UKRAINE – US RELATIONS

 

Report by Alyona Getmanchuk,  Director of the NEC, on assessment of Ukraine’s progress in relations with the US for the quarterly magazine ТRUMAN Index. The full version of TRUMAN Index No. 6 (10) is available on the TRUMAN Agency website.

 

January – March 2019

 

Positive score: +32,5

Negative score: -4

Total: +28,5

TRUMAN INDEX: +1,14

 

SUMMARY

 

In relations between Ukraine and the US, the last three months were mainly significant for the official start of the presidential election campaign in Ukraine and the de facto start of the 2020 election campaign in the United States.

 

Although President Petro Poroshenko met with US VP Mike Pence in Munich and Deputy SecState for Political Affairs David Hale came to Kyiv for the first time, the emotional background to bilateral relations was primarily shaped by US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. For starters, there was her sharp statement on March 5 with a demand to fire the special anti-corruption prosecutor, then scandalous revelations came from Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko accusing Yovanovitch of submitting a list of individuals who were not to be prosecuted, and finally an investigation was opened into interference in the US presidential election on the part of NABU Director Artem Sytnyk. In contrast to the European Union, the US did not let the election campaign get in the way of public statements of concern over the poor progress of anticorruption reforms.

 

In the corridors of power in Kyiv, this was seen as a violation of the “gentleman’s agreement” with the West about no public attacks on Poroshenko the candidate for president, in order not to give an advantage to other candidates. For possibly the first time, diverging views of how to act during a presidential election campaign emerged in the collective West, that is, the EU and US.

 

During this period the US formulated a response to Russia’s aggression near the Kerch Strait: it was weaker than expected, but stronger than that of the EU.

 

Altogether, this quarter serves as a good opportunity to draw conclusions about Ukraine-US relations under Petro Poroshenko.

 

TIMELINE

 

Сhallenges of the Poroshenko Presidency

 

It’s hard to say to what extent the presidency of Petro Poroshenko has been a challenge for Washington, but the Obama White House, and even more so the Trump White House, have undoubtedly been a challenge for Kyiv and for Poroshenko personally.

Possibly the main obstacle was the fact that there was a visible conceptual divergence between Ukraine’s desire for a stronger US presence and the US’s policy regarding engagement on the international arena. Where Kyiv, especially since the start of Russia’s aggressive actions, marched under the banner of “as much America as possible” in Ukraine, Donald Trump’s Washington was moving under a new banner, “as little America as possible,” or, to be really precise, “less America, more Europe.” Hints of this approach were noticeable even back in Obama’s first term, while under Trump it has become much more obvious. President Trump’s approach often comes down to, not “What can the US do for Ukraine?” but rather “What is Europe doing for Ukraine?” As informed sources say, Trump asked Ukraine’s president directly during talks: “How exactly is Germany helping Ukraine?”

 

President Poroshenko found himself a witness to the gradual marginalization, at times even demonization, of Europe in US policy under Trump. The concept of a “whole, free and peaceful Europe” on which American policy towards the Old World was based for many decades is falling apart at the seams under the current US president. And along with it, Ukraine’s importance as an integral part of this “whole, free and peaceful” Europe. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Poroshenko has sometimes had to balance precariously between the desire to shore up relations with Trump and the desire to not spoil them with Merkel in the process—Poroshenko being the first Ukrainian leader to find a common ground with the German chancellor.

 

Nevertheless, between two American presidents and right up to the presidential campaign, Poroshenko remained faithful to himself in terms of the US: security was his priority above all other issues. It’s evident from a brief list of the requests Kyiv made of Washington under President Poroshenko:

 

• granting Ukraine status as a major non-NATO ally;
• signing bilateral security agreement similar to those the US has signed with Japan or South Korea;
• supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons;
• engaging the US in the negotiation format to regulate the conflict in Donbas, primarily by expanding the Normandy format;
• reviving the work of the Strategic Partnership Commission between Ukraine and the US;
• expanding and strengthening sanctions against the Putin regime;
• helping stop the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

 

What’s more, the majority of these requests from Kyiv under Poroshenko were identical under Obama and under Trump. Three of these requests were fulfilled and two of them under President Trump, which is significant: the provision of lethal weapons and the restoration of the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission.

 

Other issues, such as major non-NATO ally, either had to be quietly removed from the agenda or the Ukrainian side continues to actively bring them up at talks with their American partners, such as Nord Stream 2. Issues that led to irritation and frank incomprehension under the Obama Administration, such as status as a major non-NATO ally, or a security agreement, Kyiv was trying to get through under President Trump instead. Still, anything that involved providing Ukraine with security guarantees was not accepted under this administration, either.

 

Nor did the idea of expanding the Normandy format to include the US gain traction. With the coming of Trump, European capitals, especially Berlin, made it very clear: it would be better to leave a separate negotiations track between the US and RF. As to Nord Stream 2, Ukraine is seeing ever more menacing rhetoric from the US, but not much by way of action. Small wonder that this issue was raised separately, according to inside sources, at the February talks between Poroshenko and US VP Mike Pence in Munich. During this meeting, the Ukrainian leader apparently again asked his US partners to raise sanctions against European companies involved in the pipeline. Present at this discussion was US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, known, among others, for the letters that he sent to German companies threatening them with US sanctions.

 

For now, Poroshenko’s biggest achievement in relation to the US has been the provision of lethal weapons. However, the conditions for this delivery could well be such that Ukraine will never be able to even try out the Javelins it received in 2018 from the US if the situation at the front does not change and there is no new attack. Their arrival in Ukraine has a different important meaning: confirmation that there is at least a certain level of trust on the part of Washington towards Kyiv and its military command. At the same time, this level is fragile, as can be seen from the effective blocking of half of the aid promised for this year until the necessary reforming of Ukroboronprom, the state defense corporation, takes place.

 

Reforming Ukroboronprom has long been a component of USUkraine discussions. The scandal raised by journalists investing the corporation has only convinced the American side, once again, that it was right in demanding an audit of the defense giant and restructuring its Supervisory Board. Interestingly, at one time Kyiv invited renowned US General John Abizaid, who was also strategic advisor to Defense Minister Gen. Stepan Poltorak, to head the Supervisory Board, but in the end he turned the offer down.

 

One important event in Ukraine-US relations was Ukraine’s decision to purchase weapons from the US. US partners had long expressed the hope that Ukraine would not just get arms for free, but that it would also buy them in the US, which would strengthen arguments in favor of supporting the country. Sources say that Kyiv’s willingness to buy arms was one of the main arguments for Trump to give the green light to provide the country with lethal weapons. In this context, the key step on Ukraine’s part was the Rada passing of a bill permitting the direct purchase of arms abroad and the president signing it into law. Now, the Defense Ministry may sign an international agreement with the US and buy weapons and military equipment directly.

 

Donald Trump as Peacemaker

 

The provision of weapons did not foster any resolution to the conflict in Donbas. Even Poroshenko’s attempt to interest Trump in playing the role of peacemaker in the Ukraine-Russia conflict did not help. From his very first meeting with the American, Poroshenko tried to interest his counterpart in such an historical mission that, he said, had been taken on by Reagan by ending the Cold War without a single shot being fired. In Kyiv, they even came up with a special slogan at the talks with Trump: “A great deal for peace, a great deal for success.”

 

In effect, Ukraine was proposing that Trump do what Obama had failed to do: turning a resolution of the conflict with Russia into a foreign policy legacy as US president. All the more so that Trump, in his talks with foreign leaders, confidently announced that he would meet with Putin and put an end to the conflict. Today, it’s an open question whether Trump considers resolving this conflict one of the main objectives of his presidential legacy and whether he’s prepared to seriously invest his time and energy if and when a window of opportunity opens up.

 

At this time, it can be confidently stated that, in President Trump, Poroshenko has had a much more comfortable counterpart in the US than in President Obama. Among the significant differences was the appointment of a Special Representative from the State Department for Donbas negotiations and a diplomat with whom both the Ukrainian capital and the Presidential Administration have found common ground. In contrast to Victoria Nuland, who failed to gain the trust of Poroshenko and his circle because they suspected her of being overly accommodating in talks with Putin aide Vladislav Surkov, Kurt Volker has never publicly made any statement about the Donbas that fundamentally contradicted Ukraine’s position. Indeed, one Ukrainian diplomat said off the record that the US position on the Donbas was “inspiring.”

 

However, Volker’s role as the main American negotiator on the Donbas has shifted over the past year. After the Russian side suspended talks in the Volker-Surkov format at the beginning of 2018, the US Special Representative has essentially taken on the role of a key international communicator on matters related to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. In February, he even launched a website for a foreign audience where he has collected posted all the facts linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

Testing with aggression

 

The last half-year of Poroshenko’s term in office has been particularly notable in the security dimension: because of the attack on Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait, the American government, led by Donald Trump, has found opportunities to demonstrate in practice how Washington might react to open aggression against Kyiv. In other words, Trump, who has blamed Obama for the loss of Crimea to Russia, will demonstrate how he differs in action from his predecessor.

 

This much is already clear: the US reaction proved weaker than expected, but stronger than the EU, the Ukrainian leadership thinks. In contrast to the Europeans, the Americans added the deputy director of Russia’s Border Service, Adm. Ghennadiy Medvediev to its list and introduced sanctions against a Russian shipbuilding companies. The Americans are also more prepared to demonstrative support of Ukraine in the Black Sea: the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer, entered the Port of Odesa in February. Moreover, the US is prepared to continue to ensure such “visits” in the future as well.

 

Overall, the most positive signal from sanctions placed by the US, EU and Canada over Russia’s aggression in the neighborhood of the Kerch Strait was not so much in their specific content as in their form: in the way the US and EU coordinated their actions. This kind of coordination was typical under Obama, but has nearly turned into a random series of pleasant exceptions under Trump.

 

The capture of Ukrainian sailors merits special attention. Trump set an unusually high standard when he cancelled a planned meeting with Putin in Argentina over it. Our sources say that, at his meeting with Poroshenko in Munich, VP Pence dedicated some of their discussion to the question of freeing the sailors, demonstrating his personal awareness and involvement on this issue. The Trump Administration has a practical interest in this matter as well: as soon as the sailors are released, Trump will be able to meet with Putin without harming his reputation.

 

Security vs reforms

 

Not everyone in the US agrees with President Poroshenko’s vision of bilateral relations, especially the security component. For those American politicians and diplomats who are concerned with Ukraine’s development, the question of reform, especially combating corruption, is no less decisive, if not even more so. Some well-known Americans are convinced that if not for corruption, there would never have been a Russian conflict in Ukraine. By contrast, the Ukrainian side and representatives of certain US allies in NATO take the position that, if the conflict leads to the loss of Ukraine’s statehood, there won’t be anything to reform.

 

It’s no secret that the election of Donald Trump established two different Americas for Kyiv: Trump’s America, for whom the main issue in international relations is sales of arms made in America and trade deficits, not the state of the battle against corruption in Ukraine; and the America represented by the US government machine with its institutional memory of the Ukraine question. This includes the commitments that Kyiv has made to reform. President Poroshenko has quite logically placed his bets on the former, most likely anticipating that attitudes towards Ukraine will be decided by the White House.

 

However, things turned out more complicated than was anticipated in Ukraine’s corridors of power: Trump has no interest in the battle with corruption because Ukraine itself doesn’t interest him. Taking advantage of the White House’s lack of interest in Ukraine, other agencies, including the State Department, have continued the policies that were aimed at reforms through sheer inertia, as these were put in place under the previous administration. Traditionally, the US embassy in Ukraine tended to accentuate this. Still, convinced that Trump is not losing any sleep over the questions of anticorruption or judicial reform in relations with Ukraine, every strong statement from the embassy on this topic raised the question in Kyiv: is this Washington’s position or simply that of the diplomatic mission?

 

The question of the capacity to combat corruption, and not withstanding Russia’s aggression was decisive in the Obama Administration’s attitude towards Poroshenko. As an indicator of the effectiveness of Poroshenko the President, this issue was primary for many American stakeholders who are concerned with Ukraine’s development as a nation even under President Trump.

 

Elections and what comes after

 

Poroshenko has actively worked to establish a personal relationship with both American presidents. With Obama, these efforts went for nothing already in the Ukrainian leader’s first year, after he ignored the White House’s request and addressed the Congress with a call to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons rather than blankets. With Trump, the start was also difficult, because it came against a background of charges that Ukraine had interfered in the US election in support of Hillary Clinton. At that time, Ukraine categorically refuted all such accusations. No one can say how dialog between the two presidents might have gone—if it had happened at all—if not for the Mueller investigation and the toxicity of contacts with Russia that did not take Ukraine’s interests into account. In fact, for the first time in the history of bilateral relations, the presidents of both countries were equally interested in each other.

 

Attempts to establish personal contacts with Trump had several dimensions. Firstly, it was exclusively complimentary statements about him, generously seasoned with flattery, and the development of contacts with his inner circle, especially through regular invitations from Viktor Pinchuk to Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Giuliani to visit Ukraine. This was coupled with maximal distancing from those politicians who raised negative reactions in Trump.

 

Then there was the buying of support. The Ukrainian president oriented himself fairly quickly: whereas under Obama, Ukraine had to earn US support, under Trump it was possible to buy it. Poroshenko had an opportunity to convince himself, based on his own negotiations, how magically the word “purchase” worked on the American leader. In fact, we found out later, that during talks last year in Brussels, Trump’s tone and interest in meeting changed dramatically the minute Poroshenko used this word. In his typically direct manner, Trump then asked if Ukraine had the money and where from. When this report went to press, Ukrainian and American diplomatic sources said that preparations were underway for Ukraine to buy the next set of Javelins on its own. Our data also says that Ukraine wants to buy an anti-ship version of the Tomahawk cruise missile, but the decision to give or sell them to Ukraine has not been approved in Washington.

 

Obviously, a statement issued by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko about the start of an investigation into whether Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election can also be read as a kind of “gift” to Trump. What Ukraine categorically rejected during Trump’s first year in office, the PGO is now apparently preparing to prove. Of course, Lutsenko’s statements are specifically about individual officials, such as NABU Director Artem Sytnyk, and not about Ukraine interfering as a government. However, the main political actors in the US are unlikely to bother reading the fine print, fixing in American discourse just the notion “Ukraine’s interference on behalf of the Democrats.”

 

At the time of press, diplomatic circles were talking about the fact that confirmation of the idea that it was “Ukraine interfering in the election” was coming in the form of an investigation against the company of an odious Yanukovych-era minister called Mykola Zlochevskiy. The board of directors of Burisma Holdings includes ex-VP Joe Biden’s son Hunter. This kind of information could well harm Biden’s reputation as one of the potentially most serious rivals to Trump in the 2020 presidential race because of his top ranking among Democrats.

 

The games played by Ukrainian officials in looking for such topics might, in fact, offer some short-term dividends in the form of a positive reaction from Trump, but they will harm Ukraine and its relations with the US in the long run. Similar action could make Ukraine as toxic for political circles in the US as Russia has become in recent years, thanks to the Mueller investigation. Moreover, this risks costing the country much-needed support in the Democratic Party.

 

Poroshenko’s efforts to establish personal contacts with Trump were aimed at extending the American president’s policy of deterring Russia. But in order to restrain Russia, it was firstly important to restrain Trump with regard to Russia. However, it has to be said that the most effective restraint over the last year was Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation. Buying support proved to have a limited, short-term effect for Ukraine.

Establishing normal relations with the White House was intended to be convenient for Poroshenko during the election campaign as well. It was not for nothing that Kyiv was busy trying to revive the Ukraine-US Strategic Partnership Commission at the level of the Ukrainian President and the US VP, along the lines of the Kuchma-Gore Commission. In the end, the Americans agreed to relaunch it, but only at the level of FMs.

 

Even as the presidential campaign went into the last stretch, Poroshenko tried in February to arrange a meeting with Trump at the White House during his visit to the UN General Assembly. According to our American sources, the Ukrainians tried until the very end to set up a meeting with Pence in Washington with a quick stop at the Oval Office to see Trump. However, such a meeting could not be guaranteed and the Ukrainians had to be satisfied with meeting Pence in Munich—which ended up lasting twice as long as originally planned.

 

According to some sources, Mike Pence even indicated that he was ready to come to Kyiv in March. However, the Poroshenko team admitted that such a visit could prove counterproductive because the US VP would probably have met with other candidates as well, which would not necessarily play well for Poroshenko.

 

Poroshenko’s inner circle obviously hoped that the US would adopt a public “non-aggression” position during the election campaign and refrain from making critical statements about the incumbent and his administration, other than in private, in order not to give other candidates trump cards to play with. In fact, one of the reasons why Kyiv tried so hard to relaunch the Strategic Partnership Commission was because it provided a venue for raising the most delicate matters on the bilateral agenda behind closed doors. This was the position that the EU took at the level of the leadership in Brussels and of some of the G7 countries. Possibly for the first time, the West collectively, meaning the EU and US, had different views of how to behave during the presidential race in Ukraine.

 

But the US was forced to take a different tack, both at the bilateral level and in the G7 context. As proof of this was a statement issued by the G7 about the Constitutional Court’s ruling that illicit enrichment was not a crime and Ambassador Yovanovitch’s statement asking that the special anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytskiy, be dismissed and criticizing the lack of progress in anti-corruption and judiciary reforms. Yovanovitch’s speech was important not only because it took place three weeks before the election: according to our sources, the Americans were tired of trying to get the Kholodnytskiy matter resolved privately. Moreover, Yovanovitch was the first US official to personally demand the resignation of a Ukrainian official since the Obama era. Of course, it would be much better if the US undertook a policy of institution-building in Ukraine and not one of appointing or dismissing individuals. But since Ukraine’s institutions don’t work, the Americans are placing their bets on individuals.

 

It’s still not clear whether PG Lutsenko’s statements accusing the American ambassador of handing him a list of immune individuals were a direct response to Yovanovitch’s speech or just an unfortunate coincidence. In any case, it’s not clear why a campaign against the US ambassador was set in motion months before her term comes to an end and calling up, at a minimum, another round of distrust, at the least, among American diplomats. It’s important to keep in mind that the US embassy in recent years has not just engaged in critical comments but has also issued plenty of statements from the State Department in support of Ukraine, including in support of the release of Ukrainians being held in Russia as political prisoners.

 

In the corridors of Ukrainian power, the ambassador’s critical statement was dismissed as caused by a political vacuum at the State Department after Deputy SecState for Europe and Eurasia Wess Mitchell’s resignation and the filling of this vacuum with a Ukraine agenda. This was proposed by Mitchell’s assistant George Kent, who had been Yovanovitch’s second-in-command at the embassy in Kyiv until the previous summer. The history of Ambassador Yovanovitch and the Ukrainian government is not simple: when Trump was elected, Kyiv spent his first year in office preparing for her to be replaced—the names of possible replacements were even floated. But last year, one of the members of Government noted that, in Kyiv’s eyes, the ambassador’s position in Washington had improved. Many in the Poroshenko Administration and the MFA are open about being impressed with the US’s policy of political appointees to ambassadorial posts, such as Richard Grenell in Germany—who came perilously close to bring declared persona non grata by Germans.

 

However, the reaction in the cabinets of power to the American criticism was so hyper-sensitive because they were convinced that although Washington was doing everything it could to demonstrate its lack of a favorite in the current election, some American partners who are interested in Ukraine privately expressed appreciation for a particular candidate—Anatoliy Hrytsenko. But some vehemently denied such preferences, saying merely that they thought that Hrytsenko would best carry out an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine. Notably, Poroshenko is a completely acceptable candidate for many in Washington, especially from the point of view of predictability and relative stability.

 

At the same time, one positive point is that Poroshenko’s inner circles are more and more prepared to admit that it’s unlikely that the White House has an alternate agenda for Ukraine. Trump’s improvisational diplomacy does not include putting together a consistent general approach. The agenda that was announced in the State Department and the embassy is actually the only agenda on Ukraine in the US government. And it is unlikely to change after the election: combat corruption, establish rule of law, and stop the war in Donbas through negotiations. Anyone who thinks this agenda can be dropped through lobbying efforts should know the story with the letter from Trump advisor Rudolph Giuliani, who met with President Poroshenko and PG Lutsenko, in which he criticized the work of Romania’s AntiCorruption Bureau—which was against the US policy in general. In the end, the American policy on combating corruption in Romania, which was determined at State, did not change.

 

It will take a good deal of effort to get Donald Trump interested in Ukraine as he has never developed any emotional tie to the country. Meanwhile, access to him on the “Ukraine question” through advisors and members of the US government is becoming more and more difficult. Congress obviously will continue to support the country at the bipartisan level by generating important preventions, such as approving legislation to make it impossible to recognize Crimea as Russian, a bill that passed in the House of Representatives very recently. For many in the Congress, Ukraine remains a double victim: to Putin’s aggression and to Trump’s unpredictable political improvisations. However, even representatives in the Congress with whom we spoke while preparing this report admit that sanctions against Russia won’t make Ukraine a success.

UKRAINE-EU RELATIONS

 

Report by Leonid Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the New Europe Center, on assessment of Ukraine’s progress in relations with the EU for the quarterly magazine ТRUMAN Index. The full version of TRUMAN Index No. 5 (9) is available on the TRUMAN Agency website.

 

January – March 2019

 

Positive score: +42

Negative score: -8

Total: +34

TRUMAN INDEX: +1,89

 

SUMMARY

 

EU-Ukraine relations over January-March were not as filled with bilateral events as the previous quarter. Despite attempts to keep the appearances of positive and fruitful cooperation in public discourse, Brussels and Kyiv had a series of bilateral setbacks. In fact, relations between the two have become more complicated, mainly due to several steps taken by Ukraine—the latest being the decriminalization of illicit enrichment—but in part due to different positions when it comes to sanctions against Russia for its aggression in the Azov Sea.

 

The decriminalization of illicit enrichment was very bad news for the EU, as it will affect the effectiveness of the newly-established anticorruption court: the court will now have far fewer legal grounds to investigate high-level corruption. The decision also affects the ability of Ukraine’s friends in the EU to promote a positive agenda for bilateral relations.

 

Despite its overall solidarity with Ukraine, the EU did not manage to meet Ukraine’s expectations in terms of sanctions for Russian aggression around the Azov Sea. After three months negotiations, the EU decided with great difficulty to impose sanctions against eight Russian individuals. The Ukrainian proposal of an “Azov package” of sanctions failed to gain traction and none of the restrictions demanded by Ukraine were adopted. President Poroshenko tried to mitigate the failure by claiming that the EU had adopted precisely the sanctions Ukraine wanted, but, in fact, they had a largely symbolic impact.

 

President Poroshenko was more successful with regard to future relations with the EU at the “mini-summit” in Brussels in late March. Most importantly, he managed to agree to fast-track negotiations on ACAA with EU leaders and a possible breakthrough on the question of a digital union. Still, the Ukrainian parliament did not manage to pass the necessary bills to pave the way for ACAA negotiations to start, so there’s already a delay in the process.

 

Even if the majority of EU-Ukraine cooperation has a technical dimension, the upcoming elections have left their footprint on the bilateral agenda. The weak reaction of EU to the decriminalization of illicit enrichment and the waffling of arbitration on the wood export ban showed the EU as a firm supporter of the current administration. Unlike the US, the EU decided not to publicly criticize Ukraine in order to not help populists in the presidential campaign.

 

TIMELINE

 

Ukraine-EU political dialog

 

President Poroshenko publicly highlighted his role as Ukraine’s main “euro-integrator” by hosting President Donald Tusk in Ukraine, but also by having high-level meetings in Brussels with EC President Jean Claude Juncker, EP President Antonio Tajani and EU Council President Donald Tusk. The meetings with EU leadership were not merely symbolic, as discussions  focused on the future of EU-Ukraine relations and possible new bilateral milestones. As noted by a Ukrainian official, the key practical steps to focus on are the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products or ACAA and the digital union. Despite the president’s full support, however, these preliminary agreements need wider backing within the EU. Ukraine was told that it needs to advance on the ACAA and digital union before the new EU leadership is elected, however unlikely this is, emphasizing the point that the current EU leadership broadly supports Ukraine while there is no certainty that the next set of leaders will be as positive towards Ukraine as the current one. During a meeting in Brussels, President Juncker also highlighted positive experience with regard to Ukraine’s visa-free regime, noting that Ukrainians seemed quite disciplined and did not noticeably abuse the system.

 

Aside from open backing for Poroshenko from President Tusk, EU support was also extended via EC VP Valdis Dombrovskis and EU Delegation head Hugues Mingarelli. As one EU diplomat put in, these officials did everything to support President Poroshenko and, indirectly, his bid for second term as president of Ukraine by not criticizing him. However, EU is not really linear. Brussels has both publicly praised Kyiv for key reforms and discreetly criticized it for slipping on other equally important reforms.

 

EU diplomats note more often that Ukraine now has ever fewer friends in the Union since it has not delivered on its commitments in many areas. The number of people unhappy with Ukraine’s backsliding has reached critical mass and is likely really be felt after the elections, especially after the VR elections come fall. The problem is that, due to sweeping promises that were not fulfilled by Ukraine’s officials, the leadership is perceived as having what one source called “serious issues with moral integrity.”

 

After the presidential election, quite a few items will be put on hold, no matter who is Ukraine’s next president. The EU will have to reconsider its approach, also in relation to the new political context after the EU’s own elections. Brussels can be expected to get more critical. For instance, the next report on the visa suspension mechanism will be far more critical than the previous one, with a special focus on fight against corruption. The visa-free regime will be continued and there is no doubt it will work in the short term. However, in the mid- to long-term, the EU could well consider applying the suspension mechanism – or at least threaten to do so.

 

In the meantime, Ukraine once again was in the negative spotlight with the decriminalization of illicit enrichment and with the SBU-imposed travel ban on Austrian journalist Christian Wehrschütz. The travel ban was initially enforced based on a “threat he poses to national security” but then re-labeled as a prevention mechanism, because the Austrian journalist had been threatened in Ukraine. This move by Ukraine’s security service sparked a wave of criticism from the EU and various Austrian institutions, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. EU diplomats think that it was a poorly thought-out action, given that Wehrschütz has good contacts with Commissioner Hahn’s office and that Chancellor Kurz apparently also backed him. Wehrschütz has sued Ukraine and the story continues to evolve. In the meantime, Ukrainian officials have denied claims that the travel ban was meant to silence Wehrschütz. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Vienna, Oleksandr Shcherba noted that this case had nothing to do with freedom of speech, saying “[Wehrschütz] did not abide by Ukrainian law.”

 

EU/NATO aspirations are now constitutional

 

President Poroshenko managed to push for a final vote with 335 of the 300 needed on the amendments that added aspirations to join the EU and NATO to Ukraine’s Constitution. The amendments make the president the guarantor that the strategic course of the state to full membership in the European Union and NATO is implemented, while the Cabinet is responsible for the actual implementation.

 

Although the step is largely symbolic, the vote demonstrated the unity of Ukraine’s political class with regard to Euro-Atlantic integration. Previously, such a consensus was manifested either by an inter-party memorandum, or by a “gentlemen’s agreement” in Central European countries that joined the EuroAtlantic community. This step was important to consolidate the country’s foreign policy aims and avoid polarization on this issue.

 

Quite often, however, political processes and the Constitution live in parallel lives in Ukraine. The constitutional amendments symbolize an important step, but alone they do not guarantee any reforms. That was, in fact, the EU’s response: it took note of the amendments, and now, “please focus on reforms.” That is why, no significant developments should be anticipated until the Association Agreement with the EU and NATO standards are implemented.

 

From a legal perspective, the new constitutional provision could provide a potential eurointegration tool in the form of contesting any law that might threaten Euro-Atlantic integration, as the Constitutional Court could declare such a law null and void.

 

But before negotiations on joining the EU can start, Ukraine has to implement the Association Agreement, which is happening at a very slow pace. According to a report from the Governement’s European integration office, only 52% of the tasks envisaged for 2018 were actually implemented, which is 11% more than in 2017. In 2018, the highest level of implementation was shown by the central executive bodies, 55%, other state institutions were at 47% and the Verkhovna Rada was the lowest, at 40%. At the beginning of 2019, the overall implementation of the AA was 42%

 

Illicit enrichment, another thorn in EU-Ukraine cooperation

 

In February 2019, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional Art. 368-2 of the Criminal Code, which provides for punishment for illicit enrichment. Illicit enrichment had been criminalized in 2015 as part of the EU visa liberalization Action Plan and commitments Ukraine had taken before the IMF. However, in December 2017, a group of 59 MPs asked the Constitutional Court to declare the criminalization of illicit enrichment unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the provisions did not comply with the principles of the rule of law and the presumption of innocence. Above all, according to the plaintiffs, the article on illicit enrichment obliged suspects to prove the legality of their assets, while Ukrainian law puts the burden of proof entirely on the prosecution.

 

The decision to get eliminate the illicit enrichment clause will have a long-term negative impact on Ukraine. The immediate effect was that more than 60 cases that were in the pipeline on charges of illicit enrichment have now been annulled and the much-praised Anti-Corruption Court has been rendered largely useless. Decriminalization illicit enrichment has weakened Ukraine’s entire anti-corruption system, leaving the AntiCorruption Court with nothing to do, despite having selected judges with high standards of integrity. In fact, the Constitutional Court’s ruling is effectively a no-strings-tied amnesty for all crooked officials and a weaker National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which will now have fewer grounds to investigate corruption among high officials.

 

Despite a strong statement from the US ambassador, the EU decided not to specifically support US or to make a separate statement, but hid behind a G7 statement, once again confirming its policy of not influencing elections by making extraneous statements. In the meantime, President Poroshenko promised to adopt a new law that would recriminalize illicit enrichment. The new law will more likely than not be adopted after the Rada election, provided that the new legislature deems it necessary. It seems that the Rada and Ukraine’s judiciary system are determined to resist Ukraine’s attempts, supported by international community, to establish a proper, effective legal system that would be able to curb corruption among high officials.

 

Sanctions and support for the Azov Sea region

 

During this quarter, EU sanctions were highlighted in several areas. First of all, the damage of 2018 worldwide sanctions against Russia as well as of trade restrictions were calculated by Russian Ministry of Economic Development to be worth US $6.3bn, though some diplomats consider this figure a lowball. Overall, 62 countries have imposed 159 restrictive measures and of these EU topped the list, with 25 restrictions, including sanctions, Ukraine is second with 22, India has 16, Belarus 13, Turkey 12, and the US 9. EU restrictions alone were estimated to cause damage of US $2.4bn and the US sanctions US $1.1bn.

 

The EU also extended individual sanctions against Russian companies and persons responsible for undermining of territorial integrity of Ukraine, but the main focus in this quarter was on sanctions related to Russia’s aggression around the Azov Sea. In the end, the EU introduced sanctions against 8 Russian individuals on March 15, although the new sanctions need a more detailed analysis.

 

The debate on possible sanctions for Russia’s aggression around the Azov started immediately after the Russian attack back on November 25, 2018. Since then, the EU has been hesitant to sanction Russia, because of its attempts to get Moscow to release the 24 Ukrainian POWs. The idea of no additional sanctions was defended by Germany and backed by France, Italy and other EU members. When the EU finally agreed to raise new sanctions against Russia, its members were willing to introduce fairly nominal sanctions by adding 8 individuals to the existing list. Even adding 8 individuals proved to be a big issue for the EU, involving multi-layered negotiations among EU states. First, as one high-ranked official confessed, Finland blocked the sanctions on 8 additional individuals. The reason was apparently because of the inclusion of Russian Border Guards boss Ghennadiy Medvedev on the initial list. Helsinki was reluctant to endorse this because Medvedev is involved in a Russian-Finnish dialog on border issues. Once Medvedev was replaced by someone else, sanctions were blocked by Italy, but Lithuania lifted Rome’s veto by taking in 5 families of Syrians that had arrived in Italy. It was a compromise, because overall Italian PM Giuseppe Conte said his government was keen to get EU sanctions against Russia lifted.

 

Ukraine had imagined completely different sanctions against Russia for its attack and ongoing aggression on the Azov Sea: multiple sanctions both on individuals but also on Russian ports and Russian ships, and more. Kyiv had even dubbed the upcoming sanctions the “Azov package.” But there was no “Azov Package” coming from the EU. The term was coined and used by Ukraine, based on Kyiv’s strong position and high expectations but, aside from a few smaller states and traditional supporters like Lithuania, the only member to raise the issue was the Danish FM, who said it would be discussed at the EU Council. There, too, no support was found and the discussion was dropped.

Ukraine’s diplomats kept insisting on a range of serious sanctions against Russia. FM Pavlo Klimkin said that Kyiv conveyed this message to Europeans: “Ukraine does not need nominal sanctions. We do not need to have a short list of those who have led this operation, so that we can then put them under sanctions and claim that these are sanctions against Russia. We need sanctions against Russia to be effective.” Once Kyiv understood that EU was not ready to get more serious about Russia, it toned down, saying that various scenarios were being considered. When sanctions were raised against 8 Russian individuals, President Poroshenko declared, “This is exactly the package of sanctions I wanted to see.” Not only it is difficult to call the adopted sanctions a “package,” but also it is difficult to understand Ukraine’s call for new sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s aggression around the Azov. If the president claimed that the sanctions adopted by the EU were precisely the ones he had wanted, then why was Ukraine insisting on new sanctions? EU diplomats in Kyiv say that after certain statements by the president, any further requests from Ukraine to expand the “Azov package” are doomed to fail. However, Poroshenko did play an important role in having the personal sanctions available. Getting the sanctions against 8 Russian individuals adopted was very difficult, said a member of the negotiating team, and if not for Poroshenko persistence, it was not certain that even these would have been adopted.

 

Lithuanian FM Linas Linkevičius correctly noted that EU sanctions around Azov were a case of “too little, too late.” Brussels then focused instead on an assistance program directed to Ukraine’s Azov region. Primarily it involves monitoring of Kerch Strait, which the German FM proposed, with the agreement of both Kyiv and Moscow. As expected, Russia was against Germany’s idea of permanent monitoring, while Ukraine supported it, although it also highlighted several mandatory elements, among which was the requirement that international monitors not visit Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia, as this would give Kremlin the possibility of manipulating the mission and claim that it was legitimized. Ukraine also insisted that the monitoring mechanism be focused on ensuring freedom of navigation. So far, negotiations have not led to any real results.

 

Unlike the political component, the EU program for the Azov region has progressed nicely. The EU announced the €50mn support program in December 2018 and since then it has undertaken a fact-finding mission to the region to determine priorities. In short, the EU has made an assistance program to Ukraine its main answer to the Azov crisis. Among others, the EU is considering support for rail and road connections, support for SMEs, and establishing training centers.

 

The EU special mission to the Azov region led by Peter Wagner and Thomas Mayer-Harting took place at the end of January. In February, foreign ministers approved a 10-project package of assistance for the region during an EU Council of Ministers session. However, these are not necessarily new projects and include funds that were allocated under other EU initiatives.

 

Aside from the technical aspect, it’s important to ensure a permanent presence from Western countries in the region. This should deter Russia from making further aggressive moves. Russian diplomats have already gone into high gear and began to send inquiries to the EU Delegation to find out the role of the EU mission to the Azov region. Clearly, they are worried about the EU plan.

 

Of course, the initiative would run more smoothly if the EU considered the European Parliament’s recommendation to appoint an EU special representative for Ukraine who would have a role to similar to that of US representative Kurt Volker, meaning that it would focus primarily on Crimea and Donbas. The EP resolution calls for the EU Special Representative to also be responsible for monitoring the human rights situation in the occupied territories, the implementation of the Minsk accords, the reduction of tensions in the Azov Sea, and the protection of IDP rights.

 

Finally, the recommendation was made that western countries be present on military ships that will pass through the Kerch Strait to Azov ports. In private discussions, EU diplomats say that it is highly unlikely that the EU would agree with this proposal. However, they think that NATO might undertake such a role.

 

Nord Stream II, Ukraine’s never-ending headache

 

The Nord Stream II project continued to be discussed among officials in Europe and US. First, new impetus to the debate was given by letters sent from the US Ambassador to Germany to companies involved in the pipeline’s construction. In his letters, Richard Grenell warned participating companies about the risk of being sanctioned by the US. Germany’s political elite reacted promptly and negatively to the ambassador’s missive and stated their hope that US would not make good on its threat, given that any sanctions could also negatively impact the US oil and gas projects, including in the Gulf of Mexico. Some German politicians even called for the US ambassador to be recalled.

 

Germans have generally been supportive of Nord Stream II. Overall, 73% of Germans are positive about the project and only 16% think Berlin should renounce the project. Interesting, 90% of respondents think that Trump’s threats are exclusively related to American economic interests. Defense of the project also continued at the official level. German FM Heiko Maas stated that nobody was able to stop Nord Stream II, even if US imposed sanctions, since Russia would then fund and implement the project alone. He also added that it would also make it difficult to pressure Russia to keep gas flowing through Ukraine. Of course, Germany’s position is speculative, since there are no guaranties that gas will continue to transit though Ukraine. Ukraine already saw what happened when Maas was against any sanctions against Russia for the Azov attack because it could block the process of getting the release of the 24 Ukrainian POWs. However, Maas’s policy did not work then and in the case of Nord Stream II there were no arguments that would give credence to his policy. On the contrary, EU diplomats in Ukraine expect a gas war after the new year if the project is not delayed. Such a conclusion is easy enough to draw from Russia’s supposed position at the negotiations, where it is demanding the unthinkable: forgiving Gazprom’s debt to Ukraine, which was determined by decision of the Stockholm arbitration panel.

 

So far, efforts by Ukraine and some EU countries to stop the project have been futile. A small step forward, however, was taken with the amendment of the EU gas directive. The proposal to amend has been put forward by the Romanian presidency of the EU, which, unlike the Austrian and Bulgarian EU presidencies, did not hesitate to raise this important issue. Germany, supported by Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Czechia, and Hungary, was unhappy with the Romanian initiative but was unable to avoid discussion. By putting pressure on other European capitals, Berlin thought it could block the initiative to regulate Nord Stream II. However, opposition from France challenged Germany’s certainty.

 

After bilateral negotiations between Berlin and Paris, a consensus was found that provides for partial regulation of the project: the application of the rules to the pipeline will be decided by Germany, which may or may not apply a given rule. Ukrainian officials tried to present the amendments to the directive into a positive light, saying that EU rules would be applied to Nord Stream II, but this was not what would give the EU firm influence over the project, since Germany had exclusive rights to manage the pipeline. According to sources in the EU, the new amendments will have more of an impact on Bulgaria, with its new pipeline project with Russia, as, unlike Germany, Bulgaria has little influence over decisions in the EU. Now, the only realistic way to delay the project is a decision by Copenhagen to review the environmental impact of the project, which is supposed to bypass Danish territorial waters and could take some additional time.

 

Economy and trade: ACAA, timber export ban and macro-financial aid

 

In terms of developing bilateral relations with the EU, Ukraine concentrated its efforts on the ACAA, which is also called the “industrial visa-free regime.” President Poroshenko declared the ACAA Ukraine’s “top priority” in relations with the EU and discussed it at the mini-summit in Brussels on March 20. This agreement would allow Ukrainian producers to label their products with the “CE” mark, entitling them to freely sell their goods on the EU market without additional certification. Preliminary estimates are that the ACAA could cover up to 20% of Ukraine’s exports to the EU, with the main impact on machine-building sector.

 

Ukraine complained for a long time that the EU does not want to discuss ACAA, but when EU indicated it was ready, Kyiv proved unprepared: the two bills that the Rada had to adopt in order to open consultations with the EU on the ACAA had not been passed. Bill #6235 on technical regulation and conformity assessments was submitted to a vote but did not get enough support to pass, blocking the process again and making Ukraine fully responsible for the delay. A Ukrainian official confessed that Bankova appeared upset over the fact that Speaker Andriy Parubiy brought the bill to a vote, knowing that there were not enough MPs in the legislature to pass it. For instance, only 55 of the 135 MPs in the main parliamentary faction voted. Some say that the bill should have been voted on before the “lobbyist” bill increasing taxes on scrap metal exports, which did gather the necessary votes. The bill needed for ACAA consultations to start had lain in the Rada for two years and now it is uncertain when it might be voted on again. Deputy Speaker Iryna Herashchenko registered a new bill and if it is put on a fast track, there is a possibility that the bill will be adopted in this May.

 

In December 2018, the Ukraine-EU Association Council decided to send an assessment mission to Ukraine that was supposed to draft a plan that would lead to the ACAA being signed. The mission visited Ukraine and made some positive steps towards fast-track negotiations. Instead of two consecutive stages of preparation, legislation and implementation, the EU agreed to move simultaneously on both stages, which should significantly cut the time involved.

 

Negotiations with the EU on the ban of unprocessed timber also continued. The first round within the arbitration panel has already taken place and, according to one EU diplomat, Ukraine’s position was quite weak. It is quite unlikely that Ukraine will be able to defend its policy and the EU will win this case. What’s more, the EU could have done this long ago, but again, the policy of supporting the current administration prevented Brussels from doing so and delayed the process so that the decision will be made public after the presidential election.

 

On a different note, the second tranche of EU macro-financial assistance worth €500mn was not disbursed to Ukraine, since not all the conditions were met. Unlike the first tranche, the second tranche required Ukraine to adopt several serious reforms: speeding up the process of privatization and selling off at least 200 state enterprises, reforming the management of state enterprises, setting up an independent board at Ukrenergo, and combating money-laundering. So far, Ukraine managed to implement only a few of the conditions for the second tranche and no disbursement is likely. Some diplomats say that the EU did consider disbursing the tranche between the two rounds of the presidential election in order to boost the incumbent. Other EU sources note that this is unlikely, especially since not all EU officials are as supportive as VP Dombrovskis.



UKRAINE – NATO RELATIONS

 

Report by Kateryna Zarembo, Deputy Director of the NEC, on assessment of Ukraine’s progress in relations with NATO for the quarterly magazine ТRUMAN Index. The full version of TRUMAN Index No. 6 (10) is available on the TRUMAN Agency website

 

 

 

 

January – March 2019

 

Positive score: +48.5

Negative score: -4

Total: +44.5

TRUMAN INDEX: +1.03

 

SUMMARY

 

This reporting period in Ukraine-NATO relations, and 2019 overall, has been a period of turbulence and uncertainty. On one hand, this period included events at the highest level: Ukraine amended its Constitution to enshrine its Euroatlantic aspirations as a strategic direction; it approved a new kind of Annual National Program; it received new contact embassies, the UK and Canada, as of January 1, 2019; a slew of high-level meetings were held; and the North Atlantic Council is supposed to visit Kyiv. On the other, Ukraine entered a new election cycle and the results of both the presidential and parliamentary elections will determine whether the country continues its Euroatlantic integration or returns to the familiar old balancing act that has traditionally been called “multivectoral.”

 

TIMELINE

 

IRREVERSIBLE EUROATLANTIC CHOICE: PRETEND OR REAL?

 

In 2019, a series of symbolic dates come up for the Alliance, starting with its 70th anniversary and 20 years since Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joined, and for relations between Ukraine and the Alliance. For one thing, 25 years ago, Ukraine joined the Partnership for Peace program, 20 years ago the NATO Liaison Office in Ukraine was opened, and 10 years ago Ukraine acceded to a key instrument for approaching NATO, the Annual National Program. Still, there is an impression that the mood on both sides is not so much celebratory as anticipatory: Ukraine has entered a new election cycle that could lead to changes on nearly all levels of the central government and that could mean Euroatlantic integration at a very different pace, if not a different sort altogether. And so the NATO Representation to Ukraine even decided not to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Alliance in April, the month in which the official date of establishing NATO falls. Celebrations have been postponed until the end of May, when it will be known who the next president is.

 

On February 19, 2019, President Petro Poroshenko signed into law amendments to the Constitution that enshrine Ukraine’s course towards the European Union and NATO. As experts from the New Europe Center noted, the very fact that a solid majority supported the changes in the Verkhovna Rada testifies to broad political consensus on this issue. Just 15 years ago, supporting Euroatlantic course could have put a dent in the electoral reputation of many an MP, whereas now the opposite tendency can be seen. This is undoubtedly good news for Ukraine’s Euroatlantic progress. On the other hand, few in Ukraine believe that enshrining Euroatlantic integration on paper, even in the country’s Basic Law can genuinely prevent any reversal in Ukraine’s foreign policy, as has happened under nearly every president so far.

The election campaign has already shown this: even those candidates who called themselves pro-European have divergent views of that a Euroatlantic course means for Ukraine. The incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, basically made integration into the EU and NATO part of his election platform. He promises to apply for EU membership and get the MAP from NATO by 2023, although he plans to raise the question of the MAP at the December NATO summit in London. On the other hand, the leader in the first round, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is restrained in his references to the Alliance, saying that accession should be preceded by a national referendum. He and members of his team do little to disguise their skepticism about how ready NATO is to grant Ukraine membership. Notably, this position ensured Zelenskiy support, not just in the southern and eastern oblasts of Ukraine, where support for NATO is never as high as in the northern and western regions, but also among some membercountries that are equally skeptical of Ukraine’s aspirations, who see the Ze team’s position as “realistic.”

 

However, it would be incorrect to state that the West as a whole and NATO in particular have a favorite in the race. NATO is prepared to work with any legitimately elected president of Ukraine. Poroshenko may have the advantage as a known candidate, but this advantage is very nominal: NATO officials understand perfectly well that strong statements and grand amendments to the Constitution are mainly electoral moves, while real actions are typically hampered. Take just the Annual National Program for 2019 as an example: after the Cabinet approved it back on January 20, the president, between visits to the regions and interpretations of what membership in NATO would do to improve local budgets expansion, never actually found the time to sign it.

 

Meanwhile, the Action Plan for European and Euroatlantic Integration through 2024 is being prepared for publication. It is supposed to establish the milestones of Euroatlantic integration for the next five years. The minimum goal for 2019 is gaining Enhanced Opportunity Partnership for Ukraine. This is an objective that Ukraine set itself last year, but the Alliance decided not to play ball with Ukraine, as it felt this would incorrectly be presented at home as a step towards membership.

 

It seems that this status really is perceived differently in NATO and in Ukraine. The Alliance sees this format as being for those partners who are members of the Interoperability Initiative and don’t necessarily have membership as an ultimate goal, such as Australia, Finland, Jordan and Sweden—Georgia being the exception. Ukraine believes that gaining this status will really bring it closer to membership, as the level of interoperability in Finland and Sweden means that either could join the Alliance tomorrow. Indeed, NATO itself often offers these two countries as an example. Ukraine is hoping to gain the status of an Enhanced Opportunity Partner at this year’s NATO summit, which will take place in London in December. The question now is whether it will be a priority for the country’s next president. Only time will tell..

 

REFORM PLAN FOR 2019: NEITHER STICK, NOR CARROT

 

NATO’s plans for Ukraine are traditionally more practical. This year, the Alliance has identified five priorities for Ukraine: a new law on the Verkhovna Rada intelligence and security services oversight committee; a law on the State Security Service (SBU) that includes removing the investigation of financial crimes from its remit; a law on intelligence-gathering; a law on managing state secrets and classified information; and reform in the defense sector and the defense procurement system. As a reminder, reforming the SBU has been in the list of priorities that the Alliance holds before Ukraine for several years now. For the first time, a Concept for Reforming the SBU was drafted with the assistance of NATO specialists and an EU Consultative Mission to Ukraine back in 2016, yet in 2018 it was one of the unfulfilled conditions for inviting Ukraine to the NATO summit.

However, it’s unlikely that there will be some kind of breakthrough this year, partly because of the election cycle in Ukraine and partly because of the lack of any incentives from NATO that might serve the reputations of Ukraine’s decision-makers. Last year, approving the SBU reform concept and a law on national security were the “conditions” for being invited to the NATO summit, this year even such symbolic incentives are not working. The NATO summit will be all the way in December, when most of those promoting a pro-NATO policy in Ukraine might well be out of office. Until the changes to Ukraine’s leadership are established, which can only be final after the parliamentary elections, it will not be clear whether Ukraine gets invited to the summit or not, who will represent it, and what the shape of relations between it and the Alliance will be at that point.

 

As to reforming the SBU, the current version of the bill is being again under revision at the Presidential Administration, where it is supposed to be reworked with the help of the International Consultative Group (ICG) on Reforming the SBU—experts who were not involved in its original draft. Sources familiar with the bill confirm that preliminary revisions prepared by the ICG were ignored in the current version. What’s more, the SBU’s powers have not only not been diminished but have actually been expanded! As in the past, the Ukrainian side points out that even among NATO members, standards are not applied equally. Indeed, the range of powers granted to the SBU is being justified by appealing to French practice, where the security service’s remit includes pre-trial investigation, and to Poland, where security agencies are responsible for anti-corruption efforts—among others. In NATO, the response is that none of these countries have collected in the portfolios of their security agencies ALL the functions that Ukraine would like to give its service.

 

As to other bills, work on them continues with greater and lesser progress, but the main challenge remains voting in the Verkhovna Rada. Obviously, after the recent scandal at Ukroboronprom, where journalists published information about corrupt schemes ostensibly involving First Deputy of the National Security Council Secretary Oleh Hladkovskiy and Ukroboronprom General Manager Pavlo Bukin, the question of reforming the defense industry and the defense procurements system will be raised more and more frequently at bilateral meetings. Ironically, Hladkovskiy was the co-chair of the Joint Ukraine-NATO Working Group on defense technical cooperation, so the Alliance is now without its main collocutor on the Ukrainian side.

 

Notably, the corruption scandal was no surprise to NATO officials, but rather confirmed what they already knew: the Alliance not only never tired of repeating that the battle against corruption was one of the top priorities for reforming Ukraine’s defense system, but also saw with its own eyes the “assets” of Ukraine’s top officials. Remarkably, reforming the defense industry and procurements was only put on the Ukraine-NATO agenda after the Strategy for Developing the Defense Industry through 2028 was approved in summer 2018. Off the record, NATO officials explain that, despite offers of assistance from the Alliance, the Ukrainian side decided to do without, presenting the Alliance with a fait accompli: a finalized Strategy that NATO partners say does not meet the necessary standards.

 

As to the mythical “NATO standards” that Ukraine committed itself to take on by the end of 2020, it looks like the country will not be able to meet the deadline that it set for itself. As before, there are contradictions between the statements of Ukrainian and NATO officials: the Defense Ministry talks about some 220 standards that need to be approved, 196 of which the Ministry claims have already passed, while NATO emphasizes that there are actually more than 1,300 such standards, not all of which apply only to the defense sector. According to the head of the Mission of Ukraine to the NATO, Vadym Prystaiko, trying to implement them by the end of 2020 is completely unrealistic. Off the record, Defense Ministry officials admit that the problem is serious and not just a question of the volume of work. Indeed, there are complaints in the Ministry that military administration agencies are unsystematic and disorganized in instituting NATO standards and that the executors lack not just professional training in standardization but even something as basic as knowledge of the English language. The Alliance is also accused of not being ready to share regulatory documents with restricted access.

 

THE KERCH ATTACK: MARINE AND REPUTATIONAL LOSSES

 

Over the reporting period, Russia attacked Ukrainian ships near the Kerch Strait. On November 25, 2018, Russia boarded three Ukrainian naval vessels and took their crews, 24 seamen altogether, prisoner. This incident should have reminded the international community that the war in eastern Ukraine continues and is expanding to new territories. On November 27, NATO issued a statement condemning Russia’s actions.

 

However, NATO’s attitude towards the incident had shifted significantly in those two days. Initially, Russia’s attack on Ukrainian vessels was a “warning bell” for the Alliance regarding the presence of a Russian threat. However, by the next day, Ukraine’s president was talking about instituting martial law, which reduced the degree of concern within the Alliance, to be replaced by suspicion and distrust. Within NATO, the thought began to circulate that Ukraine’s leadership was intentionally hoping to use martial law to postpone the presidential election. Even though the Verkhovna Rada voted for martial law to be in place for only 30 days on November 26, which would not interfere in the election schedule, a bad taste remained at NATO. Thus, the tone of subsequent rhetoric was softened as NATO referred to the attack more as an “incident” and not an “act of war.”

 

In 2019, NATO increased its presence in the Black Sea at the request of Ukraine. In January, joint exercises took place in the Black Sea involving American and Romanian ships. At the end of February, the USS Donald Cook guided missile destroyer ran joint exercises with Ukraine. On April 1, two more NATO vessels entered the Port of Odesa: the Canadian frigate Toronto and the Spanish frigate Santa Maria. Interestingly, some of Ukraine’s more distant partners in the Alliance have put more effort into the Black Sea region than some of its neighbors who share the maritime region directly with Ukraine, such as Bulgaria and Turkey.

 

UKRAINE’S DEAD END WITH HUNGARY

 

The fact that the work of the Ukraine-NATO Commission at the ministerial level continues to be blocked gradually changed from news to status quo. Today, the Ukraine-Hungary conflict is in a frozen state, with no ministerial meetings of UNC taking place since the fall of 2017. Budapest has made it clear that it is waiting for new leadership in Kyiv. Ukraine has tried not to pay too much attention to the Venetian Commission recommendations, which Kyiv agreed with Budapest to implement but so far has not: extending the transition period for the Law on education and releasing private schools providing teaching in EU languages from Art. 7 of the law, which regulates current language norms.

 

Both of these provisions are in the Bill “On a complete secondary education,” which the Ministry of Education and Science presented and the Cabinet approved, but which has not been submitted to the Rada for consideration. Under this bill, the transitional period is extended from 2020 to 2023, and for linguistic minorities using EU languages studying in both public and private schools, teaching in the Ukrainian language is set at at least 20% starting in Grade 5, rising to 40% in Grade 9. In senior high school, teaching in the Ukrainian language has to be at least 60% of class time. In addition, there are alternate bills, such as #5670-D “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language” and #9287 “On amending Section XII, Concluding and Transitional Provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On education.’” However, as Ukrainian diplomats point out, the Rada is being prevented from voting on these changes supposedly by the Hungarians themselves: every time that Ukraine’s MPs were prepared to vote, Hungary would issue yet another aggressive statement.

 

Meanwhile, both Ukraine and NATO continue to look for workarounds to re-establish contacts at the ministerial level. For instance Defense Minister Gen. Stepan Poltorak sent SecGen Stoltenberg a letter requesting that he be allowed to participate in the ministerial meeting of NATO countries in Brussels that took place in early October 2018. He was turned down. No official reason for the rejection was offered, but unofficially no one in the Alliance tried to hide the fact that, once again, Hungary was against it. When Poltorak finally visited NATO HQ in February in Brussels, Alliance officials, as with last year’s NATO summit, had to be a bit “creative:” Poltorak was invited not to the official summit but to the Defense Ministerial Breakfast, the unofficial format of the event. He also came by invitation of the British delegation and not NATO as a whole, and not to the HQ itself. However, the Breakfast included all 29 member countries.

 

The absence of regular ministerial meetings of the UNC has also partly been compensated by frequent contacts between the Ukrainian president and the deputy premier for European and Euroatlantic integration with NATO officials at all levels, starting with SecGen Stoltenberg, both in Kyiv and in Brussels, and at international events. For instance, one ambassadorial level meeting of UNC was chaired by Stoltenberg and included Klympush-Tsintsadze. Other events were attended by, among others, Deputy FM Olena Zerkal and Minister for the Temporarily Occupied Territories Vadym Chernysh.

 

The author expresses gratitude to Marianna Fakhurdinova for her help in preparing this report.

 

UKRAINE – RUSSIA  RELATIONS

 

Report by Sergiy Solodkyy, First Deputy Director of the NEC, on assessment of Ukraine’s progress in relations with Russia for the quarterly magazine ТRUMAN Index. The full version of TRUMAN Index No. 6 (10) is available on the TRUMAN Agency website

 

 

 

 

January – March 2019

 

Positive score: 0

Negative score: -49

Total: -49

TRUMAN INDEX: -3,27

 

SUMMARY

 

The election in Ukraine was the main subject affecting relations between the two countries this quarter and Moscow simply put all forms of dialog with Kyiv on hold. Its interference in the electoral process was limited to an intense public awareness campaign whose goal was to change the president in Ukraine. Every public statement about the election, whether by Russian politicians, diplomats or pro-Putin journalists, focused on the “impossible to negotiate with” Petro Poroshenko. In Russia, open support for one of the presidential candidates was made quite obvious, but this act of solidarity showed more frustration and insecurity than confidence in a victory. To judge by it all, Russia appeared to have placed its bets on the Verkhvona Rada elections. This suggests that the interference is just in early stages right now and investments are being made that are expected to bring a return only in the fall. Russia’s information machine was busy persuading people that the election in Ukraine would be stolen. Given this, Russian politicians were calling for the results not to be recognized, but obviously this was intended only in case Poroshenko won.

 

Ukraine did as much as possible to ensure against possible interference by Moscow. Thus, Ukrainians were not allowed to vote in Russia for security reasons and Russian citizens were prohibited from being election observers in Ukraine. Western countries trained Ukrainian specialists in how to prevent cyber attacks: worries were particularly focused on cyber attacks on the day of the vote. Because of the election, Russia blocked the resolution of other issues and the announced ceasefire was once again violated the same day. The question of releasing Ukrainian hostages and prisoners of war went into limbo. Expectations that something might change under a new president are largely baseless. The TRUMAN Index for this quarter remains quite low at minus 3.27 points, testimony to continuing tensions and unpredictability in bilateral relations.

 

TIMELINE

 

A TIGER PREPARING TO POUNCE

 

The fact that there are no manifestations or evidence of direct interference by Russia does not mean that Russia has left Ukraine alone,” says one western diplomat, unofficially evaluating Moscow’s influence over the presidential election campaign. “Russia wasn’t prepared to support any one candidate publicly because this would most likely have played against that candidate. Yuriy Boyko’s meetings with Russia’s leadership is part of the parliamentary campaign, and not the presidential one.” Many in the western diplomatic corps are of a similar thought as they carefully observe domestic shifts of fortune while also paying attention to Moscow’s influence over them.

 

It appears that fears that Russia would turn up the heat substantially during the election campaign were unfounded. Russia effectively put the Ukraine question on hold. The Minsk negotiating process is the best example: Russia has made it clear it’s prepared to talk to anyone—except Petro Poroshenko.

 

However, the absence of sudden moves on the part of Moscow in the last three months in no way compensates for its interference over the last five years, starting with the takeover of Crimea, its ongoing support of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and its never-ending anti-Ukrainian information campaign. President Poroshenko was the focus of an unusually intense discreditation campaign in Russian media. The list of accusations against him is endless: according to Russian state media, Poroshenko is not interested in ending the war, he and his circle are getting rich on the conflict, he has established a dictatorship, he leads an unhealthy lifestyle, etc., etc

 

“Ukraine is an overly complicated country,” say EU diplomats by way of an explanation about Russia’s actions. “It’s quite unpredictable. Perhaps they’re beginning to understand this in Russia, too. That’s why they’ve stopped engaging obvious interventions and betting on a specific candidate.” Russia really did misunderstood a lot of issues in 2014. Its plans to destabilize the situation in all the southern and eastern oblasts of Ukraine failed: Moscow had not counted on the capacity of Ukraine’s leadership to quickly come to an agreement with western governments to provide political, economic and even military support, on one hand, and to punish Russia through sanctions on the other. Of course, western countries can be criticized for not always demonstrating the same level of solidarity with Ukraine, for the occasional rumors about not extending sanctions, and for not always responding in the timeliest manner. However, Russia did not expect any reaction at all from the EU or the US in the spring of 2014, let along so long-standing.

 

Obviously, Russia has absorbed a few lessons and is trying to play more subtly while laying the blame for the current conflict on Ukraine. The best example of this is the discussion of Russia’s aggression during a session of the UN Security Council on February 12: Russia’s representative argued that the terms of the Minsk Accords do not commit Russia to anything, therefore it was inappropriate to expect Russia to fulfill them. Representatives of Germany, the US and France made it absolutely clear to their colleague that twisting things in the manner of Russia’s political talk shows in the UN Security Council would not work. “Try to remember who is the aggressor here and who is the victim,” was and remains the main message from western observers who have long participated in negotiations with Russia.

 

It’s safe to assume that Russia has chosen a more hybrid way of influencing the election situation in Ukraine now as well. “Anyone but Poroshenko” is an ultimatum from Moscow that can also be seen as direct interference, a verbal means of affecting the electoral mood in Ukraine. While some voters might have interpreted this as a call to support Petro Poroshenko on the principle, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” but for others the Russian threat meant only that Poroshenko would not be able to come to an agreement with Russia about peace no matter what, leading to the conclusion “Maybe we should support another candidate.” It’s impossible to evaluate this kind of interference: according to opinion polls, the Russian media enjoys little trust among Ukrainians. However, Russian media is hardly the only media rebroadcasting the Kremlin’s messages in Ukraine.

 

Overall, it’s possible to talk about a certain change in Russia’s approach to directing its scripts in Ukraine’s political space. Earlier, Moscow was not afraid to very clearly state its interest in Ukrainian elections, announcing its support, and actively promoting specific candidates, but these days its traces look a bit different. It’s more like Russia’s interventionist policies in other countries, especially in the Euroatlantic region. Moscow is not so keen to support individual politicians abroad, as it is to undermine stability in line with its usual agenda.

 

Russia’s relative inaction during the presidential campaign in Ukraine can be explained as Moscow not particularly counting on the victory of an obviously pro-Russian politician. First of all, the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of part of the Donbas removed that part of the electorate that was most likely to vote for politicians with pro-Russian sympathies from the electoral process. Secondly, over the last five years, Russia’s policies have repulsed millions of those Ukrainians living in free Ukrainian territory who earlier were inclined to favor it. The main miscalculation could be that, in a parliamentarypresidential republic, Ukraine would be better off focusing on the parliamentary elections. Indeed, Russia’s behavior during this election campaign can be equated to that of a tiger that was preparing to pounce. The attack itself will take place during the race for seats in the Rada. Here, the Kremlin has not bothered to hide its bets: Viktor Medvedchuk, Yuriy Boyko, and all those who are working with them.

 

Boyko and Medvedchuk’s meeting in Moscow with Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev March 22 was possibly the most obvious sign of Russia’s interference in the electoral process. However, the main goal of such meetings in Moscow was, at the least, to try to add points to the rankings of those representing proRussian attitudes in Ukraine. Surely Moscow realizes quite well that this candidate was not popular at all in Ukraine and that even a meeting with Vladimir Putin himself would not have add many votes to his name. And so, some interpret this meeting as Russia being definitely more oriented on the fall VR elections and demonstrating to the main players in Ukraine’s political and business circles who its favorites are—an interpretation that seems more logical. In fact, when Russia instituted sanctions at the end of last year, including against openly pro-Russian politicians and business owners, it made it known where it wanted resources to be focused: who espoused the correct pro-Russian positions. Most likely, Russia will try to put more effort into consolidating the politicians who are loyal to it so that they go into the Rada election as a single bloc. So far, its efforts haven’t brought any results. Today, the situation seems even more uncertain when it comes to getting the pro-Russian political camp to join forces.

 

RUSSIA’S PRE-EMPTIVE ULTIMATUM TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT

 

The government of Ukraine tried by all means to neutralize Russia’s influence on the current election. The decision to prevent Russian citizens from being observers at the election in Ukraine was one of them. The only criticism of this decision came from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Ukrainian diplomats explained that during informal talks with western politicians, even those who weren’t thrilled by Kyiv’s decision did not seriously protest it: “They understand perfectly why we did that. We weren’t the first ones to violate international law. It’s unacceptable for representatives of an aggressor state to evaluate democratic standards anywhere, let alone the country it has attacked.” Obviously, the participation of Russians would not likely have influenced the final report on the electoral process in Ukraine: observers have to fill out clearly designed forms where manipulations are effectively impossible. However, from the political aspect, the presence of Russian citizens as observers would have raised quite a few questions among Ukrainian voters.

 

As a reminder, we have the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission, which was established in the spring of 2014. The Ukrainian press then intensively made a scandal out of the fact that this mission included Russian citizens and citizens of countries that are among its allies. In time, the OSCE released information about the size of the mission and the country of origin of its observers: Russians and their satellites were in a minority, with 25 Russian observers in the mission in 2015, going up to 40 in 2017, while the total size of the mission was 700. Still, this did not stop numerous scandalous statements by Ukrainian politicians who accused the OSCE SMM of ineffectiveness and blindness because they didn’t seem to be noticing violations on Russia’s part. Apparently the sharp reaction of ODIHR was not anticipated in Ukraine: the Office noted the unprecedented decision by official Kyiv to prevent another country from sending observers to the election.

 

The paradox is that Moscow has long demanded that ODIHR significantly alter its working methods to favor authoritarian regimes, of course, if not shut down altogether. In 2008, ODIHR even refused to send an observer mission to the presidential election in Russia because of obstacles set up by Moscow. At the time, Vladimir Putin commented on the requirements of this reputable organization in a particularly rude form: “Let them teach a woman to cook shchi [a Russian cabbage soup].” Russia’s MFA has been the main voice of endless criticism against ODIHR observers for all the years Putin has been in power, accusing them of bias, this time issued a statement in support of international observers. Its diplomats promise to “work in close coordination with ODIHR and other executive agencies of OSCE that are supposed to monitor democracy and human rights.” Not, of course, in Russia, but in Ukraine. Although Russia always accused ODIHR of double standards and threatened to cut its budget, this time, Ukraine’s decision by some miracle led to a united front between the Offices management and the Kremlin.

 

Russia also tried to promote the idea of significant violations during the election. Moscow emphasized not only the banning of Russian observers, but also the decision of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission to close 5 polling stations in Russia where Ukrainian citizens could vote. Ukraine’s diplomats explained it as a security decision: Moscow’s inability to guarantee the safety of Ukrainians “who, despite administrative and propagandist pressure, would be brave enough to join electoral commissions or simply to show up and vote.” Official statements by Moscow throughout the election campaign focused entirely on supposedly numerous violations. “A rough, dirty election campaign is underway in Ukraine to elect a president,” Russian PM Medvedev claimed. “In observing it we in Russia don’t yet understand with whom we can talk in Ukraine.” Perhaps this was Moscow’s way of showing a Ukraine that was supposedly violating democratic values and was therefore no better than most post-soviet countries, starting with Russia, from whom Ukrainians were supposedly trying to distance themselves. Other motives might underlie such statements, too. Russian media actively discussed the option of not recognizing the next leader of Ukraine. Of course, this was primarily meant to be with reference to the re-election of Petro Poroshenko.

 

However, the sword of possible non-recognition will also hang over Poroshenko’s rival. Moscow has effectively issued a pre-emptive ultimatum: If someone wants to cut a deal with us, he first has to prove his legitimacy. Earlier, specific concessions were required from Ukraine for this kind of “legitimization,” as Moscow reacted exactly the same when the new president was elected in 2010. On March 5, Viktor Yanukovych made his first official visit to Moscow, assuming that Russia would immediately agree to reduce its price for natural gas, because he had already announced that Ukraine would maintain a non-bloc status and promised special status for the Russian language. “This is not a business discussion,” is how a Russian diplomat then working in Kyiv unofficially assessed the Ukrainian leader’s first visit. “Rejecting NATO and protecting the Russian language is something Yanukovych himself and Ukrainians need, not Russia. This visit was a failure. Yanukovych was absolutely unprepared. He didn’t bring along any propositions that might have interested Moscow.

 

Clearly the Yanukovych team took Moscow’s disgruntlement seriously. On April 21, 2010, it became clear what the Russian 8 diplomat might have had in mind by “business discussion:” This was the day the Kharkiv Accords were signed—discounted gas in return for a 25-year extension on the RF Black Sea Fleet’s lease on Ukrainian territory. Russia appears to be operating the same way today: the future Ukrainian president is being put in the position of a petitioner.

 

MAIDAN III: WHAT HAS THAT TO DO WITH RUSSIA?

 

Ukraine’s security agencies reported that Russia’s main objective in the current year was to “settle the Ukraine question” once and for all. To do this, Moscow was supposedly trying to set up the conditions for both Ukrainians themselves and the international community to not recognize the results of the election. According to this plan, Russia was hoping to foster something along the lines of a third Maidan. Only this time, according to Ukraine’s security agencies, Moscow intended to covertly use patriotically oriented Ukrainians and organize a state coup through them. The plan supposedly was to have four phases: first, massive peaceful demonstrations; second, the takeover of state institutions by force; third, a confrontation with the government that turned into an armed clash; and finally, the intervention of the Russian army under the guise of a peacekeeping force. As part of this plan, Russia would supposedly try to activate separatist movements, including in Zakarpattia.

 

In the public arena, this information was received fairly critically, more as a means for Poroshenko’s entourage to frighten Ukrainians, ostensibly to mobilize his voters and warn them against participating in possible protests. Opponents of the government also often called any statements about Russia’s preparedness to large-scale aggression “manipulation.” Still, Ukraine’s General Staff noted that Russia was building up its forces on the border with Ukraine, but critics said that this kind of information was being disseminated to create the impression that Poroshenko was the only one who recognized the level of external threats against Ukraine and only he had what it took to deal with them. True, at the beginning of March, foreign diplomats were informed by General Staff that Russia had finished forming shock units at the border that, together with special divisions would be the main invasion force. Moreover, Ukraine’s military did not exclude the possibility of a series of diversions at the front before the election. The foreign diplomats themselves admitted during the informal discussion that they had no information about significant changes in the dynamic of Russia’s actions.

 

Distrust in this kind of information provides a useful field for undermining actions on the part of Russia: the level of distrust Ukrainians feel towards their own institutions is now about the same as their distrust in the leadership of the country that attacked them. According to a poll taken by the Razumkov Center that measured the level of public trust in social institutions in February 2019, 71% did not trust the president1 . A poll by the KIIS, also taken in February, showed that 69% of Ukrainians feel negative about Russia’s leadership.

 

Still, western diplomats made it clear that they did have concerns about the election process might be disrupted by armed rightwing radical organizations. In mid-March, the ambassadors of the G7 countries sent a list to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov in which they expressed concern over the activities of extremist movements in Ukraine. The diplomats pointed out that such groups “frighten ordinary Ukrainians, they try to usurp the role of the National Police in ensuring the security of the elections, and they harm the national and international reputations of the Ukrainian Government.” The first round of the presidential election went smoothly, without any evidence of serious falsifications, activities by radicals, and so on. Now all attention is on the second round..

 

RUSSIA’S TWO WEAPONS: CYBER ATTACKS AND FAKERY

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s government prepared itself for two main kinds of interference on the part of Russia. The first was the production and dissemination of fake news, especially through social nets; the second was cyber attacks. Various officials have made announcements about attempted cyber attacks every 40 seconds against the sites of various government agencies. Western diplomats also agreed that there was a very high probability of a cyber attack on the CEC’s system, the main purpose being less to support some favored candidate than to undermine trust in the electoral process as such. NATO specialists have been supporting their Ukrainian colleagues, teaching them methods for counteracting outside hacker attacks during the election period.

 

The SBU reported that it had uncovered and blocked 360 cyber incidents in 2018. A total of 49 administrators of social networks were taken to court for anti-Ukrainian propaganda: 29 individuals were declared suspects and 20 have already been sentenced. General Staff have also reported about more intense activity in the news sphere on the part of Russia, directed at undermining trust in public institutions in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the year, the Security Bureau has regularly reported on the exposure of individuals organizing anti-Ukrainian internet agitation networks. In mid-January, the SBU reported that it had exposed the administrator of an anti-Ukrainian group in social nets in Zaporizhzhia. A few days earlier that same month, the SBU arrested an anti-Ukrainian internet agitator in Odesa. In early February, a resident of Chernihiv was exposed as engaging in “anti-Ukrainian agitation in social nets on order from Russia’s security services.” At the end of March, the SBU reported about the exposure of 4 residents of Mykolayiv and 4 Odesites who were allegedly also working for Russian security services. According to the SBU, Russian handlers were making use of more than 50 groups in social nets with an audience of more than 1.5 million users for illegal activities.

 

Independent observers have, in turn, reported on a storm of tendentious information about the Ukrainian election in vKontakte, the Russian social network. Internews Ukraine, a CSO, analyzed 1 million profiles in the Ukrainian segment of VK and nearly 10 million posts3 . The Top 10 sites whose articles were being disseminated in the Ukrainian segment of vKontakte were predominantly pro-Russian or separatist oriented. There was more negative than positive aimed at various candidates in the first round. In the analytical report, Zelenskiy was the only candidate towards whom at least a significant share of positive comments were addressed, 26%, although even he had more negative ones at 32%. President Poroshenko, of course, received the most negative comments, fully 67.5%, while Yulia Tymoshenko did almost as poorly at 56% negatives. The narrative was unchanging: Ukraine as a failed state that will shortly go into collapse. The main conclusion drawn by the study was hopeful but still included some worrisome trends. On one hand, the impact of Russian social nets weakened substantially after sanctions were introduced two years ago. On the other, pro-Russian rhetoric is evident in the majority of all posts in vKontakte.

 

The subject of elections in Ukraine has generally dominated Russian media. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv nor the main world capitals have bothered to discuss the main challenges that have been arisen from the unresolved conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Moscow’s excuse is that there’s no one to talk to. Kyiv doesn’t have much of a choice. And the West is busy observing. “We understand that Putin doesn’t want to talk to Poroshenko under any circumstances,” is a comment often heard in western circles. “The question is, will he want to talk to any other president? Will he be willing to compromise in the negotiations process? A lot of questions remain unanswered.” These diplomats are not comforting themselves with any illusions about likely changes in the Kremlin’s attitude. Russia has placed all the blame for the bloodshed in the Donbas entirely on Ukraine, while the subject of Crimea is simply not mentioned in Moscow, even with those whom Russia considers pro-Russian. As to a UN peacekeeping mission, Russia has made it very clear that it won’t go for any compromises. The only area where at least some progress might be possible is the release of Ukrainian citizens who are being held in prisons in Russia or in territory it occupies. But prior to the election, Moscow was not even prepared to discuss this much.