Russian invasion in Ukraine 2015

Hai-Nyzhnyk P., Chupriy L., Fihurnyi Y., Krasnodemska I., Chyrkov O. (2018). Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine: ethnonational dimension and civilizational confrontation. Saarbrucken (Germany): LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. 229 p.

The expert-analytical study analyzes the preconditions, course and contemporary socio-political consequences of the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation, which has signs of not only direct and covert, but also inter-state conflict and even civilizational confrontation.

Wenn ein Unterzeichnerland des Vertrages selbst vor einem der fünf Garanten des Sperrabkommens nicht sicher sein kann: Welchen Sinn hat dann das Verbot der Nichtweiterverbreitung von Kernwaffen? Im Austausch gegen einen Abbau von Nuklearwaffen erteilen drei atomwaffenbesitzende UNO-Sicherheitsratsmitglieder dem abrüstenden Land kollektive, ausdrückliche und schriftlich fixierte Sicherheitszusagen. Eines dieser Großmächte erklärt jedoch 20 Jahre später diese Vereinbarung für nichtig: Welches Land ohne eigene Atomwaffen oder enges Bündnis mit einer Nuklearmacht kann sich nun der Unverletzlichkeit seiner Grenzen noch sicher sein? Wenn selbst eine mit Ausnahmerechten ausgestattete Vetomacht im UNO-Sicherheitsrat sich auf Kosten eines Nachbarstaates territorial ausdehnen kann, dann wird das internationale Atomwaffensperrregime zum Selbstbedienungsladen der offiziellen Nuklearmächte.

Pavlo Hai-Nyzhnyk. Basic Principles of the Strategy for De-Occupation and Reintegration of Crimea in the Context of National Security of Ukraine: Aspects of the Problem and Solution Areas / Гай-Нижник Павло. Основні засади Стратегії деокупації та реінтеґрації Криму в контексті національної безпеки України: штрихи до проблеми й напрямки розв’язання. – К.: «МП Леся», 2017. – 105 с.

The new research of Doctor of History, Head of the Historical Studies Department of the Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies Pavlo Hai-Nyzhnyk offers and analyzes key concepts for developing the strategy for de-occupation and reintegration of Crimea in the context of national security of Ukraine. It points out key problems of the origins and current overcoming of the pro-Russian identity on the Crimean peninsula as well as the ways to optimize the system of state governance and security of Ukraine. 

The research and its publication are subsidized by the grant of State Fund for Fundamental Research in terms of the competitive project (Ф-72/21443) «Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine: Historical Prerequisites and Modern Social Consequences.»

The Russian aggression against Ukraine supported by Belarus is causing a great damage to human lives, st te infrastructure and historical heritage. After long period of peace yet again we are facing war atrocities in Europe. The whole massive armed conflict was initiated by Russian dictator V. V. Putin, as part of his own imperial doctrine, which can only be labelled as war crime and attempt of genocide of Ukrainian nation. During the last thirty years of independence Ukraine has proved its peacefulness, desire for democracy and geopolitical ties with united Europe. All this was not acceptable for Putin’s primitive imperial worldview and he dragged whole region into the misery of the worst 20th Century war traditions.
Besides genocidal damage to human lives, the Ukrainian national heritage
is being damaged in an effort to enforce Russian national cultural dominance over common historical roots and to falsely rewrite the history of the entire region.
Such policy is totally inacceptable for the civilised Europe of the 21st Century and we condemn Putin’s imperial war.

В этом очерке не раскрывается весь многогранный и динамичный феномен новых добровольческих частей 2014 года. Вместо этого, я сфокусируюсь лишь на предыстории и некоторых аспектах возникновения одного особого и несколько девиантного примера общего феномена добровольцев6, а именно на раннюю историю одного из самых знаменитых из этих подразделений – полка «Азов». Более того, история этой структуры здесь рассматривается лишь с точки зрения политических, а не военных наук, т.е. как разновидность негражданского общества, а не вооруженных сил Украины. Иными словами, я сконцентрируюсь здесь на определенных особенностях создания «Азова», а не на боевых действиях, заслугах или возможных промахах этого подразделения. Последние представляют собой ещё более трудно исследуемые сюжеты, которые я не в состоянии обоснованно и компетентно оценить. Не столько сама известность, сколько причина западного медийного внимания к «Азову» – а именно, эксцентричные политические взгляды создателей подразделения – стали и для меня поводом для краткого рассмотрения специфики его предыстории, идеологии, руководства и создания. Неонацистские, как будет показано ниже, тенденции в этой теперь уже сравнительно большой военной части представляют собой проблему сразу в нескольких отношениях. Некогда явно фашистские взгляды главных командиров полка ставят под вопрос как его сегодняшнюю, в других отношениях, возможно, заслуживающую уважение боевую деятельность, так и послевоенное будущее «Азова».

Russian military aggression and diplomatic pressure against Ukraine stems from the neo-imperial thinking of Russian elites and ordinary citizens. This thinking requires a reproduction of expansionist patterns that once led Russia to its “historical greatness”: construction of a territorially large state, rich in resources and demographically diverse, with its own distinct voice in international relations. The human cost for “making Russia forever great,” however, has rarely been seriously considered.

Zaoštravanjem situacije na Bliskom istoku kao i u nedostatku značajnih promjena, vijesti i analize stanja u Ukrajini pale su u drugi plan. Sukob u Ukrajini koji je eskalirao u studenom 2014. godine svoje korijene ima još u početku 90ih godina prošlog stoljeća. Ovom kronologijom pružit će se pregled najvažnijih događaja.

The EU should revert back to its pre-Minsk approach to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The main raft of sanctions were introduced before both of the Minsk Agreements were negotiated. Back then, the lifting of sanctions had been linked to a full restoration of, at least, mainland Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Only later was the prolongation of the sanctions tied to the implementation of the Minsk Agreements – including those parts that concern Ukrainian domestic affairs.

This paper explores the ambiguous nature of two principles of international law – self-determination and territorial integrity – illustrating the controversial nuances of international law on a political level, nuances with which the Crimean crisis has been described. Multiple paradigms will be applied to interpret the juristic status of the quoted principles. The foundation of this research is the collision between Russia and the West over the legal interpretation of these two principles throughout history and particularly in the case of Crimea. From the very beginning, the legal interpretation of the situation in Crimea was that Russia's legal rhetoric was groundless and that her legal justification for the secession of Crimea was simply not plausible, and therefore could not be linked to either legal or moral theories. After exposing the fragility of these principles in international law, the paper then concludes by proposing an alternative approach that utilizes a different philosophical logic, thus further illustrating the hidden nature of such contradictions in politics.

Military conflict in South-Eastern Ukraine is an example of “hybrid warfare” in
which “war for minds” is one of the key elements. Differences of Ukrainian
people geopolitical orientations often are explained with respect to the region of
residence, ethnic identity and native language. Previous research on the problem
has three types of limitations: scale, dependent variable (orientations), and
regional structures. This study aims to challenge the “on surface” view of place
of residence as the key predictor of geopolitical attitudes in Ukraine. The author
used excessive amount of data (2005-2015 period surveys with 378,733 cases
total sample) and several combinations of dependent variables to test the effects
of attitude types, changing political situation and social environment in the
regions. The results of regression modeling shows that regional structure is more
powerful in explaining general attitude to Russia than integration intentions.
Regional differences proved to be partially explained with the level of lingualethnic
heterogeneity. In general it seems that language environment has more
influence than ethnic. Religious identification also remains very powerful and significant. It is claimed that cultural domain of social environment is the key to
explain regional structure of geopolitical orientations in Ukraine.

Für die kommenden Jahre wird die geostrategische Grauzone zwischen der NATO und EU einerseits sowie der Moskau-dominierten Organisation des Kollektiven Sicherheitsvertrages und Eurasischen Wirtschaftsunion andererseits die Hauptquelle von Unsicherheit und Instabilität in Europa bleiben.

The ongoing (in Russia) and forthcoming (in Ukraine) changes in leadership and direction of both countries may result in, among others, new chances for an end to, or for an escalation of, the war between Russia-led irregular separatists and Russian covert regular troops, on the one side, and Ukrainian governmental forces as well as some paramilitary units, in the Eastern parts of the Ukrainian Donets Basin, on the other.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and covert intervention in Donbas subvert the international nonproliferation regime on weapons of mass destruction. The Kremlin has almost fully abrogated the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, given to Kyiv in December 1994. This agreement between Ukraine, on the one side, and the United States, UK, and Russia, on the other, led to the dismantling of the sizeable Ukrainian collection of Soviet-era atomic weapons.

The continuing international inattention for the Glazyev Tapes was and is surprising. If they are indeed authentic, the Glazyev Tapes should modify our understanding of the origins and nature of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The most important aspect of the Glazyev Tapes is arguably not their contents. What is remarkable about these conversations is the time of their recording in February-March 2014, i.e. several weeks before the post-Euromaidan civil conflict in eastern Ukraine turned into a pseudo-civil war in the Donbass.

As long as the social, political and business climate in Ukraine is marked by fear of more Russian escalation, invasion, occupation, annexation or/and expropriation, a sustainable economic recovery cannot be expected. But Ukraine's state – reformed or not – cannot survive for long without massive domestic and foreign investment. If Russia does not cease its subversion of social stability and state security in Ukraine, even a thoroughly reformed Ukrainian state formally ready for EU accession would be doomed to failure.

Today, an Intermarium could stretch from Narva in the north to Batumi in the south. Significant parts of the populations and the majority of foreign affairs experts of the countries between the Baltic and Black seas view Putin’s Russia today as the biggest risk, a clear threat, and a dangerous enemy. Inside NATO, the political mainstreams of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania especially regard Russia as a major security problem. The same can be said of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova outside NATO. These states could thus form the core of an East-Central European-South Caucasian defense coalition. Further European countries within, or close to, the “land between the seas” — from the Scandinavian to the Western Balkan nations — might, for historical or other reasons, be willing to support, join, or associate themselves with such an alliance. With regard to its legal set-up, the above-mentioned 2010 Agreement on Strategic Partnership and Mutual Support between Turkey and Azerbaijan could play the role of a model treaty for a security arrangement between certain eastern NATO states on the one side, and some post-Soviet non-NATO countries on the other. As in Article 2 of the ratified Turkish-Azeri alliance, the exact modus of action, in case of an aggression, could be left open to each Intermarium country. The pact could simply state an obligation that, if confronted with an attack, the parties would “mutually assist each other” and that the “means and extent of this assistance” would be agreed upon ad hoc, once a military infringement has happened.

Eine nachhaltige Lösung der fundamentalen Sicherheitsprobleme der europäischen postsowjetischen Staaten zwischen Russland und der NATO ist im Interesse ganz Europas. Die nationale Souveränität, territoriale Integrität, innere Konsolidierung und internationale Einbettung insbesondere der Ukraine, Georgiens und Moldaus wird zwar im Prinzip vom Westen unterstützt. Jedoch werden weder die NATO noch die EU in näheren Zukunft gegenüber Kiew, Chişinău oder Tiflis verbindliche Sicherheitszusagen machen und militärischen Beistand versprechen können – und dass obwohl die drei Ostpartnerschaftsstaaten solche Garantien seit kurzem dringender denn je benötigen.

None of these six scenarios is reassuring. The first option,  preservation of the current grey zone, is by far the most likely. It remains unclear, however, whether mere cooperation, adaptation and association, within this scenario, can replace, or compensate for, proper institutional integration into a defense coalition. While material, technical and financial help for Ukraine is forthcoming, such piecemeal support could remain eventually insufficient to fundamentally improve the security of Ukraine. Even the concurrent and resolute application of a large and varied battery of mutually re-enforcing legal, military, economic, technical and other instruments strengthening Ukraine’s international embeddedness will not make a new treaty on East European security unnecessary.

The forecast for 2019 is that the leadership in the Ukrainian executive and legislature could provide an international pretext for – and domestic impulse to – the solution of the Donbass conflict. The hope is that a change in Ukraine’s leadership will, with the accumulating effects of western sanctions against Moscow, lead to a reset in Russian-Ukrainian relations, and motivate Putin at last to decide to pull out from the Donets Basin.

Russia, as one of the world's largest natural gas producer and seller has an important place in the global energy market. The series of events that started in 2013 in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Crimea is still at top of the international policy agenda, which may start a new power struggle between the West and Russia based Eurasia.

Many East European investigators of the MH17 incident – among them the Russian military expert Mark Solonin, Russian political scientist Andrei Piontkovsky, or Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – believe that the only full explanation for the arrival of the Russian Buk missile in the Donezbecken in July 2014 was that Moscow indeed wanted to shoot down a high-flying passenger plane. Yet, the Kremlin wanted to bring down not a Malaysian airliner, but a Russian one. The responsibility for the shooting of a Russian passenger plane over Eastern Ukraine would have been ascribed to the Ukrainian armed forces, with reference to Ukraine’s accidental shooting of a Russian passenger plane, Siberian Airlines 1812, in October 2001. The horrible incident and blaming of Kyiv in July 2014 would have provided Moscow with a Casus Belli to implement its "Novorossiia" (New Russia) project – i.e. the annexation of Russophone Eastern and Southern mainland Ukraine via an invasion of regular Russian military forces.

Стаття присвячена досвіду застосування методу усної історії в дослідженні російсько-української війни, що почалась у 2014 р. й досі триває. Розглянуто основні етапи підготовки до інтерв’ю та його проведення, а також проблеми, з якими зіштовхуються дослідники цієї теми.

Avant la publication des révélations de Glazyev, l’interprétation conventionelle des causes du conflit russo-ukrainien c’était que Moscou avaient intervenu  – d’abord avec des paramilitaires et puis après avec des troupes réguliers – dans une confrontation entre les citoyens pro-Kyiv et pro-Moscou dans le bassin du Donets. Bien sûr, personne ne doutait le rôle central du Kremlin dans la transformation de ces confrontations initialement pas non-armées mais violentes dans les rues de l’est et le sud de l’Ukraine en une soi-disant guerre civile au printemps 2014. Cependant, il existait déjà un débat concernant la nature des manifestations pro-Moscou précédant l’escalation de la violence armée.
Même plusiers commentateurs 'russo-centriques' de la confrontation dans l’est de Ukraine ont remarqué les différences culturelles et régionales entre les régions russophones de l’est et le sud par rapport à les régions ukrainophones dans l’ouest et le centre bilingue.  Ces différences étaient la cause pricnipale des tensions dans les villes russophones comme Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, et Odessa, après les événements de l’Euromaïdan. Les activités populaires post-revolutionnaires, anti-Kyiv des russophones en Ukraine –d’après le récit – avaient mené finalement à leur confrontation avec les pro-occidentaux, nationalistes qui étaient portés au pouvoir à cause de l’Euromaïdan. Les tensions au niveau local avaient mené à un conflit au Donbass auquel le Kremlin se sentait obligé d’intervenir.

The Ukrainian state needs to achieve at least some modicum of security, as a political entity and as an investment destination. This security will only be achieved when Russia’s leadership and wider elite circles are made fully and publicly aware of the whole battery of serious challenges that their own country would face in the case of another escalation in Ukraine. The West and other friends of Ukraine need to start thinking beyond the confines of supporting Ukrainian domestic reforms and advocating for elusive  NATO membership. Only, a Ukrainian state equipped with high-tech defensive weapons, supported by the US and the UK on the basis of the Budapest Memorandum, embedded in an East European security structure, and in alliance with an EU ready to impose far more substantive sanctions against Russia will have a real chance to become a successful countermodel to the Putin System.

Gelingen die Reformen, entsteht in der Ukraine ein Gegenmodell zu den kleptokratischen Diktaturen im postsowjetischen Raum. Solange Russland und Belarus nicht selbst ernsthafte Reformen beginnen und sich der EU annähern, werden die Fortschritte der Ukraine für ihre Potentaten zunehmend zur innenpolitischen Bedrohung. Neue Eskalationen insbesondere in der Ost- und Südukraine sind deshalb nicht ausgeschlossen. Seinen Hybridkrieg niedriger Intensität gegen die Ukraine, der oft unter dem Radarschirm westlicher Medienaufmerksamkeit stattfindet, wird Moskau womöglich ohnehin fortführen. Die ständigen Scharmützel vergiften bereits über zwei Jahre das ukrainische Geschäfts- und Investitionsklima – insbesondere in jenen Gebieten, die in Moskau gern als "Neurussland" bezeichnet werden. Solange dieses fundamentale Sicherheitsproblem der Ukraine ungelöst bleibt, besteht das Risiko, dass alle Reformanstrengungen und westliche Hilfsmilliarden letzten Endes sinnlose Mühe bleiben. Im schlimmsten Fall könnte eine neue russische Offensive oder konzertierte Unterwanderung zu einem Kollaps des ukrainischen Staates führen, was für die EU unter anderem Millionen neuer Flüchtlinge aus Osteuropa bedeuten würde. Die westlichen Entscheidungsträger, allen voran in der EU und ihren Mitgliedsstaaten, müssen sich deshalb intensivere Gedanken darüber machen, wie das fundamentale Sicherheitsproblem der Ukraine zu lösen sein kann.

Why exactly did Moscow send an as sophisticated and high-flying missile as the Buk missile to Ukraine when such a weapon was not necessary to shoot down lower flying Ukrainian military planes? What is so far missing in Western debates of the incident is proper consideration of the predominant explanation proposed by various more or less competent Russian and Ukrainian researchers of the incident. Many East European investigators of the circumstances of the shooting believe that the only full explanation for the arrival of the Russian BUK in the Donbas in July 2014 was that Moscow indeed wanted to shoot down a high-flying passenger plane. Yet, the Kremlin wanted to shoot not a Malaysian airliner, but a Russian one. The responsibility for the shooting of a Russian passenger plane over Eastern Ukraine would have been ascribed to the Ukrainian armed forces, with reference to Ukraine’s accidental shooting of a Russian passenger plane, Siberian Airlines 1812, in October 2001. The horrible incident and blaming of Kyiv in July 2014 would have provided Moscow with a casus belli to implement its "Novorossiia” (New Russia) project – i.e. the annexation of Russophone Eastern and Southern mainland Ukraine via an invasion of regular Russian military forces.

Ни один из этих шести сценариев не обнадеживает. Первый, сохранение «серой зоны», сегодня кажется наиболее вероятным. Но он, возможно, с учетом известного прошлого опыта, в конечном счете – тупиковый. Остается неясным, может ли даже более сильная чем сегодня ассоциация с Западом, адаптация к новым вызовам после 2014-го года и консолидация постмайдановского украинского государства в рамках этого сценария заменить или компенсировать официальную и устойчивую институциональную интеграцию Украины, Грузии и Молдовы в более или менее значимую международную коалицию до такой степени, что безопасность этих трех стран существенно усилится. Остальные пять сценариев, напротив, дают некоторые международно-правовые механизмы серьезного обеспечения безопасности в сегодняшней «серой зоне». Они бы принципиально поменяли всю геополитику Восточной Европы путем подписания разного рода новых больших договоров. Но эти сценарии, которые в тех или иных аспектах выгодны Украине, Грузии и, частично, Молдове, сегодня мало реалистичны, если не фантастичны. Тем не менее, эти пять сценариев в той или иной мере могут стать возможными в будущем, если произойдут существенные изменения во внутренней или внешней политике тех или иных вовлеченных в восточноевропейский регион стран и организаций.

Military conflict in South-Eastern Ukraine is an example of “hybrid warfare” in which “war for minds” is one of the key elements. Differences of Ukrainian people geopolitical orientations often explained with region of residence, ethnic identity and native language. Previous research on the problem has three types of limitations: scale, dependent variable (orientations) and regional structures. This study is an attempt to challenge on-surface view of residence place as the key predictor of geopolitical attitudes in Ukraine. The author used excessive amount of data (2005-2015 period surveys with 378,733 cases total sample) and several combinations of dependent variables to test the effects of attitude types, changing political situation and social environment in the regions. The results of regression modeling shows that regional structure is more powerful in explaining general attitude to Russia than integration intentions. Regional differences proved to be partially explained with t...

Запад и прочие друзья Украины должны начать мыслить глубже и выйти за рамки поддержки внутренних реформ или продвижения призрачной пока что идеи членства в НАТО. Украинское государство сможет стать успешной контрмоделью путинской системы только в том случае, если будет (одновременно с продолжающимися реформами) оснащено передовыми оборонными вооружениями, воспользуется поддержкой США и Британии (как подписантов Будапештского меморандума), а также встроится в восточноевропейскую систему безопасности. Тут важно также официальная готовность ЕС ввести против России гораздо болезненнее санкции в случае реализации наихудшего сценария.

Гай-Нижник П. Війна на сході України: початок (Чи відбулося вторгнення російських Збройних сил і військ спеціального призначення у Донбасі?) // Війна на Донбасі. 2014–2016 рр.: зб. наук. праць за матеріалами ІІ Всеукр. наук. військ.-істор. конф., 20 квітня 2017 р. / Нац. військово-історичний муз. України. – К., 2017. – С.73–78.

Помимо продолжения сегодняшнего состояния невключенности в значимые международные структуры безопасности, у Украины есть пять альтернативных сценариев: «финляндизация», вступление в ЕС, присоединение к НАТО, отдельный договор с США, создание коалиции «Междуморья».

The current economic, legal, and military instruments employed to support Ukraine are too weak to deter Russia from continuing to use its escalation potential. The Western sanctions regime is timid. The delivery of advanced defensive weaponry to Kyiv has remained a mere discussion. Initiatives to embed Ukraine within a serious international security structure are absent. As a result, the costs of new Russian interventions in Ukraine remain lower than the domestic political losses that the Kremlin will incur from a dynamically developing Ukrainian state. Only once this calculation for Moscow changes will Ukraine get a serious chance at becoming a “second Poland.”

The documents signed in Minsk constitute agreements between Moscow (and its proxies in Ukraine’s Donets Basin) and Kyiv. Whether, when, and how the various aspects of this particular treaty are fulfilled should not guide any longer EU policies towards Russia. The sanctions were imposed not in connection with Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, but after a repeated and especially grave violation of basic foundations of the international order by Russia. Discussion about their prolongation, extension, or modification should thus only refer to Russian correction or non-correction of its behavior, and not to Kyiv’s actions and non-actions. Unless Kyiv’s sovereignty in the Donets Basin is restored in full, all or at least most sanctions should remain in place.

Russian war crimes and their international context Russia continues its policy of terror in Ukraine, which has been applied many times in other conflicts, committing murders, rapes, looting, deportations, and shelling civilian objects. International reactions are varied, which results, inter alia, from an opinion, supported by Russian propaganda, that the West has also committed war crimes. The punishment of Russian crimes will be a test for the international community and the often criticized United Nations, which is the foundation of the global system of collective security.

Nach dem Sieg des Volksaufstands "Euromaidan" (2013/14) hat Russland die Schwäche der Ukraine genutzt, um die Krim zu annektieren und eine Separationsbewegung im Donezbecken zu initiieren und zu unterstützen. Russland will so die Westintegration und Europäisierung der Ukraine verhindern.

The new social contract that the Kremlin seems to be successfully proposing to Russians is: you will no longer live better, but you will belong to a feared, missionary and important nation in world politics. This contract, however, only functions as long as the drop in living standards is not too steep. Whereas before the deal was bread in exchange for no serious political participation, the new deal is based on no serious political participation in return for bread and circuses. However, there is still some bread in the equation. That is the pressure point which the West has to use.

Продолжающиеся реформы и, как следствие, медленно возвращающийся экономический рост в Украине, демонстрируют первые эффекты от той помощи, что Запад оказывает Киеву. Тем не менее, пока проблема украинской безопасности остается нерешенной, частичные успехи в стабилизации Украины и возможные будущие социальные достижения в результате реформ могут оказаться пустыми. Скорее всего, Кремль будет делать все для того, чтобы предотвратить украинскую историю экономического и политического успеха.