KYIV – Russia continues to test President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky during a transitional power period with further encroachment on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
In the span of two weeks, the Kremlin banned oil and coal exports to Ukraine, started expediting the issuance of Russian passports to Ukrainians and continued its creeping annexation of the Azov Sea.
Combined, the events are exposing Mr. Zelensky, 41, to the daily reality that he will face as president and one that is dissimilar from the role of a fictional head of state he played in the TV series “Servant of the People,” in which Russia’s hybrid and conventional war is never mentioned.
During a brief hiatus in Turkey following his convincing April 21 runoff victory, the former comedian learned that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to fast-track citizenship for residents of the Moscow-occupied parts of the Donbas. He expanded the decree on May 1 – Labor Day in Ukraine and in Russia – to include Ukrainians born on the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and Ukrainians who have Russian residency or asylum status.
Mr. Zelensky mocked the Kremlin leader in a statement that went over his head and directly addressed the Russian people on April 28. Obtaining Russian citizenship, he said, offers fewer freedoms than what Ukrainians enjoy: “The right to be arrested for a peaceful protest, the right to have no free and fair elections,” and the fact that “inalienable human rights and freedoms” don’t exist.
Mr. Zelensky underscored that “Ukrainians are free people in a free country that is independent, sovereign and indivisible.”
He then said that Kyiv will extend citizenship to citizens of “post-Soviet states,” including Russia, who seek “protection, asylum and… anyone ready to fight for freedom.”
While Mr. Zelensky’s words remain suspended in the realm of rhetoric, Russia on April 29 opened its first passport issuance center for residents of the occupied part of Luhansk Oblast in a town of the Rostov region.
Overall, the Russian government has so far earmarked $5 million ($330 million rubles) and issued an order to issue “at least 190,000” passports to residents of the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
After the Kremlin leader’s latest decree on citizenship, Mr. Zelensky said on May 2 in a Facebook post that there is “nothing left in common” between Ukraine and Russia except for a “shared” 2,295-kilometer border. “And Russia should return control for every millimeter of it to Ukraine,” he added.
Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has called Mr. Putin’s move a “flagrant breach of international law and Ukraine’s state sovereignty.”
Additional economic sanctions preceded the recent events. A day before the Ukrainian presidential debate on April 18, Moscow imposed oil and coal export bans to Ukraine. Kyiv depends on a particular grade of anthracite coal for heat and power because most of the mines that produced the high-carbon coal are in Russian-occupied territory.
Furthermore, Ukraine’s gas transit contract with Russia expires at the end of the year. Kyiv is reliant on Russian gas that it brings back after importing to European Union countries based on reverse-flow contracts. Contracting countries order surplus amounts from Russia so that the unneeded volumes get imported to Ukraine.
“After all, the reverse [supply] is virtual. There’s our gas flowing to Western Europe… Since Soviet times, how has the gas pipe been set up?” Mr. Putin said to journalists during a working visit to China on April 27.
After the runoff, Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service started to report that inspections of commercial ships coming to and leaving the Azov Sea ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk have increased. Harassment of commercial shipping in the shared waters ratcheted up after Moscow opened an illegal bridge that links mainland Russia and the Crimean peninsula in the Kerch Strait in May 2018.
Tensions escalated six months later when Russian naval ships captured 24 Ukrainian servicemen on three ships that were later impounded while they were approaching the strait in shared waters of the Black Sea from Odesa.
The 24 servicemen are in custody in Russia and are being charged with trespassing on Russian territory despite international and bilateral treaties in place allowing for passage.
On April 29, Ukraine State Border Guard Service head Petro Tsyhykal said that “an artificial queue is being created, and our vessels take much longer to inspect and are the last to be let go,” according to Ukraine Business News.
On April 30, the day the official election results were announced, Mr. Zelensky released a video calling for candidates for the position of his spokesperson to submit their resumes. The general criteria includes knowledge of three languages – two of which are required: English and Ukrainian – and a background in journalism and willingness to work “24/7.”
He has yet to name who he will either appoint or nominate for five positions: defense and foreign ministers, state security chief, central bank chairperson and prosecutor general.
Upon returning to Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky also met with three high-ranking clergymen of the Orthodox faith: Metropolitan Epifaniy, primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Filaret, honorary patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and Metropolitan Onufriy, who represents parishioners of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine.
Metropolitan Epifaniy and Mr. Zelensky spoke about the Russian-stoked Donbas war in which at least 34 Ukrainian servicemen were killed in January-April and over 13,000 since April 2014, according to a statement on the website of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. They also spoke about corruption and poverty.
Mr. Zelensky’s team has voiced its priorities for the first 100 days: to get bills enacted in Parliament on presidential impeachment and to remove immunity from prosecution for lawmakers, the president, judges and others to whom the law currently applies. The president-elect would also like to “reboot” anti-graft bodies, according to previous statements. Mr. Zelensky indicated on election night that he would dismiss the current prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko.
The presidential swearing-in ceremony is to take place during a parliamentary session, yet the legislature isn’t scheduled to convene until May 14 and a resolution about the date of the inauguration should be voted on that day or soon afterwards.
Pre-term parliamentary elections can be set upon dissolving the legislature – the Zelensky team has mentioned that possibility – but the dissolution must occur before the Verkhovna Rada begins the final six months of its five-year term.
Otherwise, parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 27. Until then, Mr. Zelensky will find it difficult to garner enough votes for his priority legislative initiatives.