[A PDF of this UKL is attached]
UKL456-19-June-2012The Ukraine List (UKL) #456
compiled by Dominique Arel
Chair of Ukrainian Studies, U of Ottawa
www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.
20 June 2012
1-Danyliw Seminar Deadline Reminer: 28 June 2012
2-Kule Doctoral Scholarships on Ukraine at the University of Ottawa
3-Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine, 4-10 July 2012
4-ASN 2012 Post-Convention Announcement
5-Washington Post: A Stagnant Ukraine Struggles to See a Way Out
6-Eurasia Daily Monitor: Ambitious Plans To Cut Dependence On Russian Gas
7-Forbes: Anders Aslund, Ukraine’s Incomprehensible Foreign Economic Policy
8-James Sherr: Ukraine, Russia, Europe
9-Euractiv.com: Viktor Tkachuk, The Political Death of Ukrainian Parliamentarism
10-Memory at War Blog: Ukraine, Xenophobia and Euro 2012
11-Maidan.org: Mockery of Justice—the Ukrainian Way
12-New Book: Mykola Riabchuk, Authoritarian Consolidation in Ukraine
13-New Book: Hankivsky and Salnikova, eds., Gender, Politics and Society in Ukraine
14-New Book: Serhiy Bilenky, Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe
15-New Book: Eleonora Narvselius, Ukrainian Intelligentsia in Post-Soviet Lviv
**Note: The item “Ukrainian Female Students Protest Minister’s ‘Ugly’ Insult”, in UKL455, came from RFE/RL and not Kyiv Post –DA**
**Thanks to Nykolai Bilaniuk, Anna Colin Lebedev, Orest Deychakiwsky, Roma Hadzewycz, Mykola Riabchuk, James Sherr, and Roman Zurba**
#1
**Deadline Reminder: 28 June 2012**
8th Annual Danyliw Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine
Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa, 1-3 November 2012
CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS
The Chair of Ukrainian Studies, with the support of the Wolodymyr George Danyliw Foundation, will be holding its 8th Annual Danyliw Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine at the University of Ottawa on 1-3 November 2012. The Seminar will feature research papers, related to Ukraine, from a range of disciplines that could include political science, history, anthropology (ethnology), sociology, law, religious studies, demography, economics, geography, literature, cinema, folklore and other fields of social science and humanities.
The Danyliw 2012 Seminar is inviting proposals touching on the study of the law in contemporary Ukraine or in the history of Ukraine. Topics of interest include the rule of law in independent Ukraine (particularly under Yushchenko and/or Yanukovych), the process of law-making, sociology and anthropology of the law, the higher Courts, the Procuracy, judicial reform, international assistance and/or NGO engagement in rule of law programs, corruption, law enforcement, penal institutions, human and civil rights, legal culture, international law, the Venice Commission, political trials, war crimes trials and related topics.
Depending on the thematic compatibility of quality proposals, the Seminar will also feature a number of additional sections that could include one or several of the following themes (listed below alphabetically and not in an order of preference):
•Education: curriculum and teaching, textbooks, sociology of education, economics of education, Europeanization, language, accessibility and relevant themes.
•Foreign Policy: EU, Association Agreement, energy policy, NATO, Russia and the like.
•Memory & History: the Famine (Holodomor), the Purges, the Holocaust, mass deportations and forced labor, insurgency and counter-insurgency, the Gulag and dissidence and other cases of mass violence.
•Politics & Society: social movements, protests, gender, party and electoral politics, national identity and nationalism, informal economy and politics, regime transformation and/or consolidation, and so forth.
•Religion: the sociology (or anthropology) of religious beliefs and practices, religion and civil society, religious policy in pre-Soviet, Soviet or post-Soviet Ukraine, churches as civil actors and germane topics.
Scholars and doctoral students are invited to submit a 1000 word paper proposal and a 250 word biographical statement, by email attachment, to Dominique Arel, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, at darel@uottawa.ca AND chairukr@gmail.com. Please also include your full coordinates (institutional affiliation, preferred postal address, email, phone) and indicate your latest publication (or, in the case of doctoral applicants, the year when you entered a doctoral program, the [provisional] title of your dissertation and year of expected completion).
The proposal deadline is 28 June 2012. To be eligible, papers must not have been accepted for publication by the time of the Seminar. The Chair will cover the expenses of applicants whose proposal is accepted by the Seminar. The proposals will be reviewed by an international selection committee. Applicants will be notified in July.
Those among accepted applicants whose profile is doctoral or post-doctoral (defined as up to six years after the completion of a PhD) will be eligible for the Danyliw Seminar Emerging Scholar Award, which comes with a monetary prize. Launched at the 2011 Seminar, the first award was given to Serhiy Kudelia for his paper “The Impact of Collectivization on Insurgency Mobilization in Western Ukraine after World War II”.
The aim of the Seminar is to provide a unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine, the United States, Europe and elsewhere to engage in fruitful inter-disciplinary dialogue, disseminate cutting-edge research papers on the Chair web site, encourage publications in various outlets, and stimulate collaborative research projects. Information on past Annual Danyliw Research Seminars in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies can be accessed at www.ukrainianstudies.
The Seminar is made possible by the commitment of the Wolodymyr George Danyliw Foundation to the pursuit of excellence in the study of contemporary Ukraine.
#2
Kule Doctoral Scholarships on Ukraine
Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa
Application Deadlines:
1 December 2012 (International Students)
1 February 2013 (Canadian Students)
The Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa, the only research unit outside of Ukraine predominantly devoted to the study of contemporary Ukraine, is announcing the second competition of the Drs. Peter and Doris Kule Doctoral Scholarships on Contemporary Ukraine. The Scholarships will consist of an annual award of $20,000, plus all tuition, for a maximum of four years.
The Scholarships were made possible by a generous donation of $500,000 by the Kule family, matched by the University of Ottawa. Drs. Peter and Doris Kule, from Edmonton, have endowed several chairs and research centres in Canada, and their exceptional contributions to education, predominantly in Ukrainian Studies, has recently been celebrated in the book Champions of Philanthrophy: Peter and Doris Kule and their Endowments.
Students with a primary interest in contemporary Ukraine applying to, or enrolled in, a doctoral program at the University of Ottawa in political science, sociology and anthropology, or in fields associated with the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, can apply for a Scholarship.
The application for the Kule Scholarship must include a 1000 word research proposal, two letters of recommendation (sent separately by the referees), and a CV and be mailed to the Office of the Vice-Dean, Graduate Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Desmarais Building 3177, 55 Laurier East, Ottawa ON K1N 6N5, Canada.
Applications will be considered only after the applicant has completed an application to the relevant doctoral program at the University of Ottawa. Consideration of applications will begin on 1 February 2013 and will continue until the award is announced. Please note that the application deadline for international students seeking to enroll in a doctoral program is 1 December 2012. Canadian students have until 1 February 2012.
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual university must have a certain level of French. Specific requirements vary across departments.
Students interested in applying for the Scholarships for the academic year 2012-2013 are encouraged to contact Dominique Arel, Chairholder, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, at darel@uottawa.ca.
#3
Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine
“Violence and its Aftermath in the Soviet and PostSoviet Context”
Zhytomyr (Ukraine), 4-10 July 2012
PARTNERS
Embassy of France in Ukraine
Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa (Canada)
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] (France)
Internet network “historians.in.ua”
Research Team “Understanding Violence in Russia”, russiaviolence.hypotheses.org
Research Team “European Memories of Gulag”, museum.gulagmemories.eu
Doctoral School of University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine)
Centre franco-russe de recherche en sciences humaines et sociales, Moscow (Russia)
Ivan Franko State University in Zhytomyr (Ukraine)
FACULTY
Dominique Arel (U of Ottawa, Canada); Alain Blum (EHESS, France), Anna Colin Lebedev (EHESS, France), Guillaume Colin (Embassy of France in Ukraine), Gilles Favarel (SciencesPo, France), Alexandra Goujon (U de Bourgogne, France), Serhiy Kudelia (Baylor U, US), Anne Le Huérou (U de Paris Ouest Nanterre, France), Tamara Martsenyuk (U Kyiv Mohyla Academy), François-Xavier Nérard (U de Bourgogne, France), Amandine Regamey (Centre franco-russe de recherche en sciences humaines et sociales, Moscow, Russia), Ioulia Shukan (U de Paris Ouest Nanterre, France), Mihai Varga (European U Institute, Italy), Viktoria Vengerska (Ivan Franko U, Zhytomyr)
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
Wednesday, July 4
Summer School Presentation and Introductory Lecture by Dominique Arel.
Thursday, July 5
Student Presentations: Facing Violence: States vs Persons
Christopher Lash (Lazarski U, Poland)
Mass Displacements across Polish Territory in 1944‐50
Discussant: Alain Blum
Dan Draghia (U of Bucarest, Romania)
Deadly Borders. Individual and Mass Violence at the Romanian
Border with Yugoslavia during the Years of Conflict with Tito, 1948‐1956
Discussant: Serhiy Kudelia
Paul Lenormand (SciencesPo, France/CEFRES, Czech Republic)
Postwar Czechoslovak Army: Slovak Officers Between Integration and Exclusion Discussant: Dominique Arel
Anna Shapovalova (EHESS, France)
The Shakhty Trial: To Kill Two Birds with One Stone or How to Use Political Trials in International Politics
Discussant: Viktoria Vengerska
Workshop Session 1: Research Questions and Stimulating Concepts
Workshop 1.1: Defining Violence as a Research Object
Coordinators Alain Blum, Dominique Arel
Workshop 1.2: The Functions of Violence
Coordinators Serhiy Kudelia, Anne Le Huérou, Amandine Regamey
Excursion
The City of Zhytomyr: Historical Layers, Reconstruction and Memory
Friday, July 6
Student Presentations: Post Soviet Management of Violence Issues
Cornelia Goels (U of Vienna, Austria)
Violence as Strategy of Ukraine’s Political parties: Repressive Tool of Government and Last Resort for Opposition?
Discussant: Ioulia Shukan
Ronan Evain (U of Paris VIII, France)
Football Violence in Russia
Discussant: Mihai Varga
Tatiana Shchurko (Center for European Studies, Belarus)
Structural Violence in Childcare Institutions
Discussant: Ioulia Shukan
Ezgi Yildiz (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland)
How Do Post‐Soviet States Justify Violence?
Discussant: Gilles Favarel
Collective Presentation, “Violence in Russia Project”
Gilles Favarel, Anne Le Huérou, Amandine Regamey
Excursion
Meeting with Soviet Afghan War Veterans
Saturday, July 7
Student Presentations: Violence at War—Legitimacy and Justification
Kerstin Bischl (Humboldt U, Germany)
Wartime Rape and Gender Relationships: The Case of the Red Army 1941–45
Discussant: Tamara Martsenyuk
Olesya Khromeychuk (U of Cambridge, UK)
Female Fighters in Western Ukraine during the First and the Second World Wars
Discussant: Amandine Regamey
Franziska Exeler (Princeton U, US)
War and Postwar in Belorussia
Discussant: Alexandra Goujon
Kateryna Budz (U of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ukraine)
Martyrdom as Response to Violence: The Ukrainian Greek Catholics during WWII Discussant: François Xavier Nérard
Brandon Schechter (U of California Berkeley, US)
Forging of the Red Army
Discussant: Dominique Arel
Excursion
World War II and its Memory in Zhytomyr Region (Zhytomyr, Berditchev)
Sunday July 8
Excursion
Trigorsky Monastery and Denechi
Evening Film Screening and Discussion
Monday July 9
Student Presentations: Remembering Violence
Ilan Lew (EHESS, France)
Extrajudicial Testimonies of Direct Perpetrators of Mass Violence
Discussant: Alain Blum
Oksana Tovaryanska (U of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Ukraine)
The Former Soldiers of the SS Division Galicia
Discussant: Alexandra Goujon
Uilliam Blacker (U of Cambridge, UK)
Remembering the Vanished in Ukraine
Discussant: Amandine Regamey
Gintare Malinauskaite (Humboldt U, Germany)
Lithuanian Partisan Cinema
Discussant: François-Xavier Nérard
Presentation of the Project “Sound archives: European memories of the Gulag”
Alain Blum
Workshops Session 2: Methodological Questions
Workshop 2.1: What Historical Sources?
Coordinators François‐Xavier Nérard, Alain Blum, Amandine Regamey
Workshop 2.2: Studying Violent Practices
Coordinators: Mihai Varga, Tamara Martsenyuk, Ioulia Shukan
Workshop 2.3: Representations and Memory of Violence: Problems of Method
Coordinators: Alexandra Goujon, Viktoria Vengerska, Dominique Arel
Tuesday, July 10
Student Presentations: Deviance as an Object of Policy
Maria Gkresta (IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Italy)
Governing Poverty and Homelessness in Budapest
Discussant: Mihai Varga
Gavin Slade
Mafia in Transition: Criminal Resilience and Decline in Post‐Soviet Georgia
Discussant: Gilles Favarel
Artyom Georganov
Instrumentalising “Ethnic violence”: Political Consequences of the Riots in Katunitsa, Bulgaria, September-October 2011
Discussant: Anne Le Huérou
Conclusion
Lunch and Feedback Discussion
#4
ASN 2012 Post-Convention Announcement
The Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) held its 17th Annual World Convention this past weekend (19-21 April 2012) at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York.
The Convention Awards were announced at the Closing Reception on Saturday evening.
The Eighth Annual ASN Doctoral Student Awards, to honor the best graduate papers, were given to Yuval Feinstein (Sociology, UCLA, US – Nationalism Section), Evgeny Finkel (U of Wisconsin, US – Ukraine/Russia/Caucasus Section), Maj Grasten (Political Science, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark – Balkans Section), Christopher Molnar (History, Indiana University, US – Central Europe Section), and Alp Eren Topal (History, Bilkent University, Turkey –Eurasia/Turkey Section).
The Third Annual Harriman ASN Book Prize went to Roger Petersen for Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2011). An honorable mention was given to Theodora Dragostinova for Better Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1949 (Cornell University Press, 2011).
The First Annual ASN Documentary Audience Award went to the French film Qui a tué Natacha? (Who Killed Natasha?), from director Mylène Sauloy, a wrenching investigation on the murder of human rights activist Natasha Estemirova in Chechnya. A runner-up, also the most attended film of the Convention, was My Perestroika, from US director Robin Hessman.
The special event “Thinking the Twentieth Century: A Conversation with Timothy Snyder,” was the most attended event of the Convention, followed by the panel “Nation-Building and Symbols in the West Balkan States (Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro)” and My Perestroika.
The Convention celebrated the ASN 40th Anniversary by holding a special event featuring President Emeritus Michael Rywkin, former Nationalities Papers Editor Henry Huttenbach, former Shevchenko Society (New York ) President Leonid Rudnytzky and President Emeritus David Crowe. The presentors paid particular attention to the ASN founder Stepan Horak, who passed away in 1986. The remarks of Dr. Rudnytzky, who worked closely with Dr. Horak in the 1970s-early 1980s, will be published in a forthcoming issue of Nationalities Papers.
The Convention wishes to express its gratitude to the Harriman Institute for its exceptional support in making the event a great success.
The next ASN Convention will take place on 18-20 April, 2013, at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. The Call for Papers will be issued in early September and the submission deadline will fall on October 17 (two weeks early than usual).
For more information on ASN and the ASN World Convention, please go to the ASN website at nationalities.org.
#5
A Stagnant Ukraine Struggles to See a Way Out
by Will Englund
Washington Post, 19 June 2012
KIEV, Ukraine — The counterrevolution is coming up short.
President Viktor Yanukovych, ousted from power in the Orange Revolution of 2004 but given a second chance by voters in 2010, has spent two years trying to re-create the “vertical of power” that has sustained his neighbor in Russia, Vladimir Putin.
The chief hallmarks — corruption, cronyism, vindictive use of the courts — are in place. But Ukraine is missing the wealth from oil and gas that has bolstered Putin’s government, and the cracks are not hard to find.
“Ukraine is not Russia, of course,” said Arkadiy Bushchenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
It was Ukraine that sealed the fate of the Soviet Union when it charted its own course in 1991, and it was Ukraine that emerged after the Orange Revolution as the country that was going to embrace Western values and Western ways, and in turn expected to be embraced by the West. There was talk of Ukraine in the European Union, even in NATO.
Yanukovych derailed that journey, but he has been unable to cement his grip on the country. Civil society organizations have pushed back. So, to some extent, has the news media. Opposition parties are in power in some regions. And, with October parliamentary elections on the horizon, Yanukovych’s hugely unpopular Party of Regions expects to get a shellacking.
Yanukovych’s one strong card is the widespread disgust with politics that extends almost as much to the fractious opposition as to him. And a loss of parliament, if it were to happen, wouldn’t bring down his government — he’s in office until 2015.
But it would turn up the heat. For the past 10 months, authorities have been easing off on the cruder sorts of crackdowns. Officials have quietly engaged in discussions with interested civic organizations on the question of reforms in several key areas.
“I can’t say it’s impossible to work with these guys,” Bushchenko said. “It’s not Belarus, it’s not Kazakhstan.”
But it’s not Western Europe, either, said Yevhenia Tymoshenko, the daughter of Yanukovych’s chief rival and Ukraine’s most famous prisoner, Yulia Tymoshenko. The discussions, she said, involve “pseudo-reforms with a thin veneer of European norms.”
Window dressing or not, the talks to some degree probably reflect pressure from Europe, which Ukraine can’t ignore, analysts say. Ukrainian oligarchs reportedly aren’t thrilled with the government, either. They’ve watched while Yanukovych’s family and cronies from the coal mining center of Donetsk have snatched up one business after another, usually with the connivance of tax authorities. The president’s son, Oleksandr, saw his net worth increase 18-fold after his father took office.
Isolation over Tymoshenko
But one question overshadows everything else. Yulia Tymoshenko was Yanukovych’s opponent on the streets during the Orange Revolution and at the ballot box in 2010, and now, with the upper hand, he has thrown her into prison, along with three ministers who worked in her government. Currently under guard in a hospital, she was convicted of misuse of office for a natural-gas deal she negotiated with Russia when she was prime minister in 2009.
“It’s crucial for them to have Tymoshenko in prison,” Bushchenko said. For Yanukovych, she is an obsession. Though he has said that in theory he would like to pardon her, he has also talked about bringing murder charges against her.
European leaders have denounced her treatment as political persecution, and there is a move in Congress to deny U.S. visas to officials associated with her case. Even Russia — which was Yanukovych’s sponsor against Tymoshenko during the Orange Revolution — has turned against him over the way she has been treated.
“The Ukrainian president is effectively isolated — isolated from the European side and isolated from the Russian side,” said Igor Burakovsky, who runs a think tank here called the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
Kiev is a graceful old city, spruced up now for the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, but there is a faded quality to it that hasn’t been erased. A winding street that drops down the hill behind St. Sofia Cathedral was once full of galleries and cafes, but it’s mostly quiet now. Kiev no longer feels like a city on the make.
In March, the International Monetary Fund froze payments on a $15.6 billion bailout for Ukraine because the government failed to raise utility rates. It almost certainly won’t raise those rates before the elections — but Ukrainians know the hike is coming, and in the meantime the ailing economy is left in that much more of a fix.
A polarizing opponent
With her trademark blond braids, Tymoshenko was a deeply polarizing figure. Wealthy from gas dealings in the 1990s, she was distrusted by many. Her melodramatic approach to politics excited her followers while alienating an ever larger number of voters.
Yet by going after Tymoshenko, Yanukovych has managed to make her a deeply sympathetic figure among a broad swath of the population.
Her 31-year-old daughter, Yevhenia, now leads her defense, from a palatial, heavily guarded headquarters laden with green marble. Everywhere are giant photos of Yulia — smiling, listening, communing with her people.
Yevhenia Tymoshenko has urged other nations to impose visa sanctions on Yanukovych’s inner circle. Pressure applied where it hurts, she said, could cause the government to crumble. She warned that she wasn’t sure how much longer her mother’s health would last.
“We don’t see the way out for her, medically,” she said. “And we don’t see any opportunity for us to defend ourselves, legally or otherwise. Little by little, we get worried. It’s gone too far, and pushed Yanukovych into a corner.”
The time to act is now, she insisted, before Yanukovych finds a way to assert complete control over the country. “Our democratic institutions are weak. We’re not certain Ukraine can survive as a democracy.”
Yulia Tymoshenko was no champion of democratic reform when she was in office. She did nothing, for instance, to overhaul the deeply suspect criminal justice process.
If she had, points out Max Tucker of Amnesty International, she might well have gotten a fair day in court and avoided a conviction.
But Ukrainians have shown they have a short political memory. Once regarded uneasily by many as a demagogue, Tymoshenko now reminds Ukrainians of the promise the country seems to have lost — and of the vendetta-driven president who wields power.
#6
Ukraine Reveals Ambitious Plans To Cut Dependence On Russian Gas
by Oleg Varfolomeyev
Eurasia Daily Monitor, 19 June 2012
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry has come up with amendments to the National Energy Strategy, according to which gas imports will decline from 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) last year to as little as 5 bcm in 2030. Domestic gas consumption is expected to decline less steeply from 57 bcm in 2010 to 49 bcm in 2030. The ministry hopes to more than double gas extraction to 44 bcm in the meantime, but domestic extraction is projected to go up steeply only after 2020 (mpe.kmu.gov.ua, June 11). Before then, Ukraine will have to rely on imports, but the government recently stepped up efforts to diversify them so that less gas should be imported from Russia, whose average gas price for Ukraine is expected to reach $440 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas this year, up from $416 in the first quarter.
Ukraine has lately been in talks to diversify gas imports with Azerbaijan, Germany’s RWE, Poland, Qatar, Turkey and Turkmenistan. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told representatives from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) that Ukraine planned to buy Qatari gas from neighboring Poland. He said Poland would start receiving more gas than it needs from Qatar at its new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in two year’s time, so Ukraine asked Qatar and Poland to sell it excess gas. Azarov asked the EBRD for a loan to upgrade a pipeline that links Ukraine to Poland to receive that gas (RIA Novosti, June 7). Kommersant-Ukraine reported on June 8, citing a source from the national oil and gas company Naftohaz Ukrainy, that Poland preliminarily agreed to sell up to 3 bcm of Qatari gas to Ukraine. This gas will be 10-15 percent cheaper than gas from Russia, according to the source (kommersant.ua, June 8).
Azarov also told the EBRD that Ukraine could start buying some gas from Germany at lower prices than from Russia. Energy Minister Yury Boyko specified in a recent interview that Ukraine might import some 5 bcm of gas, according to an agreement reached with Germany’s RWE last month. He said Ukraine considered importing gas from even as far as the United States. Another option would be to resume gas imports from Turkmenistan, but this would require Russia’s agreement to use its pipelines, he added (Ukrainska Pravda, June 11).
Meanwhile, national projects chief, Vladislav Kaskiv has confirmed the intention to build an LNG terminal near Odessa. He said Ukraine would hold 25 percent plus one share in the project (UNIAN, June 12). The government hopes that the terminal would process 10 bcm of gas per annum from 2016 on. However, there is no certainty about suppliers. Talks with Azerbaijan have apparently stalled while Ukraine launched talks with Turkey on LNG deliveries from Qatar. But Turkey is reluctant to allow tankers with LNG for Ukraine to pass through its straits to the Black Sea. Another opportunity for Ukraine is to receive Azerbaijani gas from Turkey with the help of the Trans-Anatolian pipeline, in which Ukraine wants to participate (Interfax-Ukraine, June 5)
Last month, Ukraine chose Shell and Chevron to develop its shale gas fields (see EDM, May 22). It should be possible to extract 6-11 bcm of shale gas per annum by 2030, according to the Energy Strategy. However, shale gas extraction will start no earlier than 2016-2020 and only if enough gas is found in the deposits, which is still to be confirmed by Shell and Chevron. Ukraine pins hopes also on its Black Sea deposits, which are yet to be explored. The country has no money or technologies for deep drilling, so opportunities arise for more foreign investors.
On May 29, Kyiv came up with conditions for production-sharing agreements on two deep, offshore gas blocks in the Black Sea, Scythian and Foros. Investors will be chosen later this summer. The government believes it will be possible to extract 5-7 bcm of gas from the two fields per annum. Italy’s Eni reportedly expressed interest in the Scythian field (Kommersant-Ukraine, May 30). Azarov met with Shell country representative Graham Tiley and invited Shell to participate (kmu.gov.ua, June 8).
Ukraine remains the largest buyer of Russian gas and demands price cuts, but its ambitious plans to cut dependence on Russia have seemingly left Moscow unfazed. Talks between Gazprom chief Aleksei Miller and Boyko on May 21 were fruitless as Boyko made no new proposals, according to Gazprom (RIA Novosti, May 21). President Viktor Yanukovych’s meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on May 15 was also fruitless, although Yanukovych told Putin that if Russia cut its gas price, there would be no need for Ukraine to look for alternative suppliers of gas. The point of no return in the gas talks was passed and Russia will continue developing its new pipelines, Nord Stream and South Stream, while reducing the significance of Ukraine’s ones to a minimum, Kommersant-Ukraine reported on May 22, citing a source from Gazprom. Ukraine, for its part, will strive to cut Russian gas imports to a minimum, said Kommersant’s source from the Ukrainian government.
#7
Ukraine, Russia, Europe
by James Sherr, james.sherr@lincoln.oxford.ac.
15 May 2012
Forthcoming in Ukrainian-language journal National Security Defence
Q1: State of Relations between Ukraine and the EU
The relationship between Ukraine and the EU has never been easy. Its default position is one of strain and, on each side, frustrated expectations. Paradoxically, these frustrations have been aggravated rather than assuaged by the a priori proposition that Ukraine is a European state. Although the distinction between Europe and the EU is recognised in Ukraine, it is not always understood. ‘Europe’ is a geographical reality, but in every other respect, it is an idea with a variety of emotive and subjective connotations. The EU, in contrast, is a political-economic entity with a formal institutional structure and formalised norms, procedures and requirements. Yet to a broad spectrum of Ukraine’s elites, being part of ‘Europe’ confers an entitlement to become, within some reasonable period of time, a member of the EU, and the thwarting of this expectation has generated bewilderment, bitterness and more than a discreet measure of paranoia.
What adds complexity to this picture is the fact that from the time of Leonid Kravchuk, two views of the EU have held sway in Ukraine. Although not mutually exclusive, they pull in different directions and create different types of irritation with EU policy, which operates on political and cognitive principles that are considerably at variance from both of these conceptions. To the once numerous supporters of Viktor Yushchenko (and a good many who, even in Ukraine’s Orange years, had no hopes for him), the EU was the political embodiment of a great ethno-cultural (and religious) civilisation, defined by heritage. Yet the EU does not define itself by heritage, but by values and standards, which today apply to the conduct of business and public administration as much as to the conduct of elections, the quality of governance and the integrity of the legal system. For good or ill, the EU is also a multi-cultural entity. After 2005, Yushchenko demonstrated that he wished to join the Europe of 1905. That Europe no longer exists. Yet the EU which does exist has an acute awareness of the sovietised norms which distinguish Ukraine from itself in nearly all of these respects.
The second Ukrainian view, and it is very much the view of President Yanukovych (not to say President Putin), is that the EU is essentially a geopolitical project designed to project influence, secure economic dominance and isolate alternative socio-economic models in Europe and Eurasia. In even more simplistic terms, the EU is regarded (as NATO is simplistically regarded) as a means of isolating Russia. From this perspective, the EU’s vaunted values and ‘criteria’ are seen as having a secondary or entirely deceptive importance. The EU’s refusal to act upon these presumptive geopolitical interests and incorporate Ukraine when it wished to be incorporated drove Leonid Kuchma to distraction [zagnali ego s uma]. Yanukovych’s response is similar.
Although these are old problems, the fact is that Ukraine’s relations with the EU have never been on such a disastrously poor footing. Yanukovych’s EU policy is dictated by his own internal priorities, and this fact is now understood by every government inside the EU. A majority of these governments now also understand that he will not be deflected from these priorities—neither for the sake of EU Association nor for the sake of Ukraine’s national and geopolitical interests. To be sure, few believe that he is even remotely interested in Ukraine’s incorporation into the CIS Customs Union. But the perception is gaining ground that he would rather be president of a Ukraine joining the Customs Union than not be president of a Ukraine joining the EU. On this basis, nothing can be done, and the business of Ukraine’s European integration has therefore ground to a halt.
Without doubt, there are additional factors, but they embellish this picture rather than alter it. For one thing, Yanukovych does not take the EU’s concerns at face value. He and his core advisers view the EU’s stance about his predatory and blinkered policies as a contrived way of disguising the real issue: division inside the Union between those who would sacrifice Ukraine on the altar of accord with Russia and those who regard Ukraine’s reintegration with Russia as the worst of all evils. The picture is further embellished by the broader (and more accurate perception) that the Eurozone crisis strengthens every other impediment to further EU enlargement.
What this picture ignores is that the Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, concluded after elaborated and painstaking effort, offer Ukraine many of the benefits of membership with few of its responsibilities. Ignorance about the benefits of Association extends right across Ukraine, and the democratic opposition is as ill-informed on this score as everybody else. For this, the European Commission is at least partially to blame. To date, only the British Embassy has published a concise, readable guide [spravochnik] about the provisions of these accords in the Ukrainian language. For the vast majority of Ukrainians in a state of ignorance, ‘membership perspectives’ mean everything and Association means nothing.
By concluding the Association Agreement and initialling it, the EU has made a very significant statement: the door is open, and Ukraine can walk through it as soon as it knows where it is going and where that door leads. Unfortunately, Yanukovych wants the door to follow him whilst he walks somewhere else.
Q2: Ukraine and Russia
Since the time of Ukraine’s independence, Russia’s fundamental state interest has been to diminish Ukraine’s independence. This interest has not diminished over the course of 21 years. The conviction that Ukraine’s separation from Russia represents a historical aberration has not diminished either, though the events of late 2004 and early 2005 presented a profound shock to Russian thinking and offered a significant potential to transform not only Ukraine’s development but Russia’s. The linkage between the two, which most disinterested observers would recognise on historical and cultural grounds, has been reinforced by Russian sentiment and policy. More than one prominent Russian liberal has taken the view that ‘Ukraine is part of my identity as a Russian’, and this view is no less firmly held by Russia’s derzhavniki. The view has also been reinforced by the failure of the Orange tandem to develop Ukraine’s samostoyatel’nost’
Therefore, it was not only natural but inevitable that Russia’s governing elites would view Yanukovych’s 2010 victory and his pre-emptive concessions on NATO, non-bloc status and the Black Sea Fleet as a homecoming: not in terms of juridical reintegration, but organic subservience to the country that in Russian historical consciousness has always been Ukraine’s ‘elder brother’. When Medvedev publicly informed Yanukovych that these steps were ‘only the beginning’, he pretended, and might well have believed, that he was providing ‘brotherly’ counsel [совет] rather than presenting a threat. What is far from inevitable, indeed surprising, is that so tough a veteran of the Soviet culture of power as Yanukovych would fail to appreciate that Ukraine’s gestures of ‘good will’ would have exactly this result.
To his credit, when it comes to what matters most to him—control of Ukraine’s economy—Yanukovych shifted the main vector of engagement with Russia from conciliation to resistance within six months of coming to power. Yet in equally significant respects, he has undermined his own efforts and the capacity of the country.
First, by strengthening the patrimonial and opaquely personalised system of economic management, he has deprived Ukraine of the most effective counterpoise to Russian influence: European investment and integration, which can only develop on the basis of liberal market principles underpinned by property rights, judicial integrity and regulatory mechanisms that protect the independent entrepreneur and the citizen.
Second, he has continued to cede ground on the ‘civilisational’ vector: the very ground on which Russia seeks to rebuild and re-legitimise its imperial suzerainty. Slavic identity and identity politics have featured as strongly in ‘Putinism’ as geo-economics. During his first term in office, Putin sought to create a synthesis between pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet values on the basis of a ‘cultural code’ distinct to the multinational, Russian people, and whilst this synthesis is highly problematic intellectually, it has an emotive and potent appeal for many inside the Russian Federation and for many now permissively described as ‘compatriots’. This ‘humanitarian’ dimension of policy—and with it, the idea of russkiy mir—has acquired formidable institutional and financial support. Yet far from resisting this cultural assault, Yanukovych has often acted as its accomplice. In doing so, he has not only undermined Ukraine’s capacity, but the foundations of the Ukrainian state.
The threat to Ukraine’s integrity is now greater than at any time since the early 1990s. At the start of what must be seen, de facto, as Putin’s fourth term of office, the authorities in Moscow feel both strong and threatened. Their strengths lie in the Eurozone crisis, the incapacity of many of Russia’s post-Soviet neighbours and the Realpolitik of Gazprom, which has undermined EU norms in a number of new (and not so new) EU member states. Moscow’s weaknesses lie not only in the disaffection of the new Russian middle class, but the precariousness of the petro-driven model of growth and the state-corporatist model that the current authorities have constructed. What is telling about the decline of Russian gas exports to Europe (from 154 bn cubic metres in 2008 to 117 bcm in 2011) is not the sharpness of the gradient, but that fact that during this time—a time of economic contraction in Europe—the EU’s consumption of energy has actually been increasing. The Kremlin not only failed to anticipate the wave of street protests that has emerged since September 2011, it singularly failed to anticipate the revolution in unconventional gas, which has been transforming global energy markets and which, despite Gazprom’s policy of bullying, bribery and stealth, is almost certain to advance at one tempo or another.
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