shrinking and currency is rapidly losing value, fuelling speculative shadow currency markets. Ukraine is in deep debt. Cut off from Russian gas supplies, some experts are predicting a repeat of the <a href="http://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/ukraine-defaults-on-domestic-debt-675.html">September 1998 default</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Western policy focuses obsessively on Vladimir Putin and Russia’s geopolitical tactics. The spiral of economic sanctions and diplomatic tensions between Russia and the West has assumed a life of its own. This thread is evolving almost independently of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.</p>
<h2>Cash strapped</h2>
<p>If the first year of this conflict was dominated by issues of identity, security, sovereignty and statehood, the second year is likely to be defined by this unfolding economic crisis, both inside the country and in its neighbouring markets.</p>
<p>Even with financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and other parties, the government in Kiev has to launch a series of painful reforms, the costs of which will fall on ordinary people through their wages, pensions and social security. The inevitable economic pain of reforms will put pressure on Poroshenko. His major electoral mandate was to end the conflict in the east of the country and he will doubtless lose popularity when cuts start to bite. When economic recession hits, political and social tensions may well escalate and bring further political uncertainty.</p>
<p>In economic terms, things aren’t looking great for Russia either. GDP growth slowed to 1.3% in 2013 and the economic recession, caused chiefly by lower oil prices, may shrink the Kremlin’s political leverage in the future.</p>
<p>Putin’s popularity has not waned particularly as a result of his actions in Ukraine but it is firmly based in the continuing trend of rising living standards in Russia. High oil prices during his two terms in office have allowed the country to expand its state sector. </p>
<p>Oil revenues have been stashed in two special sovereign funds estimated to be worth US$370 billion. This has been a key financial cushion in Russia’s bid as a major power on the global political map. But the reserves are dwindling, not least as a result of battling the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21633816-more-decade-oil-income-and-consumer-spending-have-delivered-growth-vladimir-putins">fall in value of the rouble</a>.</p>
<p>This might actually turn out to be a good thing. It could even force some resolution to the conflict. The Kremlin needs to address these economic problems and may well have to take its attention away from foreign affairs to do it.</p>
<p>Although the coming economic struggle will be difficult for the general public, Ukrainians and Russians have built up a resilience to hardship. To avert disaster, both nations need to spend more time over the next year looking inwardly at their financial health. That could eventually prove more effective in ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine than international diplomacy has been.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Nesvetailova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the year since the conflict in Eastern Ukraine began, more than 4,000 lives have been lost. Fighting continues despite the ceasefire agreement signed in September 2014 and the major powers involved…Anastasia Nesvetailova, Professor of International Politics, Director of the Global Political Economy MA, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/339882014-11-10T06:14:25Z2014-11-10T06:14:25ZIn Ukraine, the start of a new Cold War that Russia can’t win<p>Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall that ushered in the end of communism in eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, all the signs point to a new Cold War between Russia and the West. As the former Soviet leader Mikhail <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29966852">Gorbachev</a> pointed out, the Ukrainian crisis has triggered an accelerated downward spiral in relations between the erstwhile rivals. More than that, events over the past two weeks may even suggest that this may become a Cold War with a very volatile hotspot right at the doorstep of the EU and NATO. </p>
<p>Following parliamentary elections in Ukraine two weeks ago and separate elections in the rebel strongholds of Luhansk and Donetsk last week, it seems the now year-long crisis is heading for yet another climax. Not only were the elections in rebel-held areas in clear contravention of a September 5 agreement between the Ukrainian government and rebel representatives, but whatever ceasefire and disengagement plan the two sides had agreed to on September 5 and further specified two weeks later is now <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-04/poroshenko-asks-to-end-east-ukraine-s-autonomy-after-vote.html">irreparably damaged</a> after the Ukrainian president asked parliament to revoke a recent law offering more autonomy to the east against a background of escalating violence. </p>
<p>Far from just the occasional violations, the past three days have seen a significant escalation of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29975341">fighting</a> in and around Donetsk. Evidence has emerged of significant <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/kyiv-says-russian-weapons-troops-are-in-east-ukraine/2512162.html">military supplies</a> reaching the rebels from Russia. Much of this equipment, as well as additional troops, was <a href="http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/126483">confirmed</a> by OSCE monitors to have made its way to Donetsk and Makeevka, including tanks and howitzers. This followed a decision earlier in the week by Ukrainian president Poroshenko to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29905014">send</a> additional Ukrainian army units to the area in response to what Ukraine and its Western partners consider <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/03/ukraine-rebel-elections-illegal-eu-mogherini">illegal</a> elections. While <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/11/08/russia-uses-semantics-to-walk-back-recognition-of-donbass-elections-before-g20-summit/">Russia</a> has stopped short of recognising the elections, Moscow has stated that it respects the outcome.</p>
<p>The rebels are now firmly entrenched in a large area along Ukraine’s south-eastern border with Russia, stretching from just north of Luhansk to the port city of Novoazovsk at the Sea of Azov. They hold the area around Luhansk airport, but do not have control of either Donetsk airport or the strategic port of Mariupol. Nonetheless, Ukraine has no military capabilities at the moment to cut the rebels off from Russian supply lines as troop and equipment movements over the past days clearly demonstrate. </p>
<h2>Frozen conflict</h2>
<p>Ukraine’s weakness is only part of the story. A second dimension of the evolving crisis is that Russia is clearly prepared to do whatever it takes to shore up the rebels and enable them to resist any Ukrainian effort to retake the east by force. To achieve this, Russia does not need to recognise rebel elections or referendums on independence or annex the areas as it did with Crimea in March – the Kremlin simply provides enough military capability to the rebels to hold on to the areas they already control. This has the added advantage of keeping the new government in Kiev busy focusing on the east, spending scarce resources on futile military efforts to regain full sovereignty over all of Luhansk and Donetsk regions.</p>
<p>While it may not look like it at the moment, the rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine are on a straight course to become yet another so-called frozen conflict in the Russian periphery. Russian actions over the past few days and weeks have all the hallmarks of policies that were tried and tested in the early 1990s. A shaky, Russian-mediated ceasefire (the Minsk talks leading to the agreements of September <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/05/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0GZ18D20140905">5</a> and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/19/us-ukraine-crisis-talks-idUSKBN0HE2JD20140919">19</a>), modest gestures of conciliation towards the affected state (the EU-mediated Russian-Ukrainian gas deal of October 30) and military and humanitarian support to consolidate the separatist regime and increase its dependence on Moscow (the various official and unofficial forms of assistance rendered to the rebels over the past several months). That said, it is also worthwhile to remember that establishing <em>de facto</em> states, such as in Georgia and Moldova, was always a means to an end–to dictate the terms of “reunification” to gain permanent control over some former Soviet republics’ foreign policy choices. </p>
<p>Russia, it seems, may be getting away not just with the illegal annexation of Crimea but also with establishing yet another <em>de facto</em> state under its control, thus frustrating another country’s sovereign choice of seeking closer integration with the EU either through the kind of permanent Russian-controlled instability that we see now or through a federated Ukraine in which the eastern regions would be able to represent Moscow’s interests effectively in Kiev. But this may be a serious miscalculation on Russia’s part. Unlike 20 years ago, Ukraine’s Western partners have imposed gradually harder-hitting sanctions, the escalation of the crisis has sent the Russian Rouble into free-fall, and the Russian economy now teeters at the brink of recession. Moreover, sustaining four million people in eastern Ukraine is of an entirely different magnitude as doing so for tens of thousands in South Ossetia and Abkhazia or a few hundred thousand in Transnistria.</p>
<p>Russia may not need a full-scale war to retain a foothold in eastern Ukraine at the moment, but it can hardly afford one either – and decreasingly so. We may well be at the beginning of a new Cold War, but as with the last one, Russia is unlikely to win it. This offers some hope in the long term, but it is hardly a cause for yet another round of the Western triumphalism that Gorbachev considers the main reason for the regression in East-West relations. Because, when Russia eventually loses, this will have come at a much higher cost to many more people and countries than Russia and Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK and in the past has been the recipient of grants from the NATO Science for Peace Programme and the EU's Jean Monnet Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatyana Malyarenko receives funding from the Jean Monnet Programme of the European Union and the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme</span></em></p>Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall that ushered in the end of communism in eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, all the signs point to a new Cold War between Russia and…Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamTetyana Malyarenko, Professor of Public Administration, Donetsk State Management UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/304862014-08-19T05:16:25Z2014-08-19T05:16:25ZInside Donetsk, a city at war, while jaw-jaw over Ukraine continues<p>The past few days have seen another round of the seemingly endless cycle of escalation and de-escalation that has characterised the crisis in Ukraine for several months. The Ukrainian government has claimed military successes against <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/ukraine-conflict-pro-russia-rebels-entering-endgame">separatist rebels</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11038156/Ukraine-destroys-parts-of-convoy-of-Russian-military-vehicles.html">Russian forces</a>. The Kremlin has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/russia-denies-ukraine-vehicles-military">denied</a> any incursion into Ukrainian territory, which was, however, confirmed by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/08/15/world/europe/15reuters-ukraine-crisis-nato-chief.html?ref=politics&_r=1">NATO</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/ukraine-says-russian-vehicles-territory">journalists</a>. </p>
<p>Russia, in turn, has achieved <a href="http://rt.com/news/180844-ukraine-recognizes-russia-humanitarian-aid/">official recognition</a> from Ukraine that it’s convoy is solely humanitarian. Similar assurances were apparently accepted by US, following a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28814364">phone conversation</a> between the US and Russian defence ministers.</p>
<p>The separatists in eastern Ukraine, meanwhile, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/ukraine-conflict-pro-russia-rebels-entering-endgame">lost</a> further ground, but also claim to have had their ranks and capabilities <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/17/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0GF13120140817">boosted</a> by the arrival of Russian-trained fighters and equipment. At the same time, some Russians among the rebel leadership were replaced by locals in an apparent <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-strelkov-separatists-disarray/26530728.html">further factionalisation</a> of separatists.</p>
<p>Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis seemed to make some progress amid both conciliatory and confrontational statements from all sides. Ukraine, on the one hand, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-russia-seek-to-ease-tension-over-convoy-1408201146">played down</a> the significance of its military confrontation with a Russian convoy earlier in the week. Western leaders appeared moderately <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-ukraine-crisis-france-idUSKBN0GG09620140816">optimistic</a> about a meeting at the weekend in Berlin between the Ukrainian, Russian, French and German foreign ministers. The hope for a more sustained political process, building on an earlier meeting in Normandy last month, was also <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-ukraine-crisis-china-idUSKBN0GG06E20140816">echoed</a> by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, in a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-ukraine-crisis-merkel-poroshenko-idUSKBN0GG0IU20140816">phone call</a> with German chancellor Angela Merkel, called for an end to Russian arms supplies to the separatists. In another <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-ukraine-crisis-biden-idUSKBN0GG0IA20140816">phone call</a> with the US vice president, Joe Biden, the two leaders agreed that continuing Russian military activities at the Ukrainian border were inconsistent with its declared humanitarian intentions. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, meanwhile <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/16/us-ukraine-crisis-klimkin-idUSKBN0GG0HM20140816">urged</a> NATO and the EU to supply arms to Ukraine.</p>
<p>So it appears that at present all sides may be willing to give a political solution another try while at the same time hedging their bets if the political process does not get off the ground or stalls as on so <a href="https://theconversation.com/lack-of-trust-and-tit-for-tat-escalation-brings-ukraine-to-the-brink-of-all-out-war-with-russia-29707">many previous occasions</a>.</p>
<h2>Russia in the box seat</h2>
<p>Even if a political process eventually gets off the ground, Russia will be in a much stronger negotiation position. The Kremlin has clearly demonstrated its resolve to have its way in Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine are, however, only one side of the coin. </p>
<p>Moscow’s current aid efforts also need to be considered – they clearly offer some hope for improving an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation which neither Kiev nor its Western allies seem to be able or willing to address. The Russian aid convoy will be welcomed by civilians in eastern Ukraine, but it will also reinforce the region’s alienation from Kiev and its population’s perception of Russia as a powerful patron of its interests.</p>
<p>Where Moscow can act swiftly and decisively, switching easily between humanitarian gestures and military threats, Western capitals are far more constrained. Decision-making within NATO and the EU is notoriously difficult because it requires consensus among countries with different political, economic, and military priorities and different perspectives on how to deal with Russia. </p>
<p>The Western approach to the crisis is further complicated by the way in which the Ukrainian government has handled the situation over the previous days and weeks. On August 11, the government appealed to the civilian population of Donetsk and Luhansk to leave both cities ahead of an intensification of Kiev’s anti-terrorist operation. With roughly two-thirds of the population of Donetsk remaining in the city, civilian casualties are inevitable.</p>
<p>Nor does the Ukrainian government provide much by way of relief to people displaced by the conflict, despite the fact it is spending around $3-4m a day on its anti-terrorist operation. A shelter in the building of the railway station in Kiev, for example, is nothing more than a space without furniture, access to water, food or medical assistance. </p>
<p>Most of the assistance is provided by volunteers and religious organisations, rather than by the government. By contrast, Russia has already found shelter for some 500,000 refugees from the conflict in eastern Ukraine, offering them free housing, financial assistance, and medical services. </p>
<p>While it is easy to dismiss these Russian efforts as cynical propaganda and a response to a crisis wholly or mostly created by the Kremlin, Ukrainian civilians who live in fear of Kiev’s military operation – or are in receipt of much more effective Russian humanitarian assistance – are unlikely to see a Moscow-sponsored conspiracy at work here.</p>
<p>Outwardly, the situation in Donetsk appears more under control than in Luhansk where people have lived without access to water and electricity for more than ten days. Municipal authorities in Donetsk, by contrast, are still effectively running the city’s services from public transport to gas, water and electricity, while also managing repairs to critical infrastructure destroyed as a result of the conflict. </p>
<p>That said, Donetsk also is a city in a state of war. The National Bank of Ukraine has closed all its departments in Donetsk, putting a stop to any operations with commercial banks. Any state funding of public hospitals has been stopped as well. As a consequence, living conditions for socially vulnerable groups: the elderly, children and the sick, has become particularly difficult. The rebels, too, have not helped the situation: there is a curfew in place, a (rebel) military prosecutor office has been created, alcohol has been prohibited and the death penalty has been introduced for, among others, espionage and looting.</p>
<p>With the battle lines thus drawn locally and internationally, neither a political nor a military solution are likely anytime soon. Russia needs to do very little to sustain the current stalemate and the West is unlikely to push hard enough against Moscow’s approach. The Ukrainian government is too weak to defeat the rebels and take Donetsk and Luhansk quickly without a severe toll in civilian casualties, although Kiev may be tempted to launch a serious offensive ahead of August 24 – which is Independence Day in Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, and the EU's Jean Monnet Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tetyana Malyarenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The past few days have seen another round of the seemingly endless cycle of escalation and de-escalation that has characterised the crisis in Ukraine for several months. The Ukrainian government has claimed…Tetyana Malyarenko, Professor of Public Administration, Donetsk State Management UniversityStefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/297082014-08-07T05:21:13Z2014-08-07T05:21:13ZSelf-styled people’s governor of Donetsk tells us: these areas have always been Russian<p>There are two competing and irreconcilable narratives about the crisis in eastern Ukraine that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/04/western-media-coverage-ukraine-crisis-russia">divide</a> public opinion and media coverage in the region and the country – as much as they divide Russia and the West. </p>
<p>While Russia talks of military exercises at the Ukrainian border, Kiev and its Western partners brace for an intensification of hostilities, considering the Russian troops a clear sign of an imminent full-scale <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/uk-ukraine-crisis-nato-idUKKBN0G60Y620140806">invasion</a>. </p>
<p>But divisions reach far deeper than that. Russia, again, stands <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/world/europe/russian-artillery-fires-into-ukraine-kiev-says.html?_r=0">accused of increasing</a> its support to the separatists and forcing its proxies in eastern Ukraine to build a de-facto state that the Kremlin can easily control and use as leverage against Ukraine and the West. Meanwhile significant numbers of people, living there in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28669764">deteriorating conditions</a>, have well-grounded suspicions of the Ukrainian state and <a href="http://m.aljazeera.com/se/20148483354446531">long</a> for a semblance of order and a return to a peaceful normality, regardless of who provides it. </p>
<h2>From Russia with love</h2>
<p>Russian nationals now occupy key positions in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Most famous <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/whos-who-in-the-donetsk-peoples-republic">among them</a> are the DPR’s military commander (or defence minister) Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov) and its prime minister, Alexander Borodai. </p>
<p>Another interesting <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/world/europe/separatist-pro-russian-leadership-in-eastern-ukraine-with-a-goal-of-establishing-government.html?_r=0">recent arrival</a> to the DPR is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28546157">Vladimir Antyufeyev</a>, who, in contrast to Strelkov and Borodai, has significant experience in building a de-facto state at Moscow’s behest in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023vtfd">Transnistria</a> (a separatist region in eastern Moldova that has been protected by Russia for more than 20 years) and where he served as head of the local security services. </p>
<p>Now heading a team of some 40 “officials” from Transnistria helping to build state institutions in Donetsk, Antyufeyev embodies the extent to which Moscow is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/27/us-ukraine-crisis-rebels-insight-idUSKBN0FW07020140727">asserting control</a> over key functions of what may yet turn out as another de-facto state under the Kremlin’s control and in a similar vein to Transnistria.</p>
<p>Russian-led and Russian-sponsored state building raises the question of where this leaves local activists such as Denis Pushilin, the speaker of the DPR’s parliament, and Pavel Gubarev, the self-styled “people’s governor” of Donetsk. </p>
<h2>A separate reality</h2>
<p>We interviewed Gubarev. It was striking how deeply he had embraced the ideology of <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/17/novorossiya_is_back_from_the_dead_putin_russia_ukraine">Novorossiya</a>, arguing that “the areas now in south-eastern Ukraine have always been Russian, that people who live here have a different mentality, and that they always saw themselves as part of the Russian world.” </p>
<p>How deeply this is ingrained in the identity and mentality of ordinary people is also obvious from Gubarev’s claim that the downing of MH17 was a “clear example of American provocation. Americans shot down the aircraft in order to discredit Russia and the rebel troops.” This is as common a belief in Gubarev’s neighbourhood, as is the opposite view in much of the West.</p>
<p>Common myths of ancestry and beliefs to one side, Gubarev also acknowledged that popular support for an independent state of Novorossiya cannot be maintained on this basis alone: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want to create a fundamentally new state based on social justice and equality of people. We now have a chance, an opportunity to reboot … When people understand that the new state will protect their rights and interests, they will be happy and will support us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This may seem far-fetched at best, and completely disconnected from the current reality of life in Donetsk, but it also reflects the fact that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-separatists-engaged-in-high-risk-game-as-they-press-on-with-referendum-plan-26279">yes vote in May’s self-rule referendum</a> was born as much from a sense of difference between eastern and western Ukraine as from deep disillusionment about the extent to which the Ukrainian state symbolised the kind of social justice to which Gubarev aspires.</p>
<p>This blend of Soviet-style egalitarianism mixed with cultural mythology and the geographic historical precedent of Novorossiya (albeit in a much reduced form comprising, at present, only two of the potentially eight regions of Ukraine including Crimea) may not only appeal to those who supported the idea in the May referendum but is also an attractive geopolitical concept from Moscow’s perspective.</p>
<p>And this is where Gubarev’s “idealism” and Antyufeyev’s “professionalism” meet. Their aims may nominally be the same, but their motivations are clearly different. Gubarev claims that he and his fellow activists initially wanted to negotiate with Kiev. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We wanted the new government to ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking population and to consider an autonomous status for the Donbas area. However, we never saw any desire of the Ukrainian authorities to find a compromise. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And now he sees no room for any negotiation or compromise: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How will I explain to the families who have lost loved ones in the fighting what they died for if we negotiate with Kiev? For fiscal federalism and the return of the oligarchs?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Blood and sacrifice</h2>
<p>It is such sentiments that make the job of Antyufeyev and his fellow state-builders easier. In the absence of any alternative to independence (or annexation to Russia), modelling the DPR on the example of Transnistria is the only way forward, which would create another wholly-owned Russian subsidiary, similar to the other client states that have emerged from the frozen state of conflicts in the post-Soviet periphery. </p>
<p>Yet the path to even the pseudo-stability that Transnistria has experienced over the past two decades has not been easy, and its future is far from assured. Where Gubarev speaks of Novorossiya independence being born of blood and sacrifice, and of his and his followers’ willingness to make sacrifices, Antyufeyev simply <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/world/europe/separatist-pro-russian-leadership-in-eastern-ukraine-with-a-goal-of-establishing-government.html?_r=0">mentions</a> the need to bring order to the chaos that this “revolution” has created. </p>
<p>A revolution that, if it survives, will soon in true style devour its children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29708/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatyana Malyarenko receives funding from the Jean Monnet Programme of the European Union</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, and the EU's Jean Monnet Programme.</span></em></p>There are two competing and irreconcilable narratives about the crisis in eastern Ukraine that divide public opinion and media coverage in the region and the country – as much as they divide Russia and…Tetyana Malyarenko, Professor of Public Administration, Donetsk State Management UniversityStefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/299202014-07-30T15:52:37Z2014-07-30T15:52:37ZExplainer: how will sanctions against Russia work?<p>The sanctions against Russia <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/russia-defiant-stance-eu-us-sanctions">just announced by the EU and the US</a> are widely reported to be the harshest since the end of the Cold War. The package includes cutting off Russia’s state-owned banks from international capital markets, banning any trade in arms or transactions with any company involved in arms production and banning exports of technology for Russia’s oil industry.</p>
<p>Russia’s response has been defiant. Foreign minister Sergei Lawrov said: “I assure you, we will overcome any difficulties that may arise in certain areas of the economy, and maybe we will become more independent and more confident in our own strength”.</p>
<p>But what are these sanctions? In order to understand how they function and whether they are likely to be effective, it is crucial to clarify first some of the terms used. </p>
<h2>Are they legal?</h2>
<p>“Sanction” is not, strictly speaking, a “term of art” – or legal classification – in international law. It is widely used in the media as a shorthand. A sanction denotes the reaction of the legal system to an illegal act: it is the consequence of a violation of a legal rule. But sanctions are rather more complicated in international law – a decentralised system that, in general terms, lacks any central authority to determine the existence of violations and to impose the consequent sanctions. </p>
<p>This means that states (and other actors such as the EU) must determine for themselves, in the first instance, if another actor – Russia, for example – has violated international law, and proceed to impose sanctions against it. </p>
<p>These sanctions are actually violations of international law, which are legally justified because they are taken in response to a previous violation by the target state. To give an example, if the EU or the US stop trading with Russia in certain goods which they are obliged by a trade agreement to trade in, they are technically violating international law against Russia. </p>
<p>But this violation can be justified if the EU or the US act in response to a prior violation of international law by Russia – for example, the violation of the obligation not to interfere in the domestic affairs of another state by arming Ukrainian separatists, or the obligation not to use force in international relations by sending troops into Ukraine. In the vernacular of international law, <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199796953/obo-9780199796953-0072.xml">these sanctions are called “countermeasures”</a> because of their tit-for-tat nature. </p>
<p>There is of course some degree of centralisation in the international legal system. The United Nations <a href="http://ejil.org/pdfs/4/1/1202.pdf">has the power to impose sanctions as well</a>. </p>
<p>The UN Security Council, which has primary responsibility over the maintenance and restoration of international peace and security, has been given the power to impose centralised sanctions against states or in situations that constitute a “threat to international peace and security”. In short, the UN may sanction not all violations of international law, but only those that constitute a threat to the peace (which is a violation of international law in itself). </p>
<p>It is usually far more effective for the Security Council to impose such centralised sanctions, as all UN member states are under an obligation to respect and enforce them. However, in situations where one or more of the the P5 (permanent members of the Security Council – US, UK, France, Russia, and China) are implicated, the council will not be able to act, as the P5 have the power to block any Security Council decision. In such cases, decentralised sanctions are the only option. </p>
<p>Neither UN sanctions nor decentralised countermeasures, however, are meant to be punitive in nature. They do not aim to “punish” the recalcitrant state, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-do-sanctions-work-24431">only to put pressure on it</a> as an inducement for ceasing its internationally wrongful conduct. The aim of centralised or decentralised sanctions, thus, is the return to legality and normality. </p>
<h2>Will they work?</h2>
<p>The EU and the US – along with a number of other countries – have imposed sanctions against Russia since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine. These sanctions have gradually escalated. But what are they, and how effective will they be?</p>
<p>Apart from comprehensive sanctions, such as a complete embargo, which is considered too much of a blunt instrument, sanctions can be targeted in two ways: they may target specific goods or services that are crucial to the economy of the target country and/or are considered to be contributing to the conflict. Or they may target specific individuals or legal entities of the target country that are considered to be heavily implicated in the conflict. </p>
<p>Such targeted sanctions are considered to exert maximum pressure on the leadership of the target state while safeguarding, as much as possible, the rights of the civilian population. </p>
<p>The sanctions the EU has agreed to impose against Russia are targeted in both of these ways: the sale of arms to Russia is blocked through an arms embargo, and so is the sale in equipment crucial for the Russian oil industry. Meanwhile sanctions also seek to block the access of certain state-owned Russian banks to global financial markets. At the same time, sanctions are targeted against individuals in the Russian leadership who are are hit with travel bans and asset freezes. These people are prevented from travelling into the EU (or into any country that has imposed this sanction). Nor can they make use of any funds currently deposited in EU banks. </p>
<p>Sanctions, especially collective sanctions imposed by the UN, have had their successes in the past: they played an <a href="http://theafricanfile.com/politicshistory/impact-of-economic-and-political-sanctions-on-apartheid/">important role in the collapse of South Africa’s apartheid regime</a> while in Iraq, despite imposing considerable hardship on ordinary people, they did <a href="http://www.cfr.org/iraq/containing-iraq-sanctions-worked/p7137">succeed in eliminating Saddam Hussein’s capability to wage chemical and biological warfare</a>. The pressure of sanctions has also <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-now-understanding-the-iranian-nuclear-breakthrough-20678">brought Iran back to the negotiating table</a> over the development of its nuclear programme.</p>
<p>Decentralised sanctions may not be as effective, as they are not enforced by all the UN member states – only by the state or international organisation that imposes them. But they are the only option when the Security Council is prevented from acting – and the concerted imposition by a number of major economies has the potential of exerting some significant pressure on the target. </p>
<p>But, ultimately, their effectiveness will only be able to be assessed on the basis of their outcome: that is, on whether they will induce Russia to cease its support for the Ukrainian separatists and allow access and investigation at the crash site of MH 17.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonios Tzanakopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The sanctions against Russia just announced by the EU and the US are widely reported to be the harshest since the end of the Cold War. The package includes cutting off Russia’s state-owned banks from international…Antonios Tzanakopoulos, Associate Professor of Public International Law, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/294222014-07-19T12:12:01Z2014-07-19T12:12:01ZHow far were Russia’s ‘little green men’ involved in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17?<p>The shooting down of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/flight-mh17">Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777</a> in Eastern Ukraine on 17th June has placed the conflict which has engulfed that part of Ukraine into an entirely new context. It has transformed the event from a localised, regional rebellion into a crisis that brings Russia’s role into the open.</p>
<p>At present the vast bulk of international opinion holds that Russian-backed separatists were responsible for the shooting down. And therein lies the difficulty: what exactly do we mean by “Russian-backed”?. That Russia has been supporting the separatists has been inferred from extensive and wide-ranging but mainly anecdotal evidence. As a result, is there evidence to conclude that Russia is implicated in the shooting down of the civilian airplane?</p>
<p>Clearly, it is germane to explore how the separatists obtained this weaponry. While rumours initially abounded that they were taken from Ukrainian forces, this has now been denied by the Ukrainians who are saying that the BUK system which brought down the plane must be Russian military hardware, which is supposedly supported by numerous geo-located photos of separatists posing with their newly-acquired hardware. In a similar vein, the BUK is a <a href="http://www.janes.com/article/40907/missile-profile-9k37-buk">highly sophisticated system</a> which requires extensive training to operate. So, were the operators Russian fighters with extensive military experience, who, according to various sources, form <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/world/europe/whisked-away-for-tea-with-a-rebel-in-ukraine.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A18%22%7D&_r=0">the core of the separatist forces</a>?</p>
<p>The separatists’ initial claim made on Facebook that they had downed what they thought was a Ukrainian military plane, at the time and place the Malaysian aircraft was shot down, was subsequently deleted together with any references to the BUK system. At the same time, inside Russia various theories prevailed, diverting the blame away from the separatists, including <a href="http://time.com/3003520/malaysia-airlines-ukraine-crash-putin/">Putin’s assertion</a> that the tragedy would never have happened had the Ukrainians not resumed military activities in Eastern Ukraine after the ceasefire. While perhaps surprising to international observers, this line of argumentation simply continues the pattern of the Russian government and media putting the blame squarely on the Ukrainians for any casualties resulting from the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.</p>
<p>But in this three-month old conflict, the blowing up of the jet certainly seems to represent a new phase. Following a swift and largely bloodless annexation of Crimea in March 2014, attempts were made to repeat this scenario by focusing on South-Eastern Ukraine at large (referred to as Novorossiya in Russia, thereby emphasising the region’s historical links to Russia, even though the name has little meaning and resonance in Ukraine). After some unrest in the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa, involving a fire in which a number of pro-Russian demonstrators died in Odessa, the “Novorossiya project” has failed to engulf the eastern half of the country. However, rebellion has succeeded in igniting a smaller part of Ukraine – the Donbass region, consisting of two large cities, Donetsk and Luhansk.</p>
<p>In Donbass, Russia’s approach was characterised by lending implicit support to separatist forces, while depicting them as a bottom-up, local rebellion. This kind of “hybrid warfare” blurs the boundaries between state-controlled regular armed forces and the rogue local and mercenary forces. This strategy was viable owing to the porous border between the Donbass region and Russia (the demarcation of the Ukrainian-Russian border has long been opposed by Russia), easy transportation routes and ready volunteers within and from beyond Ukraine. However, it was noticeable that the top commanders of the various self-proclaimed republics were Russian citizens from Moscow – such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-27211501">Alexander Borodai and Igor Strelkov</a> – the last one with extensive military experience in various hotspots in post-communist Europe.</p>
<h2>Under the radar</h2>
<p>During my trip to Ukraine in June 2014, I queried the role of the Russian militants as opposed to local volunteers in a discussion with a Ukrainian expert from Donbass. The town of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28309034">Snizhne</a> – from which the expert came – had been taken over by the separatists three days earlier. She pointed out that nowhere in Donbass had there been an outburst of bottom-up support for separatism without so-called “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26532154">little green men</a>” arriving first and taking over the local administration building and subsequently recruiting the local population. These same “little green men” were seen in Crimea before its annexation.</p>
<p>Russian authorities vehemently deny any role in any of the conflicts and while the Russian media provides strong endorsement of the separatist cause, it has been particularly careful to avoid mentioning any Russian support. Rather, the conflict is depicted as an internal. It is happening within Ukraine with the separatists characterised as defenders of the local population against the onslaught of the Ukrainian military. At the same time, extensive evidence of killings, kidnapping and torture committed by the separatists, as evidenced, amongst others, by an <a href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR50/034/2014/en/c8e25fcd-c791-4edb-ac3f-6b1a1ce12977/eur500342014en.pdf">Amnesty International report</a>, has not been covered by the Russian media.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, this under-the-radar strategy started to unravel following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chocolate-king-poroshenko-wins-ukraine-presidency-but-violence-continues-27203">election of the new Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko</a>, and his unexpected decisiveness in instigating military action against the separatists. After the initial lack of co-ordination and effectiveness of the Ukrainian forces, they found a new sense of purpose (after significant reorganisation) by the end of June. This gradually placed separatist-controlled areas under increased pressure, culminating in the separatists (led by Igor Strelkov) <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/07/05/slovyansk_pro_russian_rebels_flee_eastern_ukraine_city.html">being pushed out of their symbolic stronghold in Slovyansk in early July</a>.</p>
<p>This noteworthy retreat of the separatists raised the stakes. After they regrouped in the region’s two largest cities, Luhansk and Donetsk, Russia started to back the separatists with heavier armour, with a higher flow of fighters and weaponry observed since May. Then on July 14 and 16 two Ukrainian military jets were shot down (one by a Russian military jet, according to Ukrainian military sources). This was followed by the re-appearance of the mysterious “little green men” who were largely taken to be Russian troops with their military insignia removed (as noticed by the local residents) and the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fde8243a-0a93-11e4-be06-00144feabdc0.html#axzz37uX29lRb">alleged shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces</a> from the Russian territory in support of the separatists on July 17. The downing of the Malaysian airliner took place later that same day.</p>
<h2>What is Russia’s role?</h2>
<p>Against this backdrop, the shooting down of the civilian aircraft draws attention to the aspect of the conflict which has been hidden by the “hybrid warfare” and which now focuses international attention on the perpetrators, their motives, access to weaponry and support. This has brought unwelcome international scrutiny to the role of Russia in the conflict. Putin’s ambivalent reaction, initially laying the blame at Ukraine’s door but making no comment about Russia’s support for separatist rebels, testifies to the sensitive nature of this very topic. Yet, this is hardly surprising given the growing evidence that the rebel forces used surface-to-air missiles indiscriminately against a civilian aircraft.</p>
<p>If the international scrutiny and investigation establishes a direct link to Russia, the unintended consequences of supporting separatism via “hybrid warfare” in Eastern Ukraine will have immense ramifications for Russia’s international standing in general and relations with the West in particular.</p>
<p>The shooting down certainly changes the dynamics within the EU. Despite the reluctance of some member states, such as Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Cyprus as well as Germany, their position will be significantly weakened vis-à-vis the member states – such as Poland, Sweden, Lithuania and the UK – which <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/russia-counts-eu-friends-avert-further-sanctions-303091">championed stronger sanctions against Russia</a> on the basis of evidence which had accumulated even prior to the airplane’s crash. But this does not imply a unified position, judging by the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/us-ukraine-crisis-merkel-idUSKBN0FN0YQ20140718">still cautious reaction from Germany</a>. At the same time, the continuous reluctance to impose stronger sanctions on Russia amongst more pro-Russian states in the EU will create a deeper rift within the EU and between the US and EU.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kataryna Wolczuk receives funding from the ESRC, the British Academy and the European Union. SHe is an academic fellow of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.</span></em></p>The shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in Eastern Ukraine on 17th June has placed the conflict which has engulfed that part of Ukraine into an entirely new context. It has transformed the…Kataryna Wolczuk, Reader in Politics and International Studies Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/278342014-07-01T05:00:48Z2014-07-01T05:00:48ZAfter Ukraine NATO has a role again, but Americans look to Europe and say: who’s paying?<p>The Russian response to what Moscow perceives as its three main security challenges – Western enlargement, China and terrorism/separatism in the Caucasus – has been expansionism. First in Abkhazia in 2008 and then in Crimea this year. With regard to the latter, Putin has set in motion events within Ukraine that, as yet, may still have a very unpredictable outcome. </p>
<p>For their part, the members of the NATO alliance have to reconsider their long-term approach to an emboldened Russia. How NATO Europe – and especially Germany – reacts over the coming months to the Ukrainian crisis will be telling. </p>
<p>So far the response from both the US and the European allies has been categorically economic rather than militaristic. Recently, there have only been some temporary military moves – but, ultimately, there will be stronger calls for NATO to forward deploy in Eastern Europe. </p>
<p>This raises the sticky questions of who will do this, what resources will be needed and who will pay the bill? One thing seems clear, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-gives-nato-a-reason-to-exist-but-big-players-demur-26544">NATO is back in business</a> and the <a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_111132.htm">NATO summit</a> in Wales this September will be a real test with regard to how that business is being run. </p>
<p>On a recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/world/europe/obama-in-europe.html?_r=0">visit to Poland</a> the US president, Barack Obama, attempted to reassure central and eastern European allies by declaring the US commitment to their security as “sacrosanct”. He also announced US plans to conduct more joint exercises and pledges to position more equipment in the region. A US$1 billion fund (subject to Congressional approval) was even offered as proof of support. </p>
<p>Deterring Russia today is not the same as deterring the Red Army at the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-01/news/mn-6926_1_fulda-gap">Fulda Gap</a> during the Cold War. From a military point of view, this should be a manageable deterrent requirement. We are not talking about redeploying the United States 7th Army. But there have already been calls to send NATO forces to Poland, the Baltic States and Romania. Politically this is not simple. <a href="http://news.err.ee/v/politics/7320fe87-7441-4df5-86ed-3588fe3f6bb1">Proposals for permanent NATO bases</a> – especially US configurations – have already been met with suspicion among some NATO allies. </p>
<p>The German Defence Minister was quite cagey in her response to a <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/interview-with-german-defense-minister-on-russia-and-global-conflicts-a-974569.html">Der Spiegel</a> question concerning the need to establish NATO combat troops in Eastern Europe. When asked about the need for Europeans to make “greater financial contributions” to NATO, her answer was even more evasive. The point is this: while the recent financial crisis has forced most European countries to shrink their defence budgets, this has been more of a choice than a necessity for Germany. </p>
<p>Despite being in a relatively comfortable economic position, Germany spends only 1.4% of GDP on defence. This does not seem set to rise and the German electorate is fairly unanimous that it should not do so. When asked if the defence budget would increase if the German economy did likewise, her silence was deafening. </p>
<p>German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said that “Russia has destroyed a massive amount of trust” when it comes to its relationship with the West. But it must be said that since Berlin’s decision not to join the NATO mission in Libya, there are those who may now also question Germany’s willingness to contribute meaningfully to European collective defence.</p>
<h2>Relying on Uncle Sam – again</h2>
<p>There is a built-in paradox for the Americans though. Since the pronouncement of the so-called <a href="http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Americas/0813pp_pivottoasia.pdf">“pivot” to Asia</a>, the US has been <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/hagel-says-europeans-should-step-up-nato-support">telling the Europeans</a> to contribute more to NATO and to European security in general. </p>
<p>Yet, if the events in Ukraine translate into more active US willingness to re-engage robustly with Europe – potentially by even increasing its permanent military commitment and capabilities – then this could be perceived as America “has our back” once again. In other words, Europe can continue to ignore US calls to increase defence expenditure. </p>
<p>But if the Americans perceive the Europeans to be free riding at the next NATO summit, then a real crisis of NATO solidarity could be exposed. From Putin’s point of view this is a win-win-win situation; he will have effectively caused a NATO rift while obtaining a decentralised federal Ukraine and essentially securing Russian ownership of Crimea. </p>
<p>Poland, the Baltics and Romania have all signalled an intention to raise their respective defence budgets to the NATO-set target of 2% of GDP – and their ultimate ambition is to have US forces permanently stationed on their territory. Germany following suit is almost inconceivable. Or is it? A recent <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-11/german-below-average-defense-budget-may-rise-merkel-ally-says.html">statement</a> by the defence spokesman for Merkel’s Christian Democrats that “should the security situation intensify, then we would have to consider possibly increasing the defence budget”, is cause for US optimism.</p>
<p>Germany also has other options that might help it avoid an obvious rift in the transatlantic relationship come September. For example, it could circumvent stationing elements of the <em>Bundeswehr</em> (which includes the German military) further east or raising its defence budget (politically challenging) by offsetting potential US costs through payments via the NATO infrastructure. </p>
<h2>Fall-out among friends</h2>
<p>But nonetheless, if the US agrees at the Wales summit to redeploy troops back to Europe and then asks the Europeans: “What are you prepared to do?” If the answer is: “Oh that seems awfully militaristic – or, "Sorry, my treasury is still struggling”, there could potentially be a real schism in the alliance.</p>
<p>The best outcome for all this is that the Ukrainian situation will be handled through diplomatic channels. Both Obama and Merkel are, by nature, both cautious and prodigious deliberators – although Merkel’s caution goes down better with the German public than Obama’s does with Americans. But underpinning diplomacy through reinforced conventional deterrence is NATO’s core <em>raison d'être</em>. The problem is in the sharing of the burden across the alliance. </p>
<p>It’s not a new story – but the situation is becoming increasingly politically unsustainable in the US. Come September the US will be looking to Europe – and especially to Berlin – to gauge just how much deterrence they are willing to manage and how far they are prepared to let the Americans <a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_111132.htm">foot the bill</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27834/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon J Smith receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>The Russian response to what Moscow perceives as its three main security challenges – Western enlargement, China and terrorism/separatism in the Caucasus – has been expansionism. First in Abkhazia in 2008…Simon J Smith, Research Associate, Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/265442014-05-30T08:08:44Z2014-05-30T08:08:44ZUkraine gives NATO a reason to exist – but big players demur<p>The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (<a href="http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm">NATO</a>), once again saved from potential irrelevance, has come to the fore in the West’s reaction to the Ukraine crisis. In the aftermath of its withdrawal from Afghanistan, not to mention the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/opinion/31iht-eddaalder31.html?_r=0">international armed intervention in Libya</a> to oust the Gaddafi regime in 2011, NATO’s role in European defence and security was again being <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/23/has-nato-outlived-its-usefulness">questioned</a>.</p>
<p>Then Russia intervened in the Ukrainian crisis and <a href="https://theconversation.com/now-crimeas-in-the-bag-where-next-for-putin-and-russia-24521">annexed Crimea</a>. The resulting fallout in Ukraine itself, which is spinning into an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/ukraine-anti-terror-hardens-opposition-donbass">increasingly violent conflict</a>, has been followed by regional disruption in Central and Eastern Europe. With violence and political movements mounting in Donetsk and Odessa, both Ukraine’s neighbours and states further afield need to know they have some protection against the Kremlin’s machinations. </p>
<p>As a result, NATO is back in business as a defensive alliance against the potential threat from Moscow. A very retro affair. While the protection of a transatlantic multilateral alliance is obviously appealing to countries who worry they’re in Russia’s sights, larger western powers see the responsibility of committing to NATO at such a tense time as highly onerous indeed.</p>
<h2>Baltic benefits</h2>
<p>The most obvious beneficiaries of a strong, active NATO are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. They have been saying since the end of the Soviet Union that Russia still poses a threat to their national sovereignty and territorial integrity; they all share a border with Russia (Poland and Lithuania via <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18284828">Kaliningrad</a>), and Estonia and Latvia are home to many Russian speakers and citizens. </p>
<p>Since Russia’s pretext for intervention in Crimea (and in 2008, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-unhealthy-foreign-policy-will-come-back-to-haunt-it-soon-25974">Georgia</a>) was the protection of Russian citizens, Estonia and Latvia are right to call on their allies to protect their national security – as indeed they have, imploring NATO to <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e4a4cc-bfb5-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32M2EgtPF">permanently base land forces</a> in the region.</p>
<p>Also in this camp are the states feeling the heat from Russia’s actions in and around Ukraine. Of the NATO members, the closest to the fire is Romania. Only recently, the Russian deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/10/russian-deputy-pm-bomber-tweet-romania-dmitry-rogozin">threatened to return to the region in a TU-160 strategic bomber</a> after Romania blocked his plane from entering its airspace (his travel within the EU has been sanctioned under the EU’s agreed sanctions against top politicians in the Kremlin).</p>
<p>Meanwhile Moldova, which borders Romania and already has Russian troops stationed in its breakaway region of <a href="http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/731112">Transdniestria</a>, cannot escape the sense that it could be next in line.</p>
<h2>Moscow mates</h2>
<p>Many of the other NATO countries are far more equivocal about leveraging the organisation’s power, and none more so than <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/16/us-germany-russia-business-idUSBREA4F0F020140516">Germany</a> and <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-07/why-france-inc-dot-is-still-going-to-putins-economic-summit">France</a>. For both of them, good relations with Moscow are fundamental economic priorities. </p>
<p>Other countries such as Hungary and Bulgaria are <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21600111-reducing-europes-dependence-russian-gas-possiblebut-it-will-take-time-money-and-sustained">heavily dependent on Russian gas</a>; they hardly want to give Russia a reason to turn its back on its European customers. Many southern European states also have little interest in antagonising Russia as they try to rebuild their economies. They are only reluctant defenders of their Baltic and Romanian allies.</p>
<p>Other NATO states besides have made moves to reassure the Baltics, moving soldiers and military assets into Latvia and Estonia – who have even <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e4a4cc-bfb5-11e3-9513-00144feabdc0.html">called</a> for the establishment of a new NATO base in the region on the scale of the ones in Germany or Italy. Such a base would pose a serious challenge to the current US priorities of China and East Africa by devoting resources and attention away from the more likely theatres of operation.</p>
<p>The US, meanwhile, will be keen to normalise relations with Russia as soon as possible. Aggravating Russia and China at the same time could drive one into the arms of the other – a process already underway, to judge by the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27503017">titanic gas supply deal</a> the two have just signed – without doing anything to restrain Russia in its neighbourhood. </p>
<p>The current American contribution to Baltic and Polish security is small, while US military presence in the area is limited to a routine part of normal NATO protocols. No one in the US is seriously talking about a Seoul-style military presence on the Russian border, and there is plenty that can be done before anyone should.</p>
<h2>Scarred by foreign forays</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the UK’s situation is, as usual, a mixed bag. Since the coalition government came to power in 2010, it has sought to “normalise” relations with Russia – which seems to mean talking business to the exclusion of politics, and much less defence. </p>
<p>After all, Britain is still reeling from the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, with an ever more cramped <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26271018">defence budget</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/britain-must-figure-out-its-place-in-the-world-before-intervening-25963">ever-dwindling appetite for foreign intervention</a>. Talking tough to reassure NATO allies against Russian threats will be music to the ears of some more hawkish Conservatives, but for others, the turn away from foreign activism is a core part of economic policy. </p>
<p>While foreign secretary William Hague is keen to stand by the Ukrainian interim government and voice the UK’s concerns about Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Britain has no interest in directly confronting Russia now – and much less in acknowledging the start of a “<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-20/second-cold-war-may-emerge-from-crisis-in-ukraine-medvedev-says">new Cold War</a>”. </p>
<p>So while the smaller countries on Russia’s periphery are scrambling to pull the NATO umbrella over their heads, the larger countries’ well-justified hesitation means they will be lucky to secure any substantial new protection. Even a crisis as ominous as Ukraine’s seems unlikely to renew the West’s zeal for security co-operation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Galbreath receives funding from Research Councils UK (ESRC, AHRC, and EPSRC). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal European Security.</span></em></p>The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), once again saved from potential irrelevance, has come to the fore in the West’s reaction to the Ukraine crisis. In the aftermath of its withdrawal from Afghanistan…David J Galbreath, Professor of International Security, Editor of European Security, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/271452014-05-25T18:45:29Z2014-05-25T18:45:29ZWhoever wins Ukraine election faces an uncertain mandate and no easy path to peace<p>The presidential <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/25/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSBREA4M05420140525">elections</a> in Ukraine on May 25 were meant to offer the country the beginning of a way out of a protracted crisis. Some of the signs were quite positive. Presidential <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2014/5/ukraine-presidentialelectioninfographic.html">candidates</a> were stressing the need for unity and dialogue. Ukraine’s richest man, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27483719">Rinat Akhmetov</a>, a powerful tycoon based in eastern Ukraine, took a strong public stance against the separatists there. An <a href="http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/ukraine/116545">OSCE election observer mission</a> has been put in place. And Russian president, Vladimir Putin promised to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/23/russia-ukraine-vote-vladimir-putin-president">recognise</a> the results and (yet again) <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/21/uk-ukraine-crisis-russia-military-idUKKBN0E10NK20140521">withdraw</a> Russian troops from Ukraine’s borders. </p>
<p>In one sense, expectations of a new beginning for Ukraine, were thus indeed not unreasonable. Just a few weeks ago, it seemed unlikely that any elections could be held at all. Russia had <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/06/russian-government-agency-reveals-fraudulent-nature-of-the-crimean-referendum-results/">annexed</a> Crimea and massed some <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10829388/US-releases-satellite-images-of-Russian-forces-near-Ukraine-borders.html">40,000 troops</a> on Ukraine’s eastern border, while well-armed separatists gained <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/14/us-ukraine-crisis-donetsk-idUSBREA3D1A320140414">control</a> in parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and held a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27344412">referendum</a> there in the hope to follow in Crimea’s path. </p>
<p>Unrest spread further across Ukraine, including to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27259620">Odessa</a> where dozens of people were killed following violent clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian demonstrators. Even the week immediately before the elections saw high levels of violence, with numerous casualties as a result of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSBREA4M05420140523">clashes</a> between Ukrainian security forces and separatists.</p>
<p>Exit <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/petro-poroshenko-ukraine-president-wins-election">polls</a> suggest a clear victory lead for “chocolate king” Petro Poroshenko with 56% of the vote – leaving former prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, (13%) in his wake. If these numbers are confirmed, Poroshenko has cleared the 50% threshold required to win the election outright without the need for a run-off poll. </p>
<h2>Mandate is unclear</h2>
<p>Yet, the question is what difference this will make to Ukraine and Ukrainians. Poroshenko, popular though he may be at the moment because the general disillusionment that voters feel with the current political elite in Kiev, does not have his own political party – and neither has he so far articulated a clear vision for the future, a plan for reform or a set of policies to bring Ukraine out of its current crisis. It will be difficult for him to manage the deeply fractious political process in light of a deepening economic crisis and the continuing spectre of intensifying civil war. </p>
<p>The difficulties he faces in trying to deliver on Ukrainians’ expectations for real and sustainable change are further compounded by the <a href="http://www.president.gov.ua/en/content/constitution.html">current constitution</a>, under which most power is vested in the parliament where Poroshenko has yet to build a support base. This may change by the end of the year, but only if he manages to build a strong network of local political support across Ukraine ahead of new parliamentary elections and if he can sustain his current popularity.</p>
<p>The other big challenge for whoever is eventually declared the winner in the presidential elections is the situation in eastern Ukraine. One immediate issue will be the new president’s legitimacy. Regardless of the endorsement of elections by the OSCE, EU, US, and even Russia, the winning candidate is unlikely to have received any votes in Ukraine’s eastern flashpoints. The central government did not manage to distribute ballot papers in Donetsk, Lukhansk and many other cities of eastern Ukraine. </p>
<p>The country’s central electoral commission formally allowed members of local electoral commissions in eastern Ukraine to stay home. While this may be a reasonable step given the security situation there and threats by separatists to disrupt any attempts to hold a vote, it also puts a question mark to Kiev’s willingness to engage with the east. </p>
<p>Moreover, it gives tactical advantages to most candidates, except Tihipko who would most likely have received support from the electorate in the eastern regions. The de-facto exclusion of around 15% of the population from the presidential elections will inevitably play into the hands of those seeking to justify further separation of the east from the rest of Ukrain. Local separatist elites and their presumptive supporters in Moscow will sooner or later question the legitimacy of the elections and their outcome. </p>
<p>Yet, much like the elite in Kiev, it is unclear whether local elites in the east have any clear plan for their next moves. As Moscow seems, at present, reluctant to incorporate the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, one would expect the separatists to engage in building something that resembles state institutions or parallel structures in the areas under their control. But they do not and merely seem to roam across the two regions and create instability. </p>
<p>This may work as a short-term strategy to position themselves for an eventual bargaining process among Ukrainian oligarchs over the re-distribution of the really big and attractive “cake” left behind by ousted president, Victor Yanukovych. This cake remains attractive to powerful players in Russia as well – and it remains to be seen whether they will seek to realise and protect their interests by stabilising or de-stabilising the current situation in Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, and the EU's Jean Monnet Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tetyana Malyarenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25 were meant to offer the country the beginning of a way out of a protracted crisis. Some of the signs were quite positive. Presidential candidates were stressing…Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamTetyana Malyarenko, Professor of Public Administration, Donetsk State Management UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/257822014-05-23T09:21:54Z2014-05-23T09:21:54ZEU election: Polish campaign dominated by Ukraine crisis<p>The EU election is the Polish government’s first real strength test since it was <a href="http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2011/12/articles/pl1112019i.htm">elected in October 2011</a>. The poll on May 25 kicks off an electoral marathon, which will culminate in the autumn of next year with the next election for the Polish parliament.</p>
<p>In Poland, the election has been overshadowed by events across the country’s eastern border with Ukraine, with questions of national security firmly atop the political agenda. The turmoil in Ukraine has also helped the ruling party to recover some popular support, which was <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/luizaoleszczuk/2013/11/06/government-discontent-on-the-rise-in-poland/">beginning to wane</a>. </p>
<p>Before the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, most commentators assumed that the Polish EU vote would be a typical “second-order” election: a referendum on the performance of the government, fought primarily over domestic policy issues, which voters would use as an opportunity to cast a cost-free protest vote. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49037/original/vjprqry8-1400601717.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/member-countries/poland/index_en.htm">Europa.eu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before the Ukrainian crisis escalated, the outcome seemed easy to predict. With the governing centrists Civic Platform (PO) polling 5-10% behind the the main opposition, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, only the scale of the PiS’s victory appeared to be in doubt. </p>
<p>Ukraine totally altered the dynamics of the campaign. Donald Tusk, the prime minister, responded very swiftly; he seized upon the issue of Polish and European security to successfully portray his government as fully in control, and as a key player in the international community’s response. </p>
<p>He used Ukrainian developments to highlight his claim that the government’s project of putting Poland in the so-called “European mainstream” was bearing fruit. Campaigning on the slogan “A strong Poland in a secure Europe”, all of Mr Tusk’s campaign visits were focused on promoting the party’s “security agenda”. He also tried to tie the Ukrainian issue to the future of the whole European integration project. </p>
<p>Contrasting the ruling party’s strong pro-EU stance with the PiS’s apparent Euroscepticism, Mr Tusk argued that Poland’s security depended upon its position in a strong, politically and economically integrated EU capable of reacting swiftly and effectively to external threats. </p>
<h2>Neck-and-neck</h2>
<p>The PiS was completely wrong-footed by the PO’s skillful reframing of the campaign in security terms. With the heft of incumbency, Tusk was able to project himself as an <a href="http://polishpoliticsblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/main-parties-neck-and-neck-as-the-polish-european-election-enters-the-final-straight/">international statesman</a>, holding urgent meetings with European and world leaders – and the opposition had no way to respond to this effectively. All of this paid off in the polls, which started to show the two main parties running neck-and-neck for the first time in almost a year. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49038/original/rnrkhxr6-1400601758.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Polls taken by CBOS, between April 22 and May 4. Comparison is with CBOS poll of April 30. Results presented here disregard undecided voters (38%).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Europa.eu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>PiS counter-attacked by trying to link security with domestic socio-economic policy issues, arguing that only they could reform and re-build the country to ensure the prosperity and good governance that were necessary to guarantee national security. They also argued that Tusk’s administration was itself partly responsible for the Ukrainian crisis, contrasting what they claimed was their accurate diagnosis of Russian motives and more assertive Eastern policy with Mr Tusk’s apparently naïve and over-conciliatory approach towards Moscow. </p>
<p>This counter-offensive resonated with many voters’ sense that the Tusk government had failed to deliver on many of its ambitious early promises. Nonetheless, a disciplined PO campaign focusing relentlessly on national security has meant that the ruling party could still pull off an unexpected election victory.</p>
<h2>A radical sideshow</h2>
<p>Apart from the contest between the two main parties, the other major development in the Polish EP election has been the rise of the economically libertarian, socially conservative and radically Eurosceptic Congress of the New Right (KNP). Led by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/10836329/EU-elections-2014-the-Polish-party-that-wants-to-turn-EC-building-in-Brussels-into-brothel.html">Janusz Korwin-Mikke</a>, a veteran eccentric of the Polish political scene, polls show the party could cross the 5% threshold required for securing EU representation. </p>
<p>Korwin-Mikke is notorious for having voiced some of the most controversial views in Polish politics, including appearing to agree with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Poland had trained “Ukrainian terrorists” who took part in the Kiev demonstrations that led to the downfall of the country’s previous pro-Moscow government. He retains a small but extremely dedicated core of supporters – especially among some younger voters, who have lent the KNP a strong Internet presence – and appears to have become the most attractive choice for protest voters looking for a radical alternative to the political establishment.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the KNP’s potential electorate is an impulsive and unstable one. Even if it is able to retain its support until polling day, this could evaporate quickly – leaving its leader isolated in Brussels as an extremely marginal maverick voice. Korwin-Mikke is a high-profile side-show in an EP campaign where the most important question remains: which of the two main parties will emerge as the winner on May 25?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aleks Szczerbiak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The EU election is the Polish government’s first real strength test since it was elected in October 2011. The poll on May 25 kicks off an electoral marathon, which will culminate in the autumn of next…Aleks Szczerbiak, Professor of Politics and Contemporary European Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/265432014-05-12T05:17:48Z2014-05-12T05:17:48ZUkraine referendums: another attempt to rewrite ethnic history<p>The referendums on independence from Ukraine in <a href="http://en.itar-tass.com/world/730897">Donetsk and Luhansk</a>, defying Putin’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-john-kerry-warns-moscow-against-splitting-country-in-two-ahead-of-donetsk-referendum-9331279.html">call to postpone</a>, pose deep questions about what “independence” would actually mean – and whether it can actually be achieved.</p>
<p>The eastern Ukrainian regions’ demands for independence are based in a claim of “Russian” identity. That the umbrella term “Eastern Europe” covers an intricate array of ethnic and cultural identities should be obvious – but it is precisely this seemingly obvious fact that makes the current ethnicity-based attempts to claim autonomy so delicate, and perhaps even impossible. </p>
<p>The ethnic history of the region has been written and rewritten time and again. The arrival of communism led to the uprooting of millions of people and their coerced relocation into newly created industrial cities or communal farms, but after consolidating his power in the 1930s, Stalin moved away from the Marxist-Leninist class-based conception of the target-enemies of the people (for instance, rich farmers, or “kulaks”) to one based on ethnic belonging.</p>
<p>The map of the Soviet Union changed radically: some <a href="http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3229636/Martin%201998.pdf?sequence=2">6m people</a> were deported or relocated, including the Crimean Tatars, Poles, Chechens and people from the Baltic republics. Population swaps were also common – for instance, Poles from the Soviet side of the Poland-Soviet Union border in exchange for Ukrainians from the Polish side.</p>
<p>But this is still just one version of history, and it conceals others. The further back one goes in time, the more complex and inconclusive the picture becomes. </p>
<p>Kievan Rus’, the 9th century empire that encompassed East Slavic tribes, is claimed by Belarusians, Ukrainians and <a href="http://russiapedia.rt.com/russian-history/early-days/">Russians</a> as their founding myth, with Kiev at the centre. The present Ukrainian capital was not just the birthplace of Slavic Orthodoxy, but also an essential hub in the historic trade route between Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the mock referendum on joining Britain announced in Donetsk after the Crimean annexation facetiously picked up another thread from this intricate history of mixed origins: in 1869 a Welsh industrialist, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/euro-2012/9323465/Euro-2012-Donetsks-roots-have-more-in-common-with-Merthyr-Tydfil-than-Moscow.html">John Hughes</a>, built a steel plant and several coal mines in a region that later took his name, Hughesovka. It was later renamed Stalino – and then later, Donetsk. </p>
<h2>Starting from scratch</h2>
<p>While we can ponder what an independent Donetsk might look like, the comparison with Crimea is hardly apt. Crimea had already had an autonomous and centralised parliamentary body, and therefore already had the capacity to hold elections (access to the electoral roll, enforceable ballot security, and so on) by the time it held the referendum. </p>
<p>Donetsk, by contrast, would find it logistically almost impossible to hold elections. Truly fair elections would be even more problematic; <a href="http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1399238176">reports</a> are coming in that even Putin’s own Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights dismisses the ludicrously high official Crimean referendum figures – the overall turnout was in reality between 30-50%, and only 50-60% of those votes were in favour of joining Russia.</p>
<p>One might retort that administrative roadblocks do not stop revolutions, but even so, Putin’s call to postpone the referendum is puzzling. It might just be another case of an official declaration contradicting developments on the ground, but it might also mean that he is not prepared to bear the social and (perhaps above all) economic responsibility of embracing Donetsk. </p>
<p>Even though the pride of a great number of separatist Donetskites is grounded on the belief that the poor and hard-working eastern Ukrainians are supporting the lazy and profligate lifestyle of western(ised) Ukrainians, the reality is that the region is heavily <a href="http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/05/05/ukraines-heavy-industry-glittering-prize-or-white-elephant/">subsidised</a>, first through energy subsidies for heavy industry and second through the net inflow of tax revenue from the rest of the country. </p>
<p>By itself, Donetsk is by all accounts unsustainable. It is estimated that annexing the Donbas region would cost Russia annually some 6-8% of its budget as compared to 12% going to the military. The entirety of Eastern Ukraine would double these <a href="http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/05/05/ukraines-heavy-industry-glittering-prize-or-white-elephant/">figures</a>.</p>
<p>The battle over Ukraine’s future remains unpredictable, and its driving force harder to pin down than it might first appear. What has been clear from the very start is that language was not a site of political struggle or repression. There are western Ukrainians who speak Russian uninhibitedly; Kiev itself is a balanced mix of Russian and Ukrainian speakers, for whom language remains a transparent means of expression. </p>
<p>What people are expressing in eastern Ukraine is really a desire for things to go back to normal. Looking back at the long and convoluted history that they share might give them a respite and a possibility to contemplate a common future beyond separatism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrei Sandu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The referendums on independence from Ukraine in Donetsk and Luhansk, defying Putin’s call to postpone, pose deep questions about what “independence” would actually mean – and whether it can actually be…Andrei Sandu, PhD Student in International Politics, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/262792014-05-08T20:18:22Z2014-05-08T20:18:22ZUkraine separatists engaged in high-risk game as they press on with referendum plan<p>Vladimir Putin’s statements giving qualified <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27314816">support</a> for presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25, calling on separatists in eastern Ukraine to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/ukraine-crisis-putin-referendum-autonomy-postponed">postpone</a> their planned referendums and announcing a <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-mariupol-russia-soldiers-violence-hague-city-hall">pull-back</a> of troops from Ukraine’s border, has been greeted with scepticism in <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/07/uk-ukraine-crisis-vote-idINKBN0DN1J420140507">Kiev</a>, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/ukraine/article18505621/">Brussels</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/russia-fomenting-disorder-ukraine-election-william-hague">London</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/7/putin-troops-have-pulled-back-ukraine-border/">Washington</a>. </p>
<p>In Ukraine, separatist leaders <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/ukraine-separatists-referendum-putin-call-delay">rejected</a> the Russian president’s call for postponing the referendum. This is a high-risk game for them – not only if Putin’s call for a delay was genuine, but also in light of the most recent opinion <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/05/08/despite-concerns-about-governance-ukrainians-want-to-remain-one-country/">polls</a> from the Pew Research Centre that indicate overwhelming support for a unified, and better governed, Ukraine, including in the eastern regions.</p>
<p>Developments on the ground, at the same time, remain deeply worrying: Mariupol city hall was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27305245">retaken</a> by separatists, fighting <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27280814">intensified</a> in Sloviansk, and <a href="http://www.dw.de/odessa-next-flash-point-on-the-black-sea/a-17616055">tensions</a> in Odessa remained high. Unsurprisingly, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/ukraine-claims-30-pro-russia-separatists-killed">warned</a> that Ukraine was on the verge of all-out war. He urged a new round of talks in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU, which Russia promptly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27289897">rejected</a> unless separatists were included.</p>
<p>Taken together, these developments indicate a number of trends, none of which is particularly promising for a swift resolution of the current crisis, let alone a sustainable long-term solution of Ukraine’s underlying problems.</p>
<h2>Consolidating Russian gains</h2>
<p>First, as far as Russia is concerned, the Kremlin appears to be disinterested for the time being in any further escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine, but rather intent on consolidating its gains there. Local separatists, enjoying considerable public support, are more than a match for Ukrainian security forces. Any further military operations would be costly for Kiev, including in terms of inevitable civilian casualties. Any further escalation of the situation, such as the holding of the referendums planned for May 11, with or without Russia’s official support, however, may force Kiev’s hand and create a situation that is completely out of control. </p>
<p>That said, Russian attempts to de-escalate the situation are not equivalent to making any real concessions, but will rather strengthen Moscow’s position. If the situation in eastern Ukraine stabilises, Russia can claim that it is doing its part in implementing the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/joint-geneva-statement-on-ukraine-from-april-17-the-full-text/2014/04/17/89bd0ac2-c654-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html">Geneva Accords</a>. This will further increase its relevance in any more concerted settlement efforts. If the situation does not stabilise, Russia can assert that this simply demonstrates that it does not really control events in eastern Ukraine. The decision by local separatists to go ahead with their referendum despite Putin’s call to postpone it, may thus well play into Russia’s hand. </p>
<p>Dubious as such claims by the Kremlin may nonetheless seem, they might not be complete fabrications either. Across eastern Ukraine, actors and agendas have proliferated. These are now driven by a range of local, national, and regional aspirations, some more opportunistic, some more strategic, but cumulatively more difficult to manage and control.</p>
<p>This trend of proliferation and the spread of the conflict now to strategically far more important cities <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/ukraine-conflict-creeps-crucial-city-odessa-n97391">such as Odessa,</a> also constrains the options for the Ukrainian government. A military solution is clearly beyond Kiev’s capability at the moment, but any political solution is far from easily obtained either. Talks with the separatists have not yielded any progress so far, OSCE mediation has been limited and the track record of recent agreements and their implementation does not look promising. </p>
<p>With no formal ceasefire in place, the best Kiev can do is avoid any steps – rhetorical or otherwise – that would further inflame the situation during <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/05/07/why-may-9-will-be-a-date-to-watch-in-ukraine/">May 9 Victory Day</a> celebrations (marking the end of World War II), the referendums in eastern Ukraine (if these go ahead) and the run-up to the presidential elections (again, if these go ahead). </p>
<h2>Focus on containment</h2>
<p>Containment, de-escalation and stabilisation need to be where all efforts in Kiev, Moscow, Washington and Brussels should be focused. This would certainly be more uselful than continuing the antagonistic rhetoric and posturing that has been going on for months and has contributed to the constantly deteriorating situation.</p>
<p>The danger of course is that stepping back from the brink may simply no longer be possible. Referendums and elections have a tendency to polarise and radicalise public opinion. Situations such as these – where the winner takes all – are hardly conducive to building the kind of political consensus that countries emerging from, or on the brink of, civil war need. </p>
<p>Putin’s seeming inability to have the referendums in eastern Ukraine postponed and his <a href="http://euobserver.com/foreign/124056">qualified endorsement</a> of the presidential elections may thus yet create a situation in which a Russian military intervention appears as the only “stabilising” option left. And this is a scenario that Moscow has significant experience with going back to the early 1990s when <a href="http://isiseurope.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/is-the-transnistrian-frozen-conflict-next-moldovas-fuzzy-position-between-russia-and-the-west/">Russia intervened militarily and/or diplomatically</a> in Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, brokering ceasefires and terminating violence without settling any of what came to be called “frozen conflicts”. </p>
<p>The coming days and weeks will tell how serious all the players in and around Ukraine are about contributing to resolving this ever-more dangerous crisis and whether Kiev, Moscow, Brussels and Washington can rise above their own short-term and increasingly narrow interests and agendas and prevent the unnecessary bloodshed that further escalation would inevitably bring with it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, and the EU's Jean Monnet Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tetyana Malyarenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vladimir Putin’s statements giving qualified support for presidential elections in Ukraine on May 25, calling on separatists in eastern Ukraine to postpone their planned referendums and announcing a pull-back…Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamTetyana Malyarenko, Professor of Public Administration, Donetsk State Management UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/264152014-05-08T05:09:31Z2014-05-08T05:09:31ZRussia’s nationalist quest risks future of European borders<p>Vladimir Putin has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/ukraine-crisis-putin-referendum-autonomy-postponed">called for the postponement</a> of the planned referendum in eastern Ukraine just four days before the vastly pro-Russian provinces were due to vote on secession. The Russian president also said he was pulling Russian troops back from the Ukrainian border and called for the Ukrainian authorities to cease all military actions against pro-Russian separatists.</p>
<p>Putin’s announcement has calmed tensions, for now. He appears to have changed his attitude to Ukraine’s scheduled presidential elections saying that they are a “step in the right direction” rather than a “sham” as previously. Russian stocks rose by 6% as investors took confidence that the crisis seems to be receding, at least for now.</p>
<p>But Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its ongoing intervention on behalf of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine has singlehandedly returned <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eachaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Irredentism.html">irredentism</a> to the international agenda. Irredentism – the attempt by states to regain lost territories and retrieve stranded co-nationals – is a particularly malignant form of conflict since it destabilises regional and international security by drawing in a number of states, it is often accompanied by ethnic cleansing, and such conflicts are notoriously resistant to resolution in view of the number of parties with separate geopolitical interests.</p>
<p>For these reasons, irredentism is a rare form of conflict. My <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/nep/2013/00000019/00000003/art00002">recent research</a> highlights that since the end of the Cold War, 63 major secessionist conflicts occurred across the globe and yet only five of these are irredentist. Homeland states are reticent to embark on such crusades. In the decades after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia largely follows this model. Despite the existence of an <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/migration-dilemmas-haunt-post-soviet-russia">estimated 25m ethnic Russians beached in Soviet successor states</a>, Russia has rarely looked like pursuing irredentism.</p>
<p>While Russia’s actions in Ukraine appear as an outlier to contemporary patterns of global conflict, irredentist politics are far from over and the threat may be increasing, even within Europe. In recent years, political leaders in some European Union member and applicant states have advanced statements and policies in relation to their neighbouring co-nationals which are perceived as threats to the territorial sovereignty of neighbouring states. </p>
<p>For example, in 2012 the then Albanian president, Sali Berisha, <a href="http://www.nationalia.info/en/news/1269">spoke of Albanian unity with Kosovo</a> and of how parts of Greece and Macedonia are “Albanian lands”. Hungarian leader, Viktor Orban, has outlined “<a href="http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/02/the-crisis-of-democracy-in-hungary-2012/">the process of national reunification</a>”, a reference to those millions of “Hungarians beyond the borders” in Slovakia and Romania. Hungary’s radical nationalist party <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2010/gb20100420_420459.htm">Jobbik promises to restore a Greater Hungary</a> across the Carpathian basin. In November 2013, Romania’s president, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/romania/10481579/Romania-baits-Russia-by-seeking-reunification-with-Moldova.html">Traian Băsescu</a>, stated, “I am convinced that if Moldova wants to unite [with Romania], then Romania will accept.”</p>
<h2>Europe and homeland states</h2>
<p>It’s highly unlikely that Albania, Hungary or Romania will seek to retrieve their kin via violence, but it is significant that the homeland state question continues to fester within Europe. Given that a major factor in starting World War II was Nazi Germany’s attempt to resolve the so-called “Sudeten Question” by retrieving German co-nationals in Czechoslovakia, the post-war project of European unity advanced by making the peaceful resolution of irredentist disputes a central concern. </p>
<p>European integration deals with irredentism by combining respect for territorial sovereignty, minority rights provision and by allowing homelands to build institutional links with their neighbouring co-nationals. Europe can point to a post-war record of success in ending irredentist disputes. Longstanding territorial disputes, such as <a href="http://www.eurac.edu/en/research/projects/ProjectDetails.aspx?pid=9862">South Tyrol-Trentino</a> and <a href="http://www.crossborder.ie/">Northern Ireland</a>, were resolved by guaranteeing the existing territorial status quo and by allowing the respective homeland states – Austria and the Republic of Ireland – to forge crossborder links with their co-nationals.</p>
<p>Post-war Western Europe’s capacity to end irredentist disputes led to European integration becoming a model for states at the eastern borders of the European Union, many of which had a history of irredentist disputes. In order to join the EU, aspirant member states are required, as a precondition, to resolve territorial disputes with neighbours and to adopt robust rights protection for national minorities.</p>
<p>The EU model is not so readily transferable to Central and Eastern Europe. State and nation rarely coincides within a bounded territory in former communist countries. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia left 28 states in Central and Eastern Europe, 22 of which contained national minorities comprising more than 10% of the population. </p>
<p>There are around 1.5m ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece, 1.8m ethnic Romanians in Moldova and Ukraine and around 2m ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia. Because these minorities often maintain strong links with their homelands, their host states fret that they are fifth columnists seeking the state’s break-up. These host states respond by limiting cross-border links between minorities and their homelands.</p>
<h2>Time to rethink borders?</h2>
<p>Russia’s irredentism in Ukraine is particularly ominous in the context of Central and Eastern Europe. Persistent interstate tensions over territory and ethnicity in the region could be exacerbated by Russia’s model of revising borders. Such interventionist behaviour creates regional insecurity over existing borders and places national minorities under the increasing scrutiny of host states. Equally problematic, internal problems within the EU may weaken its influence over states at Europe’s eastern edges.</p>
<p>The explosive potential of crossborder national minorities requires novel thinking to ensure that disputes are peacefully solved. While many host states fear the potentially malevolent influence of neighbouring homeland states over their co-nations, it may be time to start fostering more crossborder links between homelands and co-nationals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Nagle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vladimir Putin has called for the postponement of the planned referendum in eastern Ukraine just four days before the vastly pro-Russian provinces were due to vote on secession. The Russian president also…John Nagle, Lecturer in Sociology, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/259742014-04-29T09:41:15Z2014-04-29T09:41:15ZRussia’s unhealthy foreign policy will come back to haunt it soon<p>The situation in Eastern Ukraine is turning increasingly violent and fractious, with the mayor of Kharkiv <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/ukraine-mayor-kharkiv-gennady-kernes-shot">critically wounded</a> by unknown gunmen and kidnapped observers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/27/ukraine-kidnapped-observers-slavyansk-vyacheslav-ponomarev">still being held</a> by pro-Russian militias. The US has announced another slew of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27185085">sanctions</a> targeting Vladimir Putin’s “inner circle” – but few observers can imagine Russia will tone down its behaviour any time soon.</p>
<p>Russia’s conduct in the Ukrainian crisis continues to trifle with international law, with telltale talk of “interests” – always a worrying word to hear from a great power asserting itself. This is what Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in an <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27124453">interview</a> with Russia Today on April 23: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians have been attacked directly, like they were in South Ossetia … I do not see any other way but to respond in full accordance with international law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lavrov’s statement was a toxic mix of “ethnicism” and realism (we might call it ethno-realism), not dissimilar to the 1930s variant that ended in outright barbarism. The “interests” he describes are based on an ethnic claim; he talks of the “interests of Russians” not of the interests of Russia. This is a challenge not only to the settlements of 1991 that followed the collapse of the USSR, but to the post-war settlement of 1945, the UN charter, and the recognition (if not the practice) of collective security. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, over the past two decades, Western states (and the US in particular) have provided all the excuses Russia needs for its own brand of exceptionalism and unilateralism. At least three major Western mistakes have contributed to the current crisis: a limited effort to accommodate Russian concerns over its European security, the encouragement of Russian control over peacekeeping in Moldova, Georgia and Tajikistan, and repeated forgiveness for Russia’s actions, including the seizure of neighbouring territories. </p>
<p>This was why the Georgian parliament’s speaker Davit Usupashvili argued in Brussels this April that without NATO, Georgia could be <a href="http://www.interpressnews.ge/en/politicss/56455-georgia-may-disappear-from-the-world-map-without-nato-and-this-may-happen-very-soon-davit-usupashvili.html?ar=A">removed from the world map</a> by Russian aggression.</p>
<p>Lavrov is an exemplary practitioner of realpolitik, but on Putin’s instructions, he is now following a more radical creed. Highly emotionally charged, it contains several core notions that, taken together, justify the radical redrawing of the Eurasian map. </p>
<p>Ethnicity, first of all, is a legitimate basis for territorial claims. States have the right to grant citizenship to co-ethnics or co-linguals living abroad, even against the wishes of the host state (“<a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/ukraine-russia-crimeapassportizationcitizenship.html">passportisation</a>”). Self-determination, however selectively defined, has priority over state sovereignty; and Russia has the right to use “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-reserves-the-right-to-use-force-in-ukraine/2014/03/04/92d4ca70-a389-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html">all available means</a>” – as Putin put it – to protect Russians anywhere in any state. </p>
<h2>From independence to annexation</h2>
<p>This worldview guarantees future instability in Russia’s relations with its neighbours. It extends beyond co-ethnics to include “lost” lands, like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that are inhabited by Russian speakers rather than by legal Russians.</p>
<p>The new policy does not mean all Russia’s neighbours are equally vulnerable, or that Russian diasporas all want to rejoin the homeland. Russians in Estonia, who live in the EU, may feel quite differently to Russians in Eastern Ukraine; the Russian diaspora in Azerbaijan hasn’t the coherence or numbers of the diaspora in northern <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/OP297.pdf">Kazakhstan</a>; and for various reasons, it is unlikely Russia will risk intervention in the Baltic states as it did in <a href="http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/peace/peacekeep.htm">Tajikistan</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this asymmetry, which suggests Russia’s territorial ambitions are limited, there is a two-decade old pattern since 1991 of de-facto annexation by Russia of former Soviet territories. This began with Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s, leading up to the 2008 war and the Russian <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7582181.stm">recognition</a> of Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence.</p>
<p>The West should therefore not be surprised at events in Ukraine. For the past two decades, Russia’s aspirations as a regional power have been benignly overlooked. Western leaders believed Transnistria was a post-imperial casualty, and that the war with Georgia was highly specific, even personal; Saakashvili was characterized as a <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/opinion-of-helpless-hotheads-and-half-baked-warriors-a-571230.html">hothead</a>. </p>
<p>Today, these quasi-states around Russia defend their sovereignty – and the Abkhazian desire for independence is genuine – but they are in the end instruments of an increasingly confident Russian policy of opportunistic expansion into weak neighbouring states. In the Crimean case, the fig leaf of “independence” was discarded in favour of outright annexation.</p>
<h2>Sowing bad seeds</h2>
<p>In the April 23 interview, Lavrov warned Ukrainians that the South Ossetian scenario could be repeated in Ukraine. The precedent looks something like this: with disarray and internal division in a neighbouring state, Russia encourages pro-Russian separatist movements among the “diaspora” (Edinstvo in Moldova, Soiuz in Abkhazia, the “Donetsk Republic” in Eastern Ukraine). </p>
<p>Russian-dominated peacekeeping, joint control commissions and/or “passportisation” follow, along with Russian military bases, leases and agreements; a crisis involving a threat to Russians or Russian citizens justifies full-blown intervention, and recognition of independence or de facto annexation completes the process. While Western squeals of outrage are to be anticipated, there will be no effective backing for resistance against intervention.</p>
<p>Russia’s creed works well within the context of Eurasian geography given the asymmetry of Russian size and power, the various diasporas or Russian-speaking loyalists in the borderlands, and the ease of access for Russian armies. But there is a fourth element, which will eventually undermine Russia’s ambitions and hang around Putin’s neck like an albatross. </p>
<p>Students of empire have long pointed to the cost of expansion, and so it goes here. Russia has a weak economy; its GDP growth is in decline, and corruption is endemic. These revanchist efforts offer only temporary relief. In the short-term, Russia’s democrats will suffer as Russia glories in its victories, but the newly acquired territories will come at a great price. Since 2008, 27 billion roubles have <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/the-hidden-costs-of-a-russian-statelet-in-ukraine/284197/">disappeared without trace</a> in South Ossetia, the smallest of the acquisitions; Crimea is 40 times its size, with 2m inhabitants. </p>
<p>Crime, corruption, and smuggling will tarnish these victories before long. They will end up as instruments in the hands of Putin’s opponents, who will decry the leader’s follies in their appeals to citizens infuriated by economic stagnation. These expansions into weak neighbouring states are not only demonstrating the hollowness of Russia’s modernisation and growth – they are actually hastening its economic and political decline. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The situation in Eastern Ukraine is turning increasingly violent and fractious, with the mayor of Kharkiv critically wounded by unknown gunmen and kidnapped observers still being held by pro-Russian militias…Stephen Jones, Professor of Russian Studies, Mount Holyoke CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/257682014-04-18T08:26:14Z2014-04-18T08:26:14ZUkraine isn’t the Czech crisis of 1938, but there are lessons to learn from history<p>Since the very beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, many Western commentators have drawn comparisons between the present situation and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/03/14/the-wests-response-to-russias-ukraine-invasion-is-pathetic-appeasement">pre-WWII Europe</a>, as well as between <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26476643">Hitler and Putin</a>. This has largely been part of a call for firm action against violations of international law by the Kremlin.</p>
<p>This kind of parallelism is not new; it is used every time there is a new enemy the public opinion should focus on. In recent years, according to Western rhetoric, Adolf Hitler has already been apparently reincarnated several times – as Saddam Hussein, Mohammad Qaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and more besides.</p>
<p>But while as a rule the direct comparison of any present statesman with Hitler is generally spurious, this time the broader context does in fact present some similar features. Specifically, Putin’s policy towards Crimea and Ukraine at large is gloomily echoing the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939.</p>
<p>Obviously, there are important differences. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-crisis-is-nothing-like-invasions-of-czechoslovakia-25169">an earlier article</a>, Professor Martin Brown has already pointed out that the annexation of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia, did not take place by unilateral invasion nor by popular referendum, but as a result of a four-powers agreement that allowed Hitler to take it.</p>
<p>While significant, these differences do not outweigh the similarities between the two situations. In both cases, the nationality issue was a pretext for a territorial expansion of an aggressive and antidemocratic power. Hitler’s claim over the Sudetenland in 1938 was not utterly baseless; Czechoslovakia was a rather artificial offspring of the Versailles treaty, and had existed as an independent country only for twenty years. In the majority of the districts that joined Germany as a result of the Munich agreement, more than 50% of the population was indeed German.</p>
<p>Today, Putin can claim similar justifications for his actions in Ukraine. Crimea was the only district of Ukraine with a majority Russian population – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18287223">nearly 60%</a>. Historically, it was a Russian province; only in 1954 did the former Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev “offer” it to Ukraine – a rather meaningless gesture, since the two republics were at the time both part of the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>Aside from the local issue, in both cases the true problem was the violation of the global equilibrium. To this respect, 1930s statesmen proved much more naïve than their 21st century colleagues. At the time of the Munich agreement, the French prime minister Édouard Daladier <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wze-u1YC8jcC&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=daladier+cannot+sacrifice+ten+million+french+lives&source=bl&ots=3tPNLKPqAC&sig=kl4c9kMujLCY8GikA8vuLXKKSTY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8_pPU_mCAtKM7Aa5qYGoDA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=daladier%20cannot%20sacrifice%20ten%20million%20french%20lives&f=false">privately admitted</a>: “We cannot sacrifice ten million men in order to prevent three and a half million Sudetens from joining the Reich”. Similarly, Chamberlain wrote to Hitler: “I can’t believe you will take responsibility to start a European war for just a few days’ wait in the solution of this long-standing problem.”</p>
<p>They both completely missed the point, since Hitler’s objectives of course went far beyond reuniting all the German-speaking peoples under Berlin’s rule. And while historiography will never be able to state it as a truism, Germany was in all likelihood not yet ready for a global conflict, and Hitler might well have backed down if Britain and France had shown real firmness. Putting it bluntly, Chamberlain and Daladier were simply outwitted by Hitler.</p>
<p>Putin may not have such a grand design as the German dictator, but his plans are clearly not limited to Crimea. If any evidence of that was needed, the extent of the unrest in eastern Ukraine proves that Crimea was just a first step. The weakness of the new Kiev government may lead Putin to escalate more rapidly than Hitler, who waited a full six months before actually occupying Prague in March 1939.</p>
<p>Unlike Chamberlain and Daladier, today’s statesmen apparently understand the wider implications of Putin’s actions, and have shown firmness in condemning them. This has not made the dilemma they face any easier. How to prevent such deliberate aggression? How to avoid further violations of international law? United under the motto “act now, or regret it later”, the world’s great powers show little sign of agreement on a single course of action.</p>
<p>Other considerations make their task even more delicate. Many commentators have failed to note one fundamental difference between 1938 and 2014. In the last century’s case, Czechoslovakia was allied to France, and German aggression against it was therefore always likely to lead to a full-scale war; the Munich meeting was called at the very last moment to disguise Hitler’s guaranteed invasion as a legal occupation. An exact parallel today might be if Russia occupied the Estonian district of <a href="http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/3985381-little-russia-wanted-break-away">Ida-Viru</a>, where 72% of the population is Russian.</p>
<p>Unlike Estonia, Ukraine is not part of NATO, so there is no legal obligation for any Western power to intervene in its defence unless such an intervention is sanctioned by the United Nations. In purely geopolitical terms, whereas Hitler’s action was one of a number of offensive moves he devised during the 1930s, Putin’s unwillingness to accept the new government in Kiev appears to be a rather more defensive move. From his point of view, the West was trying to set up a hostile government in what is still considered the Kremlin’s courtyard.</p>
<p>The central mistake of Munich was Neville Chamberlain’s apparent conviction that the scrap of paper signed by Hitler actually meant something.</p>
<p>Today, the Western dilemma is of a rather different nature: some people have argued that diplomatic and economic means are not enough to deter Putin over Ukraine, so Western diplomacy should include the threat of military action. Other commentators have described the crisis as heralding a new age of Western <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2570682/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Ukraine-exposes-Wests-impotence.html">impotence</a>, in which we can do little more than deny visas and flounce out of high-level summits.</p>
<p>This clash of opinions exposes a fundamental paradox of international relations in the nuclear era. Nowadays, the threat of military retaliation has lost credibility, and diplomatic arm wrestling can only rely on the threat of economic warfare. This can only be effective if a strong common front is built up internationally – but with so many private interests involved, that might be even more difficult to achieve than military action.</p>
<p>While the parallel with the history of appeasement should not be misused and applied uncritically, we should also pause before throwing it out entirely just because parallels with Hitler are a cliché. Similarly, it is important to avoid rolling the unique historical concept of appeasement into the general category of diplomacy – but also to avoid mixing up the need for a strong reaction with unrealistic and dangerous threats.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonio Peciccia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since the very beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, many Western commentators have drawn comparisons between the present situation and pre-WWII Europe, as well as between Hitler and Putin. This has largely…Antonio Peciccia, Researcher in International History, University of SalentoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.