STOCKHOLM – How Ukraine’s
profound crisis will end is impossible to predict. We in the European Union and
the United States are doing what we can to secure a peaceful transition to a
more stable democracy, and the implementation, at long last, of urgently needed
reforms. And the agreement now concluded between President Viktor Yanukovich
and the opposition should create a new possibility for this.
If the agreement is not honored, Ukraine could well
continue its descent into chaos and conflict, which would be in no one’s
interest. That is why Ukraine’s crisis is a European crisis. And, though we
cannot know how the crisis will end, we should be very clear about how it
started.
For years, Ukraine sought a closer relationship with the
EU. Its leaders warmly endorsed the promise of enhanced ties under the EU’s Eastern
Partnership, and pushed for an EU Association Agreement, together with a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. When those talks,
which began under the previous Ukrainian government, were concluded, the
agreement was endorsed by all four presidents and all 14 prime ministers to
hold office since Ukraine achieved independence in 1991.
But, as the EU and Ukraine were addressing remaining issues
ahead of the November 2013 Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, where Ukraine
was to sign its Association Agreement, something suddenly changed. From August
onward, Russian policymakers embraced the openly declared aim of knocking
Ukraine off the course that it had chosen. A political campaign against the
agreement was launched, and the Kremlin mixed targeted sanctions with threats
of harsher measures against the already-weak Ukrainian economy.
Russian leaders publicly stated that if Ukraine signed a
free-trade agreement with the EU, it would lose its free-trade deal with
Russia, and high tariffs would be imposed on all goods and services. Severe
economic pressure, it was made clear, would become open economic warfare.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich gave way. In explaining to EU leaders that he was not ready to sign the
Association Agreement, he was very clear that Russian pressure was responsible
for his decision.
This set in motion the chain of events that has now
resulted in carnage and death in the streets of Kyiv. For many Ukrainians,
Europe was the symbol of hope of a better life; suddenly, they felt betrayed by
a political elite that they had long perceived as being incorrigibly corrupt.
So, to be clear, it was the Kremlin’s pressure, and the Yanukovich
administration’s vacillation, that produced the current crisis.
Had Yanukovich decided to stand up to Russian pressure,
there is no doubt that Ukraine would have faced difficulties. But, with an EU
Association Agreement and the possibility of solid financial aid and reform
assistance from the International Monetary Fund, the Russian measures would not
have been sustainable.
Of course, the reforms asked of Ukraine would have been
difficult, but no more difficult than what had been asked of other ex-communist
countries that saw their future in and with Europe. There would have been light
at the end of the tunnel, and, as Ukraine embraced the reform process, it would
have been seen as a determined and democratic European country.
Instead, Yanukovich opted for a short-term strategy
narrowly focused on his own political survival – a strategy that the protesters
increasingly came to view as a game of deceit and betrayal. As the regime
started to use violence to repress its opponents, violent opposition groups
gained credibility.
Free trade with both Russia and the EU would obviously have
been good for Ukraine’s economy, thus providing a boost to the Russian economy
as well, notwithstanding the oft-used but fundamentally bogus argument that EU
goods would flow into Russia via Ukraine. (Has anyone heard Americans complaining
that the free-trade agreement between Mexico and the EU is undermining the US
economy?)
Russia is intent on building a new strategic bastion in the
form of its proposed Eurasia Union, and it seems determined to force Ukraine to
join. While publicly grumbling about supposed EU pressure on Ukraine, the
reality is that Russia brutally extorted the country into abandoning its EU
course. That is the source of this crisis; the facts speak for themselves.
Even under the best of circumstances, the road back for
Ukraine will be difficult. Russian pressure and destabilization, and the crisis
to which they have led, have created new fissures in Ukraine’s society and have
caused further damage to its fragile economy.
And that damage could, one day, spill over into Russia. The
Kremlin should have an interest in a stable and reforming neighbor that, like
other countries, is also seeking a close relationship with the EU.
Carl Bildt has been Sweden’s foreign minister since 2006, and was Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference.
Yevhen Bystrytsky: Can Ukraine Be Saved?
KYIV – Acrid black smoke
hangs in the air and stings the eye in much of central Kyiv, where state
repression is dampening hope of resolving Ukraine’s political crisis. With a
truce between the government and the opposition shattered only hours after it
came into effect, and with dozens of people reported killed in recent days, any
hope for an end to the country’s deepening civil disorder appears to be fading
fast.
Yes, a tentative settlement has been reached, following
mediation by European Union foreign ministers, with a promise of early
elections. But such settlements have been proposed before, and no agreement is
likely to gain broad acceptance unless it includes the immediate departure of
President Viktor Yanukovich.
In fact, Yanukovich’s government seems prepared to use any
and all measures to remain in power. Taking a page from Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s playbook, tax police are prosecuting civil-society
organizations in the hope of cowing them into silence and irrelevance. Yet,
despite such intimidation, Ukrainians from all walks of life have been
protesting for three months in cities across the country.
At its heart, this is a struggle between Ukraine’s
European-oriented West and its Russian-fixated East for the country’s
geopolitical soul. Will Ukraine move closer to the European Union or instead
join the Russian-dominated Eurasian Union?
Despite the mounting violence, Ukraine is not on the verge
of civil war – at least not yet. But make no mistake: the risk of the country –
and its military – splintering is very real, as Yanukovich’s decision to sack
Volodymyr Zamana, the head of the armed forces, attests. The conflict needs to
be stopped now.
To achieve that, Ukraine needs a transitional government of
experts and a new constitution that returns the country to the system that
prevailed until a decade ago, with power divided between Parliament and the
president. Moreover, a presidential election should be held within three
months, with a new parliament voted in soon after.
But Yanukovich has shown that he does not want a negotiated
solution. Until the recent surge in violence, it seemed that dialogue might
defuse tensions. An amnesty for detained protesters was offered, and protesters
agreed to withdraw from government buildings. But when demonstrators fulfilled
their promise and evacuated occupied buildings, Yanukovich resorted to force in
an effort to end the protests altogether.
Indeed, the police began
firing into crowds of demonstrators, and have reportedly killed at least 70 and
injured hundreds more. Hospitals are overflowing, and many people are avoiding
state clinics, because they are afraid of being detained – or worse. The
activist Yuri Verbitsky, a mathematical physicist, was abducted by five men in
late January from a Kyiv hospital, where he had gone to seek treatment after
being injured by a stun grenade at a demonstration. Verbitsky’s battered body
was found the next day in a forest outside the city.
Any prospect for
resolving the crisis ultimately depends on regaining citizens’ trust in their
police and security forces, which are now viewed by many as an occupying force.
To reestablish the public’s confidence, there can be no impunity for those who
fired bullets or gave the orders to fire. Officials’ excessive use of force,
and the government’s reliance on semi-criminal thugs (known as titushki)
to attack protesters, must be thoroughly investigated.
But, even as the ongoing violence makes such an
investigation all the more urgent, Ukraine’s prosecutor and courts refuse to
act. That is why it is crucial that a high-level international mission –
comprising civil-society leaders, the Council of Europe, and the European Union
– launch a comprehensive inquiry and pressure Ukraine’s government to
cooperate.
The EU and the United States have introduced diplomatic
sanctions since the latest round of murderous violence began. This should
include a travel ban not only on all officials who ordered, oversaw, or
implemented the crackdown, but also on Yanukovich’s political enablers: the
oligarchs who are now sitting on the sidelines while spiriting large sums of
money out of the country.
Sanctions should be lifted only when a credible
investigation into the last three months of violence is permitted and a
technocratic government is in place (at which point the EU and its member
states should offer concrete economic assistance). Prime Minister Mykola Azarov
resigned last month, ostensibly to make way for such a solution. But Yanukovich
has refused to take the next step, or to commit to constitutional reforms,
which largely explains the protesters’ growing frustration – and their
determination to press ahead in the face of brutal repression.
There is a perception in the West that all of Ukraine’s
political forces are weak, divided, and corrupt. And there are growing concerns,
often fueled by sensationalist media coverage, that far-right forces are
gaining the upper hand within the opposition camp. But, though such forces do
exist, the vast majority of demonstrators on the Maidans across the country are
ordinary people angry about abuse of power, state violence, official impunity,
and corruption.
For the venal and vicious elites who have taken control of
Ukraine, the real threat is these demonstrators’ perseverance, not the
provocations of a radical fringe. Indeed, while I refuse to believe that
Ukraine’s march to civil war is unstoppable, I also know that our citizens will
never be silenced again.
Yevhen Bystrytsky is Executive Director of the International Renaissance Foundation