© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

The presidential election in Ukraine was a collective act of punishment of corrupt elites and represented a clear demand for change. In one of the most vibrant and unpredictable electoral contests in Ukrainian history, the political newcomer and comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, scored a resounding victory, receiving 73.2 percent of the votes. This unprecedented legitimacy means that the country’s citizens are now expecting their president-elect to act swiftly and bring about real change.

Zelenskiy and his team face enormous challenges beyond their experience, including the need to maintain a strong electoral power base for the parliamentary elections in the autumn; to stand firm against the Kremlin’s tests; to keep the EU engaged in unfolding developments in Ukraine; and, most importantly, to maintain the new momentum for change.

Fatigue and disillusionment with the pace of domestic reforms were the hallmark of this election. Ukrainians did not cast their ballots for but rather against the incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, and indeed the entire Ukrainian political establishment. Now, Zelenskiy needs to define what role he wants to play in Ukrainian politics, so that he can harness this momentum wisely, both domestically and internationally.

Inevitable Disappointment

Zelenskiy’s victory was the result of unifying the country around a positive narrative of Ukraine’s future. His portrayal of an honest teacher-turned-president in the popular TV series, The Servant of the People, which was first broadcast in 2015, became one of his main advantages in this electoral campaign. Integrity in politics is what all Ukrainians wish for, but the real political system has failed to achieve this in the upper echelons of power. Yet it remains vague exactly what Zelenskiy’s politics are.

Before the elections, he skillfully avoided content-related encounters such as media interviews or debates, and he limited his interactions with foreign institutions. He failed to outline key policies or agendas. This content vacuum played to his advantage and allowed voters to identify him with the fictional character he plays. Once he actually begins to govern, however, he will inevitably lose some support. His electorate is too diverse and harbors conflicting expectations about Zelenskiy’s presidency. How to maintain the current high voter support, particularly ahead of the parliamentary elections, is a key challenge for the new leader and his team.

Parliamentary Challenge

As an outsider, Zelenskiy so far has no political base in parliament. Experts are concerned that the president-elect might call early elections to capitalize on his popularity, and ensure his party, which is also called The Servant of the People, becomes an important political force. The party currently ranks highest in opinion polls. According to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in mid-April, it would win 26 percent among decided voters in parliamentary elections.

In the Ukrainian political system, the president is largely responsible for foreign policy and defense. He or she also names the Prosecutor General, the head of the security services, regional governors, and has decisive influence on the formal appointment of judges. Ukrainian foreign policy, however, is deeply intertwined with its domestic reform agenda. After the 2013–14 Euromaidan, Ukrainians clearly defined their foreign policy priority: European integration. This deep transformation into a consolidated European democracy requires a strong partnership between the president and the parliament. In this context, it is the parliamentary election that could ultimately determine the pace of reforms under Zelenskiy’s presidency.

Dealing with Russia

One of the biggest challenges facing the new president is Russia’s reaction to the political change and its subsequent actions to further destabilize Ukraine. During the election campaign, there had been rumors that Zelenskiy could be the “Kremlin’s puppet,” something President Poroshenko attempted to exploit. However, the fact that Zelenskiy’s team recently issued a statement that Russia was “an aggressor state that is waging war against Ukraine,” has weakened the plausibility of these rumors. Furthermore, the Kremlin failed to take a clear stand on the electoral outcome or congratulate the president-elect, something which signals that Zelenskiy is as much of an uncertainty for Russia as he is for the rest of the international community.

When it comes to the war in Donbass, however, Zelenskiy’s inexperience is likely to play to Russia’s advantage. The Kremlin will not hesitate to test the new president, and try to raise doubts about his reliability as a commander-in-chief with both Ukrainians and the international community. Russian propaganda is likely to continue to portray Ukraine as a failed state and try to sow doubts among Western partners regarding the need to support Ukraine’s European aspirations.

The first serious test came just 24 hours after the election commission officially declared Zelenskiy the winner. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure to acquire Russian citizenship for the residents of Luhansk and Donetsk, the self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine. This in turn gives Russia the right to intervene in the defense of its citizens in case of alleged violations of their rights. This is a tactic that the Kremlin has used in other breakaway territories such as Transnistria and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

After Putin’s decree, President-elect Zelenskiy immediately called upon the international community to increase “diplomatic and sanctions pressure” on Russia. This in turn raises questions about the EU’s capacity to react promptly to the quickly unfolding developments in Ukraine.

Fighting for the EU’s Attention

The EU is currently consumed by multiple competing challenges, both internally and externally. It is preoccupied with Brexit and the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, as well as migration and the resumption of trade talks with the US. For Kiev, this means there is a danger that the EU and European governments may pay less attention to developments in Ukraine.

In the context of the ongoing conflict with Russia, the political novice Zelenskiy will have to quickly learn to build a strong rapport with the West, and fight to hold its attention. Many Western governments have already congratulated Zelenskiy on his victory and expressed continued support for Ukraine. But Zelenskiy needs to present himself as a credible and reliable partner, as President Poroshenko did, to gain the trust of European governments. It will be on his shoulders to maximize Ukraine’s chances of maintaining its place on the European agenda.

With his landslide victory, Zelenksiy has brought his nation together. Yet there are clear constraints to what he can achieve within his mandate as head of state. There are also clear constraints deriving from Russia’s clear determination to keep Ukraine within its orbit of influence. Zelenksiy’s freedom from political baggage and unexpected high legitimacy, however, may have created a new momentum domestically for Ukrainian society to rebuild trust in the Ukrainian state. It may equally dissipate hope that change is possible. It is up to Zelenskiy himself to decide whether he wants to attempt to be a strong domestic reformer or be just another figurehead playing the usual games of the oligarchs.

The post Servant of the People appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Anton Vaganov

This Sunday, April 21, Ukraine will elect its president for the seventh time since independence.  An unprecedented number of candidates threw their hats in the ring, but only two survived the March 31 first round to make it into the run-off: current president Petro Poroshenko (15.95 percent or 3 million votes) and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy (30.24 percent or 5.7 million votes).

Zelenskiy, a newcomer in the Ukrainian political scene, was leading in public opinion polls for months before the vote, but anyone hardly expected that he would beat other candidates by such a margin. The three weeks between the first round and the run-off have been marked by heated discussions about what accounts for Zelenskiy’s popularity and, most importantly, what his presidency would mean for his country.

The personality of the president, and how he or she chooses to use his or her powers, is vital in a country like Ukraine. Ukraine has weak democratic institutions and high poverty rates, and it suffers from endemic corruption and a politically dependent judiciary. It is also at war with Russia, which brings new fatalities almost daily and costs Ukraine significant resources.

Although the prime minister (appointed by the parliament) is nearly as powerful as the president in Ukraine’s parliamentary-presidential system, certain powers are reserved for the presidency, such as proposing and vetoing legislation adopted by the parliament, exercising direct control over foreign affairs, defense, security service and prosecution, appointing regional governors and formally appointing judges to their posts after they’ve been selected by dedicated bodies.

President Poroshenko’s legacy, should his term come to an end on Sunday, will be a controversial one. On the one hand, Ukraine has made impressive reform progress in the past five years since the Revolution of Dignity, progress not seen during the entire period of 25 years since independence. Achievements include the overhaul of Ukraine’s biggest state company, Naftogaz, the clean up of the tax system and the banking sector, the launch of a transparent and competitive procurement system, a public administration and civil service reform that brought fresh blood in the government, and the establishment of institutions that limit corruption opportunities.  

While government and parliament have worked on reforms under pressure from and with the assistance of the West and Ukraine’s vibrant and professional civil society, Poroshenko has also played his part. Ukraine has also been able to withstand Russian military aggression and build a strong professional army almost from scratch.

But on the other hand, Poroshenko is accused of having used his presidency to increase his assets and having allowed some oligarchs and people from his near circle to profit from access to public resources. The most recent scandal was a corruption scheme in the state defense conglomerate UkrOboronProm, in the wake of which Poroshenko was forced to fire his business partner and (now former) deputy head of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council Oleh Hladkovsky. These revelations have been damaging, whereas the reforms have for the most part not yet impacted people’s daily quality of life or household budgets. Due to Ukraine’s pluralistic media landscape, strong investigative journalism and civil society, Poroshenko has received a lot of negative coverage, which has further undermined his already low public support. It is typical for Ukrainian incumbents to be unpopular; they fall victim to excessive expectations and successive disappointments.

In this context, Zelenskiy has emerged as a ‘new face’, one able to accommodate various expectations and disappointments alike. According to the most recent poll by Group Rating, 58 percent of those who intend to vote in the run-off will vote for Zelenskiy, 22 percent will choose Poroshenko and 20 percent are undecided. It is very likely that Zelenskiy will become Ukraine’s next president.

From TV President to Real Candidate

Most Ukranians know Zelenskiy from his comedy outfit Kvartal 95, which later developed into a production studio by the same name. Its shows are broadcast by popular oligarch-owned channels Inter and 1+1, not only in Ukraine but also in other post-Soviet countries.

Zelenskiy comes from the industrial city Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine and received his education as a lawyer. Yet he decided on a different career path, which proved to be a success: his comedy group earns an annual profit of around $10 million. 

Zelenskiy’s popularity has grown even further since 2015, when he became the star of the popular television series Servant of the People, where he plays the role of the President of Ukraine. In the series, Zelenskiy’s character is a high school history teacher who wins the presidential election after a viral video created by his pupils shows him ranting against government corruption in Ukraine. The feature film produced on the basis of the second season of the series became the most-watched movie in Ukraine in 2017, earning the equivalent of $800,000. 

Some analysts think that Servant of the People was meant to lay the groundwork for its star’s future presidential campaign. Indeed, the central theme of the series can be seen as a sort of “Ukrainian dream,” which was attractive to many people disappointed with the traditional political establishment.

Since 2017, when Zelenskiy and his team registered “Servant of the People” as a political party, there had been rumors that he might run for president. Already in 2017 Zelenskiy was polling at 4 percent; his support then grew to 8 percent toward the end of 2018 and skyrocketed after he announced on 1+1 TV New Year’s Eve show that he intended to run. By February 2019 he had already become the leader of public opinion polls, ahead of long-time politicians Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.

Nevertheless, despite the responsibilities incumbent upon a leading presidential candidate, Zelenskiy continued to tour the country with his show and did not interrupt film shooting. Nor did he bother to give interviews and explain his political views to the people.

What Does Zelenskiy Stand For?

If you want to understand what Zelenskiy the politician is about, it will not suffice to read his political program. The character of his campaign, his public appearances, and communication with media are important to consider.

Zelenskiy’s program is a mixture of ideas, wishful thinking, and, occasionally, specific policies. On the whole it offers very few concrete solutions. If elected, Zelenskiy plans to introduce direct democracy in Ukraine by making it easier to organize referendums. The program contains measures meant to enhance the rule of law, such lifting immunity from the president and MPs, passing a law that would enable impeachment of the president, and depriving MPs who are absent from sessions or vote for several missing colleagues at once of their mandate. In the rather abstract section concerning defense and security, the program never mentions Russia, although it describes an ‘aggressor state’ occupying Ukrainian territory. Interestingly, Zelenskiy’s program suggests organizing a referendum on NATO accession, although recent amendments to the Ukrainian constitution enshrined Ukraine’s aspiration to join EU and NATO.

Meanwhile, on the economic front, Zelenskiy plans to reduce the role of the state in the market and boost the salaries of educational and medical workers, albeit on a very abstract level. Some of the concrete provisions, such as replacing the income tax with a tax on withdrawn capital and introducing an agricultural land market are also promoted by Poroshenko.

In general, Zelensky has so far been very vague about his policies and vision for the future. So it has been extremely difficult to tell what he stands for or fact-check his largely policy-free statements in the way the experts have for other candidates. He rarely mentions facts. It is perhaps unsurprising that, according to a poll conducted in March, only around 20 percent of Zelenskiy’s supporters know his or his program’s position on key issues such as the relationship with the EU, NATO, and Russia.

Zelenskiy and his team became more outspoken after the first round of elections. For instance, he publicly demanded that Poroshenko ensure the passage of certain laws or appoint people to certain offices, such as the National Agency on Corruption Prevention. Since those are responsibilities of the Parliament or the Cabinet of Ministers, it was clear that Zelenskiy does not fully understand the president’s role and powers. On other occasions he has called for measures that have already been implemented, such as the publication of Poroshenko’s assets, or introducing open, transparent bidding for public tenders. The latter already exists in the form of the online platform ProZorro, which has saved the state $2.76 billion for the state budget since its introduction. 

Moreover, he presented his team and experts on various issues just three days before the run-off vote, and did not name his candidates for important posts such as foreign minister and minister of defense.

It is worrying that Zelenskiy has avoided talking live to journalists and debating Poroshenko. Although Ukrainian legislation foresees the two candidates having a debate at 20.00 at the public broadcaster Suspilne on the Friday before the Sunday run-off vote, the comedian-turned-candidate has not played along. Zelenskiy announced he wanted debates on the stadium Olimpiski in downtown Kiev at 19.00 instead. Poroshenko accepted the challenge and agreed to take part in debates in both settings. He also asked the Central Election Committee to consider postponing debates at Suspilne for one hour in order to allow candidates to make it to the TV studio after the stadium. Poroshenko’s request was satisfied, and the TV debate was postponed to 21.00, but Zelenskiy nevertheless announced that he would not come to Suspilne. In short, Zelenskiy has so far been reluctant to discuss substance, but he has been active in making a show out of the electoral process.

What is Behind Zelenskiy’s Popularity?

Zelenskiy’s popular support seems to be down to several factors: a protest vote against the current political establishment, support for the fictional TV character Zelenskiy rather than the real man, and his use of targeted social media advertising rather than the traditional methods of TV and billboards. 

Interestingly, those supporters are very diverse and often expect mutually exclusive actions from their preferred president. Natalia Zubar, the Chair of the Maidan Monitoring Information Center, conducted an analysis of Zelenskiy’s promotional images and discovered that they differ depending on the targeted group. In other words, the same product is being sold in different packages. It is difficult to imagine what policies a candidate with such campaign and electoral base would pursue in reality.

It is therefore not surprising that Zelenskiy is polling ahead of Poroshenko with all age groups, not just young people, where he is strongest. He also leads in the East, South, and Center of Ukraine, while in the West of the country the chances of both candidates are equal. According to a study by the Razumkov Centre, 56 percent of Zelenskiy’s voters support integration with the EU and NATO, while 35 percent prefer neutrality. 59 percent support peace in Eastern Ukraine on Ukrainian terms, while 30 percent support peace at any price. A tough policy toward Russia is supported by 55 percent, while reestablishment of friendship with Russia by 32 percent. 47 percent support a market economy, while 41 percent prefer strengthening the role of the state in the economy. (The comparison with Poroshenko showed that his voters are much more homogeneous. For instance, 85 percent of his voters support integration with the EU and NATO and only 13 percent are against.) 

The Oligarch in the Background

While Zelenskiy is portrayed as a fighter against oligarchs in his TV show, in reality he is clearly linked to the Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, the owner of 1+1 TV, where the candidate’s show has appeared since 2012.  

According to an investigation led by Volodymyr Ariev, an MP from Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, the start of this TV cooperation coincided with large financial transactions between Privat Bank, Ukraine’s largest bank which was at that time owned by Kolomoisky, and Zelenskiy and other team members of Kvartal 95. From 2012 to 2016, $41 million was directed from the bank through a series of intermediary companies into the accounts of Zelensky and Co. companies. Ariev contends that Kolomoisky used Zelensky’s companies for money laundering.

There is more to this than just money. A recent investigation revealed that Andriy Bohdan, Kolomoisky’s main lawyer, is often seen at Zelenskiy’s headquarters and introduces him during important official meetings. Moreover, Zelenskiy was revealed to have traveled to Tel-Aviv, where Kolomoisky currently lives, at least five times since January 2019. Considering that Bohdan represents Kolomoisky’s interests in court, where the oligarch is demanding compensation from the Ukrainian state for nationalization of Privat Bank, such active involvement of Bohdan in Zelenskiy’s team raises troubling questions.

This linkage is important in the context of the confrontation between Poroshenko and Kolomoisky. The latter was forced to leave the post of the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region one year after Poroshenko appointed him in March 2014. Although Kolomoisky apparently played an instrumental role in suppressing the separatist insurgent movement that succeeded in neighboring Donetsk and Luhansk regions, he was deprived of control over the state-owned company Ukrnafta in early 2015, where he had misused his powers for years. The government then nationalized his bank, Privat Bank, at the end of 2016. Poroshenko supported this move, as large scale fraud had embezzled money from the bank, undermining its and the country’s financial stability. Assets that were proven to be linked to the Kolomoisky and his business partners were frozen. 

Since then Kolomoisky has lived in Switzerland and Israel, where he has citizenship; in Ukraine he might face prosecution. He allegedly wants to use Zelenskiy to regain his power. After the first round of elections, Kolomoisky announced that he would seek compensation of $2 billion from the state for the bank. Moreover, he said that he is going to return to Ukraine if Zelenskiy wins the elections. Zelensky, for his part, emphasizes that he has an exclusively business-related relationship with Kolomisky.

What’s next for Ukraine?

It’s important to keep the election in perspective: the parliamentary elections currently scheduled for October will probably be even more important for Ukraine, as that body’s makeup will have significant implications for the pace of reform in the country. Whoever the president is, he will have to work together with the legislature and the cabinet. The pressure from the West and Ukraine’s strong civil society  are other factors that will constrain the space for maneuver of the future president.

Still, Zelenskiy’s potential victory raises a lot of questions—and produces uncertainty. While some believe that his presidency might be an opportunity for Ukraine, there seem to be a lot of risks, from Zelenskiy’s lack of political experience, to the absence of information about whom he would appoint, to his manipulative campaign, which produces contradictory messages and images rather than a clear vision of public policies. Sunday will show what Ukrainians really think of him.

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© REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko (the banner reads: “Russia – DNR together!”)

In the separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, some three million people are growing increasingly detached from the rest of the country. While there has been no official acknowledgement of the Kremlin’s influence, there has been plenty of evidence pointing to Russia’s role as the de-facto authority in the region. The leaders of the self-declared “People’s Republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk regularly declare that they see their future exclusively with Russia and only pay lip service to the Minsk agreement.

But the agreement, which stipulates that the government and the separatists negotiate a return to Ukraine, is deeply unpopular in Kiev as well. Legislators’ attempts to give the separatist areas a “special status,” as stipulated by the Minsk agreement, ended in August 2015, when four people were killed in clashes between police and right-wing activists outside the Ukrainian parliament. The protesters saw the move as a sell-out to Russia. Parliament subsequently failed to muster the 300 votes necessary to pass the legislation.

It was of little surprise then that a recent attempt by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to revive the peace process by convening his counterparts from France, Ukraine, and Russia for “Normandy Four” talks in Berlin on June 11 did not achieve an immediate breakthrough.

Instead, the bloody stalemate in Donbass looks set to continue. The frontline, dubbed “Line of Contact” by the Minsk negotiators, cuts arbitrarily through settlements and roads as well as electricity and water supply lines simply because this is where government troops and Russian-backed separatist forces came to a halt in February 2015.

It is perhaps the Minsk agreement’s only major achievement that the 500-kilometer long contact line has not been crossed since by a significant number of troops from either side. But that is due more to the consequences of military action than to actual compliance: the Ukrainians know that if they were to attack, Russia could swiftly send large military forces across the separatist-controlled border. The Russians and separatists, in turn, know that any military advance on their side is likely to be met by a much more professional and disciplined Ukrainian army—and likely another round of Western economic sanctions.

The respect for the frontline does not exclude exchange of fire, however, with wide-range indirect weapons such as artillery, mortars, and multiple rocket launchers in use by both sides. Despite the Minsk agreement’s stipulation that such heavy arms should be withdrawn from the front, they have been deployed nearly every time fighting has escalated since 2015.

The Information War

What lies behind the outbreaks of violence if they won’t achieve significant territorial gains? It has become a sad ritual in this conflict to initiate deadly battles only to make tactical gains in the perceived information war between Russia and the West. One of the bloodiest phases took place at the end of January 2017, when at least 37 people, including seven civilians, were killed in and around a town north of Donetsk called Avdiivka.

Significantly, the fighting occurred in between two phone calls: on January 28, newly-elected US President Donald Trump called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for the first time and pledged to seek cooperation over Ukraine and other issues. And on February 4, Trump held his maiden phone call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in which he told him that the US “will work with Ukraine, Russia, and all other parties involved to help them restore peace along the border.”

Whether the outbreak of fighting was more in Ukraine’s or in Russia’s interest is not entirely clear. But Kiev has shown many times that it will try for even minor advances if the opportunity arises. Since 2015, government troops have moved into a number of small settlements located in the so-called gray zone. In November 2017, Ukrainian forces entered Hladosove and Travneve, two frontline villages in the Donetsk region, just when the Donetsk “People’s Republic” was busy sending troops to support a putsch in the neighboring Luhansk “People’s Republic.”

And in May, when rumors began swirling that Putin would sack his powerful aide Vladislav Surkov as the Kremlin’s Donbass point man, Ukrainian troops entered Chyhari, a tiny Donetsk settlement just west of the separatist-held city of Horlivka.

While moving closer to the contact line does not violate the Minsk agreement’s letter, it clearly goes against its spirit by increasing the risk of escalation. In some areas, the opponents’ frontline positions now lie less than 100 meters apart.

No Sign of Compromise

Events this spring also gave the Ukrainian military reason to feel emboldened. On May 1, the “Reintegration Law” handed command of the military operation in the east from the SBU security service to the Armed Forces, and the mission was promptly named “Joint Forces Operation.” The military was further rewarded with the delivery of long awaited US Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Last but not least, Ukrainian politicians are gradually shifting into campaign mode as the country prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019. President Poroshenko is expected to stand for another five-year term, but his approval ratings are currently at a miserable seven percent, according to a June 14 poll by the Kiev-based think tank Razumkov Center. Given the widespread patriotic and anti-Russian sentiment in the country, the government is unlikely to agree to any concessions in the Donbass.

On the Russian side, any hopes for change were crushed when Putin reappointed Surkov on June 13. The move came after a month of speculation that the long-time Kremlin spin-doctor would be replaced. Instead, the Kremlin is signaling a continuation of its previous policies: despite officially adhering to the Minsk agreement, Russia supports the separatists financially and militarily, while its state-controlled media keeps publishing anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

Can Peacekeepers Find a Solution?

Given these multiple impasses, it is understandable that negotiators have jumped on the idea of a UN peacekeeping force, something that was long promoted by Ukraine and suddenly endorsed by Putin in the fall of 2017.

However, consensus is proving elusive here, too, because Putin’s endorsement comes with strings attached. According to the Kremlin, the peacekeepers should only be deployed along the Contact Line, in order to protect the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe’s existing Monitoring Mission.

In theory, a round-the-clock observation of the frontline by armed UN peacekeepers might reduce the level of violence, as the unarmed OSCE monitors do not work in darkness for security reasons. But it is unclear how such a force could offer effective protection against well-armed and entrenched troops on both sides. Overall, the Russian proposal seems mostly designed to protect the current separatist civilian and military structures.

This is why Ukraine and most of its allies reject the Russian proposal and call for a well-armed international force that should take over control of the “People’s Republics,” including the state border with Russia.

The “People’s Republics” lie at the heart of another, more fundamental, dispute. Because of their illegal foundation, Ukraine and the West demand their dissolution. Kurt Volker, the US Special Representative to Ukraine, said in March that this is central to the Minsk agreement’s purpose of restoring constitutional order. “Implementing Minsk = dissolution of these illegal structures. Unwillingness to disband = unwillingness to implement Minsk,” Volker wrote on Twitter.

Russia and the separatists reject this. In a recent interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, the Luhansk “foreign minister” Vladislav Deinego argued that his “People’s Republic” would remain an “independent subject” entering into treaties with Ukraine.

While the Minsk agreement details a list of rights that includes a law-enforcing people’s militia, it stipulates that Kiev and the separatists hold a dialogue over their exact status. Nowhere does the document mention “People’s Republics;” it speaks of “Certain Areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk Regions” instead. It is important to remember, too, that the seperatist leaders also signed all three parts (Protocol, Memorandum, and “Package of Measures”) of the agreement.

Two Billion Euros per Year

When the agreement was signed, it was expected that the conflict could be settled within weeks or months. Three years later, the “People’s Republics,” despite being recognized by nobody except separatist South Ossetia, are on their way to becoming de-facto states with their own governments (Luhansk alone boasts 19 ministries), passports, vehicle number plates, school curriculums, diplomas, and so on. Their currency is the Russian ruble, and clocks are set according to Moscow time.

The longer people live (and die) in this reality, however imagined or illegal, the harder reintegration into Ukraine will get. Some hope that their sheer size might force Moscow to give up the “People’s Republics.” The subsidies necessary to feed the region’s aging populations—many young people and skilled workers are thought to have left—and sizable armies are estimated at well over €2 billion a year.

And while Ukraine has a mixed track record of winning the local population’s hearts and minds, showing off economic success can be a promising strategy. Already today, Ukrainian wages and pensions are significantly higher: in the Donetsk “People’s Republic,” an average salary is 10,000 rubles (€136), compared to 8,927 hryvna (€287) in government-controlled areas.

Supporting Ukraine, its economy, civil society, and democratic institutions therefore seems the most promising way to end the conflict in the Donbass. With an estimated one million crossings of the Contact Line every month, Ukrainian soft power may, in the end, prove decisive.

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© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

After the last reactor at Chernobyl was shut down in 2000, Ukraine was left with four nuclear power plants (NPPs) with a total of 15 pressurized water reactors. But the political and economic uncertainty in the country is having an extremely negative effect on nuclear security. According to the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate, there were 30 malfunctions at Ukrainian NPPs in 2017 alone. This is a problem that the international community needs to deal with—a major accident in Ukraine would have consequences far beyond the country’s borders.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian NPPs have only been repaired in the most urgent cases. Nor are the facilities being modernized, which shows how little attention Ukraine pays to nuclear and radiation security. Even when upgrades do take place, there are some components in nuclear reactors that cannot be replaced and that degrade over time, such as the high pressure vessel. Thirteen of Ukraine’s 15 reactors have exhausted or nearly exhausted their performance potential. Nevertheless, Ukraine has decided in these unsafe conditions to extend the lifespan of several nuclear power plants for eight to ten years—without the consent of the Russian state corporation for nuclear energy, Rosatom, which built the Ukrainian plants.

In 2016 alone, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recorded ten accidents at Ukrainian NPPs. For example, an emergency situation occurred in the first unit of the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant on July 16, 2016, when there was a pressure build-up in the steam generating unit and the first power unit was disconnected from the electricity mains for repairs. The Ukrainian Government assured citizens that no radioactive material was released into the environment. But Andrey Artemenko, a Ukrainian MP, claims that the government concealed the serious nature of the accident. Officials failed to report that depressurization of the nuclear fuel cartridges also took place during the accident.

Since 2014, at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, various power units have been shut down more than ten times. A loss of power in November 2015 was especially troubling: all soldiers and officers were given special equipment for protection from radiation and chemicals. In the same year, journalists revealed that more than 3000 spent nuclear fuel rods were being stored under an open sky, protected only by metal barrels. There is more to worry about than the weather. The plant is situated near the contested Donetsk region and is therefore exposed to combat operations. Currently only four out of six units work at the most powerful nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Poor Maintenance and a Bigger Load

Even critical security updates, like the ones identified during stress tests performed after the Fukushima disaster, are running years behind schedule in Ukraine. The South Ukraine NPP is just one of the vulnerable stations. The wear and tear on some elements in the reactor vessel already exceeds the permissible levels tenfold. Every year, emergency shutdowns occur at all power units of this station.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that the load on nuclear power plants is increasing, due to a lack of coal and a number of combined heat and power stations going offline. From 2013 to 2017, the share of nuclear power in Ukraine increased from 47 to 60 percent, despite the many violations of IAEA norms and safety measures at nuclear plants. Nuclear power in Ukraine is carrying a bigger load just as it becomes less safe—not coincidentally.

Geopolitical tensions have also made things more dangerous. In 2005, Ukrainian NPPs began switching to US-made nuclear fuel, primarily for political reasons. That is one reason why Russia, which built the power plants, is no longer ready to guarantee their security. In fact, the US fuel is not intended for Russian reactors. Its use still leads to failures and malfunctions, despite constant improvements For example, in June 2017, the third power unit of the South Ukraine NPP was shut down because of a loss of pressure. After the incident, a group of employees at the South Ukraine NPP appealed to the prime minister of Ukraine, demanding they be allowed to immediately stop using Westinghouse nuclear fuel at the NPP due to the high risk of safety violations. However, political leaders are not planning to end cooperation with the American company, and new uses of Westinghouse fuel have been approved.

Nuclear and Unprotected

In early 2014, as Ukraine entered political chaos, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent official letters to NATO, to the United States and the EU asking for help providing security. Ukraine got some help: the USA took part in exercises to protect the critical infrastructure at the Zaporizhia NPP in October 2017, and Ukraine was included in the NATO Center of Excellence for Energy Security.

But on the whole, Ukrainian nuclear and radiological infrastructure facilities are protected badly. In March 2017, the Aidar battalion, a volunteer unit formed to fight Russian forces, occupied the premises of the Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Safety Issues of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Neither the state security service officers nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs was able to prevent this from happening. Then in September 2017, charges were brought against men who had been illegally digging at a radioactive waste disposal site in Kropyvnytskyi to find metal for sale. Meanwhile, the chemical factory at Pridniprowski is unprotected by armed guards. It could be the target of a terrorist attack.

Cybersecurity is often not provided either. One issue is that, under Ukrainian law, it is the owner of a facility who is legally responsible for its safety, rather than the state. This means that some facilities are unprotected. “In Ukraine, the protection of important infrastructure facilities from cyberattacks has seven points on a scale from one to ten,” said Dmitry Dubov, head of the Information Security and Information Society Development Department of the National Institute for Strategic Studies.

According to regulations, the work of nuclear facilities is supposed to be monitored by an independent nuclear regulatory agency, the SNRIU. But in fact the heads of departments at the NPPs are being appointed by the state corporation Energoatom, meaning that the regulators are subordinate to the business they are meant to be regulating. On top of this, many top positions in the Ukrainian state regulator remain unfilled. For example, the position of Chief State Inspector for Nuclear and Radiation Safety has been vacant for three years.

Who Gets the Contracts?

In this muddled regulatory situation, there is no pressure on Energoatom to stick to international standards. The state corporation has been signing contracts with unqualified, inexperienced firms to provide technical reports on its facilities. For example, Ukrainian security authorities discovered in 2017 that a private firm’s report was full of mistakes. The emergency diesel generators, meant to cool the reactors if the power went out, were in fact not functioning properly. There are also indications that Energoatom employees are being hired and fired based on their political views.

The journal Energy Research & Social Science emphasizes that “most of the crashes and incidents in the Ukrainian energy sector have not been included in the reports in the past few years, although state media confirm that they happened.” And although the sector is underfinanced, people have still been finding ways to steal money: the general director of the Chernobyl NPP was recently accused of embezzling $690,000.

In 2001, Ukraine ratified the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management, which states that all nuclear waste should be stored on the responsible country’s national territory. All contracts with Russia regarding nuclear fuel reprocessing contain the clause that in 2018, Ukraine should start getting back the products of its fuel processing. If not, international sanctions will be applied.

Storing Waste in the Chernobyl Zone

With this deadline in mind, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency had in fact approved a feasibility study in 2013 for the construction of a centralized repository to store Ukraine’s nuclear waste; it was to be located in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. However, there are some problems with the new construction: First of all, the tender for a contractor was neither transparent nor open. Secondly, the American company Holtec International, the winner of the tender in 2015, lacks the necessary experience and technological tools to handle this type of construction. Thirdly, the issue of waste burial is managed only by the Ukrainian side without international support. It is unclear how the facility will be protected from terrorists and intruders.

Since 2015, the cost of the project has increased from 126 to 300 million dollars. The construction has been postponed several times because the state regulator refused to include the necessary expenses in the Energoatom costing.

Additionally, problems have arisen with the distribution of land in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. In October 2016, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated 45.2 hectares in the exclusion zone to the the depository. The land was in the Kiev district, not far from the capital of Ukraine and the country’s main river, the Dnepr. Normally, such nuclear waste storage facilities would be placed far from large cities and rivers to prevent radioactive contamination.

Dangerous Money Problems

The average monthly salary for an expert working in a Ukrainian repository for spent radiation sources is about $220. However, salaries at the state corporation Energoatom are way higher, which obviously makes it difficult to attract highly qualified personnel to do the dirty work with nuclear waste. The low paychecks affect the workplace culture. In June 2017, smoke spread throughout the old Chernobyl nuclear power plant after a worker left a cigarette butt on the floor.

The infrastructure of the Ukrainian state corporation Radon, whose special integrated plants temporarily store spent ionizing radiation sources, has long been funded only out of leftover funds. Consequently, the Kiev Special Integrated Plant finds itself in critical condition, as shown by a spate of localized radiation accidents. The problem can only be solved by getting rid of the old repositories, but that requires resources that Ukraine does not have. The authorities do not even have enough money to buy petrol for transporting waste from obsolete special plants, or to immediately transport all radioactive waste into the exclusion zone. What money there is comes from foreign institutions. Money is so tight that the Minister of Natural Resources has offered to rent out part of the premises in Chernobyl.

The NPPs themselves are also suffering from financing issues. According to recent research, 60 percent of surveyed Ukrainian experts consider the depreciation of equipment to be the key challenge for nuclear industry in Ukraine. Estimates say it would cost a billion dollars to prolong the lifespan of all 15 power units. Since Energoatom doesn’t have that money, €600 million were taken from Euroatom and the EBRD on credit in 2014. There was hope of support from Westinghouse, but in 2017 the US company (owned, at the time, by Japan’s Toshiba) declared bankruptcy. This means Westinghouse will hardly be able to sponsor the upgrade of Ukrainian nuclear power plants. So the nuclear security of Europe depends on the Ukrainian government ability to find other foreign investors.

It’s Even Worse in the East

The security situation is worst in areas where the Ukrainian government does not have control. In Eastern Ukraine there are numerous nuclear facilities unable to regulated and controlled. Among them are 1200 sources of ionizing radiation, 65 facilities using ionizing radiation sources, and a repository for radioactive waste and ionizing radiation sources near the Donetsk chemical plant.

There is no up-to-date information on these facilities, but it is clear that they are increasingly unsafe. In July 2015, the National Security Agency found that rebels in Luhansk had sold a number of ionizing radiation sources from occupied coal mines in the area. In March 2016, the National Security Agency intercepted three ionizing radiation sources in Zaporizhia, which allegedly had been transported into Ukraine through uncontrolled areas on the Ukrainian-Russian border.

Military actions in the east of Ukraine have a direct impact on nuclear safety. For example in 2015, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was forced to conduct an emergency shutdown due to the disruption of electricity supply to the Crimea. That same year, an explosion of ammunition near the Donetsk chemical plant threatened a repository for radiation sources nearby.

The combination of all these risk factors means that Ukraine presents a serious threat of nuclear accidents and huge radioactive contamination not only to itself but to all of Europe. The international community urgently needs to check where Ukraine is violating international nuclear safety standards. If any violations are found, Ukraine nuclear facilities must be suspended or shut down.

It is also necessary to establish a special international commission under the aegis of the IAEA to monitor Kiev’s steps in the field of radioactive waste management and its conformity with key treaties like the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Convention on Nuclear Safety.

At the moment, the Ukrainian national regulatory authorities cannot guarantee the necessary control of nuclear safety in all areas of the country. The world should help them.

The post Atomic Mess appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Cover artwork: © Mitch Blunt

Dear Mr. or Ms. Chancellor,

Your new government is likely to have considerable political clout in the Ukraine conflict. While US foreign policy remains in relative disarray and France is led by an inexperienced president, Berlin could assume a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel (know her?), Berlin was already in a strong position. But your government should step up the pressure to find a solution both the government in Kiev and the Kremlin can live with. Here are a few pointers:

Stick to the Minsk Agreement.  Yes, it has proven tricky to implement, but it is the only agreement currently in existence. Any attempt to renege or replace it risks a dangerous hiatus and would give both sides incentives to act irresponsibly.

Step up the pressure on both Kiev and Moscow to implement said agreement. The longer non-implementation lasts, the higher the risk of frustrated players calling for a military solution.
Keep the United States involved. This won’t be easy given the Trump administration’s erratic foreign policy record. Make it clear to Washington that arms deliveries to Ukraine will only make matters worse.
Be honest about NATO. The possibility of Ukraine joining the US-led alliance was a key motivation for Moscow to annex Crimea and destabilize the Donbass. Now the Ukrainian public deserves to know that the West is not ready to embrace a new NATO member facing the real threat of a Russian invasion. Georgia is a point in case.

Do not ease sanctions against Russia unless there is substantial progress. In fact be prepared to introduce new sanctions. Moscow is responsible for igniting the conflict and keeps adding fuel to the fire, be it by sending arms and fighters or by spreading anti-Ukrainian sentiment via state TV. The international community (read: the West) must signal that it does not tolerate the violation of borders and meddling in sovereign states’ internal affairs.

Do more to explain the sanctions policies to domestic audiences and EU partners. Economic sanctions can be extremely powerful because the West, if it stands united, is far stronger than Russia. President Vladimir Putin clearly understands this, unlike some in the West.

Keep up the pressure on Kiev to carry out reforms and root out corruption. This is not only necessary to honor the agreements with the EU, but also a crucial part of any solution to the conflict with Russia.

Ukraine is undoubtedly the victim of Russian aggression, but it nevertheless bears some responsibility for the ease with which Moscow won control over Crimea and parts of Donbass. Ukrainian officials like to claim that people will side with Kiev as soon as they stop watching Russian TV, but this is by no means a given. Only a prosperous and stable Ukraine can become an attractive alternative to Russia’s “Russky Mir” Soviet nostalgia.

Don’t let the West be held hostage to Ukrainian demands. An effective peacekeeping force would require vast resources, while free elections in the Donbass are impossible as long as the pro-Russian military dictatorships disguised as “people’s republics” are in place.

Develop new recipes against Moscow’s ongoing propaganda campaign. While talk of “hybrid war” is often vastly exaggerated, Russian state media continues to poison the hearts and minds of audiences in Russia and (eastern) Ukraine.  Foreign news outlets and recently created fact-checking and anti-fake news websites tend not to reach those audiences. Foreign governments would do better supporting home-grown critical media outlets like Russia’s Dozhd TV or Ukraine’s Novosti Donbassa.

The post What Germany Needs to Do Next … On Ukraine appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© picture alliance/AP Photo/Ekaterina Lyzlova

Eurovision, the annual contest in which European nations compete against one another to produce the best song, has been no stranger to political controversies over its 60 years. But nothing compares to what is now unfolding in Kiev.

This year, the song contest has become entangled in today’s most controversial and beguiling geopolitical conflict – Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.

The stage was set last May, when Ukrainian contestant Jamala scored a shock win in the 2016 contest with a song about Crimea. It wasn’t explicitly about the current conflict. Instead, it was an emotionally intense song about the Soviet Union’s mass deportations of Crimean Tatars to Siberia in 1944.

In that song, the Kremlin did not see an innocent historical tale. They saw a protest against the current Russian actions in Crimea, by a singer they say has close ties to Ukrainian nationalists. The Russian media and political elite were furious. The winning country always hosts the contest the following year, and it was widely expected Russia would refuse to participate in the contest in 2017.

As the time for this year’s contest drew closer, Russia kept everyone guessing. For months, they would not say whether they would participate. Finally, on March 12, just one day before the deadline to submit an entry, Moscow suddenly announced they would enter the song “Flame is Burning,” to be sung by Julia Samoilova. She is a former finalist on the Russian version of X Factor.

Had Russia relented? Had they decided to extend an olive branch, and stand by their insistence (made vociferously in objection to last year’s win) that the contest should remain free from politics?

At first it looked that way. The song is completely innocuous. Samoilova is a lovely woman, who has been in a wheelchair since childhood, suffering from spinal muscular atrophy. But it soon emerged that all was not as it appeared. Samoilova had performed a concert in Crimea in 2015, one year after Russia’s annexation, which is considered illegal by most of the world. Under Ukrainian legislation in place since 2014, anyone who has visited the territory under Russian occupation has violated Ukrainian law and is not allowed to enter the country.

Falling into the Kremlin’s Trap

Moscow certainly knew that by selecting an artist who had performed in Crimea, they were putting Kiev in a difficult situation. Either they would climb down from the ban, exempting Samoilova from the law during her visit for the Eurovision contest, or they would ban a sweet girl in a wheelchair from participating.

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian security services confirmed that they have chosen the latter. Samoilova will be prevented from entering Ukraine if she tries to travel to Kiev to compete in the song contest.

And with that, Ukraine fell right into Russia’s trap.

The indignant reaction from Moscow was as swift as it was predictable. The Russian deputy foreign minister called Ukraine’s decision “outrageous, cynical, and inhumane.” Several Russian MPs are calling for the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, to move it to a different country. One MP has said that if Russia can’t participate this year, then it should never participate again.

The EBU is now in a difficult situation. The contest is two months away and it would be almost impossible to move it to another location. If they lean too heavily on Ukraine to not implement its own law, it will look like they are giving in to Russian pressure.

But that pressure is intense. The folks at EBU headquarters in Geneva are terrified of Russia pulling out of Eurovision, given that the song contest has some of the highest ratings in that country.

The Wurst Factor

This is not the first time that Russia has threatened to walk away from Eurovision. After the bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst won the contest in 2014 for Austria, Russian politicians demanded that the country pull out because Eurovision had become “a celebration of perversion.”

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to revive the old Cold War alternative to Eurovision, Intervision. Plans were announced just two weeks after Conchita’s victory in 2014, but they never got off the ground.

The contest was going to include any Eastern European states that wanted to join, as well as Central and East Asian states. The EBU is very worried about Russia breaking away and establishing its own rival contest, particularly after Turkey’s then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pulled his country out in 2012 to launch his own Turkvision contest with other Turkic-speaking nations.

Eurovision has seen its ratings explode over the past two decades as the contest has gained a huge new audience in Eastern Europe. It’s now the most widely watched live entertainment event in the world each year, with new audiences developing globally. It is big business, and a Russian withdrawal could jeopardize that.

And so, the EBU tried to walk a fine line saying that while they are “deeply disappointed” in the Ukrainian decision, “we have to respect the local laws of the host country.” They also said they would enter into talks with Ukraine, “with the aim of ensuring that all artists can perform.”

But the EBU has lost this battle before – there is precedent in Azerbaijan. That country won the song contest in 2011, creating an awkward situation because it is still in a (cold) war with its neighbor Armenia, another participant in the contest. Armenians are banned from entering Azerbaijan, leaving it an open question of how Armenia would compete in the contest in Baku. The EBU entered talks with Azerbaijan about making a two-day exemption for the law for Eurovision, but Baku wouldn’t budge. In the end, Armenia decided to pull out.

Given its track record, it seems uncertain that the EBU will be able to convince Ukraine to bend its law. Then again, the aggrieved country is in a very different league this time around. The EBU could afford to anger Armenia in 2012. Can it afford to anger Russia?

Either way, Moscow will win this battle. If Kiev is forced to back down and allow Samoilova into the country, it will be a humiliating blow to the Ukrainian cause. If Russia pulls out of the contest this year because Ukraine banned their singer, it will be Ukraine that looks petty and irrational – and Russia who looks misunderstood and persecuted. More importantly, it may give Putin the excuse he needs to permanently pull out of the contest despite its huge popularity in Russia and revive Intervision.

Once again, Russia’s president has outmaneuvered his opponents. And he did it by manipulating them into harming themselves. All for the sake of a song contest.

The post Sing When You’re Winning appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Andrea Shalal

Germany held the OSCE presidency last year. How did Berlin perform? Performance is very dependent on structures – or rather some structural problems concerning the OSCE observer mission in Ukraine. It is one of the biggest missions, and it works on the principle of consensus. That, of course, is not very easy to find among so many members. There are also concerns over offending the Russians because that can make the institution unworkable, especially since the Russians are very sophisticated when it comes to creating bureaucratic and political obstacles. Let’s not forget that Russia is the aggressor and therefore part of the problem. When much of what the OSCE does is not based on a majority vote but rather on consensus, then Russia can block funding or prevent mandates from being renewed. There is – and that is important to understand – an institutional constraint on what the OSCE really can deliver.

Does “blocking” include preventing the proper attribution of actions by the parties involved in the OSCE reports? Yes. If you spend a lot of time reading those mission reports, you can figure out what happened. You won’t find a summary at the top, saying “there were fifty shells launched, or fifty ceasefire violations, and the analysis shows that 45 of them came from Russian-held territory.” In the reports we’d rather read that shells were coming from this side of the line, or a certain village. The evidence is there, if you are familiar with the territory and if you have a map. You would really have to go deep into the details for the reports to be usable. Most people, however, read the summary that counts the ceasefire violations without naming the violators. Very early on, it was mainly, but not only, the Russian members of the team blocking attempts at proper attribution – and that then became the norm. When Germany became chair, this practice was not changed. It was viewed as a sufficient practice because at least we had monitors on the ground.  But it becomes more problematic when we see an escalation like we have in recent weeks. We’d read in the reports that Ukrainian territory was hit …

… which would make pretty clear where the shelling came from. Indeed, because it would be hard to claim that Ukrainians would shell their own territory. However, the Russians have become so good at using the reports – and the lack of “official attribution” – to blame the Ukrainians. Not that they would fool the United States with that, or certain other states. This is meant for their own audience and increasingly also for European audiences, as part of a sophisticated “fake news” campaign. They’d use the OSCE reports to report that there was shelling; they’d claim that this shelling was done by Ukrainians – and after all, the report doesn’t say that it was the Russians, does it? And they’d feed their media outlets with it, including RT and Sputnik of course, but they’d also push it on German, French, and Italian media outlets to sway public opinion in Europe. When RT Germany then publishes a story like that, they’d channel it back into Russian TV, claiming that “even German TV reported on this” – even though RT certainly is not “German TV.” Russia puts much more effort into this propaganda war because the stakes are higher for them. They put a lot of resources into this. They have no independent media. If the United States did this, The New York Times would be on this in a second.

If this is a structural problem in the OSCE mission, giving advantage to the aggressor party, why don’t we see efforts to tackle the issues? A chairman could change the process, and we have seen diplomats who were relentless in pushing the matter of attribution. Ideally, it would be great to have an executive committee that could make decisions by simple majority instead of a consensus approach. But then, you would not want to be seen as a chair who was undermining the effectiveness of the organization. It is different, of course, when there is a chair who generally is a great believer in multilateral institutions and organizations. So the problem very often seems to be that procedure is more valuable than outcome. The feeling seems to be that we have to keep the process going, even if we are legitimizing Russia’s ceasefire violations – because we can’t lose the OSCE. The problem there is: Does the OSCE then still serve its purpose in this conflict?

The post “Does the OSCE Still Serve Its Purpose?” appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

For three years now, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has deployed civilian observers in Ukraine. From a humble beginning in March 2014, when ten teams with ten members each were dispatched throughout the country, the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) has grown to currently just over 700 international observers, with some 600, or 85 percent, in the conflict-ridden eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. With a total staff of more than 1100 (as of February 2017), it is the biggest field mission in the OSCE’s history – and among the most controversial.

Having said that, the mission’s achievements have been widely acknowledged by the OSCE’s 57 member governments, who voted unanimously to prolong the mission in 2015 and 2016.

First, the SMM daily reports, which are published in English and translated into Russian and Ukrainian, are a unique resource of objective information about a conflict in which local media – on both sides – tend to be biased and international media tend to be absent.

On the ground, the OSCE has become a vital international element, especially since foreign aid organizations like Doctors Without Borders and People in Need were kicked out of the separatist “People’s Republics.” It should not be overlooked that the mission’s two teams working in eastern Ukraine are both headquartered in the separatist “capitals” of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that its monitors cross the contact line between the hostile sides dozens of times every day.

Moreover, the mission’s mandate tasks observers with monitoring not only security issues but also human rights and fundamental freedoms. The OSCE may not be a humanitarian organization, but beyond recording ceasefire violations, its monitors pick up significant amounts of information about the lives of civilians on a daily basis. When they pass this information on to the right people, they can reduce human suffering, as when they reported on the removal of unexploded ordnance.

More fundamentally, the OSCE’s participation in the ongoing Minsk negotiations (the Trilateral Contact Group) and the fact that senior mission members regularly commute between Minsk, Donbass, and Kiev, give the SMM a key role in overseeing the Minsk agreement’s implementation.

Obligations like the withdrawal of heavy weapons, stipulated in the Minsk Protocol, and the so-called disengagement agreement signed last year hinge on the continuous verification by OSCE observers on the ground. It is not enough to state that an obligation has been fulfilled; it is vital that compliance (or the lack thereof) is monitored daily as long as an agreement lasts.

Despite this, the OSCE has come under criticism for its role in the restive region. And Ukrainians are not unanimously satisfied with the mission, even though it was their government that requested it.

A survey conducted by the Kiev-based Gorshenin Institute in February 2016 found that almost half of respondents (46.9 percent) do not approve of the mission’s work to support the Minsk agreement’s implementation, while more than a third (35.6 percent) approved. No comparable surveys have been conducted in Russia or in the separatist-controlled areas recently, but judging from the general tone in Russian state-run media, public opinion is unlikely to be much better. In a survey by the Moscow-based independent Levada Center in April 2014, 58 percent of respondents said that they believe that the OSCE mission was biased toward the Ukrainian government, while just 19 percent found the mission to be objective.

To a large extent, such numbers reflect the criticism of the mission among political and military leaders on both sides. After all, the conflict in Donbass lies at the heart of the split between Russia and the West, leaving the mission exposed not just to guns and artillery but also to the sort of information warfare that has become a hallmark of this conflict.

Cameras of Contention

A standard complaint is that the OSCE’s work in Ukraine lacks objectivity. Take the comments made by the leader of the Donetsk “People’s Republic,” Alexander Zakharchenko, in January. Speaking during a visit to Crimea, Zakharchenko claimed that the mission’s observation cameras were looking only in the separatists’ direction, and transmitting video footage straight to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. “Their soldiers are sitting at those cameras watching our movements,” he was quoted by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Zakharchenko’s claims more or less mirror those voiced by the Ukrainian side when the mission set up its first observation camera one year ago outside Shyrokyne, a village close to the shore of the Sea of Azov. Back then, national television aired interviews with Ukrainian soldiers who said they suspected the signal would be transmitted to the other, i.e. separatist, side. That claim was later repeated by prominent Ukrainian television journalist Andriy Tsaplienko, who said that the camera only allowed the “Putinists” to watch the Ukrainians’ rear units.

The OSCE gave assurances that the camera transmission was encrypted so that it could only be seen by mission members, that its location allows for monitoring of both sides, and that it was chosen in agreement with both sides, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Vladislav Seleznyov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian General Staff, even pointed out that the number of shellings fell after the cameras were installed.

It is difficult to say if that message convinced more people than the criticism. What is clear, however, is that the mission’s communications efforts are complicated by persistent rumors that at least some of its monitors are not engaged in observing, but rather in spying. Allegations that Russian members use the OSCE to spy on Ukrainian forces have dogged the mission from its onset, as distrust against Russians runs deep among some Ukrainians, who see their neighbors as their enemy.

In late 2014 Ukrainian officials started to claim that up to eighty percent of the monitors were Russians, many of them with a background in the intelligence services. Following such disinformation, the mission began to publish its national composition in biweekly status reports. As of January 2017, Russian citizens made up 38 out of 709, or 5.3 percent of the SMM members. This did not prevent retired US General Wesley Clark from repeating such false claims during a talk in Washington, DC, after returning from a field trip to eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian activists use Clark’s unfortunate remarks to this day to tarnish the mission. Rather tellingly, they serve as the introductory post for a nationalist Twitter account that has in the past specialized in exposing mission members’ lack of impartiality.

OSCE officials also point out that passing on sensitive information is strictly prohibited under the OSCE Code of Conduct. All monitors must sign the agreement, which obligates them to “refrain from any action that might cast doubt on their ability to act impartially.”

When in October 2015 a clearly intoxicated Russian mission member in the Luhansk region was shown on Ukrainian TV saying that he was an operative for his country’s military intelligence service, the man was immediately removed. No evidence was presented to prove his drunken claim, but reservations among Ukrainian officials clearly remain. Just this January, Ukrainian General Boris Kremenetskiy said in a widely quoted interview that all Russian OSCE mission members are intelligence officers.

Kremenetskiy, who until December served as the Ukrainian head of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination, a Russian-Ukrainian military observer mission overseeing the ceasefire, refrained from demanding the Russians’ removal from the mission. But such demands have been voiced in the past. It is highly unlikely they will be heeded, given that the OSCE’s strict consensus principle would require Moscow’s approval.

The Ukrainians are not alone in their criticism. Spying allegations are a common feature in the separatists’ military dispatches as well. In May 2016 the Donetsk “People’s Republic” even alleged that monitors were transporting ammunition – a claim that was never backed up by any evidence.

Observers Are No Peacekeepers

These political limitations also tend to frustrate local civilians, who often expect that an international mission will do something to stop the fighting around them. But the OSCE observers cannot act as peacekeepers. They have no executive powers, meaning they cannot even stop a soldier on the street and demand proof of his citizenship. This is why the mission does not report regularly about Russian soldiers in the rebel-held “republics,” even though fighters recently introduced themselves to the observers as Russian citizens.

The fact that the mission is unarmed and composed of civilians also means that, with the current level of violence, patrolling must be limited to daylight hours. As this is widely known to both sides of the conflict, major attacks often happen at night. This has in turn led to increasing demands that the OSCE institute night patrol. An article in The New York Times last year accused the mission of keeping “bankers’ hours” instead of helping to “end the only active war in Europe.”

It is doubtful, however, that sending monitors out in the dark would do anything to change that. Given the strict curfews and soldiers’ nervousness along the contact line, it is likely that any vehicle or person approaching military checkpoints in the dark would be fired upon. The mission is lucky that there have been no fatal casualties among its members so far. Should this change, it will certainly test the contributing countries’ commitment to the extreme.

Under these circumstances, the mission has to walk a fine line between its obligations and the security of its own staff. Becoming a buffer or shield between the opposing sides is not just too dangerous for the monitors, it would also clearly overstep their mandate.

Over the past 18 months, the OSCE has done a lot to expand its monitoring capacities. It has spread out to permanently manned forward patrol bases, meaning that there are now 14 locations from which monitors can operate along the contact line, thus reducing travel times. It has introduced night watches from hotels and installed 24-hour surveillance cameras at hotspots like Donetsk Airport and Shyrokyne.

It has also started using smaller and flexible unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor areas deemed too dangerous to enter. The mission used to employ long-range UAVs, but their flights were suspended last summer after a series of crashes believed to be the result of direct fire.

The new OSCE chairman in office, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, has said that he wants to strengthen the mission. After talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on January 18, Kurz suggested both that monitoring would be extended into the night and that monitors should be better equipped. Lavrov said that the numbers of observers should be increased, and that they should be present around the clock.

However, this does not necessarily mean patrolling during the night. As in the past, the mission can use technical equipment like cameras and drones to carry out risky nighttime observations, and they can demonstrate 24-hour presence at weapons storage sites and the contact line by opening forward patrol bases there.

As Strong as Its Weakest Links

The OSCE mission’s limitations described here in many ways reflect what the West is ready to do collectively to restore Ukrainian sovereignty in the Donbass. While Kiev has long campaigned for an international peacekeeping presence, led by the UN, NATO, or even the OSCE, influential Western governments like Germany, France, and Italy agree that the conflict can only be solved if Russia is a party, rather than an adversary. In consequence, the OSCE, being the only regional security organization that includes Russia as a member, has become a keystone to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Its unarmed and civilian nature makes the observer mission acceptable to both parties and retains the spirit of the Minsk agreements, which call for the secessionist regions to be returned to Kiev’s administration by political compromise.

But with negotiations over the agreements’ implementation in a deadlock, Ukraine has over the past months stepped up its call for an armed mission, including the proposal to transform the current mission into an OSCE police mission.” The German Foreign Office, however, has argued that this would undermine the mission’s neutrality and unleash a host of new and more difficult problems.

The costs of an armed peacekeeping presence in Eastern Ukraine would also be massively higher than the current mission’s annual budget of just €100 million. For a robust peacekeeping mission in Eastern Ukraine to be effective, the international community would have to deploy around 50,000 troops, according to contemporary Russian and Ukrainian history expert Andreas Umland – more than seventy times as many as the current OSCE mission.

Most probably, Russia will be decisive for the future of the OSCE observers. Moscow itself has pushed for enlarging the mission – while at the same time turning a blind eye to the fact that the separatists restrict the mission’s work far more than government troops. It has also allowed campaigns in state-controlled media and protests against the SMM to go forward, as last happened on February 15 in Donetsk.

Put simply, improving the monitoring mission’s efficiency could be easy – if only there is political will.

N.B. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the chief monitor or the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

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© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

It has become almost cliché in foreign policy circles to call the Minsk agreements dead ends. And not without good reason: the diplomatic deal went into effect more than a year ago and not even the very first item on the list – the ceasefire – has been implemented. Both the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists accuse each other of frequent violations, and the recent Normandy summit in Berlin failed to bring any tangible breakthrough.

But we can’t ignore Minsk II’s most important achievement: hundreds, possibly even thousands of lives have been saved because of this document. The intensity of fighting has dropped off dramatically, effectively freezing the conflict. That’s not the only reason Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed these dual agreements. Both sides have their eyes set on another aspect, one that goes beyond humanitarian concerns and gives Minsk II a glimmer of hope.

Battle over Sanctions

For Poroshenko, Minsk II is a way to cement alliances with Western powers capable of influencing Moscow. Direct negotiations with the Kremlin are difficult for Kiev, and not just because of Russia’s traditional lack of respect for Ukrainian sovereignty. Putin believes he is waging a war against the West, and he sees Ukraine as a battleground.

For the Ukrainian government, sanctions are the best tool that Western powers can wield. And maintaining these sanctions is especially important for Kiev now that it’s willing to accept political compromises that would otherwise be unacceptable. Ukraine’s strategy rests on two basic principles: show your willingness to achieve peace, and show your counterpart’s unwillingness to adhere to Minsk II – therefore reinforcing the need to maintain sanctions.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe that Kiev will really implement the part of the agreement calling for constitutional reform and elections in the separatist-controlled parts of Donbass. The political risks there are simply far too high: It would be awkward for Kiev to legitimize the separatists after calling them terrorists, and there would be outrage if the government changed laws to suit Russian demands, a step many Ukrainians would consider capitulation.

So rather than undermine Minsk II to appease Ukrainians’ patriotism or implement the deal to appease Moscow, Poroshenko has gone a third route – playing for time as long as sanctions are on the table. Russia’s atrocities in Syria will keep this strategy alive through the next Normandy summit, but if it doesn’t pay off soon, there is a significant chance that Poroshenko will quit Minsk II altogether. There would be no incentive for the Ukrainian president to symbolically adhere to an agreement that has never exerted any real pressure on Putin.

This doesn’t mean that Kiev will immediately initiate an offensive in eastern Ukraine – it lacks the resources to succeed, and the human and financial cost would be far too great for Ukrainians to accept. But it would likely designate Donbass “occupied territory,” as it did with Crimea, and that would finally snuff out the Minsk agreement. It was, after all, written on the premise that there is no Russian military presence in Ukraine, and that the separatists are acting entirely on their own initiative.

Escalation on Demand

Sanctions also give Russia a reason to adhere to Minsk II. Moscow will not implement its security pledges as long as Kiev refuses to fulfill its political promises, but then it doesn’t need to – Putin’s main goal is to show Ukraine’s lack of willingness to implement Minsk II, and thus the absurdity of leveling sanctions against Moscow.

The Kremlin has no more faith in the agreement than Kiev. Putin sees the separatist enclaves as a powerful tool allowing him to ratchet up tensions whenever necessary. A real peace agreement would leave the Kremlin without a significant source of leverage on a country it sees as a legitimate geopolitical interest. As long as Kiev and its Western allies refuse to grant Russia uncontested domination of Ukraine, it will not let Donbass return to the country under Poroshenko’s conditions.

Minsk II lets Moscow keep its soldiers on the ground without further sanctions – there’s even the possibility that existing sanctions will be lifted. If these agreements were to collapse entirely, there is a risk that Putin could again utilize separatist attacks as leverage on Kiev or Western powers. It seems likely that the Kremlin will refrain from any large-scale offensive until the Normandy leaders decide that the agreement has to be enforced “unconditionally.”

A Frozen Peace

For the brokers of the deal, the situation isn’t ideal but it is acceptable. It won’t pave the way to the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, which is supposed to be the ultimate goal of Minsk II. But by “freezing” the conflict, François Hollande and Angela Merkel have been able to dial down the intensity dramatically, saving lives and buying time to address some of the damage the crisis has done.

Minsk II will not lead Russia to relinquish its post-imperial claims on Ukraine, nor lead Ukrainians to accept them – the core conflict will remain. But as long as sanctions are in place, the agreement helps Western leaders stabilize the situation and create a foundation for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in the future.

The post Flawed but Functioning appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

History can be a unifying, but also a dividing factor. Where do you see the dividing lines in the historical narratives of Russian and in Ukrainian history today?

Alexey Miller: The lines in that new confrontation are quite obvious. First of all, a division runs along what in the Russian historical narrative is called the Kiev Rus, which in the Russian historical narrative is the shared heritage of the Russians and the Ukrainians. In the Ukrainian narrative – and now I am talking about the primitive and aggressive version of this narrative – we deal with the notion that this Kiev Rus is the exclusive property of Ukrainian history. And then of course you have the Ukrainian narrative of Russian czardom and later the Russian empire, which for many centuries has been seen as the oppressor of “Ukrainianess” and the aggressor in Ukraine. In contrast to that, the Russian narrative sees the Moscovite and then the Russian state as the protector of Ukraine and the state, which invested very much in the development of this land.  This narrative continues into the Soviet state. Now, the Ukrainian narrative stresses the military clashes between Russians and Ukrainians, which in Russia would be considered an attempt to create an enemy.

Is there in the Ukrainian interpretation of history – in historiography – a “post-colonial moment”, one that emphasizes the “liberation” of the centuries-old protector/oppressor relationship?

Georgyi Kasianov: I appreciate the mentioning of historiography and the professional writing of history, as I was wondering which narrative we were discussing. One can distinguish between a narrative in media, in school textbooks, and professional history writing. As to the latter: There we see a more differentiated landscape, but certainly also a reorientation to the idea of a confrontation with the other, and that other is Russia. To be sure, we saw several constitutive others besides Russia, like the Ottoman Empire. But now we have the trend about Russia as the oppressor, as an evil empire. While this is still not the dominant narrative in historiography, it might very well be the dominant one in media.

We also have to distinguish between different levels of functioning of these narratives in schools, in media, and in professional historiography. If we were to assess the Russian narrative in school textbooks, Ukraine as such would be almost absent. It is not considered to be a separate entity at all. In Russian academia, Ukraine is treated in a much more serious way: Here at least Ukraine is recognized as a separate entity.

Miller: In that case I might not belong to the Russian academia, since I am very skeptical about recognizing Ukraine as a separate entity. Not because I insist that Ukraine is part of Russia, but simply because I think what stands behind this notion of a separate identity is a national narrative, and I am very skeptical about national narratives as such. We are talking about a space where so may actors over the centuries clashed, including the Moscovite czardom, the Polish Commonwealth, the Russian empire, which for a while became the dominant actor. I am not quite sure if it is a professionally productive perspective to look at Ukraine as a separate entity. The same would be fair about Russia in the sense that we cannot take Russians out of the context of the Russian empire.

Shouldn’t history be detached from territory, in the sense that a “national” history can be claimed without claiming territory? German history of course “stretches” into vast European territories, which are not seen as territory of the German state anymore – think of Immanuel Kant’s home of Königsberg/Kaliningrad. The problem with Ukrainian/Russian narratives seems to be that history could and does serve as a justification to also claim territory. Ukraine could and should be seen as a separate territorial entity even if its history is intertwined with Russia’s  – or the history of Poland and that of the Ottoman empire.

Kasianov: First of all, I appreciate that Alexey repeats an argument of Ukrainian nationalists concerning our history, which is: Russian history and Russia should be reduced to the size of the Muscovite czardom.

As to history and territory: The notion of territory is projected from our days to the past. When Ukrainians present their history as national history, we discuss at this moment national history, and national narratives. When they present their history in contemporary borders, they project contemporary borders to the past. It was thought that the process of a definition of contemporary Ukrainian territory was finished in 1954. And now we see that this is not the case due to the efforts of certain people outside. National history is being written in reverse: we have territory here, imagine Ukraine as a historical Ukraine and then we project it into the past. This is why Ukrainian national historians would think that the Kiev Rus is a part of Ukrainian history, because it is exactly on the territory of Ukraine.

Miller: I’m first of all skeptical about this interpretation of German history. The Federal Republic between 1949 and 1989 was an irredentist state which didn’t recognize the GDR as something that was a fixed reality. They wanted unification, insisted on it, and got unification at the end, which took the form of an incorporation of East Germany into West Germany.

When it comes to Russia and Ukraine, the most important fact that we have to recognize is: Neither Russia nor the Ukraine can be clearly defined and dealt with as a nation-state, because in both cases we are dealing with populations that are not recognized as single nations but as two or more politically organized and mobilized groups which claim to be nations.

Western political scientists, not Moscow spin doctors, argued that Ukraine belongs to those states that can only develop if they recognize that instead of nation-states they should be defined as “state-nations”, as some structure that recognizes and institutionalizes differences. That is exactly what has been addressed in the Minsk agreements with a special status for the eastern regions, and in the discussions about federalization. If that is not recognized one ends up with various unpleasant situations. Ukrainians does not fit the notion of the nation-state – just like Belgians who also do not fit the model of the nation-state.

Isn’t that a return to the concept of the nation-state as an ethnically monolithic entity? Or an entity bound together by a notion of common, authentic culture one is born into but can’t be acquired? Rather than accepting the nation-state as a political entity whose citizens agree on a set of rules and the rule of law? Is this, again, a question of “civilization versus culture”? Haven’t the Ukrainians been demonstrating on Maidan for the notion of a state based on the rule of law for citizens of different national/cultural backgrounds?

Kasianov: Let me first remark that I find it a little bit ironic that Alexey mentioned the Minsk agreement in the context of Ukrainian civic nation-building. I would think that Mr. Putin is pushing some different goals with the Minsk agreement, and certainly does not care for Ukrainian state-building, especially when one considers his statement that there is no Ukrainian state, not even in history.

Ukrainians certainly do not have much historical experience with building a civic state. But they are in the process of doing just that. We do see signs of a civic society, of pressure by this civic society toward the government. We do see a process that is of course complicated, but the goal has been described very correctly: A civic nation and a state that upholds and respects the principles of a civic nation.

Miller: When I insist that Ukraine cannot become a nation-state, I do not mean, however, that Ukraine cannot be a functioning state. It is not history which determines politics, it is politics which uses and abuses history, be it the history of Crimea, the Ukrainian east, or the question of who owns the past of the Kiev Rus. History can be helpful in understanding what is going on, but only when we have a better understanding of the historical roots of current events. Then we have to explore the consequences of a dissolution of imperial spaces, of Russia’s relationship towards Europe, of European Union’s expansion to the east, and whether the Ukrainian crisis marks the end of the eastward expansion of EU.

The interview was conducted by Sylke Tempel.

Georgyi Kasianov and Alexey Miller also took part in a live debate in Hamburg, Germany, on Monday, April 11, 2016. It was part of the “history@debate” series hosted by the Körber Foundation and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The video of the discussion can be viewed here.

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