When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, Ukraine will find itself in a more hostile international environment – one that could force Kyiv to take a more flexible stance on relations with Russia, analysts say.
With Trump openly flirting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin could be emboldened to step up its war against Ukraine this year, and push for more concessions. Worse still, if Kremlin-friendly candidates win in the French and German elections, which are scheduled for this year, Ukraine’s position will be weakened further.
Perhaps in anticipation of such reversals, Ukrainian billionaire oligarch Viktor Pinchuk has already come up with a comprehensive plan of concessions: abandoning Kyiv’s intentions to join NATO and the European Union, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea de facto, and agreeing to elections in the Russian-occupied Donbas.
But analysts argue that accepting Pinchuk’s ideas would be suicide for Ukrainian authorities, and could even trigger a revolution or coup d’etat. Critics have accused the oligarch of working for the Kremlin, which he denies.
“Kyiv will enjoy less priority and preferential treatment than under (incumbent U.S. President Barack) Obama’s administration,” Balazs Jarabik, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Kyiv Post. “Thus, there will be more emphasis and pressure on reconciliation.”
He added that thoughts about a “grand bargain” with Russia were far-fetched due to pressure from the U.S. political elite.
Pinchuk’s plan
In a Dec. 29 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Pinchuk suggested that “Ukraine should consider temporarily eliminating European Union membership from our stated goals for the near future.” He also argued that Ukraine should not “join NATO in the near- or mid-term.”
Rolling back sanctions imposed on Russia for its war against Ukraine should also be part of the deal, according to Pinchuk.
Moreover, “Crimea must not get in the way of a deal that ends the war in the east on an equitable basis” – a proposal that would de facto recognize Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
Billionaire Victor Pinchuk, founder of Yalta European Strategy, and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attend the YES conference in Yalta, Ukraine in 2013. Donald Trump spoke by video link in 2015.
Pinchuk also suggested that Ukraine should accept local elections in the Russian-occupied Donbas even before Ukraine has full control over this territory. Pinchuk’s critics say this is tantamount to Ukraine authorizing Kremlin-orchestrated sham elections and legitimizing Russia’s puppets in the Donbas.
“I do think Pinchuk was testing the waters,” Jarabik said. “He understands that Ukraine needs to make some compromises, but I do also think he got those compromises wrong.”
Pinchuk is the son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, who represents Ukraine in the Minsk peace talks.
More details
Vasyl Filipchuk, head of the International Center for Prospective Research and an ex-diplomat under former President Viktor Yanukovych, put forward more detailed proposals on a deal with Russia in an article for the apostrophe.ua news website on Jan. 4. He suggested that Ukraine officially become a neutral, non-aligned country.
Other proposals by Filipchuk include introducing a free trade and visa-free regime among the E.U., Ukraine and Russia, leasing the Sevastopol military base to Russia for 99 years, introducing joint Russian-Ukrainian governing of Crimea, and holding a referendum on whether it should be part of Russia or Ukraine in 20 years. He also called for stepping up economic cooperation with Russia and allowing Russia to buy Ukrainian defense and other firms.
Trump-Putin deal
Analysts argue that the proposals by Pinchuk and Filipchuk could have been inspired by negotiators in Moscow and Washington.
“Trump’s administration is looking for opportunities to reset relations with the Kremlin,” political analyst Taras Berezovets told the Kyiv Post. “They need any voices that would call for abolishing sanctions against Russia.”
He also said that “there are some people in Russia who could have advised Pinchuk (on the plan), saying he could earn a pardon from the Russian authorities.”
Poroshenko’s response
Kostyantyn Yeliseyev, a deputy head of the Presidential Administration, responded to Pinchuk’s op-ed on Jan. 4, saying that “reversal in European and Euro-Atlantic integration” would be a “surrender of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
He also said that “no trade in the territory of Ukraine, be it Donbas or Crimea” was possible, and that no elections could be allowed in the Russian-occupied Donbas “while Russian boots are on Ukraine’s soil.”
“The Kremlin would definitely like Ukrainian hands to legalize its hybrid occupation and puppet regimes in Donbas,” he said. “No one should fall into this trap.”
Though Poroshenko’s administration has rejected Pinchuk’s plan, the Ukrainian president’s negotiating stance with Russia and the United States will have to be more flexible under Trump, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko argued.
Berezovets said that “we can’t rule out that Ukraine will be forced to take back (the Russian-occupied Donbas) under unfavorable conditions.”
Third Maidan
Analysts argue that Poroshenko is unlikely to agree to Pinchuk’s proposals because their implementation could trigger a major backlash from society, possibly even leading to his overthrow.
“There are many people in the Ukrainian establishment who support Pinchuk’s ideas,” Berezovets said. “But any politician who says this publicly will become a political corpse.”
He argued that following Pinchuk’s plan could “trigger a third Maidan (revolution) or a military coup attempt by volunteer units and war veterans.”
The proposals have already prompted a negative reaction from the public.
Pinchuk’s plans “have always been Putin’s main ideas in promoting the ‘Russian world,’” Aider Mudzhabayev, a vice president of the ATR Crimean Tatar channel, said in his blog on Dec. 30.
Frontline mood
Ten days before Pinchuk offered his plan, fighting abruptly escalated near the town of Svitlodarsk in Donetsk Oblast, killing five Ukrainian soldiers just in one day on Dec. 18. The increase in fighting showed how shaky the situation is on the war front. Up to 20 soldiers were killed in combat December, with about half of them in the Svitlodarsk area.
Soldiers at the war front have started comparing those events with Ukraine losing the city of Debaltseve and more than 100 of its soldiers in February 2015.
And civilians who had to spend their Christmas holidays repairing damage from shelling to their houses were adamant that the war would not end soon.
“It’s hard, it’s unpleasant to hear these boom-boom sounds, but what can we do until those at the top reach agreement?” Kateryna Kovalchuk, a 54-year-old mother of many children in the village of Luhanske, told the Kyiv Post.
Both soldiers and civilians shared the belief that Russia could escalate the war before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration in order to get a better bargaining position.
Likely escalation
A Dec. 21 report by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future outlined three possible scenarios for U.S.-Russia relations this year. If Trump trades Ukraine in exchange for agreements in the Middle East, Ukraine may lose some of its financial support from the United States, and face more pressure to fully implement the Feb. 11, 2015 Minsk ceasefire deal – on Russian terms. If they don’t come to an agreement, Russia may launch a full-scale attack to capture the whole territory of the Donbas, the report said.
The Ukrainian authorities may also want to see a limited escalation in the war zone to unite society, distract it from corruption scandals, and get more financial support from the West, the report said.
Still under-equipped
Almost three years since Russia started its war against Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is much better organized, trained and equipped than it was in 2014. Still, many Ukrainian soldiers have low motivation and discipline and are using obsolete Soviet weapons, said Vyacheslav Tseluiko, a military expert at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies.
In 2016 more than 50 percent of Ukraine’s war casualties were caused not by fighting but by servicemen stepping on their own mines, careless handling of weapons, car accidents, suicides and alcoholism.
Tseluiko said that the Ukrainian forces would be able to defend their positions in the Donbas for quite a long time, but if Russia decides to attack across the border in other places, it would be much harder to defend the country.
There are signs that the Kremlin could be preparing for just such attacks: Russia has finished the construction of a military base in Belgorod Oblast, about 100 kilometers from Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city far from the war zone.
“In the case of a full-scale invasion from all sides, Ukrainian troops will have big problems. It will be not a continuous front-line, but rather a focal defense of some places like Kharkiv,” Tseluiko said.
