How could the vote be counted in those regions, where
government buildings are controlled by hoodlums who not only defy Ukraine’s
government, but also are or pretend to be at odds with Russia’s president on
the need to restore the proverbial law and order?
Would postponement of elections be a tragedy? It could be a
blessing.
A well- kept secret seems to be that the interim President Oleksandr
Turchynov is not making the kind of mistakes that characterized his predecessors.
In other words, he makes sense. Not perfect, but then again not like the 20-something loonies who have entered the presidential race (I don’t mean
Yulia Tymoshenko who could still be the best-qualified choice, or Petro
Poroshenko, viewed by many as a wild card, despite quicky endorsements).
Let’s get to what counts most now. “It appears that Ukraine
is adopting a military and police strategy to secure the nation’s borders only
as far east as Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia,” according to the Kyiv Post
editorial (“Ukraine on the verge of losing 20 percent of its nation”, April
15).
If true, is this strategy sound? The answer is yes, for two
reasons:
First, the pro-Russian demographics make Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts indefensible. If not convinced, read the news.
Secondly, and more importantly, Vladimir Putin’s target is Kyiv
and most of Ukraine, not this or that region. Better believe it. Putin seems to
have receded into the 19th century and took Russia with him into a
realm of a unique Russian civilization, as he calls it.
Even without help from the West. “Ukrainians shall fight if
fight they must” is one man’s opinion, but not against hostile civilians in places
that look more like a moonscape than Ukraine.
The present standoff must not compel Ukraine’s government to
capitulate by agreeing to “decentralize” Ukraine. This is exactly Russia’s
objective, rather than a broad military conquest, and it would be the terminal
phase for the Ukrainian state. Much worse than the loss of the Donbas or the
entire southeast.
Ukraine would be better off without Donetsk and Luhansk. Not
only would there be by far less political turmoil, but the country would no
longer be paralyzed by a 50-50 divide as it has been in the last 23 years.
Unity “from the Carpathians to the Caucasus” has been a romantic goal for some dreamers.
And what about the economy? The Donbas region is a
liability, not an asset, beginning with its gas-guzzling rust belt that depends
on imported Russian gas. Yes, it produces revenues in foreign industrial
exports that enrich mainly the oligarchs. But Donbas is also a net consumer of
foreign imports.
“I have no doubt that Ukraine without its southeast would be
much stronger, more stable, and more prosperous than Ukraine with its
southeast”, wrote Alexander Motyl in the Kyiv Post (“Should there be one
Ukraine”, Op-ed February 16, 2014). And: “The southeast rust-belt economy needs
to be either shut down or to be refitted at the cost of trillions of dollars of
non-existent investment”.
Moreover, he pointed out, the statistics plainly show that
Kyiv subsidizes the Donbas, and not vice versa.
Ukraine’s government has been cautious in sending troops to
Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Rightly so. These were tight-rope decisions, made
between expecting no good outcomes and making the appearances demanded by
nervous nellies.
Again, Turchynov is not to be envied in his presidential
chair at this time. Hopefully he is not in a hurry to leave the place. He was
the parliament’s best choice, someone who gladly had stayed in the shadows a
long time and held the fort Yulia Tymoshenko without his personal political
ambitions while she was political
prisoner. Which reminds of Taras Kuzio’s question why so
much “venom and lack of sympathy was shown for Tymoshenko who spent over two
years in jail on trumped up charges”.
Yulia Tymoshenko had narrowly lost her run for president in
2010 and still carries her aura as the hero of the Orange Revolution in 2004. Obviously
she has not many fans in the pro-Russian southeast that voted solidly against her.
This also brings into focus the conflicting claims whether or not a majority in
that area today prefers to remain part of Ukraine.
But, even if a majority wants to be in Ukraine (some numbers
show as many as 70 percent), the kind of Ukraine they envision is a far cry
from the country for which “the heavenly hundred” had died at Maidan this year.
The kind desired in the east is a landfill personified by the likes of Viktor
Yanukovych and engraved with Putin’s Eurasian union.
Let there be no doubt that Ukrainophobia is an organic part
of the equation correlated with the pro-Russian concept of Ukraine. This shows
in almost daily outbursts directed at the essential Ukrainian content of the
government in Kyiv, the government “unacceptable” to Putin’s Russia. Establishing
what some call a dialogue with people entrenched in the self-proclaimed and
Kremlin-instigated Donetsk republic cannot bridge the gap existing in Ukraine,
nor can it modulate Russia’s aggression.
At some point, politicians in Kyiv should get real about the
east. Writes John Reed, the Financial Times correspondent (FT, April 22):
“Ukrainian flags are becoming a rare sight in the country’s eastern regions
bordering Russia. Svetlana, a teacher and activist, said: It is very dangerous
to go outdoors with the flag of our country right now, because right away they
will start the name calling…..”
It would be preposterous to blame this reality on 100
Russian infiltrators from Special Forces who, according to the Security Service
of Ukraine, are leading the seizures of towns and local governments in Ukraine
(Kyiv Post, April 22). They probably are. But contempt for Ukraine’s national
symbols and animosity towards Ukrainian identity and language has been endemic
in the east longer than anyone could describe.
If elections are held in May with full participation of all
regions (minus the Crimea, mercifully), the outcome may be close to a repeat of
last parliamentary elections, and the democratic camp might as well contemplate
now how gracefully they would or should accept it.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
