Last year, on October 24, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence in his Ukraine strategy during the Valdai Club discussion in Sochi. But the reality on the ground was a different story.
Two days after the meeting in Sochi, Ukraine held its parliamentary elections, voting in a solid pro-Europe majority for the first time since Ukraine’s independence. The vote also signaled the confidence in pro-Europe President Petro Poroshenko and the team of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
As the ongoing political changes were evident from the vote results, even deeper changes were ongoing in Ukraine. Ukrainians no longer felt subordinate to Russia, there was a surge in civic nationalism, public initiatives and the volunteer movement. “Results of subsequent elections will fluctuate, but the transformation of consciousness now under way has made new substantial inroads with enduring effect,” noted Vladimir Socor of the Eurasia Daily Monitor. “Above and beyond electing this Parliament, Ukraine has distanced itself conclusively from Mr. Putin’s grand design of a ‘Russian World.’ ”
Mr. Socor added: “Mr. Putin’s policies toward Ukraine boomeranged against the Kremlin, as seen in the parliamentary election results. Russia’s multidimensional aggression accelerated these political changes in Ukraine.”
Moscow’s attempt to carve “Russian-speaking” territories out of Ukraine and to bring them under Moscow’s direct control meant also removing large numbers of Russia-oriented voters from Ukraine’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine’s jurisdiction. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Mr. Socor notes, subtracted 1.5 million reliably pro-Russia voters from Ukraine’s elections and created a political backlash that was evident in most of Ukraine. In Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is occupied by Russia-backed militants, there were approximately 4 million voters. Many of these same voters were prevented from voting in Ukraine’s parliamentary elections. To counter this loss of pro-Russia voters inside Ukraine, the Kremlin called for Ukraine’s “federalization” into semi-independent units.
Ukraine retains control of the country’s east and south, Mr. Socor explained, through local coalitions of forces loyal to the Ukrainian state, including former Party of Regions nomenklatura, local business interests, high-profile oligarchs in several cases, non-compromised elements of the state security services and volunteer battalions of various political tendencies, including the radical right. Traditional nationalists from Ukraine’s west and Russophones from Ukraine’s east had joined forces in local coalitions, stabilizing vulnerable parts of the country.
The “Novorossiya” project that had targeted six more regions of Ukraine, was now a failure.
Source: “Kremlin’s policy boomerangs with Ukraine’s Rada election results,” by Vladimir Socor (Eurasia Daily Monitor), The Ukrainian Weekly, November 9, 2014.