Kataryna Wolczuk and Professor Rilka Dragneva
As Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine drags on, many are keen to see the end of fighting, with some international elites and political leaders arguing for a truce with Russia.
While their motives and goals may differ, they all hope that with the right concessions Russia can be brought to the negotiating table to agree on a ceasefire, Ukraine’s borders, and its place in Europe’s security.
But such thinking is sharply at odds with Putin’s professed goal of fulfilling Russia’s historical mission to ‘conquest and fortify’, denying Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign country.
Russia’s historical approach to Ukraine
In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s regime, a sense of ‘mission’ was not articulated in public, but it was on display for those who sought to see it.
And nowhere was it more in evidence than in Russia’s approach to the ‘border problem’ with Ukraine after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
It is an understatement to say Russia has never been comfortable with Ukraine’s independence – a discomfort which was evident in its reluctance to agree borders with Ukraine, the most fundamental aspect of statehood.
Theoretically Russia recognized Ukraine’s borders in so far as it acknowledged borders existed between the two countries. But in practice Russia used legal agreements in tandem with instruments such as energy and trade dependence to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
After years of a ‘cat-and-mouse’ game whereby formal agreements were not backed with deeds, Russia moved to open violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity in 2014.
Ukraine’s independence within the CIS
At first, the border problem was overshadowed by the disintegration of the USSR. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin supported the independence of Ukraine as part of his effort to outmanoeuvre his arch enemy Mikhail Gorbachev, thereby paving the way to the collapse of the USSR.
Ukraine’s declaration of independence in August 1991 and the follow-up referendum on it sealed its fate. To secure a ‘civilized divorce’, Ukraine was instrumental in setting up the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in December 1991.
The CIS founding agreements assert respect for one another’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders ‘within the Commonwealth’ – a commitment which meant promising to maintain the ‘openness of borders’ and joint border controls.
But there was no agreement as to how the hitherto administrative internal borders of the USSR were to be delineated or demarcated – this was to be left to bilateral negotiations. Over time it became clear that Russia was unwilling to settle its borders with Ukraine and acknowledge its territorial integrity as an independent state.
Moscow nominally dropped the ‘recognition of Ukraine’s borders within the CIS’ clause only after the 1994 Trilateral Agreement – between Russia, Ukraine, and the US – and the Budapest Memorandum when it formally committed to guarantee Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine renouncing its nuclear arsenal.
But in parallel, Russia linked the recognition of Ukraine’s territorial integrity to the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) issue, the navy forces stationed on the Crimea peninsula. And the BSF in turn was inherently linked to the status of the Sevastopol naval base and Crimea, which the Russian political elite deemed exclusively Russian.
Several 1992-93 agreements resulted in a 50-50 fleet and military equipment split between Russia and Ukraine. And Moscow explicitly linked ownership of the fleet with its exclusive rights over the military base and territorial control.
In the 1995 Sochi accords, Russia confirmed the status of Crimea as part of Ukraine but pushed for exclusive basing rights at Sevastopol as part of a long lease. It was only in May 1997 that Russia and Ukraine finalized details of the BSF division, agreeing on a 20-year lease of the base.
This accord finally opened the way for the ‘Big Treaty’ on friendship, cooperation and partnership concluded in 1997. This treaty secured the formal recognition of Ukraine as an ‘equal and sovereign state’ with the signatories committing to respecting each other’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of ‘existing’ borders.
Terms of border recognition
In theory the recognition of Ukraine’s independence in 1997 seemed a significant legal milestone. But in practice this was a ruse as Russia continued to question the delimitation and delineation of its border with Ukraine.
But the 1997 accords were not really the solution the Ukrainians hoped for either. Although Ukraine rejoiced that a de jure agreement had been reached, the accords were deeply unfavourable to it.
Although the treaty appeared to be a political victory for Ukraine, the agreements provided Russia with a military and strategic advantage and a long-term ability to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity – as evidenced by the use of the military base, troops, and navy in Crimea to annex the peninsula in March 2014.
Additionally, even though Ukraine’s territorial integrity was formally not conditional on belonging to the CIS, the demand for Kyiv’s acquiescence to Russia’s regional ambitions was ever-present.
To pressurize Ukraine, the Kremlin stalled on the ratification of the 1997 treaty until securing Ukraine’s participation in the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly – a weak but politically symbolic integration body.
Furthermore, despite Ukraine’s lacklustre commitment to Russia-led integration initiatives, the Kremlin’s insistence on Ukraine’s participation remained consistent and directly linked to the resolution of the outstanding border issues.
The accords leading up to Ukraine’s political independence also institutionalized Moscow’s strategy of trade and energy pressure. And Russia did not hesitate to use energy debt and prices and restrict access to the Russian market to extract concessions and secure a powerful leverage over Kyiv.
At the Massandra summit in September 1993, Yeltsin sought to reverse the agreed BSF deal in exchange for reducing Ukraine’s gas debt. But the conclusion of the 1997 treaty was rewarded by Moscow’s removal of artificial trade barriers plaguing mutual trade relations. Russia then used that leverage to extend the lease beyond the initial 20 years.
Ukraine’s dependence on energy supplies and access to the Russian market was again exposed in April 2010 when Russia used the Kharkiv Accords to achieve the extension of the lease of the Sevastopol naval base until 2042 in exchange for a gas price discount. The deal was in effect a ‘mortgage’ on Ukraine’s independence.
For Ukraine, as for any sovereign state, the demarcation of its border is a vital element of its independence, particularly in light of Russia’s historical recalcitrance.
Moscow’s insistence on the principle that ‘internal’ borders should remain ‘transparent’ and ‘open’, and that physical demarcation was an unnecessary cost given the ‘close economic partnership’ between the countries did not augur well. Despite formal commitments, delineation and demarcation has been sporadic.
The Treaty on the Russia-Ukraine State Border, signed in January 2003, defined common land borders but this was part of Russia’s strategy of supporting Ukraine’s embattled President Kuchma in exchange for winning Kyiv’s participation in two new Russian integration projects, the 2000 Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) and the 2003 Common Economic Space (CES).
But the 2003 treaty did not even mention demarcation of land borders, nor did it address the maritime border, in particular the disputed border in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait – an uncertainty which provided convenient leverage against Ukraine when Russia started building the Tuzla dam in the Kerch Strait, the construction of which clearly violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In what was emerging as an unmistakable pattern, the resolution of the crisis over Tuzla involved the signing of a new agreement on the use of the Azov Sea at the end of 2003, which was linked to the ratification of the CES agreement by Ukraine.
Again the solution was deliberately vague, reaffirming Russia’s preference to designate the area as ‘internal waters’ and delaying negotiations on its delimitation for the future, while shifting the facts on the ground to Russia’s advantage.
Unravelling Ukraine’s independence in 2014
Any pretence that Russia’s attitude towards Ukraine was anything other than acquisitive ended in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, shattering Ukraine’s territorial integrity and laying bare Moscow’s contempt for Ukraine’s sovereignty. It also showed Moscow’s nihilistic attitude to the agreements signed with Ukraine in the previous two decades.
Of most concern was Russia openly transgressing the norms and values painstakingly built up by the international community since 1945, as it was generally understood that land-grabs and territorial annexations – especially on the European continent – had no place in the international order.
Crimea’s annexation in March 2014 was swiftly conducted from the BSF base and followed by a military incursion by Russian forces into eastern Ukraine with an even more sinister purpose than a mere land grab.
By creating an armed conflict in the Donbas, Russia’s strategy was designed explicitly to gain leverage over the political process within Ukraine so, not only had Ukraine’s territorial integrity been breached again, this time it was with the aim of curtailing its sovereignty.
This dual attempt took on a formal legal substance with the creation of the Minsk Protocols signed in 2014 and 2015. Both accords were signed while Ukraine was under immense pressure, with the first one designed to halt the heavy fighting with Russian military units on Ukrainian territory.
The 2015 Minsk-2 deal was signed under duress, not only from Putin explicitly threatening Ukraine with military force, but also Germany and France simply acquiescing to Russia’s armed persuasion to avert the risk of Ukraine ‘being crashed’ as Putin put it.
Although a stark manifestation of Russia’s disregard for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Minsk agreements were covered by a veil of international legitimacy thanks to the involvement of these two major European states.
The Normandy format was used when Russia’s use of armed forces on Ukraine’s territory was still deemed to be sufficiently covert for the leaders of Germany and France to disregard the evidence and to accept Russia’s self-serving position of a ‘peace broker’.
The agreement did not even mention Russia, allowing it to shirk responsibility for implementation and maintain the fictional image of being a disinterested arbiter, something the intermediaries went along with despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The agreements suffered from the ambiguity that comes when a rapid solution is sought for a problem not fully understood by the intermediating parties. They were a confusing amalgam of obligations for Ukraine and Russia without a clear timetable, opening the door to incompatible interpretations as to what was to be implemented, and how.
No comments:
Post a Comment