In light of the recent Ukraine crisis, much has been made about the issue of Russian citizens in Ukraine, especially as Russia has stated that it may employ the “right to defend” its citizens.
This made me consider: are the people of Ukraine able to hold the citizenship of both Ukraine and Russia, including both passports?
The short answer is technically no.
According to the present Constitution of Ukraine (Title I, Article 4) and the Law on Citizenship of Ukraine, it is illegal to hold dual citizenship in Ukraine. However, there are still many in Ukraine who hold dual citizenship anyway. Understandably (and perhaps not surprisingly), a good number of Russians living in Crimea held dual-citizenship up until the recent referendum (it is unclear how a future status of Crimea outside of Ukraine will affect the citizenship status of these people).
However, there are also significant numbers of people in Ukraine proper who hold dual citizenship as well. According to a 2008 New York Times report:
Gazeta.24 [a Ukrainian news service] reports that in one oblast [likely Chernivtsi], many Ukrainians have Romanian passports; in another Polish, and in many of the eastern oblasts, Russian passports.
According to the article, about 70% of the residents in Chernivtsi (North Bukovina) hold dual citizenship with Romania. It is also probable that many Hungarians living in the southern portion of Zakarpattia Oblast hold dual citizenship with Hungary. In fact, Budapest has recently opened up the door to granting citizenship to their co-ethnics abroad, including in Ukraine. The majority of applicants are ethnic Hungarians, though it is possible that some Carpatho-Ukrainians native to Zakarpattia have taken advantage of this as well.
More significantly, it is worth noting that the article states that dual citizenship with Russia also extends to the “many of the eastern oblasts.” This likely includes the southern oblasts too and probably even significant portions of some central oblasts (especially the Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kirovohrad Oblasts). Overall, it can be deduced that the vast majority of those in Ukraine with dual citizenship share it with Russia more so than any other country.
“No more closed borders! No more conflicts! A united Caucasus!” has been the mantra of many outside observers and civil society activists who have been involved with the Caucasus region since the collapse of the USSR. This complex area, with its multitude of different ethnic groups and conflicts, badly needs unity. However, can this be achieved without the presence of Russia?
Some activists from across the region would respond in the affirmative. They would claim that Russia is a neo-imperial force with divisive intentions for the region. This writer is more skeptical. If Russia were to entirely withdraw from the Caucasus, then would the leaders of the various republics and territories come together? If not, then who would become the outside force to help them to achieve such unity?
The United States is far too distant to become a serious player. Turkey, with its historical legacy in the region, would not sit well with Armenia and Georgia, but may get the support of Azerbaijan. Yet, regardless of this, Ankara already has enough domestic and foreign policy issues as it stands. The same likewise applies to Iran.
The EU could help, but its understanding of the region’s complexities is very shallow. Additionally, while it does offer the “European values” of human rights, freedom of speech, the rule of law, etc., it does not offer any sort of cultural cohesion, e.g., there is no single “European” language. Further, the European economy is still just recovering from the 2008 Eurozone crisis. By over-expanding itself, it runs the risk of placing serious stress on the bloc’s unity, thus threatening continental stability and peace.
Finally, independent regional integration among the three independent Caucasus states would not work as an option. Such an effort would require overcoming mutual distrust, which these countries cannot easily accomplish without the presence of a third-party mediator. Even if unity was achieved, Azerbaijan, as the largest of the three states in terms of demographics and area and also the richest, would likely dominate the union, thus placing Armenia and Georgia at a disadvantage geopolitically.
Mikheil Saakashvili in Kiev (Getty Images Europe/Brendan Hoffman)
It should also be noted that in this and the other aforementioned options, the nations and peoples of the North Caucasus would not be included simply because the autonomous states of this region are part of the Russian Federation and cannot willfully join another entity on their own. The former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, likely channeling the great medieval Georgian monarch King David the Builder, attempted to make common cause with the North Caucasus peoples in his calls for Caucasian unity. However, the rhetoric and discourse of “Russian occupation,” “Russian aggression,” and “Russian invasion” and potential support for North Caucasus Islamic rebels failed to accomplish anything constructive with regard to regional unity.
If there is to be a sustainable and lasting Caucasus unity, it will require a common language and culture at its core. In the current state of things, it would be impossible to select one language as being the dominant of the region without another nationality raising complaints. Thus, a regional language or lingua franca cannot be Armenian, Georgian, or Azerbaijani. It must be another independent language entirely. There must also be a uniting regional culture. Films, television programs, literature, and common cultural experiences can also bring different people close together.
A future unity must also ensure a sense of economic viability and strength. If these countries were to join a bloc like the EU, where the economy is still in recovery mode, then they may have to implement harsh austerity measures which would threaten regional stability. Regardless of any austerity, considering the current economic state of the EU, it is unlikely that these three countries, where poverty and unemployment remain major problems, will find “overnight” prosperity. Instead, they need to join a supranational union wherein there are more immediate economic benefits.
Security is another important factor to unity. The EU, the US, and any potential solo “United Caucasus” unit could not readily guarantee the region’s security, especially against the geopolitical ambitions of Turkey and Iran. This is particularly true in the cases of Armenia and Georgia, where historical memories of Turkish and Persians invasions, attacks, and (in the Armenian case) genocide still run deep. Only a larger outside force, with a deep sense of the region’s history, landscape, and potential benefits, can guarantee its security.
Likewise, a third party is also needed to act as a “mediator” to sort out the messy thicket of disputed regions, territories and borders. While many blame Stalin and the Bolsheviks for being the root causes of such disputes, the truth of the matter is that the Bolsheviks had no intended “divide-and-rule” policy when drawing the region’s borders during Sovietization. Instead, the most recent research has illustrated that their policy in the Caucasus during the 1917-22 Russian Civil War was to simply secure the region, making compromises, deals, and autonomies along the way, based more on the principle of who-controlled-what than on some sinister plot to undermine local political ambitions for independence.
In all of these cases, whether one wants to admit it or not, it is Russia that truly has all the levers to bring the Caucasus together. In terms of culture, language, economics, and security, Moscow offers the Caucasus states optimal benefits. To this day, it is the culture of Russia and the former Soviet Union that still looms large here. For example, during this past New Year’s, families in Yerevan, Tbilisi, and Baku all ritually tuned in to watch the Russian-language Soviet cult classic Ирония судьбы, или С легким паром! (The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Banya!), a much beloved film not just throughout the region but throughout the entire former Soviet space.
Prince Pyotr Bagration, a painting by George Dawe (1820)
Socially, the peoples of the Caucasus have been highly integrated into both Russian and Soviet life. In history and politics, Prince Pyotr Bagration, Prince Valerian Madatov, Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov, Anastas Mikoyan, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Sergei Lavrov are among the most notable examples – and Joseph Stalin is perhaps the most notorious.
In culture, Russian and Soviet audiences had the pleasure of experiencing the creative work of great artists like Tengiz Abuladze, Ivan Aivazovsky, Sofiko Chiaureli, Rustam Ibragimbekov, Fazil Iskander, Kara Karayev, Aram Khachaturyan, Vakhtang Kikabidze, Frunzik Mkrtchyan, and Sergei Parajanov. And this is just the short list! In chess, the Armenians have been especially prominent, particularly World Chess Champions Tigran Petrosyan and Garry Kasparov.
Further, it was an ethnic Georgian Soviet soldier, Meliton Kantaria, who, alongside an ethnic Russian soldier Mikhail Yegorov, famously raised the Soviet flag over the Reichstag at the end of World War II. Indeed, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev expressed such sentiments on the closeness of the Georgians specifically to Russians in a 2009 interview for the Moscow-backed English-language news service RT with Eduard Shevardnadze’s granddaughter, Sophie:
I am tired of these Georgians. I love them just like Russians. And I am glad that through all these things Russians have not gotten disappointed in Georgians and Georgians have not been disappointed in Russians. Your grandfather and I celebrated the anniversary of the Treaty of Georgievsk. It is such a big thing. There is a lot of talk about Russia enslaving Georgia. We never occupied them. And there are so many Georgians who went down in Russian history. Every time I go to and from work, I drive past the monument to Bagration, the Georgian who was a hero of the 1812 war. There is so much to remember about the relations between Russia and Georgia. And even now – do you know how many Georgians live in Russia?
The great Bagration was also depicted (rather accurately) as a brave and selfless hero in Leo Tolstoy’s sweeping epic War and Peace. In the same novel, Pierre Bezukhov saves a local Armenian girl in Moscow from marauding French soldiers.
In short, to neglect Russia’s historic role as a cultural and political mediator in the Caucasus in favor of another, less tenable geopolitical player would only serve to undermine the unity of the entire region. Consequently, it is principally Russia that can make such the vision of a “United Caucasus” into a viable and lasting reality for the foreseeable future.
Pro-Russian Demonstrator in Sevastopol (ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Pochuev)
As I expressed in an earlier post, I do not think that the Kremlin is interested in absorbing Crimea. However, that being said, I would like to point out five reasons why absorbing Crimea would be detrimental to Moscow:
1. It would undermine the terms of the 1997 Russia-Ukraine Friendship Agreement. In this treaty, Russia recognized the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In return, it received substantial benefits, including Ukraine giving up its Soviet-era arsenal of nuclear weapons for destruction. If Russia reneged on this treaty by absorbing Crimea, then it could leave the door open for Ukraine to seek nuclear arms. Nobody wants nuclear proliferation and it certainly would not be in Russia’s interest.
2. Financially speaking, annexing Crimea comes with a huge price tag. Putin has already seen the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis on Russia. It brought thousands of middle class Russians out into in the streets of Moscow and seriously hurt Putin’s approval rating. Annexing Crimea would bring about a substantial financial reaction that would do more harm to Russia than good.
3. Russia would be isolated from the West. Annexing Crimea would seriously damage Western-Russian relations which are especially crucial to both sides. One could argue emotionally that relations with the West are already tense, so why would Russia care? Indeed, Russia would care because it has strong economic connections to the West, especially the EU. Likewise, the West (and the EU in particular) has strong economic ties with Russia. To severe these ties would create serious problems for both Russia and the West that neither side can really afford.
4. It would seriously damage Russia’s credibility in Ukraine. Opinions about Russia vary in Ukraine. In Western Ukraine, especially Galicia, there is a strongly anti-Russian sentiment. However, the attitude becomes more positive in Central Ukraine and especially in the Russophone South and East Ukraine. Arguably, it is also positive in the distinct westernmost oblast of Zakarpattia where pro-Russian sentiment can be found among many of the Carpatho-Ukrainians. As I wrote earlier, Putin’s primary aim is not to annex Crimea or to annex Ukraine in part or in whole. Rather, he wants to see Ukraine in its entirety join as an equal partner in his Eurasian economic Customs Union. Such a move would be impossible without domestic support and if Crimea is absorbed by Russia it would alienate broad segments of the Ukrainian public, from Uzhgorod to Luhansk, who regard Crimea as “their turf” even if it is an ethnically Russian-dominated region. Further, by annexing Crimea, Russia would also lose a significant point of geopolitical leverage over Kiev which, if not keeping the country within its orbit, would at least ensure that it does not join the NATO military alliance.
5. It would give license for further NATO expansion, right up to Russia’s frontiers. By absorbing Crimea, Russia would be giving a clear justification for the expansion of the NATO military alliance deep into post-Soviet territory. Cold War lobbyists and anti-Russian hawks in the West would feel vindicated and justified in their efforts, dating back to the 1990s, to bring NATO right on Moscow’s doorstep. These NATO expansionists would play on popular Ukrainian disillusion with Russia in the aftermath of a potential Crimean absorption and would work to bring Kiev into the alliance. Suddenly, Russia may find itself faced with NATO military bases in Sumy, a mere 98 miles away from Kursk and 404 miles from Moscow! Further, NATO expansionists would also speed up a potential Georgian membership in NATO in the south (something that is already being discussed). As it stands now, Moscow still has some cards to play with Tbilisi, as I have discussed in a previous analysis. However, an absorption of Crimea would potentially threaten any advancements in Russo-Georgian relations and it could also plant Tbilisi firmly in the Western camp, making potential Georgian membership in NATO a real possibility. This would mean that NATO bases could potentially be on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus range with missiles aimed at Chechnya, Daghestan, and Sochi. This would also give the West a perpetual outlet to Eurasia as Georgia now serves as a corridor to Western access to resource-rich post-Soviet Central Asia and the Caspian basin. If Russia annexed Crimea and the West reacted by planting Georgia firmly in its camp, then Moscow’s influence in Central Asia would also be undermined.
Given these five reasons alone, I must state again that I think Moscow is not interested in annexing Crimea and instead seeks to use it as a bargaining chip with the West in the ongoing Ukraine crisis.
The ongoing situation in Ukraine is a crisis that has drawn in the United States, the EU (represented by Germany and other West European powers), and Russia. However, also significant are the minor parties to this dispute. These are Poland, Sweden, and the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Collectively, they together form a “Baltic Bloc” of the EU that is especially apprehensive about and hawkish toward Russia. The reasons for this vary among these countries, but most are rooted in security concerns and historical animosities. In the cases of Poland and the Baltics especially, NATO membership combined with support from Washington has only encouraged them in their anti-Russia posturing. The concern with Russia has been particularly pronounced in the former Soviet Baltic republics where memories of the forced Soviet annexation by Stalin remain widespread. This past week, it was announced that the US had deployed fighter jets to Baltic states and Poland in light of the Ukraine crisis.
Map of the EU’s Baltic Bloc of Poland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in light beige with Ukraine in blue.
Why is the Baltic Bloc significant to the ongoing Ukraine crisis? Part of the reason goes back to the very institution that sponsored the potential integration of Ukraine in the EU. This was the Eastern Partnership (EaP), proposed on May 22, 2008 as a joint initiative by the two largest Baltic Bloc states, Poland and Sweden. The EaP’s founding was inauspicious and did not receive much attention until it was officially launched a year later on May 8, 2009. Its primary aim was (and still is) the integration of the countries of the former Soviet west – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – into the European Union.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski (left) and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (right). (AP)
“It’s time to look to the east to see what we can do to strengthen democracy,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on the founding of the EaP. Adding to this, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stated, “we all know the EU has enlargement fatigue. We have to use this time to prepare as much as possible so that when the fatigue passes, [EU] membership becomes something natural.”
The main initiator of the EaP was Poland. Warsaw wants to strengthen its regional position and also to counterbalance both Germany’s power within the EU and Russia’s perceived geopolitical assertiveness. In order to give the EaP initiative gravitas, Poland also sought support from Sweden. Concerned about their security vis-a-vis Moscow, Stockholm welcomed co-sponsorship. However, in order to fully understand the motives of these two states more deeply, a brief overview of their historical relationships with Russia must be in order.
Why Poland?
Poland specifically has a long and complicated history with Russia. In sum, its acceptance of Roman Catholicism and its orientation toward Western Europe and the Latin world distinguished it against Orthodox Russia with its Byzantine identity and mixed European-Asian outlook. In the West, we often look to the most recent history of the Russian-Polish conflict where Poland is the victim of Russian and Soviet imperialism. Mentioned are events like Russia’s participation in Poland’s partitions, its suppression of Polish uprisings, the Polish-Soviet War, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Katyń massacre, and the establishment of communist Poland after World War II.
The Oath of False Dimitry I to Sigismund III [King of Poland-Lithuania] on the Introduction of Catholicism in Russia (1874) by Nikolai Nevrev.
However, to a Russian with a sense of history, the attitude toward Poland is very different. They think back to the Time of Troubles in Russia (1598-1613), a period of civil war that encompasses the rise of the Polish-sponsored “False Dmitriy” to the throne in 1605. The tsar pretender sought to bring Catholicism to Russia and to Polonize its culture. He soon became widely unpopular and, after being exposed as a false claimant to the throne, was overthrown and killed in a Boyar-led uprising in 1606. Subsequently, his body is said to have been burned and his ashes stuffed into a cannon that was aimed and fired in the direction of Poland.
More importantly, the Time of Troubles also includes the 1609 invasion of Muscovy by the Polish monarch Sigismund III, who hoped to forcibly annex Russia and proclaim himself ruler of a joint Polish-Russian state. The occupation of Moscow by the Poles and their unsuccessful attempts to forcibly convert Russia to Roman Catholicism during this period are especially sensitive subjects for the Russians to this day.
Patriarch Hermogen Refusing to Bless the Poles (1860) by Pavel Chistyakov
In firm opposition to the Polish invasion was the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Hermogen, who was imprisoned by the Poles for refusing to endorse a non-Orthodox tsar. From his cell, he called upon the mass of the Russian narod to rise up and expel the invaders from the motherland. Additionally arousing Russian national feeling was Sweden’s decision in the autumn of 1610 to join the Poles in their fight against Russia.
The Polish occupation of Muscovy was ultimately overturned in 1612 by a successful national rebellion, led by an unlikely duo comprised of a local butcher Kuzma Minin and a veteran military leader Prince Dmitriy Pozharsky. Subsequently, these leaders called the national assembly that led to the election of Mikhail Romanov to the Russian throne, thus initiating the Romanov dynasty. The national significance of Minin and Pozharsky’s leadership would later become immortalized in a monument dedicated to them that stands today on Red Square in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Notably, the monument was completed in 1818, immediately following the victory against the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and approximately 200 years after the victory against the Poles. In general, these historical memories, though seemingly distant to Westerners, still influence many Russians today and continue to inform their views on geopolitics with regard to Europe. It is a history that every Russian school child knows.
Minin and Pozharsky Statue in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow (Kotomka)
Former Polish President Lech Kaczyński
In much more recent times, following the collapse of communism, the Russo-Polish relationship entered an overtly antagonistic phase under the presidency of Lech Kaczyński (2005-2010). A textbook Polish nationalist, Kaczyński held a genuine distrust for both Germany and Russia. Within the EU, he generally earned a reputation for being hawkish on Russia and staunchly loyal to Washington. He was an active supporter of the war in Iraq as well as efforts to support the “color revolution” governments in Ukraine and Georgia and to expand NATO eastward. As one commentator from Der Speigel noted:
Since it expanded into Central Europe and parts of the former Soviet Union in 2004, Poland and the Baltic states have pushed the EU to take a stronger stance against Russia — to the dismay of many diplomats in what some call “Old Europe.”
Lech Kaczyński stands with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and the presidents of the three Baltic states in Tbilisi during the 2008 South Ossetia war. (AFP)
Kaczyński also enthusiastically welcomed the Washington-proposed missile defense shield in Poland which Moscow considered a threat. Likewise, he envied and feared Germany’s wealth and power within the EU. Following Kaczyński’s death, his twin brother Jarosław (who shared much of his brothers’ political views) warned Berlin against “imperial ambitions” and authored a book in Poland that suggested German territorial ambitions on Poland, and that the East German stasi helped Angela Merkel win power. Between both Germany and Russia, the Kaczyńskis saw Poland again as being a “victim in the middle,” a fact seemingly emphasized by then-Defense Minister (today Foreign Minister) Radosław Sikorski’s comparison of the joint German-Russian Nord Stream pipeline to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Clearly the historical memory of Poland’s partitions and divisions still runs deep in the Polish consciousness.
Józef Piłsudski
It should likewise be noted that Kaczyński also deeply admired Józef Piłsudski, a Polish military leader and dictator from Poland’s interwar past, and his ideology of “prometheism” which likely influenced his perspective as well. The “prometheist” policy of Piłsudski viewed large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania as crucial to forming a larger, multiethnic Poland as had existed immediately prior to its first partition in 1772. Additionally, there are also many Poles who continue to view the “Kresy” (“Borderland”) territories of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, and Southern Lithuania as still being rightfully theirs. Consequently, it is in Ukraine where Poland’s historical-national ambitions coincide with its security concerns. Notably, Kaczyński’s ally, Mikheil Saakashvili, is also an admirer of Piłsudski.
Yet, for all this, the overtly antagonist atmosphere of Russian-Polish relations under Kaczyński did not last long. In 2010 Kaczyński died in a tragic plane crash near Smolensk. Early presidential elections were called. Kaczyński’s twin brother Jarosław ran in his place and lost against the independent Bronisław Komorowski. It must be noted that Komorowski hails from Poland’s “recovered territories,” the formerly German-inhabited regions of western Poland annexed after World War II, where the attitude toward relations with Russia is more pragmatic. Likewise, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, elected to office in 2007, is also from the “recovered territories” and has supported better relations with Moscow.
Under Komorowski and Tusk, relations between Poland and Russia have improved. However, it was also under the Tusk government with the encouragement of Defense Minister-turned-Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski that the EaP was founded, thus indicating a continued interest in enhancing Poland’s role in the ex-Soviet space. In fact, Sikorski had proposed the idea for the EaP as early as March 2008. It is conceivable too that while the Tusk government has sought to maintain a balanced relationship with Moscow, it also still seeks to counterbalance Germany’s influence within the EU and Russia’s influence in the post-Soviet space. Overall, tension with Moscow still remains. Historical animosities continue to be highly flammable, as demonstrated by the violent clashes between Russian and Polish football fans during the FIFA Euro 2012 Poland-Russia football match in Warsaw. According to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 54% of Poles expressed an unfavorable opinion about Russia.
Why Sweden?
A 2009 Polish report on the EaP indicated that the concept “was born in Poland” and that Sweden later decided to co-sponsor the initiative. Indeed, the report states, “thanks to Sweden’s involvement, the development of an independent EU Eastern policy ceased to be perceived as a sphere of interest of primarily the ‘new’ [i.e., ex-communist] EU member states.” Though the same report identifies “the principal motivation behind Sweden’s involvement” as being its “support for bringing those countries closer to the EU,” it does not state any reasons for this. The historic Swedish-Russian relationship offers some insight into this issue. Stockholm’s relationship with Russia has been dominated since the 19th century primarily by security concerns which have their origins in earlier military conflicts.
Much like the Polish-Russian relationship, the historic relationship between Russia and Sweden also has deep roots. Some historians even argue that the Rus’ people have at least partial Scandinavian origins. This aside, Russian-Swedish relations have largely been characterized by mutual mistrust and hostility. The two countries fought 15 wars against one another, beginning with the Swedish–Novgorodian wars of the 12th and 13th centuries, including the famed Battle of the Neva in 1240 in which the Prince Aleksandr of Novgorod earned the epithet “Nevsky.” However, it was the Great Northern War that marked a major turning point in the relationship between both countries. It was during that war that Tsar Peter the Great captured a strategically important stretch of territory on the Gulf of Finland where he founded for Russia a new, European-oriented capital, St. Petersburg. It was also during the war that the Battle of Poltava was fought. On June 27, 1709, on the Poltava field of eastern Ukraine, Peter decisively defeated the Swedish forces of King Charles XII and his Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld. The defeat marked the beginning of the end of Sweden as a Great Power in Europe.
Peter the Great Thinking About the Construction of St. Petersburg (1916) by Alexandre Benois
The last war fought between Russia and Sweden was a century later in 1808-09 in which Russia annexed Finland. Then, despite a lengthy history of tension, the two Baltic rivals set aside their mutual animosity to combat a much greater common foe, Napoleon in 1812. After his defeat, however, the frosty relationship between St. Petersburg and Stockholm resumed. Sweden bristled at Russia’s continued fortifications of the majority-Swedish Åland Islands, located only 135 miles from Stockholm. Following its territorial losses to Russia in the Great Northern War and its additional loss of Finland in 1809, many Swedes continued to fear the possibility of a Russian attack from across the Baltic Sea. For its part, Russia too feared a possible attack by its northern neighbor.
In the 20th century, though officially neutral in World War I and World War II, Stockholm nonetheless supported Finland in its quest for independence from Russia and later in its Winter War with the Soviet Union. In both instances, popular opinion remained distrustful of Russia and support for the Finns ran high. Sweden maintained a policy of neutrality during the Cold War, but it was a policy that Moscow did not fully trust. It included incidents such as the 1952 Catalina affair in which Soviet fighter jets shot down a Swedish reconnaissance aircraft (DC-3) and a search-and-rescue plane. Moscow officially denied any involvement until the Soviet collapse in 1991. In another incident, the Soviet Whiskey-class submarine S-363 ran aground in Sweden’s Karlskrona archipelago from its Baltic Fleet base in Soviet Latvia in October 1981.
Espionage was another aspect of the Cold War relationship. Sweden rendered support to Britain’s Mi6 to train intelligence and resistance agents of Polish and Baltic descent for “Operation Jungle.” The operation was intended to help reinforce anti-communist resistance in the Moscow-backed People’s Republic of Poland and in the then-Soviet Baltic states in the 1940s and 1950s. For its part, Stockholm arrested three Soviet spies: Fritiof Enbom in 1952, Stig Wennerström (a colonel in the Swedish Air Force) in 1963 and Stig Bergling in 1979.
Map of the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Sweden’s traditional security concerns with Moscow changed entirely. Suddenly, the long Soviet-Swedish maritime border in the Baltic Sea ceased to exist and was now replaced by maritime borders with the Russian Federation and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Sweden viewed the three new Baltic states as an important “buffer” against any future Russian threat and thus were viewed as crucial to Stockholm’s security (and to some extent, the security of Scandinavia in general). The sentiment was reciprocated in the Baltics, whose memories of their forced incorporation into the USSR ran deep. The Scandinavian orientation is especially pronounced in Estonia where there have even been proposals to revise their national flag to include the Nordic cross. In 2011, Sweden formally apologized to the Baltic states “for turning a blind eye to post-war Soviet occupation.”
Overall, the relationship between Stockholm and Moscow in the 1990s was generally good. The perception of Yeltsin’s Russia being a weak state at once significantly reduced traditional security concerns and created new ones (e.g., a mass migration of Russian workers or concerns regarding the security of nuclear weapons). This all changed with the Putin presidency, in which the “new” concerns of the 1990s were supplemented again by traditional security concerns. In contrast to the wild Yeltsin years of free-fall capitalism, Putin’s tenure stressed a greater sense of stability. From the outset, the new Russian president sought to reverse the worst excesses of the Yeltsin era. For Sweden, this meant that the stability concerns stemming from the Yeltsin 1990s would be addressed. However, it also meant the re-emergence of a strong, viable state in Russia that could again potentially present a military threat to Stockholm. Consequently, while a member of the Swedish government may state publicly that their opposition to Russia is based on “conflicts in values,” the reality is that it has more to do with perceived Russian state consolidation and its potential implications for Swedish security.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
Beginning in the 2000s, a noticeable chill had descended on relations between the two states once again. Alongside Lech Kaczyński’s Poland, Sweden soon became one of the most hawkish voices on Russia in the EU. It was a very vocal in its condemnation of the Second Chechen war and provided a safe haven to former separatist leaders, irritating Moscow. Notably, a Swedish web server still hosts a website known as the Kavkaz Center, the online voice for the militant Islamic Caucasus Emirate, designated as a terrorist organization by Russia and the United States. Moscow has periodically urged Stockholm to ban the site, which as of March 2014, it has not yet done. Stockholm has also given unequivocal support for the expansion of NATO and for the new “color revolution” governments. In light of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt compared the actions of President Putin with those of Adolf Hitler. Military ties were immediately severed.
In 2005, Stockholm opposed the Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany. Among its concerns were a fear of “increased energy dependence on Russia,” “increased Russian military activity in the Baltic Sea (since the pipeline must be guarded),” and “use of the gas installations by Russia to spy on Sweden.” However, in 2009, Sweden reversed its position and decided to give the green light on Nord Stream.
Regardless, the situation remains tense. By 2011, in response to Russia’s increase military buildup, Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Jan Björklund proposed the installation of military units on the Baltic island of Gotland in case of war between Russia and Sweden. Then, on Good Friday 2013, Russia conducted a military exercise in the Baltic Sea, simulating an attack on Stockholm. Though Moscow insisted that it had informed Stockholm of such an exercise, Sweden was caught totally by surprise. It is likely that the Russian exercise was done in response to earlier NATO exercises held in its vicinity, notably in Norway in March 2012, and to the planned NATO “Steadfast Jazz” exercise in Poland and the Baltic states that was later held in November 2013. The incident fueled a growing debate in Sweden about finally abandoning the country’s historic neutrality and joining the NATO military alliance. The inadequacies of the Swedish military were later satirized on a comedy program on Russian television to the tune of ABBA’s Mamma Mia. The Swedes were not laughing. A 2013 survey revealed that 76% have a negative opinion of Russia.
Pro-Russia Demonstrators in Crimea (ITAR-TASS/EPA/Zurab Kurtsikidze)
There has been much speculation over where the Ukraine crisis will go next. Here are my thoughts on this issue.
Moscow will likely not accept the unification of Crimea with Russia. As Russia scholar and former diplomat Jack Matlock has stressed, this is not in Russia’s interests. Instead, the Kremlin will relent and allow Crimea to remain part of Ukraine. However, Putin will only agree to this on three very significant conditions:
Crimea must have true, maximum autonomy and perhaps some sort of “special relationship” with Russia that ensures this.
The Black Sea Fleet will remain in Sevastopol indefinitely.
Ukraine as a whole, must never join NATO.
All are very real concerns for Russia. Many in the present interim government in Kiev have advocated for Ukraine’s NATO membership and for canceling the Black Sea Fleet agreement with Moscow. One of the government’s coalition members, the far-right Svoboda party, has even advocated abolishing Crimea’s autonomy altogether. At the same time, Russia is not interested in annexing Crimea, but rather in having Ukraine (in its entirety) as an equal partner in its Eurasian Customs Union and not as a member of the EU and certainly not as a member of NATO.
Given this, the Kiev government, already faced with an impending financial collapse and a potential Russian gas shutdown, will have no choice but to agree. The Europeans, led by Germany and the UK (since France under Hollande is increasingly losing its international standing) will back the agreement. Washington will not have much of a say.
After this, Ukraine will implement harsh austerity measures to help save the national economy with the help of the West and the IMF. The effects of this austerity combined with other factors, such as the presence of the far-right in the government, will lead to rising public discontent and the downfall of the present government.
As events in the ongoing Ukraine crisis continue to unfold at breakneck speed, another geopolitical contest between Russia and the West is currently unfolding in the Caucasus republic of Georgia.
UN Map of Georgia, 2014
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (Reuters)
In the 2000s, Georgia under Mikheil Saakashvili was the West’s most loyal ally in the former Soviet space. The Georgian leader curried favor with the American media and the Bush administration, while simultaneously castigating Russia and its President Vladimir Putin as the eternal enemies of democracy. He also consistently refused to engage in dialogue with the governments of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite major breakthroughs by his chief attaché Irakli Alasania to the breakaway regions.
Instead, according to the testimony of Paata Zakareishvili, Nino Burjanadze, and others, Saakashvili evidently favored military means to recapture these areas, underestimating Russia. He was convinced that he had full support of the Bush administration. The result was the disastrous war of 2008 which concluded with Georgia losing any foothold in the two regions and Russia recognizing them (likely in response to US recognition of the disputed region of Kosovo in Serbia). This and other scandals, including the infamous Gldani prison abuse scandal of 2012, eventually cost Saakashvili the presidency and his party’s total monopoly on power.
Bidzina Ivanishvili (RIA Novosti)
The current Georgian president is philosopher, academic, and bon vivant Giorgi Margvelashvili and the Prime Minister is Irakli Garibashvili, the second youngest national leader in the world. Both are members of the Georgian Dream coalition that came to power in Georgia in November 2012. Its patron is the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili who made his fortune in Russia and who preceded Garibashvili as Prime Minister until last year. Significantly, though Tbilisi managed to confirm the final version of its Association Agreement with the EU at the November 2013 Vilnius Summit to be signed in September 2014, it remains to be seen whether or not Georgia is entirely committed to the EU course. In an interview with Georgian television on the fifth anniversary of the 2008 war, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev invited Georgia to join the CU. Shortly after Armenia’s Serj Sargsyan announced the decision of Yerevan to join the Moscow-backed union in September, Georgia’s Ivanishvili announced that Georgia too would consider joining, provided that it be “advantageous for our country.”
While serving as Prime Minister, Ivanishvili kept the issues of the EU and NATO on the table for Georgia. As a businessman with a good knowledge of economics, he likely understands the current economic situation of the EU very well. Even more importantly, he also likely realizes that Russia strongly disapproves of the continued expansion of both the EU and especially NATO. At the same time, he also made reconciliation with Moscow a top priority. These seem like contradictory and mutually exclusive policies. However, they make sense once one realizes that Ivanishvili is likely using the pursuit of NATO and the EU as leverage in Tbilisi’s relations with Moscow.
Therefore, it is conceivable that Ivanishvili’s successors, Margvelashvili and Garibashvili, will use the EU and NATO as bargaining chips for South Ossetia and Abkhazia respectively. After the disastrous 2008 war, Russia recognized both regions as independent states, making any future reconciliation with Georgia seem virtually impossible. Yet this is probably not the last word on the situation. The present Georgian Dream coalition government has made a resolution on its breakaway regions a top priority. Among other things, the current government includes individuals like Irakli Alasania, Guram Odisharia, and Paata Zakareishvili who have strong contacts with the breakaway governments (especially with the Abkhaz) and who are devoted first and foremost to the cause of conflict resolution.
As for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both are not members of the Moscow-backed Customs Union, despite the fact that they are dependent on and closely tied to Russia. Therefore, it is possible that a future solution would involve a “grand peace” in which Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Georgia proper would all enter the CU together in some sort of federal Georgian state structure. Such a solution must have negotiated terms acceptable to all sides and must be sensitive to the ethnic concerns of the Abkhaz and the Ossetians. In this case, Moscow would accept a decision by Sukhumi and Tskhinvali to freely join a federal Georgian state in which their rights would be ensured. To quote one Russian analyst, “if Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia express the desire to unite, Russia will not meddle in their affairs.”
We are open for dialogue. I am sure that in a circumstance where there is a different president other than Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia would have also been a different country and we would have every opportunity to come to an agreement.
We need to have a more pragmatic interlocutor like Irakli Alasania or oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili for example– someone who has just entered into politics. Ivanishvili is a businessman and is perhaps pragmatic enough to understand what kind of solution would be beneficial for everyone.
Giorgi Margvelashvili
Though the statement was dismissed by a pro-Saakashvili MP, members of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition have nevertheless responded enthusiastically. In his inauguration speech in November, President Margvelashvili, while calling for the need of European integration and dialogue with Moscow also stated:
Our offer to our compatriots living in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali Region [South Ossetia] is as follows: Let us build a successful democratic country together, a country that will guarantee the welfare of all citizens, preservation of their ethnic and cultural identity, and respect for their political rights.
As President of Georgia, the ruling party and I assume responsibility for implementing this policy.
Irakli Garibashvili
Then, in a very telling December 2013 interview with the Moscow-backed English-language news service RT, Sophie Shevardnadze asked Prime Minister Garibashvili whether or not Russia was ready for serious political dialogue. He responded:
I do not know. And this is exactly why our government expresses its will to hold dialogue with Russia. We have already taken that step with a view to resetting and regulating our relations. In my opinion, I truly believe that it is a heavy burden to have recognized Abkhazia and Tskhinval as independent states. And if, as a hope – I am quite optimistic about this issue – the Russian government decides one day to reset relations with Georgia by means of peaceful conflict resolution, it will be the best case scenario.
…We have all made mistakes. Let us admit that we have all made mistakes in the early 1990s, for example. There is no way only one side can be spotless and unblemished. But we take it close to heart. We are hurt because our Abkhazian and Ossetian brothers no longer live with us. Somehow I believe and I feel that sooner or later the Abkhazians and the Ossetians will be compelled to live with us. And I certainly hope that this dream too will come true.
Both Margvelashvili and Garibashvili have advocated not only a normalization of relations with Russia, but also a visa-free regime between the two countries. Russian President Putin fully endorsed this in his December 19 press conference, a move that was immediately hailed by Garibashvili. Even more telling, Putin also reached out to his Georgian colleagues with conciliatory language, placing blame for the 2008 war not on the Georgian people, but squarely on former President Mikheil Saakashvili:
Vladimir Putin
Personally my attitude has been changed towards the leadership of Georgia, but not towards the Georgian people. It is as kind and benevolent as it was previously. Even during the most difficult time, when fighting was underway in the Caucasus [reference to the August, 2008 war], relations with the Georgian people were very good. And it was confirmed even during those difficult days and hours and demonstrated in attitude of Georgians themselves towards Russia. Don’t remember if I have ever said it publicly, but in one of the towns a grandpa approached our soldiers and told him: “What do you want here? What are you looking for here? Go over there – Tbilisi and take Mishka [referring to then President Mikheil Saakashvili].”You know we had losses among our military servicemen. Aircraft was downed, a pilot ejected and landed somewhere; a Georgian babushka approached and told him: ‘Come here son’; she took him and fed him. Then he was sent towards the Russian military.
…I am not kidding, I am neither ironic, when I say that I have the kindest attitudes towards the Georgian people. We have the deepest relations both cultural and spiritual; I mean religious closeness to each other.
There are problems, which arose through no fault of ours; we did not start these hostilities [in August, 2008]. We did not start it and now it is quite obvious; everyone has already acknowledged it a long time ago. Whatever happened, happened. We said thousands of times: do not do it no matter what; do not allow bloodshed. But they did it anyway. Now there is a certain reality; we cannot neglect it. But still, we see some signals coming from the new leadership of Georgia.
Is a major Russian-Georgian reset in the offing? It certainly seems so. After the opening of the Sochi Olympics, a confident Vladimir Putin announced that regular flights would resume between Sochi and Tbilisi. More significantly, he invited Giorgi Margvelashvili to a top-level diplomatic meeting. As the Georgian President analyzed the possibilities, Prime Minister Garibashvili threw his support behind the initiative as did Georgian football superstar-turned-Minister of Energy Kakha Kaladze. Tbilisi’s Russia representative Zurab Abashidze and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gregory Karasin have already planned to hold discussions in early March leading to a subsequent high-level meeting. The installment by Moscow of barbed-wire fences around Georgia’s breakaway regions (something that had caused much controversy in Georgia) was suddenly halted. The installation was likely initiated by Moscow as a means of reminding Tbilisi that it risks losing any chance of reconciliation with its two regions if it decides to pursue the path of the EU and NATO. It is Moscow’s way of telling Tbilisi that it “speaks softly” but also carries “a big stick.”
Irakli Garibashvili and John Kerry (Civil Georgia)
However, considering the crisis in Ukraine, the United States has redoubled its efforts to lure ex-Soviet states into the Western fold. Last week, Prime Minister Garibashvili headed to the United States for a high-level visit. Meanwhile, likely in response, Moscow resumed its border installments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as soon as the visit began, much to the annoyance of Tbilisi.
More was to come. Yesterday, the EU’s enlargement commissioner Štefan Füle visited Tbilisi where he emphasized Brussels’ full support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. More significantly, he met with the Georgian Catholicos Ilia II. The patriarch was previously a staunch supporter of Russian President Putin. However, Füle managed to convince him that the EU would in no way interfere with the Church’s position on traditional family values. Subsequently, the patriarch released a statement saying that the Church would now do “everything to make Georgia an EU member.” During the same visit, Füle also signed an agreement between the EU and Georgia pledging 22.5 million euros to Tbilisi.
Considering such developments, Moscow has called for the meeting between Abashidze and Karasin to be postponed until March 14. They need to think of a major counter-offer quickly. Compounding all of this is the growing imminence of Georgia signing the final version of the proposed EU Association Agreement in August or September.
Whatever happens, it is clear that Georgia is a major front in the battle between Russia and the West for control over the post-Soviet space. In this respect, Georgia is particularly significant for the Kremlin. Moscow knows that, at the end of the day, it needs Tbilisi and it wants to prevent it from joining the EU and especially NATO at all costs. The idea of NATO military bases on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus range, aimed at Chechnya and Daghestan and within close proximity to Sochi must be a major concern for Putin. Further, without Georgia, Moscow will be unable to have a direct geographic link with prospective Customs Union member Armenia. Additionally, if Armenia joins the CU without Georgia, it also means major economic and unemployment problems and even more geopolitical isolation for Yerevan. This would be a major headache for Armenia, even if it means greater security guarantees from Moscow vis-a-vis neighboring Turkey and especially Azerbaijan, both of which maintain a blockade on Armenia over the Nagorny Karabakh dispute.
In summary, the viability and legitimacy of the Customs Union in the Caucasus depends on the geopolitical fate of Georgia. If Tbilisi spurns Moscow for Washington and Brussels, then both it and Moscow stand to lose. Georgia would be unable to reconcile with Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moscow would have NATO bases right on its southern flank. Meanwhile, Yerevan would face economic hardship resulting from all of this. Arguably, the West too would not benefit. If Georgia joins NATO and Armenia remains a military ally of Russia due to security concerns vis-a-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan, then there will be a new Cold War-style divide running right through the volatile Caucasus. Nobody would gain from such a scenario. Meanwhile, if Tbilisi goes with Moscow then all of this could be averted and the West’s expansion into former Soviet Eurasia would effectively end. In this regard, the Kremlin knows that the West has no mechanisms to resolve the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflicts, whereas it does and this could be its major trump card.
Ukrainian Navy servicemen onboard the ship “Slavutych” (from ITAR-TASS).
1. Contrary to widespread Western media reports, Russia has not actually invaded Ukraine. The use of the term “invasion” evokes images of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. This is not the case. Rather, the ethnic Russians in Crimea have revolted against the interim government in Kiev due to very real concerns (such as the abolition of the regional language law) and Moscow is supporting them politically and militarily. Moscow is likewise interested in protecting its Black Sea Fleet as well as access to the port. Several contingents of the Ukrainian Army and Navy have also defected to the side of the Crimean rebels. The head of Ukraine’s Navy was among those who defected. Given this, the “Russian invasion” narrative, while dramatic and eye-catching, is misleading. The actual situation is much more complex and not as black-and-white as the Cold War-style “invasion” narrative sounds.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (ITAR-TASS)
2. Putin dislikes ex-President Yanukovych, primarily for the poor, indecisive, and incompetent leadership he has exhibited and because he played the geopolitical contest between Russia and the West to the brink. If the current government in Kiev falls, Putin will likely back somebody entirely new to take its helm, but not Yanukovych.
3. Putin is not just interested in Crimea or in Southeastern Ukraine. He also has no ambition to annex Ukraine. Rather, he would ideally like to see Ukraine as a whole join as an equal partner in the Moscow-backed economic Customs Union.
Yulia Tymoshenko
4. Yulia Tymoshenko is not the savior of Ukraine and neither are much of the rest of Ukraine’s oligarchs and political elite who have plundered the country and its people since independence.
5. If not close to bankruptcy, the Ukrainian economy is totally bankrupt. It presently needs around $50 billion. They will have difficulty even paying their civil servants in the next few weeks.
6. If Ukraine goes bankrupt, it will adversely affect the availability of food. The interim government in Kiev will lose its credibility if the people of Ukraine have no bread.
7. The EU has still not recovered from the Eurozone crisis. It can barely bail out Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Meanwhile, unemployment is rising in France where President Hollande’s popularity is at an all-time low. Given all this, the EU will be unable to provide the funds that Ukraine needs to avoid default.
8. The US economy is also in very bad condition and will probably get worse. It too cannot afford to bail out Ukraine.
9. The IMF can give limited financial support to Ukraine, but this requires adhering to IMF regulations and austerity that would put the situation in a tailspin. People in Central Ukraine who are mixed Russian-Ukrainian speakers and whose support for the protest has been mixed (in contrast to the West which was pro-Maidan and the East and South which were anti-Maidan) would turn decisively against their government.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
10. The West has limited options for retaliating against Russia over Ukraine. Sanctions are impossible. The US still needs Russia on important issues like Iran and Syria and the EU, and especially Germany, cannot afford to severe its ties with a major trade and energy partner. The best that the West can do, if they can obtain agreement among themselves, is to expel Russia from the G8, which would not phase Moscow. Putin is far more interested in Ukraine than in the G8 which has become increasingly irrelevant in recent years. To note, Germany has voiced its opposition to expel Russia from the G8.
11. By encouraging and supporting the anti-government movement in Ukraine, the West has made democratic development in the former Soviet space more difficult. Authorities in Russia and other ex-Soviet states will begin to associate genuinely peaceful protests and free expression with the violent unrest and extremism of the Maidan. Jack Matlock, the former US ambassador to the USSR in 1987-91, echoed this sentiment on a recent blog post, quoting an American friend who is a resident of Moscow:
People won’t demonstrate, and not just because of fear of the police. It will simply seem unpatriotic and remind everyone of violence in Kiev, which no one wants. Even people who dislike Yanukovich do not like how he was kicked out of office. I think it’s a fair question to ask why elections couldn’t take place as agreed, and why he had to be forced out of office immediately.
Svoboda Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok
12. The interim government in Kiev, whether one likes Yanukovych or not, came to power through illegal means and is an uneasy marriage of pro-EU liberals and far-right fascists. The far-right groups include Svoboda, Right Sector, Patriot of Ukraine, and the Ultras, all of whom make no secret of their antisemitism, Russophobia, and love of Ukrainian collaborators from World War II. This has been an anathema for most of the South, the East, and much of Central Ukraine who lost many family members in the Great Patriotic War. Overall, all of these issues – the inclusion of fascists in the government, the potential challenge for the availability of food, the impending economic collapse, the implementation of IMF-style austerity, and the inability to solve the Crimean situation – will seriously undermine the credibility of the Kiev government very quickly unless it gets massive financial support and backing from the EU and the US, which is unlikely. The loss of the present government’s credibility may, ironically, serve to also bring the country together.
Updated and expanded as of 15 May 2014 to reflect recent developments.
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine has prompted much commentary. However, few analysts have really been able to truly answer the basic question: what is Ukraine and why is this country so significant to Russia?
The name “Ukraine” itself has often been translated as “borderland.” Its diverse people and historical monuments are a testament to its being contested by regional powers throughout the centuries, including today. It has been coveted historically for its vast, fertile, and resource-rich agricultural land and for its geostrategic military position. The country has been often referred to as the “Bread Basket of Europe,” the “Bread Basket of the Russian Empire,” or the “Bread Basket of the Soviet Union,” depending on which era of history one is observing.
Wheat Field in Ukraine
As a people, the Ukrainians are distinct. They speak an East Slavic language that is closely related to, but not the same as Russian. Historically, the Ukrainians shared many state formations with the Russians from the Kievan Rus’ to the Soviet Union, sometimes as equal partners, sometimes as subordinates. As such, they have often been associated with Russia. However, they are a distinct people altogether. They have their own national dance, the hopak, also known as the Cossack dance, with its famous prisyadka (“squat-and-kick”) move that Westerners often stereotypically associate with cultural images of “Russia.” They are also renowned for their unique musical instrument, the badura, a sort of fusion between the harp and the balalaika. In cuisine, they are famous for their love of salo and borscht, which is actually of Ukrainian, not Russian, origin. The poet and artist Taras Shevchenko and the Soviet-era filmmaker Aleksandr Dovzhenko are among the foremost Ukrainian cultural icons. Further, the Cossacks, a transnational East Slavic cultural group renowned for their love of freedom and horsemanship, played a major role in the formation of the Ukrainian national identity.
The Pavlo Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble dancing the Hopak with the famous prisyadka at 4:46.
Western commentators have often spoken of Ukraine as either a single monolith (“the Ukrainian people”) or as “two Ukraines,” one being “largely pro-Western” and even “majority Catholic,” and the other being “largely pro-Russian” and “majority Orthodox.” However, both are oversimplifications. The regional divisions within the country are actually much more complex than an outside observer may perceive them to be. For example, Catholics of all rites only comprise about 10% of Ukraine’s population while Orthodoxy remains dominant overall. Essentially, though, there are basically three major regions in Ukraine – Western Ukraine, Central Ukraine, and Southeastern Ukraine – and two distinct smaller regions – Zakarpattia and Crimea.
Regional Map of Ukraine
The region of Western Ukraine is comprised of three distinct regions: Galicia, Volhynia, and Chernivtsi. Of these, the historic areas of Galicia and Volhynia best correspond to the mainstream impressions of the pro-Western, Polish-leaning, Catholic Ukraine. Their distinct Western orientation and rejection of Russia goes back deep into the annals of history. Being the westernmost of the East Slavic Rus’ lands, the old medieval Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia maintained a distinct Western outlook. Catholic influence was accepted and the kingdom perceived itself to be within the same cultural sphere as its Catholic neighbors, Poland and Hungary. Intermarriage between the princely houses of this region and Catholic states was not uncommon. By contrast, other historical lands of the Rus’ were hostile toward Western influence. Their experience with the West was shaped by images of an aggressive invader, whether it was Poland, Sweden, or the Teutonic Knights.
Volhynia (the homeland of Ukraine’s first post-Soviet President Leonid Kravchuk) was annexed by the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great in the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The dominant Greek Catholicism was suppressed and Orthodoxy was reintroduced. The area was later annexed by interwar Poland and remained part of that state until the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 when it became part of Soviet Ukraine.
Skyline of Lviv, the unofficial capital of Galicia in Western Ukraine. Note the Central European architectural style.
Meanwhile, Galicia (centered on the city of Lviv) remained entirely outside of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and was instead part of Austria-Hungary and interwar Poland until, again, the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. As such, the region’s links with Catholic and Western Europe remained relatively strong.
The western orientation of both Galicia and Volhynia has persisted to the present day, with Catholicism still playing an important role in Galicia. After these regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union, the Soviet military faced strong partisan resistance from within this region that continued into the early 1950s. Anti-Russian sentiment and support for Ukrainian nationalism runs high here, especially in Galicia where the extremist far-right party “Svoboda” has managed to win as much as 40% of the local electorate. Ironically, though “Svoboda” has been one of the main leaders in the Euromaidan protests, it is extremely Euroskeptical and has been accused of Neo-Nazism, Russophobia, and antisemitism. Its leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has glorified Ukrainian nationalist collaborators from World War II for fighting against “Russians, Jewry and other crap.” Stepan Bandera, largely considered a wartime collaborator throughout most of Ukraine, is seen in Western Ukraine as a national hero. Naturally, a local citizen in a city like Lviv would fully endorse the Euromaidan protests and perceive the Moscow-backed Eurasian Union to be a Russian imperial project or even a “neo-Soviet” project.
Outside of Galicia and Volhynia is Chernivtsi. Centered around the city of the same name, this region is comprised of territory that was, until World War II, part of Austria-Hungary and later, the interwar Kingdom of Romania. Most, though not all of it, corresponds to the historic region of North Bukovina. Despite its geographic place in Western Ukraine, the voting and linguistic patterns of this region more closely follow those seen in Central Ukraine than in Galicia and Volhynia. Elections here are often close and the locals largely speak Surzhyk, a mixed Russian-Ukrainian language (see the Central Ukraine section below for more details). It is also home to a significant (about 20%) Romanian minority from which the current Prime Minister Arseniy “Yats” Yatsenyuk is partially descended. With the abolition of the regional language law, there have been concerns here too since areas of Chernivtsi are majority-Romanian speaking. Ironically, Yatsenyuk, who supported abolishing the language law, also reportedly speaks some Romanian as well.
St. Nicholas Wooden Church in Zakarpattia
Further west, the secluded westernmost mountainous oblast of Zakarpattia represents an entirely distinct case all its own. Sharing four international boundaries with Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, this is the homeland of the Carpatho-Rusyns (also known as the Carpathian Ruthenians), a distinct East Slavic people (or a subgroup of Ukrainians, depending on one’s view) who follow the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church (distinct from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). The local population of Zakarpattia, while tilting westward, would likely perceive imperialist ambitions on the part of not only Moscow, but Kiev too. In a 1991 referendum devised by former Ukrainian President Kravchuk, the people of this region voted overwhelmingly to be granted local autonomy. However, this was never implemented. In 2008, a group calling itself the Congress of Carpathian Ruthenians unsuccessfully attempted to proclaim a “Republic of Carpathian Ruthenia.” Notably, Zakarpattia is one of two regions in all of Ukraine that has registered a positive natural population growth rate (download the official statistics here).
This largely rural area, located at the geographic center of Europe and famous for its wooden church architecture, was part of the Kingdom of Hungary within Austria-Hungary until 1918, when it became part of interwar Czechoslovakia. It was annexed by Soviet Ukraine after World War II. Despite this history, most Czechs and Slovaks share good relations with the Carpatho-Rusyns and neither nationality has any claim to Zakarpattia.
However, there is a sizable Hungarian minority in southern Zakarpattia and this has been claimed by Hungarian nationalists who still refuse to recognize the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Significantly, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has been very quiet on the ongoing Ukraine crisis and, if anything, he has been closer to Yanukovych. Orbán has been keen to forge a good relationship with Yanukovych because Yanukovych supports the linguistic rights of non-Ukrainians in Ukraine, which includes the Hungarians of Zakarpattia. When the law on regional languages was recently cancelled by the new, post-revolutionary government in Kiev, the Hungarians of Zakarpattia reacted with apprehension and are now looking to Budapest for help.
Renowned Russian writer and ethnic Ukrainian, Nikolai Gogol. A native of Central Ukraine, Gogol was the author of Dead Souls, The Inspector General, and other masterworks of Russian literature.
Then there is Central Ukraine (also known as Dnieper Ukraine), the heartland of the country that stretches from Khmelnytskyi to Sumy. Centered on the capital Kiev, this largely agricultural region was historically part of the Russia Empire and the Soviet Union throughout much of its recent history. This wide, rich, fertile, and beautiful region has also seen much tragedy. North of Kiev, near the border with Belarus occurred the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Additionally, along with much of Southeastern Ukraine, Central Ukraine experienced the Stalin-era Holodomor famine of the 1930s as well as the horrors of World War II.
Largely Orthodox in faith, Central Ukraine’s language is primarily Russian in the major cities (such as Kiev) and Surzhyk, a Russian-Ukrainian linguistic mix, in the countryside. Emerging from “pure Ukrainian” in the west, Surzhyk is the dominant language for much of Central Ukraine until one reaches the Kharkiv Oblast and the easternmost portions of the Sumy Oblast where the language gradually blends into Russian. Central Ukraine is the birthplace to many famous cultural figures in Russia and Ukraine throughout history, including the writer Nikolai Gogol, a native of the Poltava region where the historic 1709 battle was fought. The celebrated Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich was also a native of Central Ukraine.
Linguistic Map of Ukraine, utilizing 2009 information from the Kiev National Linguistic University and data from the 2001 Ukrainian Census. Note that Ukrainian is highlighted in yellow. The mixed Russian-Ukrainian language Surzhyk is in orange. Russian is in red. Carpathian Ruthenian (spoken in Zakarpattia) is in the red-violet color. The Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Crimean Tatar, and Trasianka (Belarusian) minorities are also highlighted.
Politically, Central Ukraine functions much like a “swing state” in the US Midwest and thus is a potential “spoiler” for power between the nationalist West and the more Russified Southeast. Here the response to Euromaidan has been mixed. While many in Kiev appear to have given their support for the initial demonstrations, some of the more extreme aspects were rejected. The violent toppling of the Lenin monument in Kiev by the demonstrators received an overwhelmingly negative assessment, with 69% of Kiev residents expressing a negative opinion about this incident and 15% expressing indifference. 67% agreed with the statement that the “removal of Lenin’s monument in the centre of Kiev is a barbarous act,” while 57% concurred that “the actions of those who removed Lenin’s monument in fact repeated the similar practice of Bolsheviks.” It is unclear how the residents of Kiev have reacted to subsequent events.
Southeastern Ukraine forms the most Russified part of the country and is demographically mixed between Russified Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Much (though not all) of this part of Ukraine corresponds to the old “Novorossiya” or “New Russia” of Tsarist times. It includes Yanukovych’s political base in the working-class industrial heartland of the Donbas, a coalmining region that was once the center of the Soviet-era Stakhanovite movement. Recently, the Donbas has been the scene of a major rebellion against the Turchynov-Yatsenyuk government in Kiev.
Kharkiv, the interwar capital of Soviet Ukraine, is also in the southeast. The city was founded in the 17th century and, along with nearby Sumy in Central Ukraine, became part of a region known as Sloboda Ukraine whose territory corresponds approximately to the Tsarist-era Kharkov guberniya. It is important to note that, unlike other regions and cities of the southeast, Kharkiv was never part of Novorossiya.
Map of Novorossiya, 1913. Note that it includes the territory of the Nikolayev and Kherson oblasti, the southern portions of Transnistria and the Odessa oblast (excluding the Budzhak), the southern part of the Zaporozhia oblast, the southeasternmost area of the Kharkiv oblast, the Western half of the Donbas, and most of the historical region of Zaporozhia (the Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovograd oblasti with the northern portions of the Zaporozhia oblast). This particular map of Novorossiya also includes territories that comprised the Greater Novorossiya region, specifically Bessarabia (Moldova proper with the Budzhak region of the Odessa oblast), Crimea, and the Tsarist-era Don Host Oblast (which included the eastern half of the Donbas and significant portions of Southern Russia). Note that the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine (most of the modern-day Kharkiv oblast plus the northern parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasti and the southern portions of the Sumy oblast) is not included within the scope of Novorossiya.
The southeast also includes Zaporozhia, the famous Ukrainian Cossack region renowned for its freedom and independence but feared by Polish nobles as the dzikie pola, or “wild fields.” On the Black Sea coast, one finds the old shipbuilding town of Nikolayev as well as the celebrated cultural center of Odessa with its cosmopolitan mix of Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, and Mediterranean influences. It is here where the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein filmed The Battleship Potemkin with its iconic Odessa steps sequence, and where writers like Akhmatova, Babel, and the celebrated comedic duo Ilf and Petrov called home. Founded by Catherine the Great and her lover Prince Potemkin, Odessa is a city of humor. “‘Do you come from Odessa?’ is the start to a typical joke, to which the answer is ‘No, I am a respectable person.'”
Short BBC overview on Odessa.
At the same time, Odessa is also a city that has experienced much tragedy in its history, including anti-Jewish pogroms, the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, famines, Stalin’s Terror, World War II, and the Holocaust. Most recently, the city has witnessed the tragic May 2 massacre in which 48 people died. Most were anti-Kiev demonstrators and 39 were killed in the Odessa House of Trade Unions in a fire lit by the far-right group Right Sector and far-right football fans known as the “Ultras.”
The people of Southeastern Ukraine primarily regard Orthodoxy as their faith and Russian as their primary language, though significant pockets of Surzhyk speakers can also be found throughout the region, particularly in the South. Most would see the Euromaidan protests as “futile hooliganism” and would likely perceive the Customs Union positively. As one Moscow-based journalist wrote:
Traversing Ukraine from west to east, one can’t help noticing how the country gradually blends into Russia. The architecture transforms from quaint Central European into austere Soviet with Lenin statues in central squares, and people switching languages from Ukrainian to Russian. Large industrial cities at the far east of the country, such as Kharkiv and Donetsk, are hardly distinguishable from their equivalents across the Russian border. The border itself never existed before Ukraine became independent in 1991, not even centuries ago. It was created in 1991, creating a major headache and a good number of outright tragedies for separated families.
Further south is Crimea, a disputed area claimed by Ukraine but controlled by Russia. Demographically, this region is majority Russian (58%) with significant minorities of Ukrainians (24%) and Crimean Tatars (12%). The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic Muslim people. They once ruled this region as the Crimean Khanate from which they conducted a brutal slave trade. The area eventually came under Tsarist Russian and eventually Soviet control. It was during the Soviet era that the Crimean Tatars were deported from the peninsula en masse by Joseph Stalin in 1944 to Soviet Central Asia. Only since glasnost have they been able to return. Since this time, they have formed their own parliament, the Mejlis, as a means of securing their ethnic rights. Since acceding to Russia, Moscow has rehabilitated the Tatars and has pledged greater community support, though some Tatar leaders are uncertain about this.
Crimea was a major tourist destination for both the Russian aristocracy in Tsarist times and big-wig commissars in the Soviet era. The resort city of Yalta has historically been an especially popular attraction. The celebrated Russian author, satirist, and playwright Anton Chekhov once wrote of Yalta as being better than Nice on the French Rivera. Yalta is also where Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference to discuss the future of post-war Europe.
UN Map of Crimea, 2014
Additionally, Crimea holds significance in Russian history for being the location of the historic city of Khersones (in modern-day Sevastopol) where Prince Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus’ converted to Christianity. Crimea was also the site of many historically significant wars in Russia’s history including not only World War I and World War II, but also the Crimean war fought by Imperial Russia against France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia in the 1850s. After World War II, four cities in Ukraine were designated “hero cities” by Soviet authorities for their exceptional bravery against Nazi Germany. These included Kiev and Odessa and two cities in Crimea – Sevastopol and Kerch. Indeed, in a Western documentary on the formerly top-secret Balaklava submarine base in Crimea, one local tour guide even described Sevastopol as being a “holy place.”
Nikita Khrushchev (German Federal Archives)
Crimea was transferred from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, himself of partial Ukrainian descent and married to an ethnic Ukrainian. A Ukrainophile, Khrushchev transferred the peninsula to Ukraine as a gift of “brotherly love” on the 300th anniversary of the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav in which the Ukrainian Cossacks agreed to formally join the Russian Empire. However, Slavic sentimentality was only part of the reason why Khrushchev made the decision. According to his son, Sergei Khrushchev, there were also serious economic considerations. As the Sixth Five-Year Plan was being prepared, there were two proposed irrigation canals: South-Ukrainian and North-Crimean. The first was to run entirely through Ukraine while the second was to start in Ukraine and end in Crimea which was then part of the the Russian Federation. This necessitated a division of labor between the two republics which would “cause confusion in the building process and slow it down.” Therefore, for Moscow, it was more efficient administratively for Crimea to be a part of Ukraine. At the time the decision was made, it was given little consideration by the Russian or Ukrainian public. As far as they were concerned, it was all part of the same Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Sevastopol, home to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, continued to be administered directly by Moscow.
According to Sergei Khrushchev, concern over the political status over Crimea first arose at the Belavezha Accords in which Boris Yeltsin together with the leaders of then-Soviet Ukraine and Belarus, Lenoid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich were to agree to formally dissolve the Soviet Union into independent states. According to Khrushchev, in a lunch prior to the accords, Kravchuk apparently pressed Yeltsin on the future status of Crimea. However, Yeltsin, chiefly concerned with ousting Gorbachev from power, had no time for such questions. As a result, when Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea remained within its boundaries. Subsequent agreements concluded a compromise: Ukraine would formally maintain control of the peninsula while Moscow would retain its Black Sea Fleet. Sevastopol was granted a special city status. Many local residents of Crimea preferred to have been part of Russia instead but, for the time being, were content with remaining part of a friendly Ukraine.
This changed after the 2004 Orange Revolution when a pro-Western political leadership led by Viktor Yuschenko came into office. Among its most controversial decisions, the new government in Kiev announced that it would cancel Russia’s lease on its Black Sea Fleet upon its expiration in 2017. This was not only poorly received in Moscow but also by the Crimean population as well. Exacerbating the situation was Kiev’s decision to also pursue an overtly pro-NATO course, creating more tension in the region. The landing of the US marines in the Crimean city of Feodosiya in 2006 prompted major anti-NATO protests and the Crimean parliament to declare the peninsula a “NATO-free territory.” According to NYU Russian scholar Stephen F. Cohen:
An eyewitness account conveyed [the protestors’] mood: “American soldiers… Do you want a new Vietnam here? You will get it, and your mothers will cry!” Meanwhile, “Loudspeakers blasted a throaty rendition of ‘Holy War,’ the song that sent Russian soldiers off to battle during World War II.”
In 2010, the Yuschenko government was succeeded by Viktor Yanukovych, who traditionally favored closer cooperation with Moscow, but had now shifted policy to pursue a more balanced agenda between East and West. As part of this agenda, Yanukovych agreed to extend Moscow’s lease on the Black Sea Fleet, a move that was welcomed by both Russia and by the locals in Crimea.
However, the agreement fell into doubt after Yanukovych’s ouster from power following the Western-backed Maidan revolution in Ukraine of 2013-14. The new post-revolutionary leadership in Kiev was a hodge-podge mix of pro-Western liberals like Batkivshchyna and far-right political forces like Svoboda. Serious concerns soon emerged in both Moscow and Crimea regarding the future political orientation of the new government. Most of the new government’s members favored membership in NATO while others spoke about canceling Russia’s lease on the Black Sea Fleet. Far-right politicians, such as Svoboda’s Oleh Tyahnybok, called for Crimea’s political autonomy to be entirely abolished outright. An effort by the new government to cancel a Yanukovych-era law on regional languages in Ukraine did not help the situation.
Crowds in Crimea celebrate the results of the March 16 referendum in Crimea voting to join Russia (Reuters/Thomas Peter)
A secessionist movement soon emerged in Crimea and quickly received “anonymous” military backing and support from Russia via its Black Sea naval base. A new breakaway government assumed power and held a plebiscite with the choice of Crimea having either higher autonomy within Ukraine or reunification with Russia. In the referendum, held on March 16, the overwhelming majority of people in Crimea and Sevastopol voted to join the Russia Federation, a decision accepted by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s move to accept Crimea was condemned by the West but widely supported by the Russian public. Sergei Khrushchev endorsed the move as did former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev who hailed it as “correcting a Soviet mistake.” On Victory Day on May 9, Putin made a special visit to Sevastopol where he received a hero’s welcome by the people. Yet, despite all of this, the West and Kiev continue to insist that Crimea is still part of Ukraine, though some voices (particularly in the German political elite) have been calling for an acceptance of the present situation.
Consequently, Ukraine is a highly diverse country with broad regional divisions that can even be sub-divided into yet smaller divisions. Under one roof live the Zakarpattian highlander, the Galician nationalist, the level-headed Kievan, the Donetsk worker, the theatrical Odessan, and (at least technically) the Sevastopol sailor. Compounding all this is the existence of at least six different churches all claiming to be the “church of Ukraine.” Yet despite Ukraine’s multiple “identity crises,” the country as a whole is the main prize in the geopolitical contest over the former Soviet west.
St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev, an architectural monument of the Kievan Rus’.
For Russia, Ukraine is especially significant. Moscow would ideally like Ukraine to be in its Customs Union camp for historic, economic, and security reasons. For many Russians, Ukraine is frequently viewed as the place where Russia began, with the Kievan Rus’ in the 9th century. Of course, it is difficult to assert that the Kievan Rus’ was a “Russian” state since there was no such thing as “Ukraine,” “Russia,” or “Belarus” at the time. The land was simply a proto-East Slavic country known as Rus’. Yet, in the Russian imagination, it is Kiev that stands at the heart of Russia’s identity. To quote the great Russian writer, playwright, and Kiev native Mikhail Bulgakov, it is regarded as the “mother of Russian cities.” Likewise, Ukraine has been coveted for both its rich natural resources and for its geostrategic military position. Indeed, for historic invaders of Russia, from Napoleon Bonaparte to Adolf Hitler, capturing Ukraine was viewed as a necessary first step in order to take Russia. As such, the country is also viewed as a place where Russia fought many heroic battles against foreign invaders. Finally, from a cultural vantage point, Ukraine has been intimately associated with Russian culture.
Significantly, despite one very small opposition demonstration led by Boris Nemtsov in support of the Euromaidan, most Russians either do not support the Euromaidan demonstrations or are ambivalent toward them. Even Aleksei Navalny, one of the most outspoken opponents of the Putin government, was noticeably quiet about the protests. In a Ukrainian television interview, Navalny, who has said that he is ethnically “more Ukrainian than Russian,” expressed the opinion that Russians and Ukrainians (along with Belarusians) effectively comprised the same people. “Although he was insensitive to Ukrainians’ nationalist feelings,” wrote one Moscow-based journalist, “Navalny said what millions of people take for granted, not just in Russia, but in Ukraine itself.” According to Kiev’s Research & Branding Group, almost 50% of Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. 28% have close relatives living just across the Russian border. 60% indicated that they do not regard Russia as a foreign country. As the historian Stephen F. Cohen wrote, of all the ex-Soviet states, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus “are the most intricately and intimately linked–by geography, history, language, religion, marriage, economics, energy pipelines, and security.”
Consequently, from a historical, cultural, and emotional standpoint, Russia can never give up on Ukraine and will do everything within its power to bring Ukraine into the CU. In the words of Cohen in a December 2013 interview with The John Batchelor Show, “…in Moscow, there is this view among rather non-political Russians that this is Putin’s great test as to whether or not he is a great Russian patriot. To let Ukraine go would be forever the infamy of Putin’s leadership.”
Given the rising tension in the current crisis, what happens next is anyone’s guess…
![The Oath of False Dimitry I to Sigismund III [King of Poland-Lithuania] on the Introduction of Catholicism in Russia by Nikolai Nevrev.](https://reconsideringrussia.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/false-dimitry.jpg?w=236&h=300)
Reconsidering Russia and the Former Soviet Union 