Paul DAnieri - Ukraine and Russia: From Civilied Divorce to Uncivil War

UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

DAnieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West, that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually led to war in 2014. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraines separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a civilized divorce, led to what many are now calling a new Cold War. He argues the conflict has worsened because of three underlying factors the security dilemma, the impact of democratization on geopolitics, and the incompatible goals of a post-Cold War Europe. Rather than a peaceful situation that was squandered, DAnieri argues that these were deep-seated pre-existing disagreements that could not be bridged, with concerning implications for the resolution of the Ukraine conflict. The book also shows how this war fits into broader patterns of contemporary international conflict and should therefore appeal to researchers working on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russias relations with the West, and conflict and geopolitics more generally.

PAUL DANIERI is a professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Riverside. He is author of Understanding Ukrainian Politics (2007) and Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (1999), as well as a widely-used textbook on international politics. DAnieri is Vice President of the American Association of Ukrainian Studies.

UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War

Paul DAnieri

University of California, Riverside

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #0604/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the Universitys mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108486095 DOI: 10.1017/9781108657044 Paul DAnieri 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-108-48609-5 Hardback ISBN 978-1-108-71395-5 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To

Sharon and Derick Hebert

Shelley and Dave Mellentine

Lori and Tom Raffy

Contents

Maps

Tables

Acknowledgments

I could not have written this book without the support of generous institutions, colleagues, and friends.

In the fall of 2017, I was fortunate to hold the Eugene and Daymel Shklar Research Fellowship in Ukrainian Studies at Harvard University. I am grateful to the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and its director, Serhii Plokhy, for providing an ideal environment in which to develop the project. Oleh Kotsyuba and George Grabowicz encouraged me to concentrate my thoughts in an article for Krytyka .

Early versions of the overall argument were presented at seminars at Harvard University, Syracuse University, Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, George Washington University, and at the Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt, Oslo. The discussions in these meetings were valuable as I refined my analysis. I thank Kristina Conroy, Audie Klotz, Pavlo Kutuev and Volodymyr Ishchenko, Peter Rollberg and Henry Hale, and Tor Bukkvoll for arranging these visits.

For many years, Taras Kuzio has been generous in sharing his views and helping me make contacts in Kyiv. Eugene Fishel, Serhiy Kudelia, Henry Hale, and Volodymyr Ischenko, as well as two anonymous reviewers, read drafts of the manuscript and provided insightful comments. Their detailed suggestions have helped me sharpen the argument in some places, to add nuance in others and to avoid some factual errors. Perhaps unwisely, I have not taken all of their advice, and I am solely to blame for the shortcomings that remain.

The University of California, Riverside, provided research funding as well as a release from administrative and teaching duties.

I am especially grateful to a great group of friends who supported me through a difficult time. Over many sets of tennis, countless meals, and adventures in Europe, they have brought me immeasurable joy and wisdom, and I dedicate this book to them. Grateful Eight, this is for you!

Above all, I have to recognize the inspiration I receive from my wife, Laura. She cannot have imagined when we met that twenty-five years later I would still be writing and talking about Ukraine and Russia. If she is tired of it, she hides it well. Her encouragement has sustained me at every stage of this project.

Map 0.1 Ukraine, showing areas occupied by Russia as of 2019 The Sources of Conflict over Ukraine But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

On the night of February 27, 2014, armed men took control of the Parliament and Cabinet of Ministers buildings in Crimea and raised Russian flags. Early the next morning, more men in unmarked uniforms seized the airports in Sevastopol and Simferopol. A Russian naval vessel blockaded the harbor at Balaklava, near Sevastopol, where Ukrainian sea guard troops were stationed, and Russian helicopters moved from Russia to Crimea. Eighteen days later, after a hastily arranged plebiscite, Vladimir Putin signed the documents formally annexing Crimea to the Russian Federation.

Then, on April 7, pro-Russian forces seized government buildings in Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and called for referendums on the regions independence. Ukrainian forces regained control of Kharkiv the next day, but efforts to retake the other two regions led to a war between Ukraine and Russia that raged until February 2015, and only partly subsided thereafter. By 2019, over ten thousand people had been killed.

What started as a civilized divorce in 1991 became one of the most dangerous crises in post-Cold War Europe, and the crisis then became chronic. Ukraine and Russia have a great deal of shared history, and Ukraines independence in 1991 took place without bloodshed. Moreover, the East-West tensions that defined the Cold War had fallen away. Yet by early 2014, disagreement over Ukraine not only led to armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but brought Russia and the West to what many saw as a new Cold War.

How did this happen, and why? How did the deeply connected Ukraine and Russia come to war? And how did their relationship come to shape the Wests conflict with Russia? How we answer these questions will determine in large part how actors on all sides approach the choices yet to come, including how to find peace in Ukraine, how to increase security in Europe, and how to rebuild relations between Russia, its neighbors, and the West. There is a great deal at stake in how we understand this conflict, but prevailing understandings are deeply at odds with one another: one school sees the conflict as being caused by Russian revanchism; another attributes it to Putins need to bolster his autocratic rule; and another blames western expansionism and Ukrainian nationalism. The first two views point to a western strategy of confronting, or at least containing, Putins Russia. The third points to accommodating Russias security needs by acquiescing to its desire to control Ukraine.

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