Crimea: Competing Self-Determination Movements and the Politics at the Centre

Abstract

While the breakup of Yugoslavia produced divided loyalties and competing claims, leading to the establishment of seven separate states ending with the de facto independence of Kosovo, Crimea was a source of geopolitical instability that threatened to engulf the region in ethnic and geopolitical conflict. As a result of the negotiations during the 1990s and a de facto settlement between Slavs and the Ukrainian state, between Slavs and returning Crimean Tatars, and between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Crimea has remained a peaceful and even increasingly wealthy area of Ukraine. Reflecting on the case of Kosovo, this paper looks at the prospect for a similar conflict in and over Crimea. Our primary question concerns the degree to which the Kosovo case sheds light on a somewhat similar case of co-ethnics, religious differences and a weakened state. We argue that the greatest source of instability lies not with ethnic claims or geopolitics, but with Ukrainian political and commercial interests that threaten the de facto settlement between the region and the centre.

Notes

¹ For example, see ‘Ukraine's Refusal to Recognise South Ossetia, Abkhazia Related to Separatism in Crimea—Analyst’, Interfax News Agency: Russia and CIS Military Weekly, 11 June 2011.

² In fact, local protests contributed to the partial non-execution of the Sea Breeze exercises in Ukraine in 2006.

³ During the conflict a number of local councils in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea voted for a statement that blamed Georgia's aggression, whereas the central government of Ukraine officially supported Georgia and limited participation of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Russia–Georgia war through the establishment of legal restrictions for activity of the fleet in Sevastopol' during the war. See Zayavlenie Verkhovnoy Radi Avtonomnoy Respubliki Krim, 2006, available at: http://www.obzor.crimea.ua/stare.php?mark = 20&day = 9&month = 06&year = 2006, accessed 18 June 2011; Deputaty Yaltinskogo gorodskogo soveta prizivayut Verkhovnii Sovet Ukraini osudit aggressiyu Gruzii protiv naroda Yuzhnoi Ossetii, available at: http://ru-news.ru/art_desc.php?aid = 2212, accessed 18 June 2011.

⁴ ‘CSCE Wants to have Permanent Representation in Kiev’, Switalski Ctk National News Wire, 18 June 1994.

⁵ ‘Ethnic Equality, not Ethnic Cleansing: Eight Years into Freedom, Ukraine Emerges as a Democratic Role-Model for Balkans’, Knight Ridder/Tribune, 22 April 1999.

⁶ Foundation for Effective Governance, available at: www.feg.org.ua, accessed 30 April 2013.

⁷ The competitiveness of tourism is under considerable doubt because of its seasonal fluctuation.

⁸National Population Census in Ukraine, 2001, available at: http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua/, accessed 13 May 2012.

⁹ The 1991 referendum posed ‘the Crimean autonomous region republic should have to be restored as a subject of the USSR and a participant of the Soviet Union agreement’.

¹⁰ Deklaratsiya o Gosudarstvennom Suverenitete Kryma, 1991, available at: http:zakon4.rada.gov.ua/krym/show/rb001d002-91, accessed 10 April 2012.

¹¹ Dogovir pro Druzhbu, Spivrobitnitstvo i Partnerstvo mizh Ukrayinoyu i Rosiis'koyu Federatsieyu, signed 1997, ratified 1998, available at: http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/643_006, accessed 10 April 2012.

¹² Dogovir pro Druzhbu, Spivrobitnitstvo i Partnerstvo mizh Ukrayinoyu I Rosiis'koyu Federatsieyu, signed 1997, ratified 1998, available at: http://zakon4.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/643_006, accessed 10 April 2012.

¹³ For instance, Gazprom halted the shipment of natural gas to Ukraine in March 2008 due to $1.5 billion worth of payment arrears.

¹⁴National Population Census in Ukraine, 2001, available at: http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.ua, accessed 13 May 2012.

¹⁵ Crimean Tatars see Russia as the primary Soviet successor state, and therefore culpable of their mass expulsion during the Soviet period.