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For the last two months demonstrations have been waged against the Ukrainian government of Victor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, who was elected to the presidency in 2010, triggered the protests by turning down an association agreement with the European Union (EU). The protests have only grown larger since Yanukovych’s governing party pushed through a controversial anti-protest law that stifled nearly all forms of free speech and to date, at least six people have died in clashes between protesters and security officials. Geopolitical analysts see Ukraine as a diplomatic battleground between the West and Russia and Ukraine’s political problems often pit the EU and the United States against Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. This means that questions about Ukraine often appear in rounds about Europe and American foreign policy over the course of a season and the current unrest in Ukraine makes it very likely that you could see a question about it at your state tournament.
This topic brief will provide essential details that you need to know about Ukraine when analyzing its politics, break down the causes and course of the unrest plaguing the country, and lay out some of the policy options present to Ukraine’s existing leadership, its political opposition, and international actors.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Essential Information About Ukraine
The Washington Post on January 30th provides an excellent overview of Ukraine’s history and politics and I highly suggest extempers clip this article and place it in their physical or electronic files. Ukraine has been an independent nation since it voted for independence from the Soviet Union since 1991. The country is considered the breadbasket of Europe because it has very fertile farmland. The country is very politically divided, which is at the root of the current crisis. The Western regions of Ukraine and the capital of Kiev are very pro-West and Ukrainian is the dominant language in this part of the country. However, the South and the East of the country is very pro-Russian and a large number of people that live in these regions have relatives that live in Russia. In this region, Russian is the dominant language and people are highly suspicious of the Western regions of the country that seek to make Ukrainian more of the national language in the press and television and tie their country to the EU and the United States. Since 1991, Ukrainian presidential elections have been divided along these geographic lines and the current president, Victor Yanukovych, enjoyed significant support from the pro-Russian regions of the country during the last presidential election in 2010.
Ukraine has been in a constant state of political unrest since 2004 when a controversial election appeared to make the pro-Russian Yanukovych president. Protesters that favored his opponent in that election, Victor Yushchenko, took to the streets after the election result was announced. Yushchenko’s supporters alleged that the election was marred with fraud and noted that pre-election polls showed that Yushchenko should win by a double digit margin. The protests against the election result lasted for thirteen days until the Ukrainian Supreme Court overturned the election result and ordered a re-run of the vote, which Yushchenko won in December 2004. The protests against the election result and the election of Yushchenko was called the Orange Revolution and it was seen as a significant blow to Russian foreign policy aims in Ukraine.
However, the Orange Revolution soon crumbled as the Ukrainian economy slowed and Yushchenko failed to tackle corruption, which is an endemic problem in Ukraine. Yushchenko also fell out with other prominent opposition leaders like Yulia Tymoshenko over the scope of constitutional changes in the country and he failed to make the runoff when the 2010 presidential elections were held. That election saw Yanukovych return from the political abyss and defeat Tymoshenko, who was the prime minister at the time, by a 49-45% margin. Tymoshenko’s forces alleged that the poll was fixed, but the election result stood and Tymoshenko soon found herself behind bars, convicted in October 2011 of abuse of power and embezzlement. Tymoshenko’s imprisonment has been a sore point for Ukraine’s attempt to draw closer to the West because the EU sees her imprisonment as politically motivated.
Although Yanukovych has drawn Ukraine’s foreign policy closer to Russia, by extending a Russian lease on naval facilities in the Crimea, he has tried to take a non-aligned stance in foreign policy. Ukraine desires a closer relationship with the EU, since that is seen as a potential economic benefit for the country, but it is also skeptical of running afoul of Russia, who exerts a great deal of economic influence in the country. For example, in 2004 and 2006, the Russian government shut off natural gas exports to Ukraine because of disputes with Yushchenko’s government and this did a great deal of economic damage to Ukraine and other European governments that get their natural gas from Russia via pipelines that run through Ukraine. The Christian Science Monitor on January 28th points out that Ukraine’s economy is on the brink of collapse, as the 2009 financial crisis eroded global demand for its steel products and it has refused to cooperate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding stipulations for economic aid packages. Ukraine is the only post-Soviet country to not experience economic growth beyond pre-Soviet levels and it has been surpassed by other post-Soviet bloc nations like Poland, whose national income has grown four times as fast as Ukraine. The Ukrainian economy is also bogged down by large pensions, high wage increases made by politicians seeking votes, generous energy subsidies, and corruption, which Transparency International claims is worse than any other European nation. Business Week on January 30th explains that inflation is going to be a significant problem in the future, since the government is going to have to devalue its currency to try to boost exports. A high rate of inflation could erode the nation’s confidence in its political leadership and create more unrest. There is also the problem of Ukraine’s sovereign debt. Reuters on December 29th notes that Standard & Poor’s, a leading global credit ratings agency, has downgraded Ukraine’s debt to CCC+. The Christian Science Monitor adds that Ukraine faced a $60 billion call on maturing debts last month, meaning payments that it had to make toward those who have loaned it money, but it only had $20 billion in reserves. Only an emergency loan package from Russia worth $15 billion, coupled with slashing natural gas prices by 1/3rd, helped Ukraine avoid default.
Joining the EU would help get Ukraine’s economy going again, since it would open new markets where some of Ukraine’s cheaper goods would enjoy tariff-free access. However, joining the EU comes at a price. The Business Week article cited above points out that the EU would require a great deal of reforms in the Ukrainian economy that would prove painful for its population. The EU would likely demand reforms that would reduce and eliminate energy subsidies and a more deficit-oriented fiscal plan from Ukraine’s leaders that could slash popular social programs. When Ukraine faced the call on its debts last month, the EU only offered $834 million, which Russia trumped easily. This caused the EU to lose some political face in Ukraine, but clearly there are EU officials that think Ukraine is not ready to join the EU, even as an associate member because of its political and economic problems. After all, the EU is still smarting over the admission of Romania and Bulgaria into the organization because those countries have yet to clean up some of the same problems.
Extempers may wonder why Russia cares so much about Ukraine, but the answer can be found in elements of Russian foreign policy thinking. Russian foreign policy for the last several centuries has hinged on the expansion of Russian territory. The logic for Russia’s tsars and its later communist leaders was that Russia needed a buffer zone against attack from hostile enemies. After all, the gigantic size of Russia saved it from annihilation at the hands of Napoleon in the 19th century and Adolf Hitler in the 20th century. Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to re-establish Russia’s dominant role in Eastern Europe and he is on record as saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the worst events in human history. The Business Insider points out on January 28th that Russia needs Ukraine to be considered a Eurasian empire and that losing Ukraine to Western powers may cause it to be shut off from major resources like coal and iron and access to the Black Sea. Russia has made moves to enhance its power in the old Soviet bloc via economic means. The $15 billion economic aid package to Ukraine, which dwarfed the EU’s offer of assistance, is an example. Another example is the creation of the Eurasian Union, which currently has Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as members and is set to begin operation in 2015. This organization will create a customs union between member states and establish common energy and fiscal policies. According to Putin, the Eurasian Union can be a Russian-led and socially conservative counterweight to the EU. The New York Times of January 28th explains that Putin has recently taken to condemning EU human rights abuses and has condemned the organization for promoting “an alien view of homosexuality and same-sex marriage as a norm of life and some kind of natural social phenomenon.” The United States has expressed its unease with the Eurasian Union plan, seeing it as a way for Russia to interfere and coerce former Soviet states like Ukraine. Another Russian concern with Ukraine is that if it joins the EU and possibly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the future it could lead to the encirclement of Russia by hostile powers. Putin has shown himself hostile to the placement of missile defense technologies in Eastern Europe and for him the orientation of Ukraine towards the West puts Russia in a defensively disadvantageous position.
Ukrainians are heavily divided on whether they should pursue EU membership or not. The Business Week article previously cited reveals that 39% of Ukrainians want to join the EU, while 37% favor closer ties with Russia and possible accession to the Eurasian Union. The poll results likely fell along geographic lines as well, with Western Ukraine supporting the EU and the Eastern and Southern halves of the country supporting Russia. Despite this division, Yanukovych signaled a gradual pro-EU foreign policy by taking steps toward an association agreement with the EU last year. However, in November Yanukovych backed out of the agreement, which would have lifted some existing EU barriers to trade with Ukraine. One of the possible reasons is that such a policy could have enraged Russia, who was needed to help rescue Ukraine from its debt problem. Another is that signing the accord would have forced Yanukovych to eventually adopt judicial and regulatory reforms to clean up corruption and release his political nemesis Tymoshenko. When Yanukovych backed out of the deal with the EU Western Ukrainians took to the streets, which caught opposition leaders off-guard.
The Course of the Protests
The protests in Ukraine are referred to as “The Euromaiden,” which translates into “Eurosquare.” Hundreds of thousands of protesters have gathered in Kiev’s Independence Square to protest the regime. The protests began on November 21st and the first demand of the protesters was to revert back toward signing the association agreement with the EU. Therefore, the initial momentum behind the protests was not to remove Yanukovych from power, but to pressure him into changing existing government policy. Yanukovych initially tolerated the protesters and The Economist of December 14th explains that Yanukovych met and talked with three former Ukrainian presidents, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and Vice-President Joe Biden to find a peaceful way out of the existing crisis. However, on the same day that he discussed plans with these officials, Yanukovych ordered police and security officials to clear protesters from Square, which is also called the Maiden, but this failed. It is alleged, according to The Guardian on January 28th, that Putin ordered Yanukovych to crack down harder on the protesters. Following the failed December crackdown, Ukraine’s parliament, called the Rada, which Yanukovych’s Party of Regions controls, passed a strict anti-protest law, which mirrors one that exists in Russia on January 16th. This law, as The Washington Post cited at the beginning of this brief reports, restricted banned forms of speech, including the media, from criticizing the government, from driving in a group of more than five cars, and wearing a helmet. Violating this law carried up to fifteen years in prison. After the law was announced, protesters became more emboldened and clashes with government officials claimed up to six lives and an undocumented number of injuries. The announcement of the law blew up in Yanukovych’s face as well, since observers think the momentum behind the protests was dying down.
The violent attempt to subdue the protesters, coupled with alleged attempts at kidnapping and abusing protest leaders according to The New York Times on January 30th, has created more hostility toward Yanukovych’s regime and now the protesters want early elections to be held for the presidency, which are due to occur next year according to the Ukrainian constitution, before they are willing to disperse. Protests have grown outside of Kiev to include parts of Western and, significantly, Eastern Ukraine against Yanukovych’s rule. Protesters in these locations have occupied municipal buildings and Der Spiegel notes on January 27th that they have forced governors in these areas to sign resignations. The logic behind taking buildings outside of Ukraine is that it is impairing the ability of Yanukovych’s government to function and Yanukovych does not have enough police, which are deployed around the capital of Kiev, to take these buildings back. Occupying buildings in Kiev has a purpose for the opposition as well since temperatures are rapidly falling. The Guardian on January 30th says that temperatures in Kiev have fallen as low as -20 Celsius at night and the buildings are what help protesters keep warm. Without them, the cold might cause the protesters numbers and influence to dwindle.
To deal with the protests, Yanukovych will not entertain calling for early elections because polls suggest that he would lose by a wide margin. After violent means of suppressing the protesters backfired, Yanukoyvch has dangled several carrots in front of the opposition to get them to go away. First, as the Agence France-Presse reports on January 31st, it annulled the anti-protest law. Second, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who was pro-Russian, called the protesters extremists and terrorists, and concluded the $15 billion Russian bailout agreement with Putin, resigned last week and his cabinet was dismissed. Yanukovych has dangled the prime minister slot and other government positions in front of political leaders of the opposition (who are discussed in the next section), but that has not worked. And third, the Rada passed an amnesty law, which Al-Jazeera on January 30th explains gave amnesty to those who have been arrested for demonstrations on the condition that the opposition vacates government buildings that it has recently seized. The opposition has denied that request due to the fact that the buildings it occupies are needed to keep the Kiev protests going. It also believes, as The Los Angeles Times notes on January 30th, that any amnesty should be unconditional.
At the end of last week, Yanukovych announced that he was taking sick leave for an “acute respiratory infection.” The New York Times on January 30th writes that some analysts think this might show that Yanukovych is losing his grip on power because in 1991 it was announced that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was suffering from a serious illness and a coup was attempted against him the next day. However, others think that Yanukovych is playing for him and is hoping that the opposition that faces him fractures or that the cold temperatures wear down the protests against his rule.
Policy Options
The first area that extempers have to consider is what is going on with the Ukrainian opposition. The Agence France-Presse on Twitter has an informative picture of the composition of the existing Rada. It shows that Yanukovych’s Party of Regions is the largest party, with 204 seats versus three other opposition parties: the Fatherland Alliance of Tymoshenko, which has 90 seats, the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (which translates as “Punch”) of former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, which has 42 seats, and Svoboda (Freedom) party of Oleg Tyagnybok, which has 36 seats. Therefore, the opposition has 168 members versus the commanding lead for Yanukovych’s party. The Ukrainian opposition is highly fractured and it appears that the only thing that they agree on is the need to get rid of the existing government. All three leaders have not yet figured out who should run against Yanukovych for the presidency next year. For example, Klitschko is highly popular, but inexperienced and Svoboda is a very right-wing movement that does not have widespread appeal. The Economist on January 25th doubts whether any of the opposition leaders have the ability to guide the protest, as all of them have been booed at recent rallies. Foreign Affairs on January 29th explains that Yanukovych has tried to increase the divisions within the opposition by offering Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is leading Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Alliance in her absence, the position of prime minister and Klitschko the position of deputy prime minister for humanitarian affairs. The move was seen as a way to make the opposition leaders appear as “sell outs” to their followers and although Yatsenyuk and Klitschko rejected the offer, it now makes the opposition appear that they are unwilling to negotiate. There is also the troubling sign of right-wing groups taking over some of the protests. Time on January 28th reports that obscure groups of soccer hooligans, right-wing nationalists, military veterans, and others are infiltrating the protests and are seeking a fight with Ukrainian police. If the protests become violent that could give Yanukovych carte blanche to launch a crackdown and justify his actions to the world. Violent protests by right-wing groups would also serve to discredit elements of the opposition. Illustrating how controversial elements of the opposition are, when Senator John McCain visited and spoke to protesters, he shared the stage with Svoboda leaders that are aligned with neo-fascist groups in Italy and are accused of being anti-Semitic. Even if the opposition gets Yanukovych to step down, it is unclear whether they will unify behind one candidate or fracture further and if they can really solve Ukraine’s economic problems.
An internal power broker that extempers should pay attention to are Ukraine’s oligarchs. These are rich men that gained valuable assets after the fall of the Soviet Union. Corruption enables many of these men to have sizable political influence and they are very hostile to Yanukovych’s government. The reason, according to The Economist on February 1st, is that they see Yaunukovych giving his family more influence and economic power at their expense. The Toronto Star on January 29th provides an example of this by noting that Yanukovych’s son Oleksandry is the “king of coal” in the country and a multimillionaire despite being a dentist by trade. It is rumored that oligarchs might be funding some of the protests taking place outside of Kiev in Western and Eastern Ukraine and oligarchs support Ukraine joining the EU because they think the reforms the EU champions will limit the ability of political players to encroach on their businesses. Yanukovych has tried to get the oligarchs in the media to limit coverage of the protests engulfing the country, but they are not willing to go along. That alone shows that Yanukovych’s influence is waning and extempers should follow where the oligarchs stand because they might provide the resources protesters need to overwhelm Yanukovych’s regime.
For the EU and the United States, they have taken a tentative position regarding the Ukrainian protests and are trying to stay aloof from them so as not to make the protests seem like a Western encouraged plot. The U.S. and EU realize that if Ukraine falls into violence and some commentators have suggested that the country could fall into civil war that it would create a dangerous situation on Russia’s borders and they would prefer for that not to happen. The Christian Science Monitor on January 30th discusses former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s visit to Ukraine and his attempt to promote the “Georgian model” whereby political power has passed into another party’s hands peacefully and the party that takes power does not try to purge the government of all influences of the previous one. While Saakashvili’s visit has merit, his alliance with the opposition has heightened Russian fears of instability in Ukraine and might prove counterproductive. The EU has dispatched its foreign policy head, Catherine Ashton, to meet with both sides and it has claimed that its role is merely for negotiations. Germany, arguably the leader of Europe politically and economically, has urged both sides to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The UK Telegraph on January 30th writes that the United States has revoked the visas of some Ukrainian officials and is looking into potential sanctions on both Ukraine’s leaders and opposition figures if the conflict turns violent. The House Foreign Affairs Committee last Wednesday passed a resolution urging a peaceful solution to the current crisis. Nevertheless, some of what the U.S. and the EU can do is limited. If they completely support the protesters, they may limit their contacts with Ukrainian government officials or throw Yanukovych completely into Russia’s orbit as he seeks to preserve his regime. Although The New York Times on January 30th urges more emergency aid to Ukraine and mediation, Ukrainians have voiced criticism of Western intervention in their affairs and they want to settle the matter themselves. It is also unclear whether Western governments are willing to provide the billions of dollars Ukraine needs to keep itself afloat.
Russia is also concerned about what is unfolding in Ukraine and it has restrained itself from directly intervening in the affairs of the Ukrainian state. With the Sochi Olympics approaching, the last thing Russia wants to have is unrest in Ukraine where a government that is favorable to it has the reins of power. The New York Times reports on January 30th that Russia has released $3 billion of its $15 billion in aid to Ukraine, but has suspended the other $12 billion until a new prime minister and cabinet are appointed. This is a sign that Russia wants to be aware of what the new parliamentary government will look like before it disperses more aid. The Global Post on January 30th argues that Russia might be steadily increasing pressure on Ukraine by putting on old trade sanctions on food, machinery, and metals, which might be a way to pressure Yanukovych to act one way or the other. The Christian Science Monitor on January 29th reports that Putin has told EU officials that Russia will not withdraw its $15 billion aid package to Ukraine if the government changes, but he has also warned them against playing a mediating role in the Ukrainian affair. As far as Putin is concerned, whoever replaces Yanukovych, if he goes, if going to face the same political and economic realities that led to the downfall of the Orange Revolution-led government. Putin can still use natural gas as a weapon against Ukraine and he could, pledge to the EU or not, withdraw elements of the financial aid package if a government comes to power that he does not agree with. That carries the risk that the new government could turn toward the EU, but since that position does not enjoy significant support in Ukraine, Putin may still have the upper hand. Although some commentators have suggested that Ukraine is becoming a foreign policy black eye to Putin, Russia actually has more leverage than the U.S. and EU because it has closer ties to the existing Ukrainian government and its power players. Unlike existing EU and U.S. governments, Putin was governing at the time of the 2004 Orange Revolution and he knows how to manage political unrest in Ukraine and surrounding states. Therefore, Russia’s best option is to play the political game behind the scenes, provide sufficient financial aid to the government, and potentially assist Yanukovych domestically and internationally if he is forced to violently confront the protesters. Even if Yanukovych’s government falls, Russia may still be in the best position to negotiate with the country since it can provide the natural gas supplies and financial aid that Ukraine desperately needs. So overall, this may end up as a win-win situation for Russia.
Extempers should avoid answering questions about Ukraine’s future by overstating that a civil war might break out or that the country will fracture along pro-EU and pro-Russia lines like the ex-Yugoslavia. Both prospects are very, very slim. There is a chance for more violence if Yanukovych overreacts and sends in the national military against protesters in a sustained assault, but Yanukovych is very unlikely to pursue that option since he knows he would not win that fight in the long-term. The most likely scenario is that the protests die down when it becomes clear that Yanukovych will not step down for new elections and that a coalition government is formed with some elements of the opposition and Yanukovych that will get Ukraine through the next year before the next presidential election. Extempers should consider the possibility of massive civil unrest, but due to the fractured nature of the opposition and the lack of support by the West for large-scale violence (note above that the United States is prepared to sanction opposition leaders just as much as government officials if they encourage violence) a civil war is highly unlikely.
In the end, Ukraine’s larger problems are outside of the political arena. Regardless of who takes power, the Ukrainian government desperately needs to fix the country’s economic and clean up corruption because without doing either of those the country is not going to establish itself as a strong, independent state.