PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

    View
  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

    View
  • Between the EU and Russia: Domains of Diversity and Contestation (April 29-30)

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

The Limits of Kudelia’s Argument: On the Sources of the Donbas “Insurgency”

  • October 31, 2014
  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky

In his recent PONARS Eurasia policy memo entitled “Domestic Sources of the Donbas Insurgency” and subsequent response to Andreas Umland’s critical remarks, Serhiy Kudelia seeks to convince the readers that “the Donbas insurrection [is] primarily a homegrown phenomenon.” 

While agreeing that “structural feasibility” (state fragmentation, violent regime change, and the government's low coercive capacity) and “group emotions” (resentment and fear) are important variables in explaining the case, I oppose the claim that the armed conflict in the Donbas has domestic sources.

Moreover, I believe, this well written memo is misleading for at least two reasons. First, it is unbalanced as it selectively relies on facts and figures. Second, the language Kudelia uses establishes a problematic frame for the perception of recent events in Ukraine.       

I will start with questioning the logical consequences of Kudelia’s argument. If the admixture of the structural and agency-based variables constitutes a sufficient condition for the eruption of separatist conflict in one region, we may well expect it should have launched secessionist movements in similar regions. However, it did not happen. 

Specifically, if we accept that the Donbas insurgency is primarily of internal nature and Russia has only “sustained” it, then we have difficulties in answering at least two obvious questions:

  1. Why did the Donbas secession begin after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and not before it? If both structural and agency conditions were in place right after the power change in Kyiv (February 22, 2014), then this secession would have occurred between late February and early March. However, the Donbas secession began in April, after Russia annexed Crimea. If one assumes that the secession was a result of a “demonstration effect” (the annexation of Crimea) then we come to the second question:
  2. Why did it succeed in Donetsk and Luhansk, but not in Kharkiv or Odesa? Kharkiv, the former Soviet capital, witnessed several attempts of violent seizure of government buildings led by “Oplot” (“Stronghold” – the name of the main, local separatist organization). Similarly, Odesa went through violent clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists that resulted in the deaths of more than forty people. Both cities are largely Russian speaking and both were governed by the local bosses of the former ruling party (Party of Regions). The resentment to, and fear of, “fascists” from Kyiv should have brought about the same results there as they did in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Who spread the fear?

Drawing on the literature of ethnic conflict, Kudelia mentions resentment and fear as emotions instrumental for the beginning of the internal conflict. Though the Donbas conflict can hardly be categorized as ethnic, I disagree with the author's claim that "In the Donbas, fear was a direct response to the growing prominence of nationalist paramilitary groups, like the "Right Sector, which spearheaded violent clashes with the police and seized public buildings."

Relying on figures from an opinion poll (to a question on the necessity of disarming illegal radical groups) without asking where the fear came from and why there are variations in responses to this question across the South East of Ukraine is shortsighted. The poll, actually, reveals quite ambivalent attitudes of the respondents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the Right Sector. While 36 percent of respondents in Donetsk and 40 percent in Luhansk sees the Right Sector as one of a dozen marginal groups having little weight in the political process, 50 and 42 percent of respondents of the same regions believed that the Right Sector is a large and influential military formation that poses a threat to citizens and the country's integrity[1].

The questions on the role of Russia in the conflict reflect quite interesting opinions, which Kudelia prefers not to discuss. When asked directly “Do you agree that Russia is an organizer of the separatist meetings and seizures of governmental buildings in the South East of Ukraine,” 17 and 21 percent of respondents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, respectively, said “yes.” Answering the control question if Russia is rightfully protecting the interests of the Russian speakers in the South East, 47 and 44 percent of respondents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions said “yes.” And finally, when asked if Russia is having no influence on the events in Ukraine, 54 and 48 percent of respondents of Donetsk and Luhansk said “no,” while only 23 and 18 said “yes.” These figures demonstrate that roughly 50 percent of respondents of these two regions agree that Russia does play a role in the conflict.    

His neglect of this kind of data suggests that the fear of those regions’ residents was a natural reaction to "the state collapse." However, the fear was intentionally created as early as January 2014 by the then-ruling Party of Regions. [2] By May 2014, the fear had become a prominent part of the discourse of numerous online discussion groups (900,000 commenters in Vkontakte).[3]

We also know that the first seeds of resentment were planted in the Ukraine’s south and east by Russian “political technologists” back in 2004.[4] Considering that Victor Yanukovych remained connected with Vladislav Surkov, a once-close advisor to Putin, and several other high ranking Russian figures over the entire period of crisis, the idea of spreading fear may well belong to Kremlin pundits.

Language

While we all choose terms that best serve our research purposes, the word choices we make reflect not only our vision, but also the perception of the subject by the reader. This is what we have in the case of Kudelia’s memo. Such terms as “the violent regime change,” “state fragmentation,” and “capture of power” create an impression that there was a coup and resulting civil war in Ukraine, a point mentioned in Umland’s comment. Alternative terms like “revolution,” “political revolution,” “multiple sovereignty,” and “transfer of power” might have produced quite an opposite picture of the political process in Ukraine.

I am sure Kudelia is aware that part of Russia’s war in Ukraine is psychological warfare waged in the public sphere. The Russian authorities and media present the Ukrainian events exclusively in terms of illegal actions undertaken by protesters and their leaders, where “coup” is a key term.

To sum up, the lack of documented evidence of Russia’s role in initiating the crisis should not preclude us from taking into account the numerous facts that indicate who the perpetrator is.[5]

As Putin himself conceded in May, the Russian military was indeed in Crimea. The same, I am sure, will sooner or later be released about the Donbas.   

———–

See: PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 351:"Domestic Sources of the Donbas Insurgency" (PDF) (9/15/2014). Serhiy Kudelia is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Baylor University and a member of PONARS Eurasia.

See: In Defense of Conspirology: A Rejoinder to Serhiy Kudelia’s Anti-Political Analysis of the Hybrid War in Eastern Ukraine (9/30/2014). Andreas Umland is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, Kyiv.

See: Reply to Andreas Umland: The Donbas Insurgency Began At Home (10/8/2014) by Serhiy Kudelia.


 

[1] Compare question 8.1 and 8.2 of the KMIS poll, April 8-16, 2014, http://zn.ua/UKRAINE/mneniya-i-vzglyady-zhiteley-yugo-vostoka-ukrainy-aprel-2014-143598_.html

[2] Kateryna Handzyuk,  “Observations on a Fake Attack: Who’s Attacking Regional Headquarters in Southern Ukraine,” http://krytyka.com/community/blogs/sposterezhennya-imitatsiya-shturmu-khto-zakhoplyuie-oda-na-pivdni-ukrayiny#sthash.a6TGoKQt.dpuf

[3] Маksim Yakovlev, “Antimaidan posle Evromaidana v sotsialnych setiach: obraz vraga I opasieniya zhiteley vostoka Ukrainy,” Forum Noveishei Vostochnoevropeiskoi Istorii i Kultury, 2014, http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/forumruss21/07Yakovlyev.pdf

[4] These are Dmitri Kukikov, Timofei Sergeitsev and Vladimir Granovski, who worked for Andriy Kluev, the head of the shadow electoral team of Victor Yanukovych during the 2004 presidential elections. This team designed a fake Yushchenko electoral leaflet showing a map of Ukraine divided into three zones with the western part marked as “first class” Ukraine, the central as “second,” and the south- eastern part as “third.” See: Serhiy Leshchenko, “Mezhyhirskiy Syndrom. Diahnoz vladi Viktora Yanukovycha,” (Kyiv: Bright Books, 2014), 55.

[5] Here are two pieces of evidence that appeared during the last ten days. First Radek Sikorski, former Foreign Minister of Poland, who insisted that the deal brokered on January 21, 2014, between Yanukovych and the opposition was the best solution, on October 19, 2014, admitted that the [Russian] buildup to war actually began as early as 2008. He also claims that “Poland became aware the Kremlin had calculated it would be profitable to annex the Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, and Odessa regions, while assessing that the Donbass region currently controlled by Putin’s rebels would not, on its own, be profitable to incorporate into Russia.” Though later he tried to back away from some of his statements suggesting Russia was “sorting out” the Ukrainian question, he never denied the Russian objectives in Ukraine. See, Ben Judah, “Putin’s Coup,”  http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/vladimir-putins-coup-112025_Page3.html#ixzz3H9NqeHoS. The second piece of evidence of Russia’s role in organizing the separatist movement in the south-east of Ukraine appeared on October 27, 2014, when the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) announced that it exposed a group, allegedly created by the Russian security services, which planned to proclaim the “Odesa People’s Republic.” See:   http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=133171&cat_id=39574

 

Yuriy Matsiyevsky
Yuriy Matsiyevsky
Website | + posts
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Affiliation

Ostroh Academy National University, Ukraine
Links

Ostroh Academy National University (Bio)
Expertise

Ukraine, Democratization, Institutions, Informal Politics
  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yuriy-matsiyevsky/
    Why Authoritarianism Has Weak Chances in Ukraine
  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yuriy-matsiyevsky/
    Revolution without regime change: The evidence from the post-Euromaidan Ukraine
  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yuriy-matsiyevsky/
    Ukraine’s Regime Is Less Stable than It Was under Yanukovych: A Third Year Comparison
  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yuriy-matsiyevsky/
    Старые политические привычки медленно умирают в Украине
Related Topics
  • Matsiyevsky
  • Ukraine
Previous Article
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Кто кого: Украинский кризис, санкции Запада и попытки сдерживания России

  • October 31, 2014
  • Polina Sinovets
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Policy Memo: Pro et Contra: Views of the United States in Four Post-Soviet States

  • November 3, 2014
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.