PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
Contacts
Address 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 adminponars@gwu.edu 202.994.5915
NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace

    View
  • Russia’s Niche Soft Power: Sources, Targets and Channels of Influence

    View
  • A Weak Link in NATO? Bulgaria, Russia, and the Lure of Espionage

    View
  • Russia’s Weak Strongman: The Perilous Bargains That Keep Putin in Power

    View
  • Special Issue: Russia’s 2020 Constitutional Reform: The Politics of Institutionalizing the Status-Quo

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • How is the Russian Government Coping with Rising Food Prices? [Lipman Series 2021] March 15, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
  • The Communist Party of the Russian Federation: More Than Just Systemic Opposition? [Lipman Series 2021] March 5, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Felix Light and Nikolay Petrov about the contemporary Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including the divisions between its leadership and membership, its attitude toward Alexei Navalny, and why it might be more than just "systemic" opposition after all.
  • Internet Resources: Civic Communication and State Surveillance [Lipman Series 2021] February 16, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Andrei Soldatov and Tanya Lokot about the role of the internet in contemporary Russian politics, including both as a tool of the Russian opposition and as an instrument of the increasingly repressive Russian regime.
  • The Rise of Alexei Navalny's Political Stature and Mass Protest in Russia [Lipman Series 2021] February 1, 2021
    In the first PONARS Eurasia Podcast of 2021, Maria Lipman chats with Greg Yudin about the current protests taking place in Russia, and what Alexei Navalny's growing popular support means for the Putin regime.
  • Russian Social Policy in the COVID-19 Era [Lipman Series 2020] December 21, 2020
    In 2020’s final episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sarah Wilson Sokhey and Ella Paneyakh to discuss Russian social policy in the COVID-19 era, and public perception of Russia’s overall pandemic response.
  • Conscious Parenting Practices in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2020] December 10, 2020
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Julia Yuzbasheva and Maria Danilova to learn more about the proliferation of "conscious parenting" practices in contemporary Russian society.
  • The Transformation of Belarussian Society [Lipman Series 2020] November 11, 2020
    In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Masha Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe about the long-term and short-term factors that led up to the current protests in Belarus, and the ongoing transformation of Belarussian society.
  • Russian Lawmakers Adjust National Legislation to the Revised Constitutional Framework [Lipman Series 2020] October 26, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about ongoing changes to Russia’s national legislation based on the recently revised constitutional framework, and what these changes portend for the 2021 Duma election.
  • Russia's Regional Elections [Lipman Series 2020] September 25, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Graeme Robertson and Konstantin Gaaze about Russia’s September 13 regional elections and whether or not the Kremlin should be worried about upcoming Duma elections.
  • Understanding the Protests in Belarus [Lipman Series 2020] September 11, 2020
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Natalya Chernyshova (University of Winchester) and Nikolay Petrov (Chatham House) about the ongoing protests in Belarus, and what they mean for the future of the current regime.
  • In the News | Hовости

Achieving Unity in Ukraine

  • April 18, 2014

(CAP) The events of the past week in Ukraine have raised the specter of expanded Russian military intervention, political upheaval, and civil war. Moscow’s reputation in much of the country and in the international community is in tatters and is unlikely to recover soon, so long as the occupation of Crimea continues. The threat of greater U.S. and European sanctions against Russia remains if the situation does not improve.

For now, however, the West should act on an emergent opportunity to help Ukrainians keep their country together.

This opportunity is not about the joint statement that Ukraine, the European Union, the United States, and the Russian Federation negotiated yesterday in Geneva, which contains de-escalation measures that may or may not be implemented anytime soon. Instead, it has to do with the rise of legitimate constituencies in eastern Ukraine with which Kiev can and should negotiate the country’s future.

When Vice President Joe Biden visits Kiev next Tuesday, he must encourage Ukrainian authorities to quickly make good on their pledge of an “inclusive” and “transparent” process of constitutional reform, as promised in the joint statement. Specifically, Kiev should announce its intent to formally establish a constitutional assembly that includes not only national-level politicians, but locally elected leaders and members of civil society as well. Such a process would provide a more inclusive and transparent foundation for the rebalancing of central and local government power, and among central branches of power, than the reform efforts that are currently underway. This process should be followed by a new cycle of presidential, parliamentary, and local elections.

This crisis cannot be resolved by force. Ukrainian security forces were caught by surprise and were, and remain, ill equipped to resist a Russian-coordinated—and in many instances led—armed takeover of police, security, and other administrative buildings in the city of Donetsk and surrounding towns, as well as in Luhansk, the main city in the neighboring region. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov confidently proclaimed the start of an “anti-terrorist” operation to combat what local Russian-backed separatists dubbed the establishment of the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Ukrainian forces have defended a handful of facilities and used lethal force against armed attackers, and they should continue to secure and defend as many potential targets as they can. But pursuing a full-scale operation to take back occupied buildings and towns risks considerable civilian bloodshed, which will lead to an even graver crisis of government legitimacy in the east.

Worse, such an operation threatens to lead to failure. The chain of command is tenuous, as is the logistical capacity of Ukraine’s force structures to carry out professional military and security operations. Even after the start of the Ukrainian government’s counteroffensive, separatist gunmen continued to take buildings and block roads. And as talks in Geneva proceeded, a local television tower was taken with ease, although it was subsequently vacated. In a particularly unsettling display of government weakness, two columns of Ukrainian armored personnel carriers were surrounded by crowds of gunmen and unarmed locals. In that encounter, most of the soldiers in one Ukrainian army column surrendered their weapons and returned to base. The other column surrendered its vehicles without a fight, accepted an offer of a hot meal, and agreed to leave town.

Yesterday’s joint statement coming out of Geneva carries the promise of an alternative resolution to this growing crisis. The statement calls for the disarming of illegal armed groups and the return of seized buildings to their “legitimate owners,” among other measures, in exchange for an amnesty for most lawbreakers and the prompt establishment of a “broad national dialogue” on constitutional reform. The statement tasks the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, Special Monitoring Mission as the lead external partner in the disarmament effort. Since the end of March, the OSCE has deployed more than 100 unarmed civilian monitors throughout Ukraine, and can deploy up to 500 monitors at one time.

However, there are significant challenges to seeing through the actions called for in the joint statement. One might reasonably doubt Moscow’s commitment to a rapid de-escalation of a crisis it has so eagerly generated. A separatist leader in Donetsk has already said his group has no intention of abiding by the agreement unless the government in Kiev vacates its own “illegally” occupied buildings—an interpretation of the agreement that the Russian government might have intended from the start. In addition, Kiev has to itself ensure that members of Right Sector, the right-wing nationalist group that fought for regime change on the Maidan but has increasingly clashed with authorities, will lay down their arms.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to rely on the joint statement to begin seeking a resolution to the ongoing conflict. The rise of armed separatist formations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions has led to an equally vocal—but so far largely ignored—movement in those regions in support of defending local interests via legitimate political channels.

Even before the joint statement was issued, local deputies from the former ruling Party of Regions in Donetsk adopted a resolution calling on rebels in the region to lay down their arms and vacate occupied buildings, in exchange for amnesty and extensive decentralization reforms. Deputies of the city council of Mariupol, the second-largest city in the Donetsk region, posted an open letter on the council’s website imploring separatists taking up arms to “leave Mariupol alone”—this after members of Ukraine’s newly created national guard killed at least two Mariupol residents participating in an armed attack against their local garrison. In the city of Donetsk, demonstrators rallied in support of a unified Ukraine. Immediately prior, university students, faculty, and staff in Luhansk held a similar demonstration.

The joint statement notes that the constitutional reform process will include “outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies” and the “consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.” But it should go further than that.

Kiev should incorporate local politicians, professors, and peaceful protestors from Donetsk and Luhansk, as from all other regions of Ukraine, directly into the process of restructuring the state. Authorities should announce their intent to establish a constitutional assembly made up of elected and civil society representatives from around the country to institute fundamental constitutional and political reforms. Such an assembly could also finally settle the question of the legal status of the Russian language in Ukraine—a key demand of many in eastern Ukraine and elsewhere who speak Russian as their native language—in accordance with democratic European norms.

Kiev could go even further. The government could declare that once the new constitutional system is established, a new round of presidential, parliamentary, and local elections will be held. New parliamentary and local elections will be needed to allow Ukrainians to elect their leaders in the new constitutional context that will grant both parliament and local governments greater power. And while the upcoming presidential election in May is important for shoring up the existing government’s democratic legitimacy, the new president too ought to be a transitional figure, pending the adoption of the new constitution. Such a concession would reassure dissenters that the candidate who occupies the presidency will do so as an act of responsibility to the nation rather than being another power grab.

The events of the past week in Ukraine have exposed the frailty of the country’s latest transition. Vice President Biden’s trip to Kiev next week should be as much about building a foundation for Ukraine’s civic unity as about the West’s unwavering support for its sovereignty in the face of Russian aggression.

See the article here © Center for American Progress

 

+ posts
  • The Costs to the United States of the August 2008 War
  • У Еревана есть рычаги, позволяющие изменить статус-кво
  • Рустави-2: Защита свободы СМИ и верховенства права в Грузии
  • Закавказье за неделю: Грузия
Related Topics
  • EU
  • Russia
  • U.S.-Russian Relations
  • Ukraine
  • Welt
Previous Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Charap: They are going to keep the boots on Ukraine’s throat

  • April 18, 2014
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Итоги встречи в Женеве и истоки украинского кризиса

  • April 18, 2014
  • Sergey Markedonov
View
You May Also Like
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Вся политика инвестирована в одно-единственное тело

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 21, 2020
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Лукашенко отказался уходить и пообещал новую Конституцию вместо выборов

  • Arkady Moshes
  • August 18, 2020
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Кроме науки, он ничем не интересовался: В Минске задержали ученого, изучающего протесты

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • August 13, 2020
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Кимберли Мартен: Действенный шаг Вашингтона против «повара Кремля»

  • Kimberly Marten
  • July 23, 2020
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Laruelle “breaks down Russian nationalism”

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • June 15, 2020
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Война или переговоры: чем закончится конфликт между Ираном и США

  • Mikhail Troitskiy
  • June 27, 2019
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Первый тайм отыгран

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • April 1, 2019
View
  • In the News | Hовости

Только просветительством это не лечится

  • Ivan Kurilla
  • February 5, 2019

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.