The logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia, Ukraine, and the conflict in Donbas

ABSTRACT

The crisis in Ukraine since late 2013 has seen four successive internationally mediated agreements that have been at best partially implemented. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and 42 key informant interviews sides, we explain this outcome with reference to the logic of competitive influence-seeking: Russia is currently unable to achieve a friendly and stable regime in Kyiv and thus hedges against the consolidation of an unfriendly pro-Western and stable regime by maintaining its control over parts of eastern Ukraine and solidifying the dependence of local regimes there on Russian support. This gives Russia the opportunity to maintain the current status quo or settle for re-integration terms through which Russia can sustain long-term influence over Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy. We conclude by reflecting on the consequences of competitive influence-seeking in the post-Soviet space: the likely persistence of low-intensity conflict in Ukraine; the further consolidation of territorial divisions in other post-Soviet conflicts; and the need for policy-makers in Russia and the West to prioritize the management of the consequent instability.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic conflict
• civil war
• state failure
• state fragility
• international conflict management
• conflict settlement

Acknowledgements

Tatyana Malyarenko gratefully acknowledges support from the NATO Defence College Rome (Partnership for Peace Programme) and from an Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation research grant. Stefan Wolff’s research for this paper has been supported with a grant from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (Research Grant ES/M009211/1: “Understanding and Managing Intra-State Territorial Contestation”). The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers of this article, as well as to numerous colleagues who have provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this article, including members of NATO Defence College Senior Course 126, as well as Derek Averre, R. William Ayres, Nino Kemoklidze, George Kyris, Harris Mylonas, Kevork Oskanian, Thomas Funch Pedersen, Jasper de Quincey Adams, Olivier Schmitt, Mark Webber, and Kataryna Wolczuk. The usual disclaimer remains.

Notes

1. On linkage and leverage in general, see, for example, Levitsky and Way (2005, 2006). For a recent specific application to the post-Soviet region, see Beyer and Wolff (2016).

2. Both of these literatures convincingly reject the idea that Russian policy in Ukraine was significantly driven by ideational factors, a finding that we concur with in our analysis. This is not to argue that Russian foreign policy is entirely immune to such factors, but rather to emphasize that, as Hopf (2016, 228) has argued in the context of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, “discursive changes [in what it means to be Russia and Russian] made Russia’s annexation of Crimea thinkable and possible, [but that] it was the contingent circumstances of that moment that made it a reality.” We also acknowledge the existence of a growing critical geopolitical strand in the literature on Russia’s foreign policy (Omelicheva 2016), but cannot engage with it in detail for reasons of space.

3. A similar point was made more than a decade ago by Buzan and Wæver (2003, 410), who stated that “if Russia is to remain a great power able to both defend itself and assert some influence globally, it needs to retain its sphere of influence in the CIS”.

4. Interview by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, given to the program “Voskresnoye vremya,” Moscow, 30 March 2014, http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/68426.

5. This phrase was used by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to describe a “situation, in which Brussels told Ukraine to choose between the West and Russia.” See the interview of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with ITAR-TASS,” 10 September 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/671172. Western pressure exerted on Ukraine to choose is also noted by Zannier (2015, 48), stating that “When I met with EU officials, including the then-European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, he was very firm in stating that the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement was not compatible with the Customs Union, and that Ukraine had to choose its own future course”.

6. Russian Foreign Ministry statement on the implementation of the Minsk agreements on a settlement in Ukraine and elections in its southeastern regions, 29 October 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/spokesman/official_statement/-/asset_publisher/t2GCdmD8RNIr/content/id/742441.

7. This view of the neighborhood as a contested ground in which Russia and the West compete is not new, nor is it limited to Ukraine. For example, Russia’s interpretation of the failed 2003 settlement for Transnistria is that “once the parties have agreed upon something, external support should gently keep them at the negotiating table rather than trying to throw in some provocation, as happened in the case of Transnistria settlement in 2003. At the time the settlement plan—every page of which had already been initialed by the head of Transnistria and the President of the Republic of Moldova—was not signed, because late in the evening before the signing, the European Union political structures demanded that the President of Moldova not sign the document.” See remarks and responses to reporters’ questions by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a news conference following the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting, Basel, 5 December 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/812884.

8. We use the term “logic” in the same sense as Fearon (1995, 381): “general mechanisms, or causal logics, that operate in a variety of more specific international contexts”.

9. We proceed from, without further interrogating, the assumption that the EU (the “West”) is pursuing a policy of regional economic and political integration aimed at Ukraine that involves some aspiration of building stable, effective, law-based, and democratic institutions (primarily through the European Neighbourhood Policy/Eastern Partnership). See, for example, Dragneva-Lewers and Wolczuk (2015).

10. The absence of any key moments would also invalidate our theoretical propositions. While this is relevant for further tests of our theory in other cases in the future, it is clearly not relevant here as much of our theorizing is driven by us having prima facie established, through empirical observation, that the four political agreements concluded constitute such key moments.

11. We have collected all relevant agreements from official sources and collated them in a single online repository available at: http://stefanwolff.com/publications/the-logic-of-competitive-influence-seeking-russia-ukraine-and-the-conflict-in-donbas/.

12. We primarily rely on press releases, statements, and speeches released by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (http://www.mid.ru and as cited) to ensure the authenticity of the material used.

13. Since May 2014, we have individually or jointly participated in 12 workshops on different aspects of the evolving crisis in Ukraine conducted under the Chatham House Rule, five of which we co-organized (see the table on workshops in the Appendix). When using data from these workshops to substantiate our claims, we observe the conventions of the Chatham House Rule for doing so and reference workshops in the chronological order in which they occurred (e.g. Workshop A, Workshop B, etc.).

14. Given the sensitivity and volatility of the situation in Ukraine, we have followed a policy of strict anonymization of all 42 interviews, including in the very few cases in which interlocutors did not request this. In order to balance the protection of our interlocutors with the need to keep referenced information meaningful and credible for our analysis, we thus refer to an interlocutor’s affiliation but not to his or her rank or the date or location of the interview. In addition, we have randomly assigned short references (e.g. Interview 1, Interview 2, etc.) in order to obscure dates (May 2014, July 2014; August 2015, November 2015, December 2015; January 2016, February 2016, April 2016; April 2017) and locations (Brussels, Chisinau, Kramatorsk, Kyiv, London, Mariupol, Vienna, Washington, DC, and online/email) of interviews, as well as dates (May 2014; February 2015, April 2015, August 2015, November 2015, December 2015; February 2016, April 2016; April 2017) and locations of workshops (Chisinau, Kyiv, Rome, Washington, DC) for the purposes of increasing anonymity. All interlocutors were informed of the research purpose of the interview, of our anonymization policy, and of their right to withdraw from the project prior to manuscript submission (see the table on interviews in the Appendix).

15. We are thus confident that we adhere closely to the three principles of data access and research transparency (DA-RT)—data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency—as elaborated in the Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science (American Political Science American Political Science Association 2012, 9–10) and further specified, among others, by Kapiszewski and Kirilova (2014) and Elman and Kapiszewski (2013).

16. “Agreement on the Settlement of Crisis in Ukraine,” http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/671350/publicationFile/190051/140221-UKR_Erklaerung.pdf.

17. As Yanukovych realized that the Maidan movement did not accept the agreement, he went to Kharkov to a meeting of all deputies of local councils. Unable to obtain their support, he escaped to Russia.

18. Statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the events in Ukraine, 24 February 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/73918.

19. “Geneva Statement on Ukraine”; https://geneva.usmission.gov/2014/04/18/text-of-the-geneva-statement-on-ukraine-released-by-the-us-eu-ukraine-and-russia/.

20. Statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the aggravation of the situation in the southeastern regions of Ukraine, 13 April 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/spokesman/official_statement/-/asset_publisher/t2GCdmD8RNIr/content/id/65894.

21. See, for example, “Interview of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with ITAR-TASS,” 10 September 2014 (http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/671172) and “Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Delivers a Speech and Answers Questions during Debates at the 51st Munich Security Conference, Munich,” 7 February 2015 (http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/949358).

22. Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his answers to questions from the mass media summarizing the meeting with EU, Russian, US, and Ukrainian representatives, Geneva, 17 April 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/64910.

23. For a more detailed exploration of OSCE activities during this period, see Zannier (2015).

24. Interview given by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the “Russia Today” TV channel and “Vesti nedeli” on the “Rossiya” TV Channel, New York, 27 September 2013; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/668812.

25. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with Life News television and Izvestiya daily, Moscow, 27 October 2014; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/742828.

26. “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”; https://www.ft.com/content/21b8f98e-b2a5-11e4-b234-00144feab7de?mhq5j=e3.

27. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s comment for the media on the results of a Normandy format meeting, Paris, 24 February 2015; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/961334.

28. Authors’ translation from www.gazeta.zn.ua/internal/sergey-taruta-dazhe-esli-shahterov-ispolzuyut-eto-ne-isklyuchaet-ih-realnyh-problem-nuzhen-dialog-a-ne-ultimatumy.html.

29. This view of the sequence of events is broadly shared among local and international observers (Interviews 8, 16, and 17; Workshop J).

30. In summer 2014, Russian nationals took over key positions in Donbas and a team of “officials” from Transnistria were drafted in to use their experience of (de facto) state-building (Malyarenko and Wolff 2014).

31. Dinamika stavlennya naselennya Ukraїni do Rosiї ta naselennya Rosiї do Ukraїnі, yakih vidnosin z Rosieyu hotili b ukraїntsi [How Relations Between Ukraine and Russia Should Look Like? Public Opinion Polls’ Results]. Public opinion poll was conducted in the period between February 8–18, 2014; 2032 respondents were interviewed. Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. 4.03.2014  http://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=236&page=1

32. These findings were also confirmed separately by another of our interlocutors (Interview 19).

33. Interview with Gennadii Korban, 23 October 2015; http://gordonua.com/publications/korban-ahmetov-reshil-potorgovatsya-s-kievom-chtoby-sohranit-vliyanie-na-donbasse-no-pereblefoval-i-seychas-stradaet-103299.html.

34. See https://apostrophe.ua/news/society/accidents/2016-05-14/jurnalist-rasskazal-o-konflikte-zaharchenko-s-glavnyim-reyderom-dnr/58936.

35. See, for example, http://www.osce.org/uk/odihr/131776?download=true; http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/UAReport17th_UKR.pdf; and https://jfp.org.ua/coalition/novyny-koalicii/articles/osce-hdim.

36. Consequently, Akhmetov’s economic and humanitarian networks and structures were forced out of the rebel-controlled parts of Donbas.

37. A particularly notorious example of this was the case of Vadim Pogodin, the commander of the “Kerch” battalion of the DPR. He is alleged to have killed a local teenager for expressing pro-Ukrainian sympathies in July 2014 in rebel-controlled Donetsk (Interviews 27 and 44; see also www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/07/28/73261-rasstrel).

38. As the report notes, “[d]ue to access and resource limitations, our findings are likely to represent only a fraction of the actual criminal conduct” (International Partnership for Human Rights 2015, 28). The widespread, prolonged, and systematic occurrence of human rights violations during this period has also been well documented by the United Nations (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 2014), by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch 2016), and by the US State Department (US Department of State 2015, 2016). It is also important to bear in mind that such abuses have been committed by all sides in the conflict and have not stopped after the conclusion of Minsk II. See, for example, Human Rights Watch (2017); US Department of State (2017).

39. An illustrative example is the “Sparta” battalion of rebels in Donetsk. Led by Russian mercenary Arsen Pavlov (aka “Motorola”), himself a veteran of several Russian military campaigns who failed to reintegrate into civilian life in Russia, members of Sparta are infamous for their cruelty against Ukrainian troops on the battlefield and in captivity (Interview 39; see also Mikheieva 2015).

40. Simultaneously, Russia prepared and executed the annexation of Crimea. We do not cover this particular sequence of events in our analysis, as Russia here pursued a very distinct approach, solely focused on the annexation of the peninsula and driven by military-strategic and political considerations that were distinct from those underpinning the Russian approach in mainland eastern Ukraine and addressed a particularly critical Russian security concern, namely securing its naval base in Sevastopol.

41. Similar to the situation in Georgia in 2008, it is, however, also conceivable that Russia may eventually decide to consolidate its gains and either recognize the two entities or, like Crimea, annex them.

42. All our Russian interlocutors, when asked about this issue, confirmed this as Russia’s position (e.g. Interviews, 23, 31, and 32).

43. By the time of writing (summer 2017), implementation of Minsk II had ground to a nearly complete halt. Analogous to the failed 2003 Kozak plan for Moldova, parliamentary and popular opposition in Ukraine, especially to granting “special status” to the Donbas, is very high (Interviews 9, 12, and 13; Workshop J). Simultaneously, there is almost no political, social, and economic capacity for the reintegration of Donbas (Interviews 10 and 11).

44. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivers a speech and answers questions during debates at the 51st Munich Security Conference, Munich, February 7, 2015; http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/949358.

45. At this stage, we do not consider US disengagement from Ukraine very likely, and even if it were to happen, EU disengagement is even less likely.