Part I
In his annual phone-in conversation with Russia’s populace and in follow-up interviews, President Vladimir Putin has expounded at length on Russia’s current policy objectives regarding Ukraine (Interfax, Kremlin.ru, April 16, 17).
Mr. Putin’s remarks evidenced both strategic consistency and tactical adjustments necessitated by Ukraine’s ongoing political consolidation. Although Mr. Putin’s annual phone-in ritual is always held in the third week of April, the timing holds special relevance for Ukraine this year, amid conjectures that Russia might resume military operations against the country in the spring. Mr. Putin’s remarks addressed the bilateral Russia-Ukraine relations, the conflict in Ukraine’s east and a Russian definition of Ukrainian national identity.
On the level of state-to-state relations, Mr. Putin must view the coherence of Ukraine’s leadership across party lines as frustrating his expectations. The Kremlin did attempt to play on factional differences in Kyiv, but those attempts have brought no results. While persisting with destabilization operations, Mr. Putin seems resigned to having to deal seriously with Ukraine’s incumbent leadership – an unusually cohesive one by Ukrainian historical standards.
Accordingly, Mr. Putin no longer attempts at this time to differentiate between President Petro Poroshenko and an alleged “party of war” in Kyiv. Nor can Moscow any longer identify specific Ukrainian political constituencies as potential allies (other than the secessionist leaders). In his call-in dialogue, Mr. Putin took a swipe at Ukraine’s pre-2014 regime as “corrupt” and “oligarchic.” With this, he implicitly disavowed the current Opposition Bloc in Kyiv, a direct descendant of Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Mr. Putin meditated about Ukraine’s political forces: “We are not guided by sympathies or antipathies, we are guided by our country’s interests”; and “The political leadership [in Ukraine] may change from time to time, but the people remain.” He was closely paraphrasing 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, respectively, without attribution in either case.
Mr. Putin outlined a basis for “normalization” of Russia-Ukraine relations in general terms for his listeners in Ukraine. He named conflict-resolution in the “Donbas” at the top of the agenda.
Regarding the reform of Ukraine’s Constitution, he said, “it is not for us to impose this or that on Ukraine, but we have the right to express our opinion,” specifically on the “rights and interests of Russian-speaking people” in Ukraine. Next, Russia would reactivate bilateral economic relations with Ukraine, in the countries’ mutual interests. Finally, the “Kyiv authorities must treat us as equal partners in all aspects of cooperation” – apparently implying equal status of Russia and the West in terms of Ukraine’s national priorities. Given the European Union’s consent to renegotiate the EU-Ukraine trade agreement with Russia’s participation as a third party, Mr. Putin can now stop short of attacking Ukraine’s European choice for its one-sidedness.
Mr. Putin used his phone-in forum to launch into one of his periodic disquisitions about Ukrainian national identity and its relationship with the Russian identity. His message to the public in both countries each time contends that the Ukrainian identity is practically indistinguishable from the Russian one and subsumed to it. Barely conceding that the matter can be debated, but “not now,” Mr. Putin told his audience: “The Ukrainians are very close to us. I see no differences at all between Ukrainians and Russians, and I consider on the whole that we [sic] are one people [odin narod].”
Contradicting that part of his message, Mr. Putin went on to argue that “Russians” (russkie) in Ukraine are distinguishable after all from Ukrainians, and in need of special protection of that distinctiveness. He defines Russians in Ukraine in the same infinitely elastic terms in which he had previously defined the “Russian World” (Russkii Mir). Thus, the Ukrainian government should “observe the legitimate rights of Russians living in Ukraine, and of those who consider themselves Russian regardless of what their personal documents say [as to ethnicity], and the rights of those who consider Russian their native language and Russian culture their native culture, and the rights of those people who feel inseparably bound with Russia.”
Such remarks are intended to affect Ukraine’s internal debates on revising the Constitution. Mr. Putin’s remarks also presage the tenor of Russian diplomatic demarches in that context. On April 22, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov gratuitously warned Ukraine’s president and government against resorting to “Ukrainianization” (Interfax, April 22).
Denying Ukrainians’ national distinctiveness from Russians and emphasizing Russians’ distinctiveness from Ukrainians are mutually contradictory theses, but they form two sides of a coherent whole in terms of the Kremlin’s policy. The first thesis seeks to portray Ukraine’s national statehood as unnecessary, unnatural and temporary, ultimately fated for amalgamation with the Russian state. The second thesis, conversely, seeks to claim a “right” of the Russian state to “protect” a potentially infinite gamut of citizens of Ukraine, with droits de regard for Russia in Ukraine, and potentially paving a way for border revisions in line with the Novorossiya and Russian World concepts. Mr. Putin himself has stopped using these specific terms publicly since August 2014, but his latest remarks in the phone-in session convey a message with similar content.
Part II
Addressing Russia’s populace and, implicitly, Ukraine in his annual phone-in dialogue, Russian President Putin torpedoed the Minsk 2 agreement beyond repair: “I say outright and unequivocally: there are no Russian forces in Ukraine” (Kremlin.ru, April 17).
Quite apart from the United States’ and NATO’s intelligence consistently proving Russia’s military deployments in Ukraine’s east (one new operative term is “combined Russian-separatist forces”), Mr. Putin’s brazen denial is tantamount to saying “no deal” under Minsk 2.
Indeed, it was Moscow that designed the February 12 agreement and the ensuing “Minsk process” basically as a tradeoff: Ukraine would legitimize the Donetsk-Luhansk secession in return for a promised withdrawal of “foreign forces” from that area. Mr. Putin now repudiates Russia’s part of that bargain by denying the facts of Russia’s military presence there. Some of the Russian forces carry Donetsk-Luhansk flags by now. In unison with other Russian officials, Mr. Putin maintains with finality that there is nothing for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.
Yet, Mr. Putin continues demanding of Ukraine to accept the de facto secession of Donetsk-Luhansk, which Russia has framed as Ukraine’s part of the Minsk 2 deal: “It is possible to devise some elements to restore some sort of common political framework with Ukraine. But ultimately, the right to pronounce the decisive word – who would live with whom, and on what conditions – must be accorded to the people who live in those territories. This will largely depend on the flexibility and wisdom of Ukraine’s leadership.”
With that, the armed Donetsk-Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR and LPR) would reserve a right of full secession; and Russia, the power militarily in control, would be given the decision on whether or when to enforce such a secession. The “common political framework” implies Donetsk-Luhansk being “in” Ukraine’s political institutions to the degree of wielding blocking powers, as well as receiving social subsidies; while separating from Ukraine at the same time in all other respects, as the Minsk 2 agreement foreshadows.
During this interim period, Mr. Putin wants Ukraine to pay salaries, pensions and other social benefits to residents of the Russian-occupied territory. Having Kyiv finance the “people’s republics’ ” social budget is currently the main criterion by which Moscow acknowledges Ukraine’s “unity” (an emergent operative term, instead of “territorial integrity”).
Apparently, for the first time since the start of this war, Mr. Putin ventured to suggest a “little-homeland” Donbas identity: “I know that the residents of the Donbas are great patriots of their small ‘motherland’ (rodina).” The subtext seems to acknowledge the defeat of Russia’s more ambitious Novorossiya (“New Russia” – a tsarist-era term for lands comprising southeastern Ukraine) project at this stage. The open message to Donetsk-Luhansk, however, is “away from Ukraine” but “not yet in Russia.”
Asked whether he would consider bestowing Russia’s official recognition on the DPR-LPR, Mr. Putin replied in a follow-up interview that Russia could do so on its own timing: “I would rather not address this for now. We shall assess the matter according to how things develop in practical terms (v realnoy zhizni).” As to “whether there would be a full-scale war,” he answered, “I proceed from the assumption that this would be impossible” (Rossiya 1 TV, April 18). Again, it all seems to be a matter of practicality. The Kremlin implicitly reserves the option to resume limited-scale offensive operations of the kind that have already compelled Ukraine to sign Russian-framed armistice agreements. Moscow treats those agreements as binding on Ukraine only, not on Russia and DPR-LPR.
Beyond the specific terms and beyond even the obvious loopholes of the Minsk agreements, it is the ambiguities leaving room for interpretation that threaten Ukraine with more Russian warfare and potentially more Minsks. Mr. Putin had alluded to that possibility promptly after the signing of Minsk 2 (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, February 20); and “DPR President” Aleksandr Zakharchenko threatened Ukraine with more “Minsks” following Mr. Putin’s phone-in session (DNA, April 20).
Given Russia’s in-theater military superiority, the German-led appeasement of Russia in Europe, Washington’s exit from the negotiation format and Moscow’s successful crippling of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) monitoring mission, Russia can enforce its interpretation of the military clauses of the Minsk 2 agreement almost by default. German and French underwriting of Minsk 2 in the accompanying “Normandy Group” declaration and subsequent Normandy meetings has merely resulted in sanctifying Russia’s unilateral interpretations and ensuing breaches. The post-armistice grab of Debaltseve by elite Russian military units, without consequences from the Berlin and Paris “guarantors,” is one example of this process.
The Minsk 2 deal was, from the outset, an illusory trade-off. While Ukraine was supposed to legitimize the Donetsk-Luhansk secession, Russia’s quid-pro-quo promise to withdraw its forces from that territory was patently a false promise. The military clauses, as written, would allow Russian forces to stay on indefinitely, without technically violating the Minsk 2 agreement (or any of the ancillary subsequent documents). That deception was meant to induce Kyiv to legitimize the existence (not yet officially the outright secession) of the Donetsk-Luhansk “people’s republics.” It was also meant to facilitate German-French endorsement of Minsk 2 as an ostensible trade-off.
Mr. Putin has now terminated that supposed deal. His highly publicized remarks maintain irrevocably that Russia has no forces deployed in Ukraine, hence nothing to withdraw. And he reserves the right to either delay or precipitate the DPR-LPR’s full official secession, depending on circumstances, including (as he implies) military opportunities. Mr. Putin’s interpretation of Minsk 2 is unchallengeable precisely because of its unilateral character in a situation of military superiority. It merely demonstrates the dangers to Ukraine inherent in the Minsk process. Rather than offering protection, Minsk 2 opened a trap to Ukraine.
President Petro Poroshenko and the Verkhovna Rada, however, have found an exit from that trap with the legislation approved on March 17, which should (if consistently implemented) rule out any political legitimization of the DPR-LPR. Following Mr. Putin’s latest remarks, Ukraine has every justification to stop the creeping process of legitimizing the DPR-LPR; and German diplomacy no longer has any excuse to hope for OSCE-blessed “elections” to be held in the DPR-LPR.
The article above is reprinted from Eurasia Daily Monitor with permission from its publisher, the Jamestown Foundation, www.jamestown.org.