Special status for the Donbas
Ukrainian lawmakers on March 17 approved a draft law to grant special status to the rebel-held areas in the country’s east. It was part of a package of legislative proposals made by President Poroshenko that had been sharply criticized by both Russia and the pro-Russian separatists. The bill outlined the boundaries of particular districts in the areas under pro-Russian separatist control that could be granted special status with limited self-rule. That was a key part of the Minsk II ceasefire deal reached. The bill said rebel-held areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions will be granted their special status after holding elections in accordance with Ukrainian law and under international observation.
On July 16 the Rada voted to send for the Constitutional Court’s review constitutional amendments submitted by the president, including an amendment creating what was now called “specific procedures” for local self-governance on the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts occupied by Russian-backed terrorists. Although legislation creating specific procedures (previously referred to as “special status”) had been twice earlier approved by Parliament, an amendment was also needed to the Constitution of Ukraine. In his remarks endorsing the amendment on specific procedures, President Poroshenko assured Parliament that it wouldn’t lead to federalization, or creating an autonomous entity within Ukraine like Crimea.
Though insisting he was not being pressured, the president confirmed that the legal mechanism to establish the specific procedures was being demanded by the European Union and the United States. “We simply don’t have the right to create with our own hands a situation that will leave Ukraine on its own against its aggressor,” he said. “That’s why now and in the future, when we will vote to approve the Constitution as a whole, we need to approach this vote with exceptional responsibility.”
A flag from the battle of Ilovaisk that was on display as part of the exhibit “Power of the Unbroken” on Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square.
Later in the year, on August 31, constitutional amendments shifting certain state authority to local governments, including provisions related to the special procedures for parts of the Donbas, were approved by the Verkhovna Rada with support from the national deputies of the Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front led by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc and the deputies’ groups will of the People and Rebirth, which consist of big businessmen and former members of the Party of Regions. Three of the five factions of the governing coalition – the Radical Party, Samopomich and Batkivshchyna – voted against the amendments. Part of the specific procedures called for granting full immunity to the Russian-backed terrorists from any prosecution, enabling them to run for political office in local elections, remain in office for the full length of their terms, appoint prosecutors and judges, form local police forces and establish “deep neighborly relations” with districts in the Russian Federation. “This is part of Putin’s plan for splitting and federalizing Ukraine and is practically the legalization of the Russian occupation on the occupied territory of the Donbas,” Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko said in an August 27 interview with the News One television network.
Outside the Parliament on August 31 were members of the Svoboda Party, the Radical Party, Pravyi Sektor and Ukrop (a party launched by Mr. Kolomoisky, a billionaire and rival of Mr. Poroshenko). They gathered to protest the lack of public discussion on the amendments, which had been approved by the Constitutional Court on July 31. Inside the Rada, Radical Party members blocked the podium and the work of the Parliament. Once the vote on the first reading of the constitutional amendments ultimately took place, violence broke out outside. Simple bombs and explosives were hurled toward the Parliament building and the attacks were capped off by a military grenade that killed three National Guardsmen and hospitalized over 90 people. It was Ukraine’s most serious domestic political conflict since the Euro-Maidan.
Plight of Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars commemorated the 71st anniversary of their mass deportation ordered in 1944 by Joseph Stalin, which displaced around 200,000 people and cost tens of thousands of lives. Nearly half of those deported died of starvation or disease en route to the places of their forcible resettlement. Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to their homeland following the collapse of the Soviet Union. RFE/RL reported that a special event, called “I Am a Crimean Tatar,” was held in Kyiv on May 18 to remember the deportation victims. Organizers said the goal of the gathering was twofold: to commemorate Crimean Tatars who died during the deportation to Central Asia that started on May 18, 1944, and to honor those who lost their lives during and after Crimean’s annexation by Russia in March 2014.
A resolution passed by the Verkhovna Rada on November 12 recognized the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland in 1944 as genocide. A Day of Remembrance for the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people will now be held annually on May 18. The resolution also says that “the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine states that the systemic pressure on the Crimean Tatar people, the repression of Ukrainian citizens on a national basis, the organization of ethnically and politically motivated prosecutions of the Crimean Tatars on the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine by the public authorities of the Russian Federation, starting from the date of temporary occupation, are a conscious policy of ethnocide of the Crimean Tatar people.”
On September 8, Crimean Tatar leaders called for a blockade of Crimea. Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv, Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, said: “…every day we see evidence of pressure, detentions, searches and pogroms organized by the occupation authorities against the Crimean Tatars and other national minorities.” Pointing out that Ukraine was still delivering goods to the occupied peninsula with almost no obstacles, he said: “We believe that this is wrong, because this way the Ukrainian state feeds those who occupied our land and supports Kremlin power, which now opposes Ukraine.” Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev noted that this was not only a question of foodstuffs. Ukraine supplies 85 percent of electricity and about 80 percent of water, especially irrigation water, to Crimea. “Before the occupation, such costs were covered by tourism or business trips. Now Ukraine does not get anything,” said Mr. Dzhemilev. The Kyiv-based group Crimea Civil Blockade issued a series of demands: release political prisoners; stop interference in Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian media activity; ensure foreign journalists’ and monitors’ access to Crimea; stop criminal proceedings and administrative persecution of Crimean Tatars and other citizens of Ukraine; and lift the ban on Crimean Tatar leaders entering Crimea.
On November 22, Crimean Tatars launched their biggest countermeasure since the beginning of the Russian occupation of their homeland by ruining four electricity lines, situated in the neighboring Kherson Oblast, that account for 70 percent of the peninsula’s electricity. By the time they woke up, the majority of Crimean residents were lacking access to not only electricity, but also water, heat, gasoline and cash, the news.allcrimea.net website reported. Mr. Dzhemilev, the president’s ombudsman on Crimean Tatar affairs, said on November 23 that activists had cut the electricity in order to force the release of political prisoners being held in Crimea and Russia, among other political aims.
To stop the activists, the Ukrainian government dispatched National Guardsmen and fighters of the Kherson Battalion, a division of the Internal Affairs Ministry. At the same time, Mr. Poroshenko held a meeting in the Presidential Administration with Crimean Tatar leaders, who were accompanied by more than 100 demonstrators outside, on Bankova Street, who urged the president not to allow law enforcement officers to interfere with the activists. As a result of the meeting, Mr. Poroshenko agreed to order the Cabinet of Ministers to impose a trade embargo on Crimea. The Cabinet fulfilled the order with the State Border Service implementing it on November 24. Repairs of the electrical lines began as early as November 25. Activists allowed crews to conduct all the necessary repairs, Mr. Dzhemilev told the Deutsche Welle news agency, adding, however, that the Tatars’ demands hadn’t changed.
Changing the narrative
president.gov.ua
Volodymyr Vyatrovych speaks during a ceremony at the Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv, where the “Remembrance Poppy,” Ukraine’s new symbol of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, was unveiled.
The Ukrainian government in 2015 took a major step in changing the narrative of World War II in Ukraine. Ukraine made the crimson poppy flower a symbol of the victory over Nazi Germany, part of a shift away from the Soviet imagery Kyiv said the Kremlin was using to influence neighbors and promote self-serving myths about World War II. First Lady Maryna Poroshenko attended a “Remembrance Poppy” ceremony on April 7 as part of events marking the 70th anniversary of the Nazi surrender in May 1945. “The time has come when we have to look for the ideas that unite our country and nation,” she said. “The second world war affected each and every Ukrainian family. The poppy is a symbol of remembrance that pays tribute to all heroes who sacrificed their lives for a better future.”
The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Volodymyr Viatrovych, said that Soviet-era commemorations of the Allied victory had turned the “dreadful tragedy” of World War II into a celebration of the “triumph of Communist ideas” and created a “cult of war.” He noted that the initiative of commemorating fallen Ukrainians with the Remembrance Poppy had been established the previous year. In 2015, the initiative gained legislative basis in the form of a presidential decree that made May 8 the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. Mr. Viatrovych also stated: “It is extremely important to honor the victims and heroes of this war in a Ukrainian manner, because Ukraine was one of the main arenas of the second world war. According to various estimates, about 10 million Ukrainians were victims of the war. Ukrainians made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism in the Red Army, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the armies of Poland, France, Great Britain and other countries. Together, they made the victory over fascism possible.”
In a related development, Ukraine’s Parliament approved several historic bills on April 9 that took decisive steps to part with the country’s Soviet legacy. One of the bills recognized on the state level all those who fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century, in armed, paramilitary, underground or political organizations, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, the Ukrainian National Republic, government bodies of Carpatho-Ukraine, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and dozens of others. Another bill required the removal of all public Soviet symbols and monuments, and the renaming of all cities, towns and villages bearing Soviet names. The largest to be affected was Dnipropetrovsk, the city of 993,000 residents named after Grigory Petrovsky, a leader in the Red Terror of 1918-1923 and the Holodomor of 1932-1933.
Presidential Administration of Ukraine
President Petro Poroshenko and First Lady Maryna Poroshenko place symbolic bouquets of wheat before the statue named “The Sad Memory of Childhood,” which is part of the national museum complex dedicated to the memory of Holodomor victims.
“From now on, children won’t ride on carousels in parks named after executioners, students won’t study in institutes named after terrorists, and lovers won’t arrange their dates on squares named after killers,” National Deputy Yuriy Lutsenko, head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction, wrote on his Facebook page.
Never was it more apparent that Russia and Ukraine were going their separate ways than the 2015 commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, noted Mr. Zawada. Not only will the main commemorations be held on different days, but the Ukrainian state events will be stripped of any symbolism of Soviet communism for the first time. The government also decided to do away with the May 9 military parade on Kyiv’s central boulevard, the Khreshchatyk, once and for all. “This era has disappeared forever, at least in our country,” said Yurii Krykunov, a Kyiv City Council deputy who is among those responsible for organizing the 2015 commemorations. “I think these commemorations will be two absolute contrasts, revealing that we are moving towards civilization and they [in Russia] are moving towards a dead end.”
Victory Day, marked on May 9, has been among the biggest holidays on the Ukrainian calendar ever since 1965, when it was established. Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) has been commemorated on May 8 in the Western world because that’s when the German Nazi leadership declared its capitulation. Yet Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin declared Victory Day on May 9 because it was 0:43 a.m. Moscow time when the act was signed (22:43 in Berlin). In a symbolic move intended as a break from the past and as indication of Ukraine’s European integration, the government held a larger ceremony for the May 8 commemoration, as compared to the limited events planned for May 9.
Another sign of the changing narrative in Ukraine came on October 14 as Ukraine for the first time marked a new national holiday – Day of the Defender of Ukraine – established to honor the courage and heroism of the defenders of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. The date coincides with the religious feast day of St. Mary the Protectress (Pokrova). On the legendary Khortytsia Island in Zaporizhia, President Poroshenko took part in a special ceremony at which students of the Ivan Bohun Kyiv Lyceum and Zaporizhia Regional Lyceum took their oaths as part of their intensified military-technical training. In his speech to the cadets, he emphasized the importance of historic ties among all generations of Ukrainians who struggled for the independence and freedom of the country and recalled the words of Bohdan Khmelnytsky: “We are a freedom-loving people, always willing to die for our freedom.” Speaking of today’s defenders of Ukraine, Mr. Poroshenko noted that over 93,000 Ukrainian soldiers were direct participants in the war, almost 108,000 took part in the ATO, and 210,000 came to the army in six waves of mobilization – one-sixth of them volunteers.