From Vilnius to the Kerch Strait: wide-ranging security risks of the Ukraine crisis

ABSTRACT

A discourse about who can be held accountable for the emergence of the Ukrainian conflict has developed. The EU’s and Russia’s polar-opposite integration strategies with Ukraine, dividing the country between its political and economic affiliation with either Brussels or Moscow, were considered as factors causing tensions in Ukraine. At the same time an intensifying opposition towards President Yanukovich’s leadership was another factor contributing to the deterioration of this crisis. A series of scholarly accounts examined the afore mentioned causes for intensifying violence of this conflict. The first Ukrainian-Russian confrontation in the Sea of Azov in November 2018 necessitates an assessment of the security implications of this re-intensification of a conflict which seemed to be frozen for several years. This confrontation exceeds Ukraine’s borders. The imminent threat is reflected in the Ukrainian President’s request for support by NATO and the implementation of martial law. By examining the EU’s response to the Ukraine crisis between the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the renewed Russian-Ukrainian confrontation in the Sea of Azov in November 2018, this article examines the EU’s capacities in providing security in Ukraine.

KEYWORDS:

• Ukraine
• Russia
• EU Global Strategy
• security
• NATO
• Kerch Strait

1. Introduction

The Ukrainian President Yanukovich gave in to the coercion by his Russian counterpart not to initial an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU at the Vilnius summit on November 28 and 29 2013. The result were protests of pro-European Ukrainians on Kiev’s Maidan (Press office of President Yanukovich, 2013), the gradual increase of violence, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and a protracting military conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian-Russian confrontation in the Sea of Azov on 25 November 2018 is the latest evidence of the severity of security concerns stemming from the Ukraine crisis.

There are dissonnant scholarly interpretations about who is responsible for the worsening of this crisis. Timothy Snyder condemns Russia as ‘a force for destruction.’ (Snyder in Sakwa, 2017, p. 17). Unlike Snyder, Mearsheimer accuses the US and the EU of having ‘peeled Ukraine away from Russia’ by seeking to promote democracy whilst spreading ‘Western values’ (Mearsheimer, 2014, p. 4), in allusion to the EU’s diplomatic mission to Kiev at the height of the Orange Revolution in November 2004. Noutcheva, by contrast, states that ‘domestic swings in popular and political support for opposing visions of political governance, the domestic views on what is appropriate in political life have been shaped by the key protagonists of these opposing visions, the EU and Russia’ (2018, p. 320).

The aim of this article is to extend the scope of this debate on the origins of the Ukraine crisis. A mere focus on the extent to which the EU, Russia and Ukraine are responsible for this crisis is obsolete as it fails to examine its implications for European security since the Vilnius summit in November 2013 and the open confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov in November 2018. The increasing security concern stemming from these developments does not merely have an impact on Ukraine, but touches upon wide-ranging questions about the EU’s capacities in security and defence policy, NATO’s role as a guarantor for security as well as Ukrainian-NATO relations. This article does not provide an in-depth analysis of the evolution of Ukraine’s relations with the alliance, but instead assesses some long-term repercussions of the conclusion at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 that neither Ukraine, Georgia nor Moldova would become NATO members. Ukraine’s exclusion from NATO merits attention in light of the confrontation with Russia in the Sea of Azov.

At the core of this article is the following research question: How did the EU respond to security threats which emerged with the gradual deterioration of the Ukraine crisis? This article argues that the EU’s response to security threats between November 2013 and 2018 was hampered by the absence of a security and defence policy which was adequate to contain both the worsening of the crisis and Russia’s uncompromising policy towards Ukraine as epitomised by its ad hoc annexation of Crimea. Both the policy tools the EU applied in the case of Ukraine, such as the imposition of sanctions, the deployment of a Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) mission in November 2014 and subsequent peace plans were insufficient to counter-balance Russia’s categorical foreign policy towards Ukraine. The articles’ combination of policy analysis and process-tracing enables an examination of potential shifts in the EU’s response to increasing security concerns resulting from the intensification of the conflict.

After the explanation of the conceptual framework, the article begins with a concise explanation of the origins of the EU-Russian contestation over Ukraine in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution. It proceeds with an assessment of the Eastern Partnership as a potential framework for guaranteeing security before a renewed revolution in Ukraine a decade later. It then continues with an analysis of the latest Russian-Ukrainian confrontation in the Sea of Azov. The Ukrainian president’s request of military support from NATO seems to be indicative of the limitations of the EU’s security and defence policy in the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation in the Kerch Strait. An assessment of this hypothesis will be addressed in the last section of this article.

1.1. Lacking actorness? The EU’s response to security threats during the Ukraine crisis

In seeking to critically evaluate the EU’s response to rising security threats since the Ukraine crisis’ emergence in November 2013 until the open confrontation between Ukraine and Russia in the Kerch Strait five years later, this article applies Bretherton and Vogler’s (2006) concept of actorness. Its parameters of opportunities, presence and capabilities offer a way to operationalise the EU’s initiatives as a provider of security in Ukraine. In this way, both strengths and limitations of the EU as a provider of security are critically examined. An assessment of the EU’s capacities of its perceived role as a security guarantor necessitates a simultaneous examination of Russia’s foreign policy towards Ukraine between Crimea’s annexation and the confrontation in the Kerch Strait. Since the emergence of the Ukraine crisis, a series of critical junctures in the unfolding of this conflict demonstrate that the EU’s capacity to act was undermined by two factors: its limited capacities in conflict resolution was compounded by Russia’s actorness.

Actorness has been a central concept in scholarship on EU foreign policy since Gunnar Sjoestedt’s introduction of the notion of actor capability in 1977. It measured the European Community’s (EC) ‘capacity to behave actively and deliberately in relation to other actors in the international system’ (Sjoestedt, 1977, p. 15). According to Sjoestedt, actor behaviour was not the ‘result of deliberate planning on part of the EC, but [a] response to external initiatives […] (Ibid., p.116). This definition is applicable to the EU’s response to the Ukraine crisis. The EU did neither act actively nor deliberately but merely reacted to the deterioration of this crisis, which was fanned by Russia’s deliberate capacity to act, as this article will demonstrate.

According to Bretherton and Vogler, ‘actorness’ entails opportunity, presence and capability. Opportunity ‘denotes the context which […] shapes the EU’s action or inaction’ in international relations (Bretherton & Vogler, 2006, p. 24). Presence assesses the EU’s ability to exert influence externally by shaping ‘perceptions, expectations and behaviours of other actors in international politics’ (Ibid., p. 27). Capability delineates the EU’s ‘ability to exploit’ those aspects of EU policy which constrain or foster its external action in taking advantage of opportunities (p. 29). These four parameters can also be applied to assess Russia’s actorness in Ukraine (Maass, 2019).

Actorness remains a contested concept. Some scholars have questioned the EU’s ability to operate in global politics. These critics have also dismissed alternative definitions of actorness by stating that they were founded on a state-centric assumption, which does not reflect the EU’s sui generis nature embodied by its member states and resemblances to an international organisation. David Allen and Michael Smith, for example, used ‘presence’ as an alternative concept to explain the EC’s role in international politics. They defined ‘presence’ as the EU’s capability to exert influence on non-members, which did not suggest ‘purposive international action’ but could be the result of internal processes and policies (Allen & Smith,1990). According to Bretherton and Vogler, presence ‘denotes latent actorness’ (Ginsberg, 2001, p. 46) because it may stipulate responses from non-EU member states. Other scholars, such as Christopher Hill, criticised ‘actorness’ for its limited explanatory value. Hill argued that one should not expect too much of the EU as an actor in international politics because it suffered from a ‘capabilities-expectations gap’ – a mismatch between the EC’s expectations and its abilities in foreign policy (Hill, 1993). This article investigates whether there is an inherent gap between the EUs objectives as a guarantor of security, which are described in its Global Strategy on its Common Foreign and Security Policy and adequate resources needed to fulfil these goals in Ukraine.

Bretherton and Vogler’s parameters of opportunity, presence and capability offer benchmarks to examine the EU’s latest objectives regarding the provision of security and its abilities to deliver in that respect. As stated in its Global Strategy published in July 2016, ‘[t]he EU needs to be strengthened as a security community: European security and defence efforts should enable the EU to act autonomously while also contributing to and undertaking actions in cooperation with NATO’ (EU Global Strategy, p. 20). Between November 2013 and November 2018, the EU was not able to act autonomously by providing security in the Ukraine crisis due to both Russia’s presence and actorness. The following section concisely describes the origins of the EU-Russian contestation over Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, which paved the way for a renewed and intensified confrontation that shaped the deterioration of the Ukraine conflict.

1.1.1. The legacy of the Orange Revolution for EU-Ukrainian integration

When international observers of the Ukrainian presidential election presented evidence of fraud (International Election Observation Mission, 2004), the EU formed a diplomatic mission, which mediated between the incumbent regime and the opposition in Kiev. In the course of the unfolding of a political crisis caused by fraudulent elections Polish President Kwasniewski, his Lithuanian counterpart and the EU’s High Representative for the CFSP Solana mediated a solution to this crisis (Baltic News Service, 2004; BBC, 2004). Their call for repeated elections laid the groundwork for a third round of elections on December 26, which brought about the pro-Western candidate Yushchenko as the winner (Wilson, 2005, p. 153). The EU’s interference was to the detriment of the Kremlin’s wish to see its favourite candidate Yanukovich as a winner. Putin criticised the EU’s involvement in seeking to resolve this conflict for having caused ‘mayhem’ in Kiev (The Guardian, 2004).

About a fortnight after the repeated election, deliberations about Ukraine’s relations with the EU intensified. Yushchenko stated that ‘European integration was the only path open for Ukraine’ (Yushchenko, 2004). He acknowledged that his country ‘has much to do to become a full member of the European family’ (Ibid.). However, the European Commissioner for Enlargement Guenther Verheugen clarified that the EU did not reciprocate Yushenko’s intention. Seeking to justify that the EU had not a fixed a date for Ukraine’s accession in mind, he explained that the ‘No’ vote in the Dutch and French referenda regarding the Draft Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was evidence of ‘opposition to the recent enlargement and of even greater antipathy to any further enlargement’ (Patten, 2006, p. 158). EU member states were divided regarding the EU’s development of relations with Ukraine. The UK advocated for an ‘open door’ policy rather than a more concrete schedule with set deadlines for accession negotiations (Youngs, 2009, p. 368). Germany, on the other hand, sought to develop a newly established framework for enhanced cooperation with Ukraine (Ibid.) In May 2015, the European Commission’s President Juncker made an attempt to end the dissonance regarding Ukraine’s EU membership. He rejected this prospect of accession by contending that: ‘they are not ready [and] we are not ready [either]’ (MacDonald & Croft, 2015).

Aspirations of EU-Ukrainian integration by members of the Ukrainian political elite in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution were reciprocated lukewarmly by the EU. The following section concisely addresses the impact of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) on both EU-Ukrainian relations and an emerging EU-Russian contestation over Ukraine. In this way, this section provides the necessary background before evaluating the EaP’s lack of guaranteeing security since the evolving Ukraine conflict.

1.1.2. The EaP: A guarantor for security in Ukraine?

The launch of the EaP contributed to EU-Ukrainian integration in addition to their Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Common Strategy. The Polish and the Swedish governments’ proposal for the EaP’s launch was presented to the EU Foreign Ministers in May 2008 (Sikorski, 2009) before its implementation a month later. According to the former Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, the initiative aimed at ‘strengthening the EU’s ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine’ to create stability and prosperity, as a seeming guarantor for security in Europe’ (Ibid).

About five years after its launch, the EaP revealed defects regarding the fulfilment of its objective of being a guarantor for security in Ukraine. Four developments reflect that Ukraine became a country shaken by multiple conflicts. First, the Ukrainian president’s decision to abstain from signing the AA with the EU combined with an increasingly intensifying opposition towards his leadership (Samokhvalov), were the main components contributing to the Ukraine crisis. As a result, the most violent demonstrations both against Yanukovich’s politics and contestation over Ukraine’s future political orientation towards either Russia or the EU took place in February 2014. Second, a month later, the illegal referendum carried out by Russia in Crimea with Russia’s subsequent annexation of the peninsula on 18 March 2014was evidence of Russia’s grip on Ukraine. Third, Russian separatists in Ukraine’s East started fighting for secessionist attempts. One of the tragic repercussions of this eruption of a conflict, which can be likened to civil war, was the alleged downing of Malaysian airways flight MH 17 by Russian separatists in July 2014. To this day, the Russian political leadership defies accusations of having supported the separatists with weapons as a Western conspiracy (Akkermans & Meyer, 2018).

Fourth, an election taking place in the Donbas region on 11 November 2018, resulted in support for integration with Russia with an ‘unprecented voter turnout’ (Itar Tass, 2018). The High Representative for the EU’s CFSP and Vice-President of the European Commission Mogherini, among others, criticised this election for being both ‘illegal and illegitimate’ (Deutsche Welle, 2018). The Russian state news agency contradicts this interpretation by describing the election as ‘open and transparent’ (RIA Novosti, 2018). A consolidation of Russian power in East Ukraine undermines both the country’s territorial integrity and the gradual establishment of a peace process.

Fifth, the emergence of an open confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov beginning on 25 November 2018 is the latest of a series of examples demonstrating the imminent security concerns resulting from the EU’s and Russia’s deadlock about negotiating a resolution to the Ukraine conflict. The unfolding of this confrontation and the resulting security concerns in light of the EaP’s lacking framework for providing security will be assessed in the following section.

Despite the EaP’s lacking structure to address security- related concerns, it was also criticised for its absence of a clearly defined ‘nature of partnership’ (Korosteleva, 2011, p. 1). In a similar vein, several Ukrainian government officials stated that the EaP ‘offered no coordination’, ‘no adequate resources’, nor ‘sense of direction’ (Ibid, p. 13). As a result of divergent aspirations of the EU and Ukraine about their partnership, a mutually agreed approach about their relations has not been found. The former President of the European Commission Prodi, referred to part of the rationale of the European Neighbourhood Policy to which the EaP is a subset, that ‘[the EU] cannot go on enlarging forever’ (Prodi, 2002). The Commissioner for enlargement Verheugen expressed that a fixed date for Ukraine’s accession to the EU was not on the agenda (Patten, 2006, p. 158). Since 2014, a discussion about the possibility of Ukraine’s prospect to become an EU member in the long-term has become almost pointless. The continuously deteriorating crisis epitomised by violence, Russian separatists in the East, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the latest open confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov, makes Ukraine’s accession to the EU impossible.

This impossibility strengthened Russia’s opportunity to conduct an affirmative foreign policy in Ukraine. In this context opportunity is understood as Bretherton and Vogler’s definition of the circumstances shaping the EU’s action, which was hampered by Russia’s actorness. Russia’s intention to maintain a crucial role in its relations with the post-Soviet space was stated already more than a decade before the Ukraine crisis and exceeds the scope of intensifying relations with Ukraine. The Medium-Term Strategy for the development of Russia’s relations with the EU (2000–2010) states that ‘partnership with the EU should contribute to consolidating Russia’s role as a leading power in shaping up a new system of interstate political and economic relations in the [Commonwealth of Independent States]’ whilst Russia ‘should retain its freedom to determine and implement its domestic and foreign policies’ (European Commission, 1999). In light of the Ukraine conflict, one can say that this Strategy established the Kremlin’s ground rules for its policy towards the former Soviet space and its pursuance of an uncompromising policy towards Ukraine.

1.1.3. The EaP summit in Vilnius: de-securitisation instead of integration?

Before the EaP summit in Vilnius on November 28 and 29 2013, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin referred to the EaP and the EU’s actions in the neighbourhood as causing upset to the ‘peoples who have always been associated with Russia by common destiny for centuries’ (Interfax, 2013). Rogozin criticised the EU’s lack of engagement with the Russian government regarding relations with its eastern neighbours. He contended that so far he had not seen ‘any [EU-Russian] dialogue’ over their integration approaches with their neighbours, but added that ‘we saw some fighting behind the scenes and conversations behind Russia’s back on how to use the EaP: not to make it a partnership but, in fact, to realise the notorious historical formula of divide and rule’ (Interfax, 2014b).

Before the Vilnius summit emerged clear signs of pressure exerted by the Russian president on his Ukrainian counterpart. In case of Yanukovich’s refusal to sign the AA, Russia promised a considerable discount on the price of gas delivered to Ukraine and several ‘trade concessions’ amounting to US$ 17 billion (Wierzbowska-Miazga and Sarna in Forsberg & Haukkala, 2016, p. 36). Given these offered priviledges, Yanukovich rejected the EU’s deal on the grounds that it offered nothing tangible: ‘What would [the signature of the agreement] give us? Tens of billions [of] dollars in a stabilization fund? Some sort of advantages to Ukraine? […] So far we see nothing, except beautiful words’ (EurActiv, 2013).

In a potential attempt to try to change Yanukovich’s objections about the AA, the European Commission’s President Barroso and the president of the European Council Van Rompuy praised the agreement for its benefits for Ukraine’s economy. Simultaneously, they dismissed the widely held perception among Russian policy makers that the AA jeopardised Ukraine’s relations with Russia. Van Rompuy emphasised that the AA ‘was a process for something [instead …] of a process against someone’ (Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 2013).

A request made by the Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov regarding trilateral negotiation between the EU, Russia and Ukraine was rejected by the EU. On 24 January 2014, Ushakov stated that ‘we should frankly and substantively discuss this massive, long-term task, the matching of two integration processes, the European and Eurasian ones’ (Interfax, 2014a). Barroso, however, was opposed to this form of negotiations stating that ‘when you make a bilateral deal, we don’t need a trilateral agreement’ (Forsberg & Haukkala, 2016, p. 37). Trilateral negotiations might have offered the opportunity for the EU and Russia to reflect about their previous contestation over Ukraine during and after the Orange Revolution to seek a middle-ground regarding their strategic interests in Ukraine. However, the initiation of such a trilateral mediation should have been launched in the immediate aftermath of the Orange Revolution when the EU-Russian contestation over Ukraine began.

At the time of the Vilnius summit, it was too late to build the foundation for a negotiated formula between Russia and the EU concerning integration with Ukraine. A result of their divergent policy approaches towards Ukraine was the intensifying EU-Russian conflict which reflected itself in mutual accusations about their respective responsibilities for the Ukraine crisis. About three months after the Vilnius summit, on 22 January 2014, the Duma had published a statement calling on ‘Western political circles, which are interfering in the sovereign Ukraine’s internal affairs in violation of international law, to stop promoting the conflict’s continued escalation’ (Russian State Duma, 2014). It warned that it ‘was unacceptable to put pressure on Ukraine from the outside and impose geopolitical choices in favour of association with the EU on it’ (Ibid.).

A crucial step in seeking to resolve the deteriorating war in East Ukraine was the adoption of the second part of the Minsk agreement on 11 February 2015. The Presidents of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany concluded an agreement aiming at de-escalating the war. Its implementation was overseeen by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The Minsk II agreement sought to address measures of the initial agreement aimed at a cease fire which had been adopted on 5 September 2014. The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission, its largest mission thus far oversees the adherence to the Minsk agreement in East Ukraine (Staak, 2018). According to Staak, the OSCE has acquired a crucial task in ‘ensuing consolidation of the dialogue on pan-European security’ (Ibid.) given its 57 members exceed the format of the EU and NATO. Despite its extensive members including states in Europe, Central Asia and North America, the OSCE’s leverage in the Ukraine conflict reflected limitations due to the increasing intensity of the conflict. In Donetsk in May 2014, several election observers had been kidnapped by pro-Russian separatists after having monitored the Ukrainian presidential election (CNBC, 2014; Nováky, 2015, p. 252).

The deterioration of the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s grip on the country was exemplified by Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It had turned the EU into a case of contested statehood. According to Papadimitriou and Petrov, ‘contested statehood’ is a state of affairs where ‘an internationally recognised state authority (as expressed by full membership of the UN) cannot maintain effective control over its respective territory (or parts of), […] as a result of an ongoing conflict’ (2012, p. 749). This definition best captures the Ukrainian government’s inability to maintain control over its territory as exemplified by Crimea’s annexation. This contested statehood as a major impairment in Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation was reflected in Sakwa’s assessment of the history of post-independent Ukraine. He stated that this period in Ukraine was ‘characterised by unresolved and often suppressed questions of national coherence and state integration that in the end undermined both. These tensions were internationalised, provoking the gravest European security crisis of recent times’ (2017). Ukraine’s contested statehood, the lacking possibility for EU accession of EaP members combined with the EU’s objection towards further enlargement were major obstacles in developing EU-Ukrainian relations. Several days after the annexation, the EU set a symbol for enhanced ties with Ukraine when signing the political parts of the AA. According to Van Rompuy, this signature implied ‘steadfast support for the course the people of Ukraine have courageously pursued’ (Forsberg & Haukkala, 2016, p. 40). The economic components of the AA were signed on June 27 (Natorski, 2017, p. 178). The ratification of the AA by the Ukrainian, the European Parliament and EU member states took place in July 2014. According to Forsberg and Haukkala, this ratification ‘attempts to show support and solidarity towards Ukraine, as well as to signal that the EU found Russia’s actions in Ukraine unacceptable and would not be deterred from moving forward with its own policies’ (2016, p. 40).

The downing of the Malaysian airways flight over Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists in July 2014 created a further incentive for the EU in seeking to develop a more affirmative foreign policy towards Russia. A series of sanctions were imposed against Russia resulting in its exclusion from international meetings, targeting individuals, who were alleged of misconduct and implementing restrictive measures in important economic sectors (Forsberg & Haukkala, 2016, p. 390).

About six months later, a set of trilateral negotiations regarding the resolution of the Ukraine crisis discussed among Ukrainian President Poroshenko, President Putin, Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande in February 2015 brought about an amendment of the Ukrainian constitution. As a result, Eastern Ukraine dominated by pro-Russian separatists, has obtained the status of a frozen conflict, which is, according to Forsberg and Haukkala, a major impairment in fulfilling the country’s prospects of EU membership (2016, p. 41). The latest open confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov in November 2018 exemplifies that this change of the constitution by referring to a frozen conflict in Eastern Ukraine is obsolete. The following section will assess this confrontation and its aftermath to demonstrate that the conflict is neither frozen, nor limited to Eastern Ukraine as there are wide-ranging repercussions for security.

1.1.4. EaP failure 2.0 in Brussels and Riga

The EaP summits in Riga in May 2015 and in Brussels in November 2017 as frameworks for developing the EU’s relations with its Eastern neighbours including Ukraine did not lead to tangible results. The summit in Brussels did not promise a more concrete formulation of the EU’s foreign policy towards Ukraine (European Council, 2017). In the joint declaration following the conclusion of the summit, the European Council’s President Tusk acknowledged that ‘frozen and armed conflicts continue to prevent development and create hardships in [EaP] countries. The death of five Ukrainian servicemen yesterday is just the latest proof of the tragic consequences of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The EU condemns Russia’s aggression and will never recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea’ (European Council, 2017).

This frank assessment of the perception of Russia’s actions in Ukraine has two repercussions for EU foreign policy. On the one hand, it reflects hostility in EU-Russian relations. On the other hand, Tusk’s statement reflects the EU’s acceptance of the status quo of the conflict, instead of suggesting the implementation of certain policy mechanisms to de-escalate the crisis. The lacking identification of political means implies the EU’s lacking actorness, its absence of opportunities, presence and capabilities in its response to the Ukraine crisis in light of Russia’s actorness. The EU’s lacking actorness is also reflected in the summit’s conclusions demonstrating the EU’s passivity in handling this crisis.

Both the EU’s passivity and its seeming acceptance of the status quo of the conflict is reflected in the EU’s Global Strategy. This strategy presents the following ambitous objectives regarding its relations with its neighbours: ‘We will strengthen the EU, enhance the resilience of our eastern neighbours and uphold their right to determine freely their approach towards the EU’ (European External Action Service, 2016, p. 3). The strengthening of the EU does neither explain if economic, political or diplomatic strength are implied, nor defines any mechanisms used to fulfil this objective. It remains unclear how the EU intends to strengthen the resilience of its Eastern neighbours, when taking into account that a failure to do so manifested itself at the Vilnius summit in 2013 when the EU was unable to prevent the Kremlin’s exertion of pressure on the Ukrainian government to derail deeper integration with Brussels. This outcome exemplified the EU’s inability to make Ukraine resilient to Russia’s affirmative foreign policy.

The GS sought to identify the EU’s approach towards Russia in light of Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis (European External Action Service, 2016). In its section on European Security order, the strategy holds Russia accountable for its ‘violation of international law and the destabilisation of Ukraine, on top of protracted conflicts in the wider Black Sea region, [which] have challenged the European Security order at its core’ (Ibid). The strategy states that the EU will seek to adopt a more unitary stance in its relations towards Russia whilst seeking to safeguard the right of the EaP members to freely develop their relations with the EU. However, over the past decade, the EU’s internal divergences regarding the establishment of a unitary and affirmative stance in its foreign policy towards Russia was hardly possible (Maass, 2017). The next section demonstrates that the EU’s development of an affirmative stance towards Russia is severely challenged by Russia’s actorness in Ukraine.

2. The Russian-Ukrainian confrontation in the Kerch Strait

The confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the Kerch Strait beginning on 25 November 2018, raised increasing security concerns for Ukraine and the EU. In light of this confrontation, the need to assess the EU’s actorness in responding to this growing security risk merits attention. This article assessed a series of critical junctures in the gradual evolution of the Ukraine conflict since November 2013. Since Yanukovich’s decision to refrain from EU integration, the emergence of a domestic crisis regarding the opposition towards his regime, the annexation of Crimea, the war in the Donbas and the downing of MH 17 increased the EU’s pressure to react. It started playing the role of an innocent bystander at the time of Crimea’s annexation. When elections in the Donbas in November 2018 affirmed the stronghold of an affiliation with Russia, EU officials such as Mogherini condemned the elections and Russia’s actions in Ukraine. No less strong in rhetoric but weak in action was the EU’s response to the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation in the Kerch Strait. This is the latest example demonstrating that the Ukraine conflict, which so far cost the lives of 10.000 people (MacFarquhar, 2018, November 27) is not a frozen conflict. The Ukrainian leader’s response to this re-escalation of conflict is a turn towards both NATO and the OSCE. This approach at conflict containment seems to be indicative that the EU is not the primary actor in guaranteeing security due to its lacking actorness. This section explains the evolution of the conflict in the Kerch strait, assesses the EU’s response to it before contrasting it to NATO’s and the OSCE’s role. The aim of this section is to critically evaluate the EU’s ability to provide security, as intended by the EaP.

The first Ukrainian-Russian open confrontation in the Kerch Strait since Russia’s annexation of Crimea alert to the severity of the wide-ranging security implications of the Ukraine conflict. On 25 November 2018 Russian soldiers shot Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait and captured 23 sailors aboard of these vessels. According to Russia, the transit of these Ukrainian vessels through this Strait was illegal since Russia considers these waterways its own since it annexed Crimea. Controlling passage from the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov is a key element in asserting Russia’s broader claim to Crimea (MacFarquhar, 2018). When seeking to reiterate the point about Ukraine’s illegal use of this waterway at a meeting of the UN Security Council, Russia received a barrage of criticism about its behaviour towards Ukraine since 2014. Prior to this incident, Ukraine undertook similar crossings of this passage, which respects the UN convention on the Law of the Sea according to which shipping can take place in any strait. An agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2003 further legitimised Ukraine’s right to pass via this strait. However, since Russia’s annexation of Crimea a demarcation of maritime borders has not taken place (Bennets, 2018).

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s response to the confrontation issued on November 25 echoed a situation on the brink of war. It expressed ‘strong protest against the gross violation of the rules of peaceful passage in the territorial waters of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea by Ukrainian naval ships’ (Russian Foreign Ministry, 2018). The Ministry’s statement was ‘issu[ed] [as] a warning to Ukraine that Kiev’s policy, pursued in coordination with the United States and the EU, […] seeks to provoke a conflict with Russia in the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea is fraught with serious consequences. The Russian Federation will firmly curb any attempts to encroach on its sovereignty and security’ (Ibid.). The imminent security threat was characterised as ‘very serious’ by NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg ‘because you saw actually that Russia used military force in an open way […] This is escalating the situation in the region and confirms a pattern of behavior which we have seen over several years.’ (Reuters, 2018).

In the spectre of this security threat, on 29 November 2018 the Ukrainian President Poroshenko requested the imposition of martial law for 30 days. He characterised this ‘demonstrative attack on the detachment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ as a form of ‘hybrid war’ fought by Ukraine against Russia (President of Ukraine, 2018). Poroshenko requested NATO’s envoy of vessels to the Kerch Strait during the time of the martial law. The majority of members of the Ukrainian Parliament voted in favour of the martial law, which was imposed mainly in parts of Eastern Ukraine on 28 November 2018 (Ibid.). This plea for support from NATO is a reminder of the NATO summit in Bucharest from April 2 to 4 2008 which concluded that Ukraine would not become a member state. According to Samokhvalov, the determining reason from Ukraine’s abstention from membership was the reluctance of Ukraine’s society to make ‘hasty decisions on such sensitive issues as membership of multilateral defence alliances whether these are Russian-led or promoted by the West’ (2015, p. 1382). Support for Ukraine’s accession to the alliance decreased from 16 per cent in 2006 to 12 per cent in 2012 (Razmukov Centre 2012 in Samokhvalov, 2015, p. 1383), but increased up to 40 per cent after Crimeas’s annexation (Samokhvalov, 2015). This increase within two years demonstrates the perceived security risk stemming from the deterioration of the Ukraine crisis whose implications were perceived since the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation in the Kerch Strait.

Three days after this confrontation Mogherini published a statement condemning Russia’s ‘use of force’ (European Council, 2018). According to this statement, the EU ‘expected’ Russia to ‘ensure unhindered and free passage through the Kerch Strait. Calling for de-escalation of the conflict, the statement also requested a release of the captured vessels with its crew, but an additional request by President Macron and Chancellor Merkel were disregarded by the Kremlin which declared on December 29 2018 that the 24 Ukrainian sailors would not be released (Radio Free Europe, 2018). The rejection of these requests reflects the limited coercive capacity Germany and France as well as Mogherini can exert on Russia. Mogherini’s statement assured the EU’s ‘full support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders’, but did not explain which means are used to safeguard this situation. Thus, the statement is strong in rhetoric but not followed up by concrete action. On the contrary, according to the statement, the EU will ‘follow closely the situation and is determined to act appropriately, in close coordination with its international partners’ (European Council, 2018). According to Samokhvalov, the annexation, the war in the Donbas, ‘Brussel’s refusal to provide Ukraine with military support, the piecemeal adoption of economic sanctions against Russia and the deployment of the EU Assistance Mission with a limited budget and a very weak mandate have convinced Kyiv to reconsider its security approach’ (2015, p. 1384). In this way, Samokhavlov refers to the EU’s lacking actorness as a a security guarantor as oppposed to NATO’s capacities. A senior Finnish diplomat stated that Poroshenko’s shifting stance towards NATO could be likened to Finland’s president Kekkonen, who developed relations with NATO without ‘antagonising Russia’ (Nyberg 2014 in Samokhvalov). At a time when Russia shoots at Ukrainian vessels in the Sea of Azov, the question of anatgonising Russia is a moot point.

No less indicative for the EU’s fading away from conflict resolution in Ukraine, than Poroshenko’s request for the deployment of NATO vessels to the Sea of Azov is the Ukrainian Foreign Ministers plea for extending the scope of the OSCE’s observation mission. At a meeting of foreign ministers of the OSCE in Milan on December 6, Germany’s foreign minister Maas proposed to extend the scope of the OSCE’s mission from East Ukraine to the Sea of Azov by monitoring Ukraine’s ability to freely conduct its trade (Zeit, 2018). This proposal was further discussed at a meeting on December 11 2018 for French-German mediation efforts regarding the latest Ukrainian-Russian confrontation. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Klimkin stated that for the past five consecutive meetings of foreign ministers at OSCE level, Russia’s behaviour was denounced as ‘destabilising’, which ‘increases the threat to European security.’ He explained that it was the task of the UN to faciliate an international response (Ibid.).

3. Conclusion

This article examined the EU’s responses to the security threats brought about by the Ukraine crisis between November 2013 and November 2018. The aftermath of the Vilnius summit in November 2013 resulted in wide-ranging changes to the intended roadmap of EU-Ukrainian integration and one of the factors shaping the evolution of the Ukraine crisis. After Crimea’s annexation to Russia, the challenges for the EU to adequately respond to the crisis by containing the conflict on the one hand and seeking to coerce Russia’s actions in Ukraine on the other hand increased tremendously.

Since the eruption of the Ukraine conflict, the EU has engaged in initiating reform processes within the realm of the EaP, engaged in peace-building and conflict resolution prior to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. However, since the annexation, its foreign policy capabilities were incapacitated by Russia’s increasing acquisition of actorness. Despite the EU’s continuous efforts at peace-building epitomised by the launch of a CSDP mission in November 2014, for instance, the Kremlin had already created opportunities to maintain its influence in Ukraine since the annexation of Crimea and the building of a bridge connecting Crimea and the Russian mainland in May 2018. As a consequence, the EU merely re-acted to Russia’s foreign policy and did not possess all components of Bretherton and Vogler’s actorness, namely opportunity, presence and capabilities.

This article demonstrated that in its response to security risks resulting from the Ukraine crisis, the EU does not possess the aforementioned elements of actorness. The EU has acquired presence in Ukraine, defined by Bretherton and Vogler as its ability to exert infuence by shaping perceptions, expectations and behaviours of other actors. However, the result of its presence is a capability-expectations gap caused by the disproportion between the rising security concerns in Ukraine since the confrontation in the Sea of Azov and the EU’s lacking capacities to respond. As a result, the Ukrainian political elite turned towards NATO for support in the wake of the imminent threat perception caused by the Ukrainian-Russian clash in the Kerch Strait. The EU lacks the capability to exploit aspects of EU policy constraining external action by Russia by taking advantage of opportunities. The EU cannot take advantage of opportunities due to Russia’s creation of its own opportunities, such as the annexation of Crimea and its military response to the alleged illegal crossings of Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait,which incapacitated the EU and the West alike.

Future research needs to engage in an in-depth discussion about the evolution of the OSCE’s and NATO’s engagement in seeking to maintain security in Ukraine. At the time of writing this article, no details on NATO’s and eventually the OSCE’s and the UN’s engagement is available due to the fact that the events unfolding in the Kerch Strait are recent. Interviews with NATO, UN, OSCE and EU officials regarding their responses to this recently emerged conflict will illucidate further strengths and weaknesses of these actors. Such an extensive analysis will contribute to a broadening of the debate on the actorness of these international organisations in the issue area of security policy. In turn, this will enhance a critical assessment regarding the analytical value of Bretherton and Vogler’s conceptual framework, which thus far is predominantly applied to merely examine the EU’s capacities as an actor.

It is safe to say that the EU, the UN, NATO and the OSCE are faced with a capability-expectations gap in Ukraine, which manifests itself in increasing security challenges rising disproportionately to the capacities in security and defence policies of these international organisations.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.