Putin’s last term in office has now begun, at least if he abides by the Russian constitution. The election and, in particular, Putin’s eventual departure have implications for Ukraine.
Gwendolyn Sasse
More from this author...The election itself was a bone of contention between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine protested against ballots being cast in Russia-occupied Crimea.
The election was deliberately timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the formal annexation of Crimea, and the vote was celebrated as a second “referendum” on the peninsula belonging to Russia. The Ukrainian authorities only allowed Russian diplomats to vote and prevented Russians based in Ukraine from casting their ballots by sealing off access to Russian polling stations in the Russian embassy in Kyiv and to consular offices in Lviv, Odessa, and Kharkiv.
The upshot is that Russian foreign and domestic politics will remain closely interconnected in the years to come. There are signs that foreign policy alone will not suffice as the basis of legitimacy for Putin’s fourth term in office.
The status of Crimea still resonates with the Russian public, but the costs and purpose of Russia’s involvement in eastern Ukraine and Syria are becoming harder to justify.
This could, in principle, increase the Kremlin’s interest in conflict management, if not conflict resolution, in the Donbas. Putin will have to refocus, at least in parts, on domestic issues. He will attempt to tinker with policy areas the population is concerned about, such as education, medical services, and living standards more generally.
However, Putin is aware of the inherent risk of a reform process for the reformer himself. The fact that the space for domestic reforms is extremely small in turn increases the likelihood that foreign policy will be characterized by continuity.
Yet, consider the results of the continuity. Overall, Putin has achieved the opposite of what he intended in Ukraine: the country’s westward orientation, its overall reform commitment, and the cross-country identification with the Ukrainian state have been strengthened, not weakened.
Nevertheless, Russia’s involvement in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics remains a useful tool to call Ukraine’s overall stability into question and to escalate or deescalate the situation on the ground as it befits the Kremlin’s agenda.
The point is that any conflict that lasts for a long time takes on a life of its own. Local dynamics—such as criminal structures or the human, social, and environmental costs of conflict—become harder to control. The most one can hope for in this context is small adjustments that allow for direct or indirect contact between the nongovernment controlled areas and the Kyiv-controlled Donbas.
That would include Russian and Ukrainian or international humanitarian organizations and environmental experts equipped to deal with the deteriorating situation around collapsing coal mines. It would also include improvements to border crossings and access to welfare payments for residents from the war zone in the rest of Ukraine.
In the area of humanitarian aid, some promising steps are being undertaken in this direction. These small changes will be felt by those most affected by the war and are therefore significant.
The bottom line is that amidst the current escalation in the relationship between Russia and the West over the Skripal attack, the Normandy format remains the only functioning high-level mechanism engaging the Russian leadership in a regular dialogue with Europe. Through this format—in which the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France have been tasked with the implementation of the Minsk accord—the Russia-Ukraine conflict will remain internationally visible, even if the relationships around it have become even more adversarial and run the risk of distracting from the war in Ukraine.
In the meantime, Ukraine is beginning to gear up for its own election campaign ahead of the 2019 presidential election.
In the current political climate, there is already little space for the main contenders to appeal to voters with ideas about conflict management or greater engagement with the occupied territories. The election campaign is likely to further harden this position, as the main candidates will try to outbid each other by tapping into the war-induced patriotic rhetoric.
In sum, the 2018 Russian presidential election, the fallout from the Skripal attack, and the upcoming Ukrainian election campaign are further deepening the rift between Kyiv and Moscow. Apart from the small scope for local adjustments in the war zone, a momentum for improved bilateral relations can only be expected in the post-Putin and post-Poroshenko era.
Gwendolyn Sasse is non-resident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and the Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS), Berlin.
Comments(3)
Ms. Sasse, I was inclined to think that your [“Improved bilateral relations between Kyiv and Moscow can only be expected in the post-Putin and post-Poroshenko era”] statement had a ring of accuracy to it. And truth is, poroshenko will certainly leave office before hand and soon. [Think this upcoming kiev election cycle, if the west make sure it’s relatively fair]. While Putin leaving office before it happens on the other hand, is a much more speculative proposition. Personally, I can’t imagine a scenario in which kiev-ukraine has another six years of political and more important, economical survival left in it, under its present day trade conditions. You know as well as I that Ukraine surviving economically, without major trade with the Russian Federation and the rest of the EAEU/EEU/EAU simply put, is just not attainable. At some point, US 'think tank' fellows are going to have to stop blowing smoke up kiev's yazoo and help the Ukrainian people recover from this disaster, which was helped along in no small part by a number of U.S. political actors. Think mccain, nuland and of course, soros. You want to help Ukraine? Help shutdown the 'war gin-up' factory outta DC and let those folks retrieve some portion of the trade they once had. It's the only way Ukraine is going to survival and you, as well as the rest of your colleagues know it.
Let's look at factual information about the Ukrainian economic situation. Yes, after Russia invaded the country, illegally annexed Crimea, and perpetrated an on-going war in the east, Ukraine's economy did shrink for several years. However, for 2018, the Ukrainian economy will see growth for the third consecutive year. Industrial production is expected to grow by 3.3%, while inflation is projected to slow to 11.5% from 13-14% in 2017. Minimum wage doubled in 2017, increasing consumer demand, and the banking sector recorded record profit. The hryvnia has stabilized at 26 to the dollar (whereas the ruble is 61 to the dollar). While Ukraine is still dealing with ongoing aggression from Russia, and has a long way to go, the economy is showing steady recovery. Putin’s strategy of portraying Ukraine as a failed state (which seems to be your intent, as well), has proven a complete failure. Ukraine continues to make progress towards the goal of economic self-sufficiency, while at the same time Russia's attempt to break away the two oblasts in the east is instead becoming an expensive burden on Moscow. Putin has achieved what many analysts would have considered impossible five years ago; he has permanently pushed Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence and set the country on an irreversible track toward integration into Europe.
To the person who posted the previous comment, bringing up George Soros as a cause of Ukraine's troubles with Russia is extremely misinformed. Soros' work in the former Soviet space has focused mainly on strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations who are working under extremely challenging conditions to promote accountability and civic engagement in these countries. Soros' organization has also expanded people's access to ideas and topics through its educational programs. Secondly, the idea that pushing for the resumption of normal economic relations between Ukraine and Russia in the current climate is absurd - both from an economic standpoint and a military standpoint. Russian-backed separatists have destroyed billions of dollars worth of Ukraine's assets in what is now occupied Donbas, severed trade linkages between people on either side of the contact line (and with Russia), and killed over 10,000 people. The Government of Ukraine is right to prioritize economic diversification efforts rather than push trade with a country that is occupying its territories and destroying its people and assets.
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