Marcus Papadopoulos warns that the West has nothing to gain and a very great deal to lose by encouraging Ukraine to take up membership of Nato
THE continued eastward expansion of Nato to the borders of the Russian Federation may reach a critical point this December when the western military alliance decides on whether to offer the former Soviet republic of Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the forerunner to eventual entry. Should this happen, not only would the “cold peace” that currently exists between Russia and the West be dangerously exasperated, but it could also ignite an internal conflict in Ukraine – a country where much of the population is culturally and historically linked to Russia.
The country which emerged at the beginning of 1992, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was the smallest Russian state for 300 years and it quickly became engulfed by economic disasters. This enabled the United States to achieve global dominance.
However, the Americans still perceived Russia as the principal potential threat to their international supremacy. US policy-makers were conscious that the Russian Federation had inherited more than 70 per cent of the former Soviet Union’s industrial, military and nuclear complex on its territory. American concerns were reflected in the Pentagon’s Defence Planning Guidance of 1992.
Consequently, Washington directed Nato to start expanding eastwards beyond Germany’s borders. Since 1999, Nato has enlisted Moscow’s former client states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Baltic states, taking the alliance up to Russia’s border.
However, the coming to power of Vladimir Putin marked the beginning of Russia’s economic recovery. Moscow is again exercising a leverage of power on the international stage. The Russian military, once the nemesis of the West, is now receiving funds which the Kremlin hopes will restore it to a position of global significance. A senior American official recently commented that: “Russia is once again indisputably the number two military power in the world, second only to the United States.”
Indeed, Russia is now in a position to derail Nato’s current and most dangerous plan yet to enlist a country from the former Soviet territory: Ukraine.
Ukraine is crucial to the national and cultural identity of Russia. Kiev was the birthplace of the first Russian state, Kievan Rus. And many Ukrainians perceive Russians as a fraternal people. A visit to the Ukrainian cities of Odessa, Dneprdzerzinsk, Kharkov or Donetsk, for example, demonstrates this.
A Ukrainian national consciousness only developed in the 19th century and mainly in the regions of Galicia and Volhynia. As a result of Galicia and Volhynia having been a part of Poland and the Habsburg Empire for centuries, the people in these areas are today culturally distinct from the rest of Ukraine’s population. In modern Ukraine, nationalism is largely confined to these two regions.
Much of the Ukrainian population resent the people in Galicia and Volhynia, partly on account of how the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) have been afforded hero status in these two regions. Both the OUN and the UPA actively collaborated with the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and both took part in the killing of Soviet Jews, Poles and Red Army prisoners of war.
Contrary to the common perception in the West, Ukraine was not a “prisoner within the USSR”. In a referendum called by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in March 1991, in which the Soviet people were asked whether they wanted to preserve the union, 70.5 per cent of Ukrainians (in a turnout of 80.2 per cent) voted in favour of maintaining the union. Only in Galicia and Volhynia was the result emphatically against prolonging the life of the Soviet Union.
Western politicians, especially in the US and Britain, argue that Ukraine should be brought into Nato as this is the desire of its people. However, consecutive opinion polls in Ukraine have shown that nearly 70 per cent of the population opposes this.
The US’s determination to expand Nato into Ukraine reflects the importance attached to this country in maintaining American global hegemony. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter said: “Ukraine… is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”
Nato tactical aircraft operating from Ukrainian territory would reach Moscow in approximately 20-25 minutes. And Russian naval influence in the Black Sea would greatly diminish, as Washington would undoubtedly create bases at Ukrainian ports for its navy.
Russia will therefore not countenance Nato on its southern border under any circumstances and will employ its huge leverage of influence in Ukraine in a bid to prevent this from happening.
The Kremlin could resort to issuing Russian passports to practically any Ukrainian who wants one. Russia did this in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and it was this factor which compelled the Russian government, in accordance with Russia’s constitution, to respond militarily to Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia this summer.
Many of Ukraine’s 10 million ethnic Russians could accept such an offer, while Russified Ukrainians in the southern and eastern regions of the country might also be tempted by Russian citizenship. There are recent reports of 100,000 residents in the Crimea having already obtained Russian passports.
The Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, such as the Donbas, are undoubtedly Russia’s trump card. This constitutes a crucial hold over Ukraine, as these regions form its industrial heartland. Through Russian subversion and through political parties in Ukraine which are sympathetic to Moscow, such as the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine, mass strikes by miners and factory workers could be engineered. This would paralyse the Ukrainian economy and exert tremendous pressure on the pro-Western government of President Viktor Yushchenko. The latter could respond by forcing to the strikers back to work, and this could risk the wrath of Moscow as many of the strikers might hold Russian passports.
The Kremlin could also encourage Russian speaking-regions, such as Luhansk, to secede from Ukraine and either demand independence from Kiev or reunification with Russia. Given the hostility to Nato felt by people in these regions, it might not require much effort by Moscow to achieve this.
Admitting Ukraine into Nato would be seen as the greatest threat to Russian security since the Nazis came to power o in Germany in 1933. President Dmitri Medvedev has said that Russia maintains “privileged interests” in parts of the world – a reference to the post-Soviet space. Hence, the danger of the West’s plans for Ukraine is clear. Just as in the former Yugoslavia, Western interference could ignite internal violence in Ukraine and bring about its disintegration.
The West must realise that the Russian elite will not allow Ukraine to become part of an alliance which it perceives as its number one enemy.
