Russia, Kiev, Separatists, the West :
Who has done what and why?
Here is the full text in english of prof. Robinson's speech on what happened in Donbass after april 2014.
About prof Robinson:
" I am a professor at the University of Ottawa. I write about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics."
Prof. Robinson has investigated very carefully and honestly what has happened in the last 12 months and he gave a 27 minute speech at the "Ukraine Russia Peace Conference",
University of Toronto, 22 February 2015.
Below that you find the same text, but I (J.Verheul) marked some text.
Who
has done what and why?
Good
afternoon. What I shall do in the next 20 minutes is look at each of the main
actors involved in this tragedy – the Russian state, the Ukrainian government,
the rebels, and the Western powers – and examine what they have done, and why.
My focus will be on the war in Donbass rather than Crimea. First, though, I
would like to issue a caveat, which is that many facts are disputed or even
unknown. There will be cases where I can do is make an informed guess. But as
far as possible when I am speculating, I will try to make it clear that I am
speculating. In this matter, I think it is best to be very wary of anybody
claiming to have certain knowledge.
Russia
So,
let us start with Russia.
If we go back to April of last year,
we find very little, if any, evidence of direct Russian involvement in the
start of the uprising in Donbass. At that point, protestors seized government
buildings and weapons. Yet although many commentators described this as a
repeat of what had happened in Crimea, it wasn’t. The seizure of Crimea was
orderly and peaceful. The protests in Donbass weren’t. They resembled mob rule
more than anything else. Nor were there any so-called ‘little green men’. No
plausible evidence has been produced to indicate that members of the Russian
Army were involved. That is not to say that there were no Russian citizens.
There were – the most important being 52 men led by Igor Strelkov – who arrived
in Slavyansk from Crimea in mid-April. This led to speculation that Strelkov
was an agent of the Russian secret service, the FSB, and that the entire
uprising was being orchestrated by it. However, the more one studies Strelkov
the less plausible this scenario seems, and the more one realizes that he was a
loose cannon, almost certainly acting on his own. He himself claims that the
initiative for his actions came not from Moscow but from Donbass protestors who
visited him in Crimea. The Russian secret services may have known what he was
planning, he has said, but they weren’t involved. That seems to fit the facts
as I understand them. At this point in time, Russia was largely standing on the
sidelines.
This remained the case until July.
As the rebels built an army in May and June, they supplied themselves almost
entirely with weapons seized from the Ukrainian Army and security services.
Huge quantities of Ukrainian equipment fell into rebel hands, but there was
very little direct Russian support. Strelkov who by May was fighting a
full-scale war in Slavyansk issued regular communiques complaining that Russia
had abandoned him.
What we did see in these days was
the arrival of large numbers of Russian volunteers who joined the rebel ranks.
However, these have always been a small minority of the rebel force. The vast
majority of the rebels, probably about 90% of them, are Ukrainian citizens.
This isn’t a war in which Ukrainians are primarily fighting Russians, but a war
in which Ukrainians are fighting Ukrainians.
The Russian volunteers were in any
case individuals, rather than units of the Russian Army. I have found no
credible evidence of the Russian Army being directly involved in combat in
Ukraine until mid-July of last year, at which point it seems likely that
Russian artillery fired across the border at Ukrainian units who were
surrounded south of Lugansk. This, though, was still cross-border activity, and
didn’t involve Russian troops actually fighting on Ukrainian soil. That changed
in mid-August. Around that time, Russian supplies of weapons and ammunition,
which had previously been quite small, seem to have increased substantially,
and then we have some fairly convincing evidence that units of the Russian Army
entered Ukraine in mid-August and helped to inflict a major defeat on the Ukrainian
Army at the town of Ilovaisk before returning to Russia. How many troops were
involved and how long they stayed in Ukraine, I cannot say, but I think that
they weren’t there for long.
Since September, Russian supplies to
the rebels have continued. The most important, as far as I can tell, is
artillery ammunition. The rebels have been using far more of this than they
could possibly have captured from Ukraine, so this must have come from Russia.
It would also appear that some Russian soldiers are in Donbass as military
advisors to the rebel armies and helping to train the rebel armies. There are
also suggestions that the Russians are providing the rebels with intelligence
and assisting them with electronic warfare. However, even the Chief of the
Ukrainian General Staff, General Muzhenko, admits that the Ukrainians are not
fighting units of the Russian Army. The frontline troops of the rebel armies -
the infantry, the guys manning the tanks and cannons and so on - are not
Russian, but local rebel militia, consisting, as I said, overwhelming of
Ukrainian citizens.
If I can summarize all that, what it
amounts to is that Russian military aid to the rebellion was initially very
small, but grew over time. The more resources that Ukraine puts into the war,
the more Moscow puts in in response. In that respect, Russia to a large degree
has been reacting to events rather than leading them.
That
covers Russian military assistance to the rebellion. I will add a few words
about Russia’s political relationship with the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk
People’s Republics. This is shrouded in a lot of mystery. At first, there
wasn’t much of a political leadership, just a few self-appointed guys sitting
in some buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk who actually had no control over almost
anything. Any connection they had with Moscow was very tenuous. In mid-August,
though, there was a significant change in leadership. Out went the leaders of
the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Borodai and Bolotov, and out also
went Igor Strelkov, who by then was commander of the Donetsk army. Now we don’t
know for sure what went on, but it seems certain that they were pushed out by
Moscow. Here we are definitely in the realm of speculation, but I have been
told by some Russian sources that this is most likely true, and it seems as
though Moscow gave the rebel leaders an ultimatum – if you don’t leave, your
rebellion won’t get any support, but if you do, it will. So they quit. And in
their place came the guys who now lead the rebellion – Zakharchenko and
Plotnitsky.
That
brings us onto the why. Why engineer these changes in leadership? The answer, I
believe, and here again I am speculating, is that Moscow wasn’t in control of
events and wanted leaders who were more amenable. In particular, the previous
people in charge, particularly Strelkov, were pursuing an agenda entirely
contrary to that of the Russian government. Russia has made it clear from the
start that it is not interested in annexing Donbass. And it doesn’t want a
frozen conflict with rump little statelets in Donetsk and Lugansk which would
not be economically viable. Its preference has always been for Donbass to
remain within Ukraine. At the same time, it recognizes that it cannot persuade
the people of Donbass to accept this unless there are significant political
changes in Ukraine, above all the granting of some sort of autonomy to Donbass.
So Russia’s policy, I believe, has been to try to put just enough pressure on
the government in Kiev to make it negotiate. That means supporting the rebels
enough so they don’t lose, but not so much that they win. That explains why
Putin was willing to sign up to the Minsk agreement in September and again in
February. It also explains why Moscow changed the rebel leaders – Strelkov and
those around him weren’t interested in striking a deal with Kiev. Given a
chance they would have preferred to march on Kiev. That’s why they had to go,
and more moderate people had to be brought in. Strange as it seems, Russia’s
role has thus been somewhat of a moderating one.
Ukraine
So
what about the Ukrainian side?
At an early stage of the Maidan
protests, it would appear that the then opposition in Ukraine decided that its
objective was not to reverse President Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an
agreement with the European Union but to overthrow him. On several occasions,
they were offered compromises which would have put them in charge of the
government but left Yanukovich in place, but these were rejected. In 2004,
during the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko had rejected overthrowing the
government by force as he understood that this could lead to civil war. On
Maidan, however, this caution was thrown to the wind. There was an interesting
article in Friday’s Globe and Mail by
Mark Mackinnon in which he describes a conversation he had with a Maidan
activist. He asked her what was different this time from 2004. She replied ‘This time, we don`t care if Donbass and
Crimea are with us.’
It`s worth repeating that as it sums
up so much of what went wrong: ‘This time, we don’t care if Donbass and Crimea
are with us.’ The Maidan protests constituted a successful effort to seize
power by unconstitutional means by one part of the population without concern
for the other part’s sentiments. On coming to power, the new government then
put the same attitude into practice, making it clear that it didn’t care what
Donbass or Crimea thought about its policies. The new government contained
nobody who could possibly claim to represent those parts of the country. Nobody
from the government visited Donbass to speak to people there. The government
made it clear that it planned to introduce changes it knew were unpopular
there. As one of its first steps, the parliament repealed the law giving the
Russian language some regional official status. The Acting President refused to
approve this act, but the damage was done.
The manner in which the new
government came to power created a crisis of legitimacy. People in the East
didn’t particularly like Yanukovich, but they had voted for him in elections
internationally considered free and fair. They considered his overthrow
illegal, and the new government illegitimate. To keep the country together,
that government needed to do something to reassure the population that they had
a place in the new order. It did the opposite.
Instead of recognizing that it had a
legitimacy problem, it chose to respond to the protests against it with force.
On 9 May, Ukrainian troops entered Mariupol to retake a police station which
had been occupied by anti-government forces. On their way back out of town, the
Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on civilian protestors killing at least nine,
and wounding around 50. Two days later, in Krasnoarmeisk pro-government
militiamen seized a polling station being used in the Donetsk referendum. When
locals turned up to protest, the militiamen opened fire, killing two. Almost
from the start of its rule, therefore, the Ukrainian government was using
lethal force against its own citizens.
As time went on, the amount of force
being used escalated. By mid-May, the Ukrainian Army was shelling Slavyansk and
Kramatorsk. Before long, it was shelling Donetsk and Lugansk. In the past year,
the Ukrainian Army has fired thousands of shells into Ukrainian cities. Most of
them appear to have landed nowhere near identifiable military targets. I have no evidence that the Ukrainians
have deliberately targeted civilians. The problem seems to be more one of
inaccuracy and possibly recklessness. The army has fired hundreds of rockets
from Grad and Uragan rocket launchers into built-up areas. These are so-called
‘area weapons’, designed to destroy everything in a wide area, rather than to
hit a precise target. They are, therefore, inherently indiscriminate, and their
use in cities is arguably contrary to the laws of war.
The Ukrainian Army`s actions have
caused billions of dollars of damage. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Army has
killed thousands of Ukrainian citizens. The death of 100 people in Kiev is
often cited as proof that Yanukovich had lost the right to govern Ukraine. The
new government has killed vastly more people.
Its response to this has been simply
to deny it. The government denied that its troops killed anybody in Mariupol.
When one of its airplanes killed eight people in Lugansk in June, it made an
absurd claim that the deaths were due to a rebel anti-aircraft missile being
distracted by an air conditioning unit, despite video recordings of multiple
shells hitting the ground from the air. Ukrainian Army spokesmen have
continually denied that their troops shell residential areas. All such
shelling, they say, is done by the rebels in order to discredit the Ukrainian
Army. This is simply untrue. The Ukrainian authorities, unfortunately, are in a
state of total denial about the effects of their actions.
They are also in denial about the
influence of the far right. I do not for one moment agree with the label given
to the government as a ‘fascist junta’. Poroshenko, Yatseniuk, and so on, are
not fascists. But to come to power, they formed an alliance with far right
groups, who provided the muscle which enable them to overthrow Yanukovich.
Then, finding that they did not have a reliable army, they acquiesced in the
formation of volunteer battalions, and sent them to the front to do their
fighting. In the process, they thoroughly tainted their own cause. They seem to
have no understanding that images of Stepan Bandera, the Nazi symbols of the
Azov Regiment, and so on, are not inventions of Russian propaganda, and have
had an enormous impact on how the people of Donbass view the new order. The
government has never once issued any statement disassociating itself from such
symbols. It is as if it has a completely tin ear, and a complete unconcern
about how it looks to others.
Why, then, has the government acted
in this way? Part of the problem, I think, lies in that quote about not caring
about Donbass. I have observed quite a high level of contempt towards Donbass,
which is viewed as a backward, working class, gangster-ridden enclave stuck in
a Soviet mindset. The pro-Western elites have their own idea of what Ukraine
needs, and see no reason to be held back by this reactionary zone. From the
start they have been determined to press ahead regardless of what people think.
This has been a major cause of the current disastrous situation in Ukraine.
Second, the new government seems to
really believe its own propaganda that Maidan represented a popular uprising,
the settled will of the people of Ukraine. It has never understood its
unpopularity in Donbass. Instead, it has chosen to believe that everything is
the fault of the Russians.
The annexation of Crimea played a
major role in this, I believe. It created what I would call a victim mentality
in Kiev. From that moment on, those in power in Ukraine saw themselves as the
victims of Russian aggression, and all their problems as arising from that.
This meant that they didn`t have to think about whether they had done anything
wrong themselves. Instead of reconsidering the path down which they were
leading their country, they ploughed on regardless, blindly unaware of their
own faults.
The
Rebels
So
what about the rebels?
The most important thing that they
have done is rebel. Initially, this took the form of seizing a handful of
government buildings along with some weapons. When the government sent in the
army to restore order, they resisted by force and gradually built up a
substantial army.
Over time they have also created the
outlines of states. At first, rebel areas were lawless. There were multiple
cases of looting, kidnapping, and even murder. There is now less of this, as
the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk have begun to centralize authority and
exert some sort of control over society. This has been a slow process, however.
The initial uprising was not centrally controlled, but rather the product of
local initiatives which led to the creation of multiple militias, each under
their own local warlord. It has taken a great deal of time to meld them all
together, and this process is still continuing.
I believe that the rebels were
responsible for shooting down Malaysian flight MH-17, possibly using an air
defence system captured from the Ukrainian Army. For most of the war, though,
the rebels were on the defensive and were less well armed than the Ukrainian Army.
As a result, they have done much less damage, and killed far fewer civilians
than has the Ukrainian Army, although in recent weeks that has been somewhat
reversed.
Why have they rebelled? Simply put,
they regarded the overthrow of Yanukovich as illegitimate. This led to protests
by the more radical elements of the Donbass population. At first, these did not
have mass support, but events such as the killing of 40 people in Odessa on 2
May, and the shootings in Mariupol on 9 May, accentuated the dislike of the new
authorities, and encouraged more and more people to join the rebel cause.
The new Ukrainian government’s
alliance with the far right was also an important factor. Memories of the Great
Patriotic War are very strong in Donbass. Symbols which may have an innocent
meaning in Western Ukraine are toxic in the East. Fascist symbols are
especially toxic. The fact that the new Ukrainian government wasn’t actually
fascist, but had merely allied itself with some far right elements and turned a
blind eye to them, is a subtle distinction which people with that particular
historical memory are not going to see. They simply saw symbols which they
associated with Nazism and reacted in a visceral manner.
Their cause, though, is largely
reactive. It has no ideological unity. The only thing which unites the rebels
is that they hate the government in Kiev. When you see rebels being
interviewed, and they are asked why they took up arms, the answer is nearly
always the same: ‘This is my land. I live here. I never asked these people to
come here. I am defending my home.’ That
is how they see it – they are defending their homes. It is really that simple.
The
rebel army was perhaps 2,000 strong in May last year, 5,000 strong in June,
10,000 in July, 20,000 in August, and maybe 30,000 now. The more violence the
Kiev government has used against the rebellion, the more people have flocked to
join it. It is important, therefore, to understand the extent to which the
rebellion is a reaction against what that government has done. It is common to
blame the war in Ukraine on Russian propaganda, which has allegedly brainwashed
the people of Donbass. But they haven`t needed Russian propaganda to see their
cities being shelled and the morgues overflowing. Propaganda only works if it falls
on fertile soil, and the reason the soil in Donbass has been so fertile is that
the authorities in Kiev have done a really good job in spreading manure.
The
West
I
will finish off with a few words about the role played by Western states in
this drama.
That role has not been a positive
one. Even before Maidan, levels of anti-Russian rhetoric in the Western press
had reached quite incredible proportions, as we saw in the run-up to the Sochi
Olympics, for instance. For several years, Western states have failed to
recognize that the Russia of the 2010s is not the Russia of the 1990s, that is
stronger, and that its interests thus have to be taken more into account in
international relations. In the case of Ukraine, it would appear that Western
leaders simply failed to consider how important Russians considered the matter
to be. One or two Western academics did warn that if the Maidan protests
succeeded they would lead to war. Western leaders, however, just brushed this
concern aside. That was a major mistake.
I don’t believe that Maidan was a
Western-orchestrated coup, led by American puppet masters. On the whole, I
think it best to view the war in Ukraine not as a struggle between Russia and
the West, but primarily as a civil war, whose roots are mainly local, but in
which foreign powers have meddled, making things worse. So, the West didn`t
arrange the overthrow of Yanukovich. It did, however, support it. Western
politicians, such as our own John Baird, turned up on Maidan and lent open
support to the protests, in effect putting the weight of their countries behind
an attempt to topple a democratically elected president. If you will permit me
to be judgemental for once, this was, I believe, extremely irresponsible
behaviour.
Unfortunately, the West`s behaviour
following the overthrow of Yanukovich has not been much better. By focusing all
our attention on the alleged malevolence of Russia, we have allowed ourselves
to turn a blind eye to the many failings of the government in Kiev. As a result
we have sought to solve the problems in Ukraine solely by means of applying
pressure on Russia, in the hope of changing Russian behaviour. But Ukrainian
behaviour needs changing too. Yet we have never sought to apply any pressure on
Kiev. After Maidan, we should have been telling the new authorities that they
had a legitimacy problem, and that they needed to do something about it, to
bring the people of Donbass into the fold. We should have told them not to send
the army into Donbass. We didn’t. Instead, we pretty much encouraged the
government in all its mistakes. As a result, the West must share some of the
blame for what has happened.
We
have very little influence over Russia. By contrast, we do have some influence
over Ukraine, which needs our money, if nothing else. We
should start using that influence. On that point, I conclude.
--------------------------------------
Below you find the same text, but I (Jan Verheul) marked some text, and made summaries which are marked blue.
Who
has done what and why?
Good
afternoon. What I shall do in the next 20 minutes is look at each of the main
actors involved in this tragedy – the Russian state, the Ukrainian government,
the rebels, and the Western powers – and examine what they have done, and why.
My focus will be on the war in Donbass rather than Crimea.
First, though, I would like to issue a caveat, which is that many facts are disputed or even unknown. There will be cases where I can do is make an informed guess. But as far as possible when I am speculating, I will try to make it clear that I am speculating. In this matter, I think it is best to be very wary of anybody claiming to have certain knowledge.
First, though, I would like to issue a caveat, which is that many facts are disputed or even unknown. There will be cases where I can do is make an informed guess. But as far as possible when I am speculating, I will try to make it clear that I am speculating. In this matter, I think it is best to be very wary of anybody claiming to have certain knowledge.
Russia's military assistance.
The first rebels acted on their own, and were not sent by Russia.
From august on Russia has taken more responsability and influence.
Russia tried to stop the war, and keep Ukraine together.
From august on Russia has taken more responsability and influence.
Russia tried to stop the war, and keep Ukraine together.
So,
let us start with Russia.
If we go back to April of last year,
we find very little, if any, evidence of direct Russian involvement in the
start of the uprising in Donbass. At that point, protestors seized government
buildings and weapons. Yet although many commentators described this as a
repeat of what had happened in Crimea, it wasn’t. The seizure of Crimea was
orderly and peaceful. The protests in Donbass weren’t. They resembled mob rule
more than anything else. Nor were there any so-called ‘little green men’. No
plausible evidence has been produced to indicate that members of the Russian
Army were involved. That is not to say that there were no Russian citizens.
There were – the most important being 52 men led by Igor Strelkov – who arrived
in Slavyansk from Crimea in mid-April. This led to speculation that Strelkov
was an agent of the Russian secret service, the FSB, and that the entire
uprising was being orchestrated by it. However, the more one studies Strelkov
the less plausible this scenario seems, and the more one realizes that he was a
loose cannon, almost certainly acting on his own. He himself claims that the
initiative for his actions came not from Moscow but from Donbass protestors who
visited him in Crimea. The Russian secret services may have known what he was
planning, he has said, but they weren’t involved. That seems to fit the facts
as I understand them. At this point in time, Russia was largely standing on the
sidelines.
This remained the case until July.
As the rebels built an army in May and June, they supplied themselves almost
entirely with weapons seized from the Ukrainian Army and security services.
Huge quantities of Ukrainian equipment fell into rebel hands, but there was
very little direct Russian support. Strelkov who by May was fighting a
full-scale war in Slavyansk issued regular communiques complaining that Russia
had abandoned him.
What we did see in these days was
the arrival of large numbers of Russian volunteers who joined the rebel ranks.
However, these have always been a small minority of the rebel force. The vast
majority of the rebels, probably about 90% of them, are Ukrainian citizens.
This isn’t a war in which Ukrainians are primarily fighting Russians, but a war
in which Ukrainians are fighting Ukrainians.
The Russian volunteers were in any
case individuals, rather than units of the Russian Army.
I have found no credible evidence of the Russian Army being directly involved in combat in Ukraine until mid-July of last year, at which point it seems likely that Russian artillery fired across the border at Ukrainian units who were surrounded south of Lugansk. This, though, was still cross-border activity, and didn’t involve Russian troops actually fighting on Ukrainian soil. That changed in mid-August. Around that time, Russian supplies of weapons and ammunition, which had previously been quite small, seem to have increased substantially, and then we have some fairly convincing evidence that units of the Russian Army entered Ukraine in mid-August and helped to inflict a major defeat on the Ukrainian Army at the town of Ilovaisk before returning to Russia. How many troops were involved and how long they stayed in Ukraine, I cannot say, but I think that they weren’t there for long.
I have found no credible evidence of the Russian Army being directly involved in combat in Ukraine until mid-July of last year, at which point it seems likely that Russian artillery fired across the border at Ukrainian units who were surrounded south of Lugansk. This, though, was still cross-border activity, and didn’t involve Russian troops actually fighting on Ukrainian soil. That changed in mid-August. Around that time, Russian supplies of weapons and ammunition, which had previously been quite small, seem to have increased substantially, and then we have some fairly convincing evidence that units of the Russian Army entered Ukraine in mid-August and helped to inflict a major defeat on the Ukrainian Army at the town of Ilovaisk before returning to Russia. How many troops were involved and how long they stayed in Ukraine, I cannot say, but I think that they weren’t there for long.
Since September, Russian supplies to
the rebels have continued. The most important, as far as I can tell, is
artillery ammunition. The rebels have been using far more of this than they
could possibly have captured from Ukraine, so this must have come from Russia.
It would also appear that some Russian soldiers are in Donbass as military
advisors to the rebel armies and helping to train the rebel armies. There are
also suggestions that the Russians are providing the rebels with intelligence
and assisting them with electronic warfare. However, even the Chief of the
Ukrainian General Staff, General Muzhenko, admits that the Ukrainians are not
fighting units of the Russian Army. The frontline troops of the rebel armies -
the infantry, the guys manning the tanks and cannons and so on - are not
Russian, but local rebel militia, consisting, as I said, overwhelming of
Ukrainian citizens.
If I can summarize all that, what it amounts to is that Russian military aid to the rebellion was initially very small, but grew over time. The
more resources that Ukraine puts into the war, the more Moscow puts in in response. In that respect, Russia to a large degree has been reacting to events rather than leading them.
That
covers Russian military assistance to the rebellion.
Russia's political assistence.
I will add a few words about Russia’s political relationship with the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. This is shrouded in a lot of mystery. At first, there wasn’t much of a political leadership, just a few self-appointed guys sitting in some buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk who actually had no control over almost anything. Any connection they had with Moscow was very tenuous. In mid-August, though, there was a significant change in leadership. Out went the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Borodai and Bolotov, and out also went Igor Strelkov, who by then was commander of the Donetsk army. Now we don’t know for sure what went on, but it seems certain that they were pushed out by Moscow. Here we are definitely in the realm of speculation, but I have been told by some Russian sources that this is most likely true, and it seems as though Moscow gave the rebel leaders an ultimatum – if you don’t leave, your rebellion won’t get any support, but if you do, it will. So they quit. And in their place came the guys who now lead the rebellion – Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky.
Russia's political assistence.
I will add a few words about Russia’s political relationship with the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. This is shrouded in a lot of mystery. At first, there wasn’t much of a political leadership, just a few self-appointed guys sitting in some buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk who actually had no control over almost anything. Any connection they had with Moscow was very tenuous. In mid-August, though, there was a significant change in leadership. Out went the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Borodai and Bolotov, and out also went Igor Strelkov, who by then was commander of the Donetsk army. Now we don’t know for sure what went on, but it seems certain that they were pushed out by Moscow. Here we are definitely in the realm of speculation, but I have been told by some Russian sources that this is most likely true, and it seems as though Moscow gave the rebel leaders an ultimatum – if you don’t leave, your rebellion won’t get any support, but if you do, it will. So they quit. And in their place came the guys who now lead the rebellion – Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky.
That
brings us onto the why. Why engineer these changes in leadership? The answer, I
believe, and here again I am speculating, is that Moscow wasn’t in control of
events and wanted leaders who were more amenable. In particular, the previous
people in charge, particularly Strelkov, were pursuing an agenda entirely
contrary to that of the Russian government. Russia has made it clear from the
start that it is not interested in annexing Donbass. And it doesn’t want a
frozen conflict with rump little statelets in Donetsk and Lugansk which would
not be economically viable. Its preference has always been for Donbass to
remain within Ukraine. At the same time, it recognizes that it cannot persuade
the people of Donbass to accept this unless there are significant political
changes in Ukraine, above all the granting of some sort of autonomy to Donbass.
So Russia’s policy, I believe, has been to try to put just enough pressure on
the government in Kiev to make it negotiate. That means supporting the rebels
enough so they don’t lose, but not so much that they win. That explains why
Putin was willing to sign up to the Minsk agreement in September and again in
February. It also explains why Moscow changed the rebel leaders – Strelkov and
those around him weren’t interested in striking a deal with Kiev. Given a
chance they would have preferred to march on Kiev. That’s why they had to go,
and more moderate people had to be brought in.
Strange as it seems, Russia’s role has thus been somewhat of a moderating one.
Strange as it seems, Russia’s role has thus been somewhat of a moderating one.
Ukraine
Kiev did not try to live in peace with Donbas.
Kiev has caused many civil casualties, but does not want to see that.
Kiev is working closely with nazi's, as they need their brutal power.
Kiev did not try to live in peace with Donbas.
Kiev has caused many civil casualties, but does not want to see that.
Kiev is working closely with nazi's, as they need their brutal power.
So
what about the Ukrainian side?
At an early stage of the Maidan
protests, it would appear that the then opposition in Ukraine decided that its
objective was not to reverse President Yanukovich’s decision not to sign an
agreement with the European Union but to overthrow him. On several occasions,
they were offered compromises which would have put them in charge of the
government but left Yanukovich in place, but these were rejected. In 2004,
during the Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko had rejected overthrowing the
government by force as he understood that this could lead to civil war. On
Maidan, however, this caution was thrown to the wind. There was an interesting
article in Friday’s Globe and Mail by
Mark Mackinnon in which he describes a conversation he had with a Maidan
activist. He asked her what was different this time from 2004. She replied ‘This time, we don`t care if Donbass and
Crimea are with us.’
It`s worth repeating that as it sums
up so much of what went wrong: ‘This time, we don’t care if Donbass and Crimea
are with us.’ The Maidan protests constituted a successful effort to seize
power by unconstitutional means by one part of the population without concern
for the other part’s sentiments. On coming to power, the new government then
put the same attitude into practice, making it clear that it didn’t care what
Donbass or Crimea thought about its policies. The new government contained
nobody who could possibly claim to represent those parts of the country. Nobody
from the government visited Donbass to speak to people there. The government
made it clear that it planned to introduce changes it knew were unpopular
there. As one of its first steps, the parliament repealed the law giving the
Russian language some regional official status. The Acting President refused to
approve this act, but the damage was done.
The manner in which the new
government came to power created a crisis of legitimacy. People in the East
didn’t particularly like Yanukovich, but they had voted for him in elections
internationally considered free and fair. They considered his overthrow
illegal, and the new government illegitimate. To keep the country together,
that government needed to do something to reassure the population that they had
a place in the new order. It did the opposite.
Instead of recognizing that it had a
legitimacy problem, it chose to respond to the protests against it with force.
On 9 May, Ukrainian troops entered Mariupol to retake a police station which
had been occupied by anti-government forces. On their way back out of town, the
Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on civilian protestors killing at least nine,
and wounding around 50. Two days later, in Krasnoarmeisk pro-government
militiamen seized a polling station being used in the Donetsk referendum. When
locals turned up to protest, the militiamen opened fire, killing two. Almost
from the start of its rule, therefore, the Ukrainian government was using
lethal force against its own citizens.
As time went on, the amount of force
being used escalated. By mid-May, the Ukrainian Army was shelling Slavyansk and
Kramatorsk. Before long, it was shelling Donetsk and Lugansk. In the past year,
the Ukrainian Army has fired thousands of shells into Ukrainian cities.
Most of them appear to have landed nowhere near identifiable military targets.
I have no evidence that the Ukrainians have deliberately targeted civilians. The problem seems to be more one of inaccuracy and possibly recklessness. The army has fired hundreds of rockets from Grad and Uragan rocket launchers into built-up areas. These are so-called ‘area weapons’, designed to destroy everything in a wide area, rather than to hit a precise target. They are, therefore, inherently indiscriminate, and their use in cities is arguably contrary to the laws of war.
Most of them appear to have landed nowhere near identifiable military targets.
I have no evidence that the Ukrainians have deliberately targeted civilians. The problem seems to be more one of inaccuracy and possibly recklessness. The army has fired hundreds of rockets from Grad and Uragan rocket launchers into built-up areas. These are so-called ‘area weapons’, designed to destroy everything in a wide area, rather than to hit a precise target. They are, therefore, inherently indiscriminate, and their use in cities is arguably contrary to the laws of war.
The Ukrainian Army`s actions have
caused billions of dollars of damage. Furthermore, the Ukrainian Army has
killed thousands of Ukrainian citizens.
The death of 100 people in Kiev is often cited as proof that Yanukovich had lost the right to govern Ukraine.
The new government has killed vastly more people.
The death of 100 people in Kiev is often cited as proof that Yanukovich had lost the right to govern Ukraine.
The new government has killed vastly more people.
Its response to this has been simply
to deny it. The government denied that its troops killed anybody in Mariupol.
When one of its airplanes killed eight people in Lugansk in June, it made an
absurd claim that the deaths were due to a rebel anti-aircraft missile being
distracted by an air conditioning unit, despite video recordings of multiple
shells hitting the ground from the air. Ukrainian Army spokesmen have
continually denied that their troops shell residential areas. All such
shelling, they say, is done by the rebels in order to discredit the Ukrainian
Army.
This is simply untrue. The
Ukrainian authorities, unfortunately, are in a state of total denial about the effects of their actions.
This is simply untrue. The
Ukrainian authorities, unfortunately, are in a state of total denial about the effects of their actions.
They are also in denial about the influence of the far right. I do not for one moment agree with the label given to the government as a ‘fascist junta’. Poroshenko, Yatseniuk, and so on, are not fascists. But to come to power, they formed an alliance with far right groups, who provided the muscle which enable them to overthrow Yanukovich. Then, finding that they did not have a reliable army, they acquiesced in the formation of volunteer battalions, and sent them to the front to do their fighting. In the process, they thoroughly tainted their own cause. They seem to have no understanding that images of Stepan Bandera, the Nazi symbols of the Azov Regiment, and so on, are not inventions of Russian propaganda, and have had an enormous impact on how the people of Donbass view the new order. The government has never once issued any statement disassociating itself from such symbols. It is as if it has a completely tin ear, and a complete unconcern about how it looks to others.
Why, then, has the government acted
in this way? Part of the problem, I think, lies in that quote about not caring
about Donbass. I have observed quite a high level of contempt towards Donbass,
which is viewed as a backward, working class, gangster-ridden enclave stuck in
a Soviet mindset. The pro-Western elites have their own idea of what Ukraine
needs, and see no reason to be held back by this reactionary zone. From the
start they have been determined to press ahead regardless of what people think.
This has been a major cause of the current disastrous situation in Ukraine.
Second, the new government seems to
really believe its own propaganda that Maidan represented a popular uprising,
the settled will of the people of Ukraine. It has never understood its
unpopularity in Donbass. Instead, it has chosen to believe that everything is
the fault of the Russians.
The annexation of Crimea played a
major role in this, I believe.
It created what I would call a victim mentality in Kiev. From that moment on, those in power in Ukraine saw themselves as the victims of Russian aggression, and all their problems as arising from that. This meant that they didn`t have to think about whether they had done anything wrong themselves. Instead of reconsidering the path down which they were leading their country, they ploughed on regardless, blindly unaware of their own faults.
It created what I would call a victim mentality in Kiev. From that moment on, those in power in Ukraine saw themselves as the victims of Russian aggression, and all their problems as arising from that. This meant that they didn`t have to think about whether they had done anything wrong themselves. Instead of reconsidering the path down which they were leading their country, they ploughed on regardless, blindly unaware of their own faults.
The
Rebels
The rebels are genuine, and they are caused mainly by Kiev's brutality.
The rebels are genuine, and they are caused mainly by Kiev's brutality.
So
what about the rebels?
The most important thing that they
have done is rebel. Initially, this took the form of seizing a handful of
government buildings along with some weapons. When the government sent in the
army to restore order, they resisted by force and gradually built up a
substantial army.
Over time they have also created the
outlines of states. At first, rebel areas were lawless. There were multiple
cases of looting, kidnapping, and even murder. There is now less of this, as
the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk have begun to centralize authority and
exert some sort of control over society. This has been a slow process, however.
The initial uprising was not centrally controlled, but rather the product of
local initiatives which led to the creation of multiple militias, each under
their own local warlord. It has taken a great deal of time to meld them all
together, and this process is still continuing.
I believe that the rebels were
responsible for shooting down Malaysian flight MH-17, possibly using an air
defence system captured from the Ukrainian Army. For most of the war, though,
the rebels were on the defensive and were less well armed than the Ukrainian Army.
As a result, they have done much less damage, and killed far fewer civilians
than has the Ukrainian Army, although in recent weeks that has been somewhat
reversed.
Why have they rebelled? Simply put,
they regarded the overthrow of Yanukovich as illegitimate. This led to protests
by the more radical elements of the Donbass population. At first, these did not
have mass support, but events such as the killing of 40 people in Odessa on 2
May, and the shootings in Mariupol on 9 May, accentuated the dislike of the new
authorities, and encouraged more and more people to join the rebel cause.
The new Ukrainian government’s
alliance with the far right was also an important factor. Memories of the Great
Patriotic War are very strong in Donbass. Symbols which may have an innocent
meaning in Western Ukraine are toxic in the East. Fascist symbols are
especially toxic. The fact that the new Ukrainian government wasn’t actually
fascist, but had merely allied itself with some far right elements and turned a
blind eye to them, is a subtle distinction which people with that particular
historical memory are not going to see. They simply saw symbols which they
associated with Nazism and reacted in a visceral manner.
Their cause, though, is largely
reactive. It has no ideological unity. The only thing which unites the rebels
is that they hate the government in Kiev. When you see rebels being
interviewed, and they are asked why they took up arms, the answer is nearly
always the same: ‘This is my land. I live here. I never asked these people to
come here. I am defending my home.’ That
is how they see it – they are defending their homes. It is really that simple.
The
rebel army was perhaps 2,000 strong in May last year, 5,000 strong in June,
10,000 in July, 20,000 in August, and maybe 30,000 now. The more violence the
Kiev government has used against the rebellion, the more people have flocked to
join it. It is important, therefore, to understand the extent to which the
rebellion is a reaction against what that government has done. It is common to
blame the war in Ukraine on Russian propaganda, which has allegedly brainwashed
the people of Donbass. But they haven`t needed Russian propaganda to see their
cities being shelled and the morgues overflowing. Propaganda only works if it falls
on fertile soil, and the reason the soil in Donbass has been so fertile is that
the authorities in Kiev have done a really good job in spreading manure.
The
West
The west uses the war to make Russia look guilty.
But we should have put pressure on Kiev, not on Russia.
We are also responsable for the human suffering.
The west uses the war to make Russia look guilty.
But we should have put pressure on Kiev, not on Russia.
We are also responsable for the human suffering.
I
will finish off with a few words about the role played by Western states in
this drama.
That role has not been a positive
one. Even before Maidan, levels of anti-Russian rhetoric in the Western press
had reached quite incredible proportions, as we saw in the run-up to the Sochi
Olympics, for instance. For several years, Western states have failed to
recognize that the Russia of the 2010s is not the Russia of the 1990s, that is
stronger, and that its interests thus have to be taken more into account in
international relations. In the case of Ukraine, it would appear that Western
leaders simply failed to consider how important Russians considered the matter
to be. One or two Western academics did warn that if the Maidan protests
succeeded they would lead to war. Western leaders, however, just brushed this
concern aside. That was a major mistake.
I don’t believe that Maidan was a
Western-orchestrated coup, led by American puppet masters. On the whole, I
think it best to view the war in Ukraine not as a struggle between Russia and
the West, but primarily as a civil war, whose roots are mainly local, but in
which foreign powers have meddled, making things worse. So, the West didn`t
arrange the overthrow of Yanukovich. It did, however, support it. Western
politicians, such as our own John Baird, turned up on Maidan and lent open
support to the protests, in effect putting the weight of their countries behind
an attempt to topple a democratically elected president. If you will permit me
to be judgemental for once, this was, I believe, extremely irresponsible
behaviour.
Unfortunately, the West`s behaviour
following the overthrow of Yanukovich has not been much better. By focusing all
our attention on the alleged malevolence of Russia, we have allowed ourselves
to turn a blind eye to the many failings of the government in Kiev. As a result
we have sought to solve the problems in Ukraine solely by means of applying
pressure on Russia, in the hope of changing Russian behaviour. But Ukrainian
behaviour needs changing too. Yet we have never sought to apply any pressure on
Kiev. After Maidan, we should have been telling the new authorities that they
had a legitimacy problem, and that they needed to do something about it, to
bring the people of Donbass into the fold. We should have told them not to send
the army into Donbass. We didn’t. Instead, we pretty much encouraged the
government in all its mistakes. As a result, the West must share some of the
blame for what has happened.
We
have very little influence over Russia. By contrast, we do have some influence
over Ukraine, which needs our money, if nothing else. We
should start using that influence. On that point, I conclude.
Personal comment of Jan Verheul:
I am happy with mr Robinsons findings, because one thing is clear from what he says: Russia was not creating civil war in Ukraïne. It were the Kiev protesters, the support given to them by some western 'supporters' ( Baird, Nuland, Belgian ex prime minister Verhofstadt etc), and their indifference to Donbass sensitivities. Russia merely reacted to that. Russia does not want secession of Donbass.
Of course there is a lot which mr Robinson -- to my dismay-- does not consider, like Nulands 5 billion $ support, and his statement about MH17. But the main thing is this: The USA is doing everything to start a war against Russia. Why? Becauase Putin wants to recreate the huge Russian Empire, and he started with war in Georgia and now Ukraïne.
Well, Robinson makes it very clear: that is a big lie.
It is remarkable that mr Robinson seems to never have heard about the Wolfowitz Doctrine or the PNAC report.
He leaves the USA completely out of the picture, it seems.
That may be genuine, or it may be a matter of self-preservation.
Many people prefer to tell half the truth and keep their job and career, instead of telling the whole trtuh.
Personal comment of Jan Verheul:
I am happy with mr Robinsons findings, because one thing is clear from what he says: Russia was not creating civil war in Ukraïne. It were the Kiev protesters, the support given to them by some western 'supporters' ( Baird, Nuland, Belgian ex prime minister Verhofstadt etc), and their indifference to Donbass sensitivities. Russia merely reacted to that. Russia does not want secession of Donbass.
Of course there is a lot which mr Robinson -- to my dismay-- does not consider, like Nulands 5 billion $ support, and his statement about MH17. But the main thing is this: The USA is doing everything to start a war against Russia. Why? Becauase Putin wants to recreate the huge Russian Empire, and he started with war in Georgia and now Ukraïne.
Well, Robinson makes it very clear: that is a big lie.
It is remarkable that mr Robinson seems to never have heard about the Wolfowitz Doctrine or the PNAC report.
He leaves the USA completely out of the picture, it seems.
That may be genuine, or it may be a matter of self-preservation.
Many people prefer to tell half the truth and keep their job and career, instead of telling the whole trtuh.
An english prof. Richard Sakwa just published a book called: Frontline Ukraïne: Crisis in the Borderlands.
He has the same conclusion as mr Robinson: Russia is nog agressive, it just wants to stop agression.
Her is a review by Chris Nineham. Here is an artcicle in The Guardian: Here.
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