Civil War in Ukraine?

[Reza_Rahmani]

Danger-boy:

You wrote in another thread,

"...I think the Ukraine's future is in its break-up into several parts.
It is obvious today that Ukrainians in the west hate those in the east, and vice-versa, because they are different people. There are religious conflicts.
The borders of the country are artificial also.
It will do the people of the Ukraine a lot of good if some parts of the country will join Russia while other parts will join the EU world. There may also be a part in the middle that will remain an independent Ukraine with warm relations with Russia, similar to Belarus. That's the general outlook.
I am sure there are already powerful forces manipulating events in that direction."

Could you go into some detail about these "powerful forces?"

Your postulation is interesting, and it seems to me that Ukraine could well become a focus of contention between Euro-American interests and Russian interests. Do you believe that the "parts" of Ukraine to which you refer will go through a neat and peaceful fission, or wouldn't it be more likely that violent disagreements would cause a war?

Reza

[Dr_Woland]

Do you think Kuchma can ride-out the present crisis? (nb the Ukrainian Govt today authorised the Russian (!) FSB to come in and assist in identifying the body...)

If he goes as a result, do you think the country can hang together, or do you think we will see rival East/West forces tear it to pieces?

Dr W.

[Danger-boy]

Everything that was built by the Soviet Union must finally come down. The Berlin Wall, Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union and, finally, the Ukraine, a Soviet Socialist Republic whose borders were shaped by Soviet ideologist, whose only interests were to degrade the Russian nation. Russians were so dominant in the Soviet Union that the Communists having international aspirations wanted to look like a union of republics rather than a Russian empire.
It is not only my belief but a CIA forecast, by which Ukraine is considered to be a loose compilation of at least five discrete regions, similar to Yugoslavia.
People tend to think automatically of a Ukraine with the borders it has today. These borders never existed. The people who call themselves Ukrainians live with those who call themselves Russians in the same cities and regions. Large regions, like Crimea and Donbass, have a predominantly Russian-speaking populations. These people are the natives of their land, they are not new settlers who came recently from Russia, and their land was never called Ukraine, except by the Soviets.
The people of Carpathian Rus are actively seeking to protect their distinct culture and language from assimilation by nearby Galicians, whom they consider as unfriendly people. Carpathian Rusyns consider their language Russian and also have a historically friendly feeling for Russia.
The Russian-speaking population of Ukraine is gaining momentum as they increasingly understand their rights in the new non-Communist environment.
I think it would be better for western Ukraine, Galicia and whatever else, to go its own way, because its people have their own history in Poland and Austria since being conquered by those countries. The rest of Ukraine has a different history and culture.
Russia is establishing friendly relations with Ukraine more and more. It’s a move by knight, speaking in chess terms. A checkmate is coming.
It’s very simple after that, the more friendly Russia becomes with Kiev, the more it will enrage Galicians and their ilk until finally they can’t take it anymore and will initiate the split themselves. You know that their whole national idea revolves around blind hatred for Russia. They never want to live in a country that is friendly to Russia. And so Ukraine becomes smaller but friendly to Russia, and western Ukraine becomes independent or part of Poland (for “NATO protection”). Or it can split into several factions but with
similar results.
Russians never fought against Ukrainians. Never. And they never will. Ukrainian nationalists, on the other hand, especially when they feel the support of Germany or someone, never lose an opportunity to lash out at anything that is Russian in their midst. It’s been like that since when Poland got its hands on the Russian principality of Galich.
Civil war is unlikely but not out of the question. Poverty and corruption have already set the stage. Russia will not participate but will step in afterwards, as peacekeepers in a divided land. This is what I think.

P.S. It won't make much difference whether Kuchma survives or not. If he does, there will be civil unrest and the country's image will be tainted for a long time. If he goes, it will be very difficult to find a unifying figure to replace him. It's almost a lose-lose situation.

[Dr_Woland]

I like your argument a lot, and I agree with almost all of it.

However, there is one factor which I don't think you have addressed, and that is the accretion of administrative, civil and military power at the peak of the pyramid.

I've just returned from Uzbekistan - where contrary to your predictions about the inbuilt atrophy of Soviet structures, the USSR is alive and well - in all but name. Uzbekistan is another ex-Republic which is, in fact, composed of clearly-defined ethno/religio/cultural/geographical groupings. In other words, prime for fission.

What holds Uzbekistan together is the concentration of ALL organs of State apparatus at the centre. The regions are kept uninformed, starved of resources, in hopeless poverty, without any investment whatsoever, and... under the steel-tipped boot of the Police. Are the police well-paid or well-treated or privileged? No, of course not. But there is a tacit agreement between State and Police, that in return for loyalty to the centre.... ANYTHING may be done in uniform. Bribe-extracting, robbery, rape, extortion, Security-Guarding of mobster-owned premises, ignoring of organised crime, failure to arrest known criminals... anything at all, in fact. A licence to make money - far more money, than they might ever hope to earn officially. And not only the Police, but all other organs of Govt power function in the same way. Sounds rather familiar?

AFAIK from my friends there, Ukraine functions on the same basis. You can reach an "arrangement" with a Tax Inspector. You can have your competitors premises burnt-down. People go missing and no-one is ever accused.

This is the root of my question about Ukraine. Reza, some time ago, posted an interesting article illustrating how power in Russia is so glued to the centre, that Putin is unshakeable whatever he may do. This is no great triumph of Putin's - he simply got good instruction from his mentors into how to operate the Control Panel that makes a Soviet System function. The right buttons used in combination, will still produce the right result, in the hands of a trained operator.

Do you REALLY think Kuchma is removable? Maybe Ukraine *ought* to fragment as you describe - but will it? Look at the ex-USSR States (except Baltics - a different mentality there). Tell me where you see benign leadership? Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan all have "Presidents for Life". Tajikistan is struggling to avoid takeover by the Mujahadeen. Turkmenistan has returned to feudalism under the "Turkmenbashi" - quite enough said. Belarus - the Stalinist fiefdom of Comrade Lukashenka. Georgia - another fiefdom. I don't know the situation in Azerbaijan or Armenia well-enough to comment, although it does appear slightly better there?

They are ALL centralist fiefdoms, controlled by one larger-than-life personality at the centre. The structure they inherited almost dicatates that it be so.

I agree with your analysis of Ukraine's disaparate regions - but I cannot see how separation might ever occur under peaceful, or even acrimonious-but-non-violent, means.

Dr W.

[Sato]

I find this dicussion unsettling. Just how would Ukraine divide? Everything east of the Dnieper River to Russia, and everything west to some kind of Ukrainian Federation? Or perhaps something even more complex and fraught with difficulty and misery.

Would there be snipers picking people off as in Sarajevo? Would there be forced exoduses as in the case of India and Pakistan? Would there be permanent military occupations as in Northern Ireland? None of these developments are more preferable than working to make Ukraine work with its present boundaries.

Then there are Kiev and Odessa. What would be their fates?

Just consider Odessa.

It was captured by the Russians in 1789.

By the Treaty of Jassy in 1792, Turkey ceded the region between the Dniester and the Buh (including Odessa) to Russia, which rebuilt Odessa as a fort, commercial port, and naval base. The city that developed around the fort grew rapidly as the chief grain-exporting center of Ukraine; its importance was further enhanced with the coming of the railroad in the second half of the 19th cent. It was a free port from 1819 to 1849, and in 1866 it was linked by rail with Kiev, Kharkiv, and the Romanian city of Jassy. Industrialization began in the latter part of the 19th cent.

Odessa was a center of émigré Greek and Bulgarian patriots, of the Ukrainian cultural and national movement, of Jewish culture, and of the labor movement and social democracy. The city’s first workers’ organization was founded in 1875. Odessa was the scene in 1905 of a workers’ outbreak led by sailors from the battleship Potemkin. When Turkey closed the Dardanelles to the Allies in World War I, the port of Odessa was also closed and was later bombarded by the Turkish fleet. Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the city was successively occupied by the Central Powers, the French, the Reds, and the Whites until the Red Army definitively took it from General Denikin in 1920 and united it with the Ukrainian SSR. Odessa suffered greatly in the famine of 1921–22 after the Russian civil war.

Despite a heroic defense during World War II, the city fell to German and Romanian forces in Oct., 1941. It was under Romanian administration as the capital of Transnistra until its liberation (Apr., 1944) by the Soviet Army. Many buildings were ruined, and approximately 280,000 civilians (mostly Jews) were reportedly massacred or deported during the Axis powers’ occupation.

Of course, Kiev has a considerably more complex history. Would these cities become "international cities" with all the tensions associated with that term?

I suggest that we should be very cautious in even thinking about dismembering Ukraine. Even though Woland's point is well taken about soviet skeletal attributes determining government structures, etc., Ukraine would do better in working patiently through present problems, rather falling into a worse condition by dividing.

Sato

[Danger-boy]

Yes, Uzbekistan is similar to Ukraine, which is similar to Russia, too.
Any gov't administration's interests are largely economic: money. It's the key to power, both personal and national. Therefore, all aspects of life in the country that threaten this monopoly have to be taken under control. After that (once you have the money flow under control) you can start building any country and society you want: democratic, socialist, fundamental, etc. He who has the money dictates the policy. But it's not always easy, there will always be plenty of well-armed, connected and ruthless competition, with support from abroad. Big money's interests are not national, but transnational, so the government's control will never be complete, especially in countries like Ukraine.
Ukraine's economy is much dependent on Russia, so you can say that Russia has an economic lever of control in Ukraine already.
But contrary to ex-Soviet central Asian peoples, the Russians and Ukrainians know that they can do something politically. The nation that doesn't stop giving the world some of its greatest thinkers and doers of all times will not sit idly for long.
As we all saw in the example of ex-presidential guard Melnichenko, Kuchma is not at all invulnerable and his Cabinet is totally insecure and full of spies and moles.

How can Ukraine dissolve in peace time? Simple. Russia offers economic and other perks for Ukraine, perhaps in exchange for economic cooperation and an official status for the Russian language. Everything favoralbe, even at Russia's expense (as it usually happens), can be offered: oil, gas, investment, travel, contracts, employment, etc.
Western Ukrainians, including Uniates, Filaret-followers and ex-Nazi veterans will raise a nationalistic, if not militaristic, opposition to this, calling for EU links instead. There will eventually be referendums, and western Ukrainians will find themselves in the minority. Eventually, they will break away, and nobody will hold them.
But EU and NATO membership is expensive and will force Ukrainian to change almost everything in the country to new standards: the military, the economic policy, laws, education, etc.

Sato, Odessa was always a Russia city. Before, there was a Turkish village in that place. The city and the area around it were part of Novorossia (New Russia) before 1917. It stretched from Odessa to Novorossiisk and the Georgian border. The area north, around Kiev (the mother of Russian cities), was called Little Russia (Malorossia) before 1917, not Ukraine.
The Soviet Socialist borders of Ukraine will not hold for long.

[Reza_Rahmani]

Hello, Danger-boy.

You wrote:

"The nation that doesn't stop giving the world some of its greatest thinkers and doers of all times will not sit idly for long."

There used to be a saying about Ireland: 'Ireland's greatest gift to the world is ... Irishmen!'

I think the same could be said for Russsia. And in present times it is still true. A talented Russian, minus connections to the fitful intrigue of internal Russian affairs, is free to do marvelously creative things of real benefit to humanity.

Russia does not "sit idly" if she gives the world thinkers and doers, rather than enmeshing them in zero-sum machinations.


Reza