The situation around the neighboring Ukraine is serious and worsened further after the Russian Federation announced its decision to recognize the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine in the evening of February 21. The developments increasingly justify the expectations of Ukraine from the Western partners. The subject was discussed by the experts invited to IPN’s public debate titled “Ukraine’s requests to the West vs Moscow’s scenarios.”
Dionis Cenușa, a political scientist, researcher at the Institute of Political Science at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, said there are a series of concepts developed by the community of experts and by political decision makers to find an explanation to the developments on the Russia-Ukrainian border and to the relations between Russia and Ukraine, which are two sovereign states. However, Ukraine recognizes the sovereignty of Russia, while Russia does not recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine. The notion of “Russian crisis” is a relatively new concept. “They discussed a lot the “Ukrainian crisis” in the Western press that, from my viewing, adopted an incorrect approach to explain the developments in eastern Ukraine and the Russia-Ukrainian relations. The crisis was initiated and managed by the Russian Federation. It started in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea and later with the initiation of separatist actions in the temporarily occupied regions in eastern Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk,” he stated.
According to the researcher, this crisis took different forms and ultimately reached the stage at which the Russian Federation openly discussed, in Parliament and in the presidential administration, the methods to subdue Ukraine and thwart it in its intentions to join NATO or to strengthen its own independence and territorial integrity. It is a long-lasting crisis that includes the denigration of Ukraine’s identity by the Russian Federation, the attempt to encroach on its territorial integrity and, last but not least, the setting of dangerous precedents for European security. “We are entering a new phase when the scenarios experienced by Georgia until now will be applied by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Ukraine should see what lessons it can learn from Georgia’s experience so as to more efficiently manage the very difficult problems it can face with the separatist regions and with Moscow,” said Dionis Cenușa.
Marko Shevchenko , Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine in the Republic of Moldova, noted that Ukraine‘s stake in this crisis is “very simple”. “Ukraine wants to keep the state independent, sovereign and integral from territorial viewpoint, to build a modern, democratic state that forms part of the European family and is a member of the EU and NATO. Ukraine wants to continue the democratic reforms and to meet all the conditions for entering the European and Western club. This stake is common for the population of Ukraine and for different political parties in Ukraine,” said the diplomat, noting that Russia’s actions represent a serious threat to Ukraine‘s stakes and Ukraine will therefore defend itself by all the possible ways.
The ambassador said he does not know where Russia’s stakes end and where the personal stakes of the Russian leaders start. “In yesterday’s speeches of President Putin, a lot of time was devoted to history and the essence was that “the Ukrainian state is artificial, never existed and is the creation of Lenin”. The conclusion is that the Ukrainian state cannot or should not exist, even if this is not openly said by the Russian President. The biggest problem for Russia and Ukraine is that Ukraine is considered in Russia another Russian state in which Ukrainian brothers live. Therefore, the increasingly visible difference between Ukraine and Russia does so that the Russian population started to wonder: even if Russia is a country with rich natural resources, while Ukraine is not, the salaries in Ukraine are higher than in Russia, while the consumer basket is much cheaper than in Russia. Therefore, the ordinary people in Russia can get the perception that Russia follows a wrong path,” stated Marko Shevchenko .
Victor Juc, director of the Institute of Legal, Political and Sociological Research, said that Ukraine has been used by the Russian Federation as a means as it pursues two major goals. The first goal is to modify the security architecture and the Russian Federation cannot permit the North Atlantic Alliance to come close to its national borders this time too. The second major objective is to restore the historical Russia out of different states and such a construction without Ukraine is practically impossible. Ukraine since 2014 has followed the path to European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Ukraine, as Georgia, not being a NATO member state, aims to strengthen its national security and defense so as to modernize itself by development and democratization. The Russian Federation cannot allow these two states to leave its sphere of geopolitical interests.
According to Victor Juc, Russia will yet take other actions against Ukraine. “We will see if a military cooperation and friendship agreement is signed with the two recognized republics. This is an almost indisputable thing, but what will follow and what the Russian Federation will demand are an equation. If it continues to focus on the strategic-diplomatic dimension, the two territories can remain with their independence not recognized by anyone and then they will be used to exert permanent pressure on the Ukrainian authorities. If emphasis is placed on the social-humanitarian dimension, a second step can be taken, which is a pseudo-referendum in the two regions and these would be annexed to the Russian Federation,” said Victor Juc, noting he believes the second scenario will not be implemented, but no one knows for sure.
The public debate “Ukraine’s requests to the West vs Moscow’s scenarios” is the 225th installment of the debates held by IPN as part of the project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
