Ukraine, the Donbas and Mariupol (Part 1)
The 2014 revolution, which had Maidan Square in Kiev as its epicentre, not only brought a change of president, but also a strategic change in Ukrainian politics that meant a definitive rapprochement with the European Union.
But these were not the only changes; 2014 brought a drastic territorial change for part of the mining region of Donbas in southern Ukraine, with the territorial independence from Ukraine of part of the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, including their capitals, which were seized by pro-Russian forces in May of that year. This was followed by a referendum on independence (although it was said to be about increasing autonomy) in which the "yes" side won, proclaiming the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.
Denis Pushilin, co-chairman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said after the results of the vote were confirmed that "Donetsk has always been part of the Russian world"1.
The foreign policy of Ukraine's three presidents since 2014 has been clear, always taking into account their closeness to the EU, their stance on NATO and their commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity.
In December 1991 Ukraine voted on the Act of Declaration of Independence, by which it became an independent state after the collapse of the USSR. The result of the referendum was overwhelming, 90.3% of Ukrainians voted in favour of independence with a turnout of 84.1% of the electorate. In Crimea, the "yes" vote for independence won with 54.2%, the lowest result in the Ukrainian territory. Lugansk and Donetsk, largely Russian-speaking provinces, supported independence by 83.86% and 83.9% respectively2.
The first president of independent Ukraine was Leonid Kravchuk, and if there was one thing he was clear about from the declaration of independence, it was his rapprochement with the European Union. In 1993, he lost an early election to Leonid Kuchma, who served as Ukraine's president from 1994 to 2004. One of the most important events of the pro-Russian Kuchma's presidency was the signing of the Budapest Memorandum in December 1994, in which he renounced Ukraine's almost 2,000 nuclear warheads. As is well known, one factor that may have influenced this decision was the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, as well as the high economic cost of maintenance.
The question that arises is: what would have happened if Ukraine now had these nuclear warheads, and would Putin's nuclear deterrence strategy have worked in the same way with an opponent in similar conditions? Or put another way, would Putin have dared to invade Ukraine?3.
From the geo-strategic perspective of international relations, power relations distinguish between two blocs of countries, those that are nuclear powers and those that are not.
Taking advantage of the issue of nuclear deterrence, Professor David de Caixal, Director of the Security and Defence Area of INISEG, military historian and expert in International Geostrategy and Jihadist Terrorism, commented the following: "If Ukraine had not eliminated its nuclear weapons, we would now find ourselves in a very different situation in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, since nuclear deterrence would have been the best weapon Ukraine could have had, and I doubt that Putin's Russia would have attacked it".
Back in 2004 there was the election campaign, which pitted Kuchma's pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych against the pro-European opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. The campaign was marked by electoral fraud, which gave victory to the pro-Russian candidate Yanukovych. Following an investigation by the Ukrainian Supreme Court, a rerun election was ordered.
The Ukrainian people were largely angered by what was happening in the election campaign, which prompted them to take to the streets with orange flags in what was called the orange revolution. In the end, the candidate Yushchenko was elected with 55% of the vote, and during the campaign attempts were made to assassinate him with dioxins. Yushchenko was a convinced pro-European, although his government was affected by strong parliamentary instability and corruption.
Presidential elections were held in 2010, in which pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych stood again for the Party of Regions. His candidacy won in a run-off against his rival Yulia Tymoshenko with 35.2 % and 25.05 % of the votes respectively. Former President Yushchenko was running for the Our Ukraine party, but failed to make it to the run-off with only 5.45% of the vote.
The agenda of the new President Yanukovych, originally from the Donetsk province of which he was governor from 1997-2002, was marked by his rapprochement with the Russian regime and his rejection of the European Union, with which he suspended a free association agreement. He imposed Russian as the second official language to ingratiate himself with south-eastern Ukraine.
In late 2013, his rejection of Europeanism led to numerous demonstrations, some with serious riots and deaths, organised by the Euromaïdan movement, in which thousands of Ukrainians protested Yanukovych's pro-Russian and anti-European turn. He was eventually ousted by popular pressure and a caretaker government was formed in February 2014, which remained in place until the presidential elections in May of that year.
The forced ouster of pro-Russian President Yanukovych in February 2014 resulted in clashes with security forces in Kiev with more than 100 deaths. As well as serious pro-Russian protests in the Donbas region between February and May of that year.
Vladimir Putin, faced with the events that were taking place, stated that a coup d'état had taken place in Ukraine and already in 2014 warned that "Russia reserves the right to use all available options, including force as a last resort ".
Nevertheless, the Russian president continued to take steps and in March of the same year signed a bill into law, whereby the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, militarily occupied by Russia at the beginning of March, became territorially linked to the Russian federation, following a vote in favour of joining Russia in a referendum that same month.
Following President Yanukovych's ouster in February, he left Kiev and settled in Rostov-on-Don (Russia), appearing before the media in March 2014 to say that the new government was "illegitimate " and that he was the true head of state. In the same speech, he launched several criticisms against the US government of Barack Obama.
In response to events on the Crimean peninsula, they promoted a campaign of sanctions, such as visa and asset restrictions. These mainly targeted Russian and pro-Russian personnel who had been known for making the peninsula politically unstable. Among these people was the prime minister of the autonomous republic of Crimea Sergey Aksinov, who went from being a deputy of the United Russia party to winning an emergency vote that brought him to the presidency. Aksinov was a strong supporter of the referendum for the independence of the Crimean peninsula held on 16 March 2014, which, under Russian military surveillance, won an overwhelming majority in favour of independence.
Following this, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on 27 March 2014 called "territorial integrity of Ukraine" in response to Crimean independence. This resolution recognised the peninsula as part of Ukraine and rejected outright the independence referendum and annexation to Russia, for which the peninsula was a strategic area because of the gas pipelines of the state-owned Gazprom.
Another consequence of the referendum was Russia's expulsion from the G8, made up of the most economically powerful countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. As a result, this body was renamed the G7.
The Ukrainian army, after the violent events in the Donbas in 2014, was sent to quell the pro-Russian rebellion, managing to keep two thirds of the Donbas and recovering the important port of Mariupol, however the pro-Russians gained a foothold in important cities such as the capital Donetsk, Torez, Gorlovka, Artemivsk, as well as in the capital Lugansk, Alchevsk, Krasnodon, Kranyi luch and Sverdlovsk.
The Donbas was thus split in two, with the centre and north of the territory under the rule of the Kiev government, which is politically close to the EU. While a part of south-eastern Donbas remained in the hands of the pro-Russians with their capitals Lugansk and Donetsk in the lead. As mentioned above, both cities gained independence from Ukraine through a referendum not recognised by the Kiev authorities. As a result, the capitals of the two Donbas provinces were constituted as Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. People's Republics were the regimes that were established in Eastern Europe after 1945, most of them under the tutelage of the then USSR.
The eight years of civil war from 2014 to 2022 in the Donbas have resulted in approximately 14,000 deaths. Skirmishes and armed clashes during those years were constant.
Peace between the two sides was a long way off, despite the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, signed in September 2014 and February 2015 respectively, which were pushed by France and Germany to create, according to Minsk I, a 15 km demilitarised zone and a ceasefire. Minsk II was preceded by a rocket attack in Mariupol in January 2015, which killed 30 civilians and, according to the Bellingcat portal, allegedly involved Russian military commanders.
The Minks II agreement also agreed on several demands, including a ceasefire, amnesty and prisoner exchange between the parties, with a significant roadmap in which Ukraine undertook to grant significant autonomy to the Donbas if it regained control over these territories.
With the agreements, a relative ceasefire was reached in some territories. However, Ukraine did not fully accept that its territorial sovereignty would be curtailed, and Russia basically wanted complete independence for the two Donbas provinces with no room for Kiev-controlled autonomy.
The former defence minister of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian Igor Guirkin, a supporter of integration into Russia, was clear in 2021 about a situation that according to him should have been solved in 2014, as Putin should have been more resolute, invading Ukraine and recognising Donbas as a state, "now we would not have the current problem".
Guirkin and other leaders led the uprising in the two Donbas provinces in 2014, but at the end of that year, in order to promote a negotiation process between the Donbas and the Kiev regime, they were replaced by people linked to the two provinces, such as Vladimir Kokonov and Alexander Zakharchenko in Donetsk and Igor Plotnitsky, a resident of Lugansk since the age of 18.
The negotiation process set out in the Minsk II agreements soon became a dead letter. For example, on 4 June 2015, there was heavy shelling of urban centres in Donetsk, resulting in more than 15 deaths, but the talks resumed after more than four years of freezing. French President Emmanuel Macron organised a meeting in Paris in December 2019 with the aim of restarting the peace process around the 13 points of the Minks agreements. The meeting was attended by Ukrainian President Zelenski, Russian President Vladimir Putin and a special guest, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and revolved around the 13-point framework.
The first point was an exchange of prisoners, followed by a ceasefire and the possibility of organising local elections in the secessionist territories. The meeting made no significant progress, although it did serve to bring the two presidents face to face after more than three years of disagreements.
Already in April 2021, in an official message, President Zelenski said he was willing to meet Putin anywhere in the Donbas. Days later, he even made a statement to an Italian newspaper proposing Vatican City as an ideal place to hold a meeting to address the conflict between the two countries in the region. The Russian spokesman said he had not received this proposal, saying that Russia was not a party to the conflict in Donbas, although they would be open to a bilateral meeting. Evidently, Russia was a party to the conflict and was aware of all pro-Russian movements in Donbas.
The rest of the events in Donbas in 2022 are already known, with Russia recognising the independence of these territories at the end of February and Putin ordering his troops to invade Donbas in a "special operation" a few days later. Finally, Putin's remarks in Moscow's Red Square on 9 May during the Victory Parade commemorating the Soviet victory over the Nazis in 1945. In his speech he justified the invasion of Ukraine as a pre-emptive strike in order to avert, according to him, the threat posed to Russia by a NATO-subjugated Ukraine. His speech did not show what his plans in Ukraine would be in the short term, but he did make several references to the Donbas, to the military and militias deployed in those provinces, highlighting their work in fighting for Russia's security. Although it was strange that he did not make any reference to the Donbass, he did not mention the fact that he had not been in Ukraine for some time. Strangely enough, however, he made no reference to Ukraine as such but did refer to Donbas.
In terms of analysing Putin's short-term moves with the scant information provided in his speech, it could be said that the objective of the "special operation" revolving around the total conquest of Donbas after almost three months of war is far from being consolidated. The fact that Vladimir Putin has not given a glimpse of what his plans might be is what makes the situation most tense, as it cannot be categorically stated that Putin would not direct his troops beyond the Donbas once the region has been conquered.
Ukraine became an independent state of the USSR in 1991. Since then there have been many occasions on which, as a sovereign and independent state, it has taken steps towards integration into the European Union and NATO, aware that these steps were long and difficult, often due to important external and internal factors, such as the possible impact on the Ukrainian economy of possible reprisals from Russia. Since the Maidan revolution of 2014, the various governments in Kiev have accentuated the pro-European turn, which has been one of the cornerstones of Ukrainian economic policy in recent years.
As for NATO, all Ukrainian presidents, who have remained outside the Russian orbit, have been in favour of Ukraine's membership of the Atlantic alliance. Ukraine's president in 2005, Viktor Yushchenko, made clear his desire for Ukraine to be accepted as a new member at a meeting in Brussels with the heads of state of the alliance's 26 member states. Years later, the pro-European President Petro Poroshenko also made it clear at a forum in Kiev in 2019 that NATO membership would guarantee national security because Putin had a plan to "destroy the independent Ukrainian state".
In the same vein, Ukraine's current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with French media in April 2021, assured Ukraine's readiness to join the EU and NATO.
Vladimir Putin's reaction was swift and he warned that he would prevent NATO enlargement at the gates of the Russian border. In December 2021, at his annual meeting with 500 journalists from around the world, he was direct and explicit in his response to the question posed by Sky News' Diana Magnay of England as to whether he guaranteed that he would not invade Ukraine or any other sovereign country, to which Putin replied: "A further shift of NATO to the East is unacceptable". But Putin was presented with another problem with NATO expansion, the expected entry of Sweden and Finland, which are expected to be finalising the official request.
On 21 February 2022, Putin recognised the two border provinces of Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk) as independent republics, finally ordering the invasion of southeastern Ukraine on 24 February. This led to an extension to the very gates of Kiev, with the disastrous results for the Russian troops that are already known, which are militarily established in a strip of land stretching from Kherson to part of Lugansk, passing through Crimea, Mariupol and part of Donetsk.
If before the war the pro-Russian collaborationists occupied a third of the Donbas, now with the Putin-ordered invasion and after more than two months of war, the Russians would have been able to occupy Mariupol and other small towns, having failed in their offensive on the centre and north of the county. This means that they would be no closer to concluding the so-called "special operation" launched on 24 February, unless they settled for Mariupol and Kherson.
The two Donbas oblasts began their separatist journey in early 2014, taking advantage of the pro-European demonstrations in Kiev's Maidan Square and the flight of President Yanukovych. In protest, pro-Russian groups attempted to violently occupy the main centres of power in the two provinces, but were only partially successful, occupying only a third of the county, including its two provincial capitals.
Then came the two referendums organised by the pro-Russian leadership. It was said that they were actually seeking greater autonomy for the two provinces, but the real intentions were revealed hours after the results of the referendum. The "yes" vote for autonomy from Kiev received 90% of the votes, which meant that Lugansk and Donetsk were constituted as people's republics.
Vladimir Putin did not immediately recognise these people's republics, keeping a calculated distance. However, the two provinces (Donetsk in 2015 and Lugansk in 2017) adopted the rouble as their official currency, as well as Russian authorisation for the separatist part of the two Donbas provinces to issue passports for travel to Russia.
It was obvious that Putin would not be satisfied with an extension of the autonomy of these territories under the control of the Kiev government, nor would he be satisfied with Russia's recognition on 21 February of the independence of the two people's republics, as Putin was still missing the last step. Once the war in the Donbas was over, these two territories would be subject to a referendum on annexation to the Russian Federation, which has not yet been held as the war continues to this day.
(To be continued in part 2. Mariúpol)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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