The country lost part of its territory nearly five years ago. Was that just the beginning?
Present-day Poland still bears the scars of those partitions. For another 200 years after its division, Poles were deprived of their autonomy, which was only regained following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those years of subjugation remain the driving force behind Polish national strategy today. While Austria no longer poses a risk, Russia and Germany are the biggest threats to Poland’s independence and prosperity.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with Ukraine. The answer is, Ukraine is in danger of experiencing disintegration similar to what Poland endured in the 18th century. In fact, Poland is one of a number of regional rivals that have claims to Ukrainian territory and may be waiting for an opportunity to take back what they see as rightfully theirs. Poland’s own dismemberment hasn’t prevented the emergence of a nascent Polish revanchism, and the same can be said to varying degrees of Hungary, Romania and, most notably, Russia. Caught between these stronger powers, beset with acute internal political fractiousness, bereft of significant military force and governed by a corrupt and wellentrenched oligarchic class, Ukraine is a ticking time-bomb, and it’s becoming increasingly uncertain whether anyone is willing or able to defuse it.
Underlying Problems
Ukraine’s fragility has been widely overlooked. The narrative in the western media narrative around Ukraine has been shaped mainly by a combination of understandable, if hysterical, fears in Ukraine about Russian domination and an intense anti-Russia bias. Just last week, the Institute for the Study of War, a resource we’ve occasionally cited in our own work, published a report predicting possible imminent Russian “offensive operations against Ukraine from the Crimean Peninsula and the east.” The evidence for a Russian offensive includes the movement of a few military convoys, a few Foreign Ministry statements, a planned naval drill in the Black Sea and the transfer of “more than a dozen” fighter jets to a base near Sevastopol. Taken together, these moves might well give the impression that Russia is preparing for an operation in eastern Ukraine. But the reality is more complicated. And the underlying problems in Ukraine are more serious than the threat of a limited Russian incursion.
Internally, Ukraine is facing a number of challenges. Its gross domestic product dropped by 17% in the two years following the 2014 revolution, Russia’s subsequent seizure of Crimea and insurgencies in Luhansk and Donetsk. Sensing an opportunity to pull Ukraine further into the Western camp, the International Monetary Fund in 2015 approved a $17.5 bln loan over four years to help boost Ukraine’s economy. It took roughly two years and a dispersal of about half the total amount for the IMF and its Western backers to become dissatisfied with how Ukraine was spending the money and suspend the loan. (The IMF agreed to a new $3.9 bln programme with Ukraine just last month.) Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden even said the U.S. might have to abandon sanctions against Russia if Ukraine couldn’t overcome its corruption problems. He might as well have asked the sky to stop being blue.
Ukraine has taken some small steps in recent months to satisfy its creditors. Fearful of what the IMF might do if Kiev didn’t at least appear to be meeting the obligations of its loan programme, it followed through on a promise to raise gas prices by almost 25% in October. Ukraine was in danger of a serious liquidity crisis – in July, it had to delay pension and public sector salary payments – and without more IMF funding, it might have been unable to meet its debt payments and finance its budget. This is the cost of keeping Ukraine in the pro-West camp and why Russia feels less urgency than most think it does to reverse the outcome of the 2014 revolution. It’s happy enough to wait for Ukraine to revert to a more neutral position while the West grows tired of footing the bill for its recovery.
The situation will only get worse in the year ahead. In 2019, Russia will complete work on the TurkStream and Nordstream 2 pipelines, which will enable Russian natural gas exports destined for Europe to bypass Ukraine and slash Ukrainian revenue from delivery of these exports through its territory. (Last year, Ukraine earned roughly $3 bln in transit fees from Russian gas exports to Europe – no chump change for a country on the edge of a liquidity crisis.) In March, Ukraine will hold its first presidential election since the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Due to its struggling economy, social divisions and competition between political factions with conflicting business interests and personal allegiances, no single candidate has even 25% of the vote so far. Russia’s main concern, therefore, is not a pro-western government in Kiev but that chaos following the election could cause volatility on the Russian border.
External Issues
Ukraine also has several external problems, chief among them being Russia. Russia doesn’t want instability in Ukraine any more than the United States or any other western country does – but it’s more affected by economic uncertainty and political competition in Ukraine than the other outside powers involved in the frozen conflict there. And while Russia isn’t exactly a 21st-century incarnation of the Soviet Union – Moscow isn’t peddling a global ideology and has no delusions that it can compete as an equal with Washington on the world stage – the Russian government has relied heavily on Russian nationalism to legitimise its rule.
And its brand of nationalism
requires