The war in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of the Crimea grinds on, forgotten by many. There’s no obvious way out. The ceasefire agreements have been continuously broken, high-level dialogue between Russia and the United States stopped months ago, and the unarmed OSCE monitors in conflict zone are continuously harassed.
Some analysts suspect that Moscow is waiting until March when Ukraine holds its presidential election. The Kremlin wants to see who the next president will be before taking any new steps, and time is on Russia’s side.
But time is not on Ukraine’s or the European Union’s side. The Donbas conflict should be understood anew, approached differently, engaged with directly, and solved sustainably. It should start with clearer communication of the EU’s stake in the crisis. Tighter economic and individual sanctions should be accompanied with positive offers to change Moscow’s behavior. For a transition period, the Donbas should be put under the control of an international administration and UN peacekeeping forces. Finally, Ukraine and the West need to find a way to secure control over a reintegrated Donbas while formally implementing the Minsk Agreements.
Today’s confrontation in the Donbas is often compared to the frozen conflicts in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova, and this is false. A communications campaign needs to correct this misperception; the Donbas war is a hot conflict that challenges Europe’s security as long as one of the largest European states remains on the brink of collapse.
The reasons for this risk are neither domestic political tensions nor Ukraine’s grave economic difficulties. Ukraine experienced massive upheaval at least four times since independence, yet none seriously endangered the integrity of the nation. Ukraine’s economic situation throughout the 1990s and 2008-2010 was difficult, but neither downturn threatened European security.
The West’s large-scale financial help for Ukraine is sometimes misconceived as a major instrument to solve the crisis. Western help for Ukraine should continue, but it’s no substitute for actually solving the Donbas conflict.
Moscow’s shrewd combination of crude military and non-military methods is meant to subvert Ukraine as a socio-political community. The Kremlin’s premier instrument for achieving this aim is to keep the Donbas as an open bleeding wound that will eventually cause Ukraine to implode. A seemingly domestic Ukrainian collapse can then be used by the Kremlin to demonstrate to Russians the impotence of European integration and foolishness of post-Soviet democratization.
While this is a rational strategy in terms of short-term Russian regime stability, it is a hazardous enterprise. Western opinion shapers need to better communicate why and how Ukraine’s possible future collapse entails transnational risks. For instance, millions of Ukrainian refugees would flow into the EU.
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