Just 10 years ago, many Europeans would have had trouble finding Ukraine on a map. Now practically everyone knows where it is, but no one can predict the country’s future: How and when will the Russia-Ukraine conflict end? To clarify, this “conflict” refers not only to the situation in the war-torn Donbas region, still partially under the control of pro-Russian separatists and Russian “military volunteers,” but also to the annexation of Crimea and the terrorist acts organized by pro-Russian forces in other parts of the country. Almost every morning there are news reports of yet another explosion in one of the major cities of Ukraine. There was an explosion in the center of Odessa the night before I wrote this article.
These are troubled times for Ukraine. The country’s economy is in dire straits, and people are worried about their future. The double impact of war and the economic crisis has knocked two-thirds off the value of the national currency, the hryvnia. But Ukrainians are considerably more worried about the situation in Donbas than the financial crisis. Despite the second “Minsk cease-fire,” war in the Donbas region rages on. No longer the entire length of the frontline — which stretches for hundreds of kilometers — but at certain points that hold strategic significance for Russia and the separatists. Ukrainian troops are still coming under fire outside the city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. This port city is seen as a key target by separatists because it could enable Russia to secure a crucial land corridor to Crimea. Military operations are also continuing elsewhere in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, where the separatists are attempting to “straighten out” the border — less euphemistically, to seize more territory.
I had a phone call last week from an Italian friend, whose wife is Ukrainian. He asked my advice on how dangerous it would be to drive to the Kherson region, which borders Crimea. His wife’s mother lives there, and she wants to visit her. I told him that things were reasonably calm there, but the following day I read in the news that there had been an exchange of fire at a checkpoint near Kherson. The situation is changing, and it’s changing every day. While the leaders of European countries express “cautious optimism” and maintain that the situation in Donbas is improving, Russia continues to supply arms and military equipment to the separatists via the 409 km (about 250 miles) of the Ukrainian-Russian border that is out of Ukrainian control. Nobody knows what news tomorrow will bring.
I was in Donbas myself recently and spent three days talking to military personnel and civilians in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk. All three cities have been liberated from separatist and Russian forces, yet people there still have less of a sense of stability than those living farther from the frontline. Many people in Severodonetsk and Slavyansk are not actually opposed to the idea of Russian occupation. They are reluctant to talk about it openly, but the fact is that they don’t feel any particular loyalty to Ukraine either.
Sociologists visiting these and other cities in the Donbas region have noticed an interesting pattern. There are often as many pro-Russian citizens as Ukrainian patriots, yet both are in the minority; the majority of people simply don’t care who wins. They just want peace and stability, though it doesn’t seem to occur to them that if the separatists take control by force, they will have neither. Incidentally, the most active Ukrainian patriots are small and medium-size business owners, who show their loyalty by helping the Ukrainian army and trying their best to “Ukrainify” life in the Russian-speaking and generally pro-Russian cities of the region. They organize social events featuring well-known Ukrainian journalists, writers, poets, musicians and singers. Such events naturally attract a pro-Ukrainian audience, but they have also given patriotic citizens the opportunity to develop a network of like-minded individuals and encouraged them to take action together, to promote Ukrainian culture and a sense of community in these previously quiet and passive industrial towns and cities of Donbas.
The atmosphere in Kiev, 800 km (about 500 miles) from Donetsk, has also changed dramatically over the past year. Entrepreneurs and office workers, who made the move to the Ukrainian capital from Donetsk some time ago, have been joined by large numbers of genuine refugees who have lost their houses and apartments in Donbas. Around 3,500 children from refugee families started school in Kiev on Sept. 1 last year. Kiev has also seen an influx of “criminal refugees” from Donbas.
Almost the entire criminal population of the region has migrated to Ukraine’s larger cities, the majority to Kiev. Why? Because after killing a number of high-profile drug dealers in Donetsk, the separatists have moved on to shooting thieves at the scene of their crime. In the wake of this wave of “criminal migration,” domestic burglaries, muggings and car theft in Kiev have almost tripled. This city of 4 million inhabitants, formerly considered one of the most peaceful capital cities in the world, is no longer such a safe place to be.
The situation is further exacerbated by volunteers returning from Donbas, who are attempting to smuggle weapons back with them. Those who have experienced the horrors of war are prone to developing mental health issues — and if you throw a hand grenade into the mix, there’s a high chance it will explode. Grenades and other arms and ammunition are gradually spreading throughout Ukraine. Transport police officers recently stopped a car heading into Kiev and found that it was carrying 18 grenade launchers. This car had managed to get from the combat zone to the outskirts of the capital of Ukraine, passing about 20 checkpoints on the way. Some of these illicit weapons will be distributed among the criminal fraternity, but the rest will be kept at home by ordinary civilians, “just in case.”
Russia continues to pump Donbas full of arms, staking everything on the economic collapse of Ukraine. It is certainly true that more and more people are expressing their dissatisfaction with the situation and there are increasing calls for a third Maidan, for an uprising against President Poroshenko and the Cabinet of Ministers. The IMF’s recent decision to grant Ukraine a four-year loan has come at just the right time for the Ukrainian government. It will enable Ukraine to protect its currency from further devaluation and strengthen control over its own economy. Nevertheless, social protests are more or less inevitable as gas and electricity prices are set to triple or even quadruple in the near future, and this will also lead to a sharp rise in food prices.
What matters most is that these increases in the cost of living are accompanied by tangible government reforms, so that the Ukrainian people are able to feel that the country is genuinely changing, that the fight against corruption is taking effect. For the time being, Ukrainian society is sufficiently united to resist both Russian propaganda and calls for direct action against the government.
The party least interested in peace in Donbas is Russia. This stands to reason: When the war in Donbas is over, international attention will shift to the other main aspect of the Ukraine conflict — Russia’s annexation of Crimea. President Putin admitted recently in an interview aired on Russia’s main state TV channel that he had set his plans for annexation in motion even before the Crimean referendum in March 2014.
Internationally speaking, he has backed himself and the Russian Federation into a corner. Putin has no hope of ever regaining the trust of Western heads of state. In portraying the West as the enemy, he has led Russia back to her Soviet past. Russia’s foreign policy is currently all about forming alliances with fellow outcast nations. Last week, for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared 2015 to be a “year of friendship” between Russia and North Korea. Moves such as this seem deliberately calculated to emphasize Russia’s anti-European status, versus the “Europeanness” of Ukraine.
At some point, Russia will have to repair relations with the West, which currently lie in tatters. But this is a task for another president, not Putin. When the time comes, the best way for Russia to restore ties with the civilized world will be to resume normal diplomatic relations with Ukraine, including the restoration of her territorial integrity. It is hard to say exactly when this will happen, but it is only a matter of time. All wars come to an end eventually; old wounds heal and warring nations reconcile, as has happened in Europe time and again. This time, Europe has a vested interest in the stabilization of the situation both in Donbas and in Ukraine in general, given that Ukraine shares a border with several EU member countries and is a potential member herself. Ukraine will never go back to being a satellite state of the Russian Federation. In which case she has only one way forward, only one choice — and that is Europe.
Andrey Kurkov is the author of “Ukraine Diaries.”
Courtesy of the INSP News Service street-papers.org/The Big Issue, UK
This article appears in 2015-04-17.