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Abstract
Disorder erupted in Ukraine in 2014, involving the overthrow of a sitting government, the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and a violent insurrection, supported by Moscow, in the east of the country.
This Adelphi book argues that the crisis has yielded a ruinous outcome, in which all the parties are worse off and international security has deteriorated. This negative-sum scenario resulted from years of zero-sum behaviour on the part of Russia and the West in post-Soviet Eurasia, which the authors rigorously analyse. The rivalry was manageable in the early period after the Cold War, only to become entrenched and bitter a decade later. The upshot has been systematic losses for Russia, the West and the countries caught in between.
All the governments involved must recognise that long-standing policies aimed at achieving one-sided advantage have reached a dead end, Charap and Colton argue, and commit to finding mutually acceptable alternatives through patient negotiation.
Notes
1 Besides the two small island nations of Malta and Cyprus, all the new EU members were either former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), former communist states in East Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) or the Balkans (Slovenia, once a constituent republic of Yugoslavia). NATO took in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania were to accede to the EU in 2007 and Croatia in the Balkans to NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013.
2 See presentations by Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chief of the General Staff Valerii Gerasimov at the 3rd annual Moscow Conference on International Security, available at http://mil.ru/mcis/2014.htm. For an Englishlanguage summary, see http://eng.mil.ru/files/MCIS_report_catalogue_final_ENG_21_10_preview.pdf.
3 Valerii Gerasimov, ‘Tsennost’ nauki v prognozirovanii', Voennopromyshlennyi kur'er, 5 March 2013.
4 As Michael McFaul notes, the foreign democracy-promotion wings of both of the United States' national political parties were deeply involved in Ukrainian events in 2004: ‘That there were purposive efforts by both IRI [the International Republican Institute] and NDI [the National Democratic Institute] to strengthen Our Ukraine’s [Yushchenko’s party] campaign abilities is without question.’ Michael McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy: External Influences on the Orange Revolution’, International Security, vol. 32, no. 2, Fall 2007, p. 74.
5 Lincoln A. Mitchell, The Color Revolutions (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 86.
6 See Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
7 It is conceivable that in Georgia the cosy relationship with the Bush administration actually encouraged nondemocratic behaviour, by leading Saakashvili to think he could mistreat local opponents without objection from external patrons.
8 See, for example, Nicolas Bouchet, ‘Russia and the Democracy Rollback in Europe’, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 26 May 2016, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/russiaand-democracy-rollback-europe.
9 Timothy Colton, ‘Sources and Limits of Russia’s Influence in Post-Soviet Eurasia’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, 3 September 2011, p. 11.
10 Nelli Babayan, ‘The Return of the Empire? Russia’s Counteraction to Transatlantic Democracy Promotion in Its Near Abroad’, Democratization, vol. 22, no. 3, March 2015, pp. 438–58.
11 ‘V Evrosoyuze zayavili, chto lyuboe uchastie Ukrainy v Tamozhennom soyuze nesovmestimo s dal’neishei evrointegratsiei', Zerkalo nedeli, 25 December 2012, http://zn.ua/POLITICS/evrosoyuze_zayavili,_chto_lyuboe_uchastie_ukrainy_v_tamozhennom_soyuze_nesovmestimo_s_dalneyshey_evr.html.
12 ‘Vmesto pozdravleniya: Rossiya pred’yavila Ukraine tamozhenno-gazovyi ul'timatum’, NEWSru.com, 2 January 2013, http://www.newsru.com/finance/02jan2013/rus_ukr.html.
13 Sergei Sidorenko and Andrei Kolesnikov, ‘Mezhdu soyuzom i sovetom’, Kommersant Ukraina, 30 May 2013, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2200231.
14 Roman Olearchyk, ‘Russia Accused of Triggering Trade War with Ukraine’, Financial Times, 15 August 2013, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99068c0e-0595-11e3-8ed5-00144feab7de.html.
15 Just in case Kyiv misunderstood, Glaziev, by now a Kremlin adviser to the president, spelled it out in a statement to the press. See Sergei Smirnov, ‘Rossiya ob”yasnila uzhestochenie tamozhennogo rezhima s Ukrainoi’, Vedomosti, 18 August 2013, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2013/08/18/rossijskie-vlasti-obyasnili-za-tamozhne.
16 Mykola Ryzhenkov, Veronika Movchan and Ricardo Giucci, ‘Impact Assessment of a Possible Change in Russia’s Trade Regime Vis-a-Vis Ukraine’, Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting/German Advisory Group, November 2013, http://www.beratergruppe-ukraine.de/download/PolicyBriefings/2013/PB_04_2013_en.pdf.
17 ‘Zasedanie mezhdunarodnogo diskussionnogo kluba “Valdai”’, 19 September 2013, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19243.
18 Christiane Hoffmann et al., ‘Summit of Failure: How the EU Lost Russia over Ukraine, Part 2: Four Thousand Deaths and an Eastern Ukraine Gripped by War’, Spiegel Online, 24 November 2014, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/war-in-ukraine-a-result-of-misunderstandings-between-europe-and-russia-a-1004706-2.html.
19 Ibid.
20 ‘Zayavleniya dlya pressy po okonchanii zasedaniya Rossiisko-Ukrainskoi mezhgosudarstvennoi komissii’, 17 December 2013, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/19854.
21 Yanukovych allegedly met secretly with Putin three times in October– November in order to agree the details of the financial-support package, while still sending positive signals to the EU about Vilnius. See Sonya Koshkina, Maidan: Nerasskazannaya istoriya (Kyiv: Brait Star, 2015), p. 25.
22 International Foundation for Electoral Systems, ‘IFES Public Opinion in Ukraine 2013: Key Findings’, December 2013, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnaec646.pdf.
23 ‘Ukraine Crisis: Transcript of Leaked Nuland–Pyatt Call’, BBC News, 7 February 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957.
24 Koshkina, Maidan, p. 165; ‘EU Mulls Aid Package for Crisis-Ridden Ukraine’, Associated Press, 3 February 2014, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-mulls-aid-package-crisis-ridden-ukraine.
25 The agreement is available at http://zn.ua/POLITICS/obnarodovan-tekst-soglasheniya-ob-uregulirovanii-krizisa-v-ukraine-139374_.html.
26 Mick Krever, ‘Putin Phone Call Convinced Yanukovych to Change Attitude, Says Polish Foreign Minister’, Amanpour Blog, CNN, 26 February 2014, http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/26/vladimir-putin-viktor-yanukovych-radoslaw-sikorski-ukraine-poland-russia/.
27 ‘Readout of President Obama’s Call with President Putin’, 21 February 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/21/readout-president-obama-s-call-president-putin.
28 Keith Darden, ‘How to Save Ukraine: Why Russia is Not the Real Problem’, Foreign Affairs, 14 April 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2014-04-14/how-save-ukraine.
29 ‘Secretary Kerry Speaks With Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov About the Situation in Ukraine’, 23 February 2014, https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2014/02/23/secretary-kerry-speaks-russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-about-situation-ukraine.
30 ‘Remarks by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton at the End of Her Visit to Ukraine’, 25 February 2014, http://www.eeas.europa.eu/statements/docs/2014/140225_01_en.pdf.
31 Comments by McFaul during a talk at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC on 9 June 2016.
32 Lukas I. Alpert, ‘Russia’s Medvedev Calls Ukraine a Possible Threat’, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579402922004993600; ‘Vystuplenie i otvety na voprosy SMI’, 25 February 2014, http://www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/73790?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR&_101_INSTANCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR_languageId=ru_RU.
33 For a full timeline of events leading up to and following the annexation of Crimea, see Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov (eds), Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (Minneapolis, MN: East View Press, 2015), pp. 209–13.
34 ‘Stenohrama zasidannya Rady natsional’noyi bezpeky i oborony Ukrayiny vid 28 lyutoho 2014 roku', 28 February 2014, http://komnbo.rada.gov.ua/komnbo/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=53495&cat_id=44731.
35 Polling data in Mezhdunarodnyi diskussionyi klub Valdai, ‘Sovremennaya rossiiskaya identichnost’: izmereniya, vyzovy, otvety', September 2013, http://vid-1.rian.ru/ig/valdai/Russian_Identity_2013_rus.pdf.
36 See Putin's remarks during a press conference that day: ‘Vladimir Putin otvetil na voprosy zhurnalistov o situatsii na Ukraine’, 4 March 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20366.
37 ‘Readout of the President’s Call with President Putin’, 16 March 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/16/readout-president-s-call-president-putin.
38 ‘Obrashchenie Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 18 March 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603.
39 Valerii Shiryaev, ‘Vosem’ zhenshchin v dekretnom otpuske, moryak-geroi i real'naya agentura rossiiskikh spetssluzhb. Kogo vklyuchili v spisok predatelei Ukrainy?', Novaya gazeta, 29 March 2016, http://www. novayagazeta.ru/politics/72441.html.
40 The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the proposal online two days later: ‘Zayavlenie MID Rossii o Gruppe podderzhki dlya Ukrainy’, 17 March 2014, http://archive.mid.ru//brp_4.nsf/newsline/49766426492B6E9644257C9E0036B79A. Referred to hereafter as the ‘15 March document’ since that was when it was presented to the US secretary of state.
41 ‘Pryamaya liniya s Vladimirom Putinym’, 17 April 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20796. As it happens, his claim about the Soviet government's decisions in the 1920s was false.
42 ‘Press Release: IMF Executive Board Approves 2-Year US$17.01 Billion Stand-By Arrangement for Ukraine, US$3.19 Billion for Immediate Disbursement’, 30 April 2014, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2014/pr14189.htm. Less than a year later, the IMF announced a slightly larger programme and also lengthened the programme timeline. ‘Press Release: IMF Executive Board Approves 4-Year US$17.5 Billion Extended Fund Facility for Ukraine, US$5 Billion for Immediate Disbursement’, 11 March 2015, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15107.htm.
43 Japan also instituted sanctions, but they were far less potent.
44 ‘The Hague Declaration Following the G7 Meeting on 24 March’, 24 March 2014, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-82_en.htm.
45 Dual-use items constituted a sizeable percentage of US exports to Russia. In 2013, the Department of Commerce approved 1,832 licence applications for dual-use exports to Russia, which together amounted to US$1.5 billion of exports, or 14.4% of total US exports to Russia. See Alan M. Dunn and Jennifer M. Smith, ‘Russia and Ukraine Update: The U.S. Has Stopped Issuing of Export Licenses to Russia and the U.S., Canada, and the EU Have Expanded Sanctions, But Loan Guarantees to Ukraine Provide Opportunities for U.S. Businesses’, Stewart and Stewart, 16 April 2014, http://www.stewartlaw.com/Article/ViewArticle/997.
46 ‘Remarks by President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel in Joint Press Conference’, 2 May 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/02/remarks-president-obama-and-german-chancellor-merkel-joint-press-confere.
47 ‘Ukraine – Countering Russian Intervention and Supporting a Democratic State’, 6 May 2014, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2014/may/225674.htm.
48 Authors’ correspondence with Sergei Karaganov, September 2016.
49 ‘Announcement of Expanded Treasury Sanctions within the Russian Financial Services, Energy and Defense or Related Materiel Sectors’, 12 September 2014, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2629.aspx.
50 ‘Geneva Statement on Ukraine’, 17 April 2014, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/04/224957.htm.
51 ‘Statement by the President on Ukraine’, 29 July 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/29/statement-president-ukraine.
52 ‘Lavrov to RT: Americans Are “Running the Show” in Ukraine’, RT, 23 April 2014, https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/154364-lavrov-ukraine-standoff-sophieco/.
53 Interview with senior US official, Washington DC, June 2014.
54 See Neil Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’, Financial Times, 3 February 2015, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7cfc8ac6-ab17-11e4-91d2-00144feab7de.html.
55 Quoted in Neil Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How the West Lost Putin’, Financial Times, 2 February 2015, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e3ace220-a252-11e4-9630-00144feab7de.html.
56 Quoted in Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’.
57 Andrew Roth, ‘Putin Tells European Official That He Could “Take Kiev in Two Weeks”’, New York Times, 2 September 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/europe/ukraine-crisis.html.
58 Quoted in Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How the West Lost Putin’.
59 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Protracted Conflict in Eastern Ukraine Continues to Take Heavy Toll on Civilians’, 8 October 2014, http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15143&LangID=E.
60 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, ‘Ukraine: Situation Report No. 29 as of 27 February 2015′, 27 February 2015, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Sitrep%20%2329%20FINAL_1.pdf.
61 In the separatists' proposal, Ukraine would be transformed from its current unitary state into a highly asymmetrical confederation: the central government would be forced to negotiate agreements on all elements of public life with DNR/LNR, while the rest of the country would remain under the current system. See ‘Popravki DNR i LNR v Konstitutsiyu Ukrainy’, 13 March 2015, http://dan-news.info/official/popravki-dnr-i-lnr-v-konstituciyu-ukrainy.html.
62 See, for example, Andrew E. Kramer, ‘Ex-Professor Upsets Ukraine Politics, and Russia Peace Accord’, New York Times, 18 March 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/world/europe/ukraine-oksana-syroyid.html; ‘Seichas my mozhem tol’ko derzhat’ oboronu — Lutsenko', 24 kanal, 7 September 2014, http://24tv.ua/ru/seychas_mi_mozhem_tolko_derzhat_oboronu__lutsenko_n482512; Vladimir Gorbulin, ‘Est’ li zhizn' posle Minska?', Zerkalo nedeli, 12 February 2016, http://gazeta.zn.ua/internal/est-li-zhizn-posle-minska-razmyshleniya-o-neizbezhnosti-neobhodimyh-izmeneniy-_.html.
63 Vladimir Lukin interview in Marat Gel'man, ‘Voennyi plan Kremlya’, Novoe vremya, 30 August 2014, http://nv.ua/opinion/gelman/voennyy-plan-kremlya--9686.html. Lukin, the former ambassador to the United States quoted in Chapter 1, was Putin's representative at the talks that produced the 21 February agreement.
64 Neil Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors, February 2015.
65 ‘Vystuplenie na vstreche glav gosudarstv Tamozhennogo soyuza s Prezidentom Ukrainy i predstavitelyami Evropeiskogo soyuza’, 26 August 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/46494.
66 Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.
67 As one EU delegate involved in the talks said, ‘This whole concern about the [tariff lines] was always political, it wasn’t commercial.’ Quoted in Ibid.
68 Reporting by the Financial Times. Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’; Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.
69 For example, Russia would have allowed Ukraine to use non-EU (i.e., CIS) plant-safety standards in its trade with non-EU countries. Ukraine would retain the policymaking competences that the DCFTA cedes to Brussels. EEU members would be consulted on any major changes to Ukrainian legislation stemming from the EU approximation process, and the EU and Ukraine would commit not to adopt laws that negatively affect Ukraine's trade with EEU members. And all 2,340 tariff lines that Putin referred to were listed. See ‘Predlozheniya rossiiskoi storony po vneseniyu popravok Soglasheniya ob assotsiatsii mezhdu ES i gosudarstvami – chlenami ES s odnoi storony i Ukrainoi s drugoi storony v tselyakh minimizatsii riskov, voznikayushchikh ot vstupleniya v silu ukazannogo soglasheniya’, http://zn.ua/static/file/russian_proposal.pdf.
70 Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.
71 Peter Spiegel, ‘Putin Demands Reopening of EU Trade Pact with Ukraine’, Financial Times, 25 September 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4de51ae-44ca-11e4-9a5a-00144feabdc0.html.
72 Robin Emmott, ‘Putin Warns Ukraine against Implementing EU Deal – Letter’, Reuters, 23 September 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-trade-idUSKCN0HI1T820140923.
73 ‘Godovoi raund peregovorov RF-ES-Ukraina po torgovle okonchilsya nichem’, TASS, 21 December 2015, http://tass.ru/ekonomika/2546713; European Commission, ‘No Outcome Reached at the Final Trilateral Ministerial Meeting on the EU– Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area’, 21 December 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6389_en.htm; European Commission, ‘Trilateral Talks on EU–Ukraine DCFTA: Distinguishing between Myths & Reality’, December 2015, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/december/tradoc_154127.pdf; ‘Putin rasskazal o “ne ochen’ evropeiskom” shage delegatsii ES v Bryussele’, lenta.ru, 22 December 2015, https://lenta.ru/news/2015/12/22/putin/.
74 As Dragneva and Wolzcuk write, ‘Its objections regarding the incompatibility of integration rules and processes seem spurious, and instead come across as an overt attempt to delineate its sphere of influence, in turn negating the sovereign right of Ukraine to leave this sphere and pursue economic integration with the EU.’ Dragneva and Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 117.