Separatists test resolve of Ukraine’s new president
Leader makes good on his promise to confront ‘bandit state’
In what may have been an act of desperation to try to regain Moscow’s attention and affection, heavily armed pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine tested the mettle of the country’s new president, Petro Poroshenko, on his first day in the job by seizing Donetsk airport.
Poroshenko, who was elected in a landslide on Sunday, made good Monday on promises to confront what he called “a bandit state” that threatened to turn Ukraine into “Somalia,” by sending attack jets, assault helicopters and commandos to retake the airport.
As the airport’s control tower burned, sending dark smoke across the runways, journalists on the scene reported wild clashes in which parts of the airport’s ultra-modern glass, metal and wood terminal were raked with gun and rocket fire.
When night fell, there were conflicting reports about who had control of the airport.
Monday’s gambit by the separatists appeared to be a deliberate attempt to draw the Kremlin back into the conflict after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared over the weekend that his government would recognize Poroshenko’s victory and “co-operate with him.”
For his part, Poroshenko — a billionaire chocolate tycoon with business interests in Russia and years of experience in previous, discredited Ukrainian governments — said he knew Putin well and hoped to meet with him soon to discuss a way out of the crisis through trade deals and by devolving many powers to Ukraine’s regions.
Complicating matters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that before such talks could begin, Ukrainian forces must stop attacking armed pro-Moscow separatists who have been storming government buildings and establishing barricades in and around a handful of cities in the east of the country.
Ukraine’s tortuous drama began with a bloody pro-western coup in Kyiv in late February that toppled Kremlin ally Viktor Yanukovych. Putin responded by swiftly annexing the Crimean peninsula.
That move, and the subsequent presence of 40,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, led to ferocious rhetoric and limited sanctions against Russia by the governments of Canada, the U.S. and the European Union.
It also emboldened secessionists whom western governments said were receiving help from and direction by Russia.
Support for the revolt has been far thinner across the east than it has appeared on TV.
Having said that, the distrust of Kyiv is profound and nearly universal in the east of the country.
Monday’s clashes in Donetsk underscored how difficult it will be for Poroshenko, Russia and the West to thread their way out of the gravest armed showdown in Europe since the end of the Cold War nearly a quarter of a century ago.
After a triumphant start in Crimea, Putin’s dream of restoring Russia to greatness has collided with a few hard truths.
Western sanctions have not done much harm to Russia so far, but the threat of more serious sanctions may have given Putin pause.
The energy-dependent Russian economy is going through its roughest patch in years. The tab for absorbing Crimea will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
While the possibility of financial hardship may not bother Putin much, the Kremlin must have been disappointed with how few people in eastern Ukraine rallied to Russia’s cause.
Figuring out what influences the enigmatic Putin and what he might do next has always been a mug’s game.
Rather than encouraging separatist sentiment, the thuggish behaviour of the masked goons who claim to act in Moscow’s name terrified and disgusted many eastern Ukrainians.
Their clear preference is to have a vastly different political arrangement with Kyiv that would grant the east greater powers.
Canadian observers meeting in Kyiv after Sunday’s balloting decried how voters were cowed into not voting by armed gangs. Nevertheless, they described the election as the freest and fairest since Ukraine became an independent country after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“I regret that people of the two oblasts, Luhansk and Donetsk, could not participate like the rest of the people,” said Sen. Raynell Andreychuk of Saskatchewan, who, with former Ontario pre- mier Mike Harris, led the Canadian monitoring mission.
There had been “a climate of intimidation and worse” in those two eastern provinces, but Andreychuk believed the new government would make it a priority to reach out to the people there to hear their opinions.
“There were problems getting access to voting. And is that fair? Not to those people who were unable to vote,” Harris said.
“But overall the will of the people has spoken. I don’t think there is any dispute about that.”