4th November 2015
Frozen? Avoiding Another Protracted Conflict in the Post-Soviet Space
That media headlines are focused elsewhere, particularly Syria, makes it all the more important not to lose sight of the conflict on our own threshold in eastern Ukraine.
The reduction in violence and destruction in the Donbas is welcome, giving a chance to restore services and make the region safer for the people who live there. Painstaking OSCE-led mediation is addressing immediate security and political questions, with reducing danger from landmines and other unexploded ordnance one urgent priority. But it would be extremely short sighted to assume all will be well as long as the shooting stops. We need also to pay close attention to the circumstances.
Hanging over the practical efforts are important questions about Ukraine’s control of its own territory and future. In my line of work the phrase ‘frozen conflicts’ trips all too easily off the tongue (some say ‘protracted’). There is no single definition, but some features of unresolved disputes in Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, and Moldova are: uncertain or contested status; absence of effective central government influence; local leaders subject to external manipulation; and, in all cases, an apparently indefinite peace process in which Russia is involved.
The OSCE is involved in all these long running mediation processes. In the absence of the good faith and political will on all sides that are essential ingredients of genuine conflict resolution, management of low level conflict at best is possible. The risk with freezing a conflict is that it can hinder rather than help post-conflict healing and reconciliation, leaving ordinary people – and indeed local leaders – in limbo between war and peace.
To prevent a similar outcome in eastern Ukraine, the ceasefire needs to be made sustainable through full withdrawal of heavy weapons and foreign fighters (as set out in the Minsk agreements), and supported by unfettered access for the personnel and equipment of the OSCE monitoring teams. Conditions for democratic elections that meet internationally recognised standards must be created. And, with winter approaching, humanitarian actors like Médecins sans Frontières must be allowed to resume their work caring for the civilian population.
Ukraine must be able to regain full control of its borders, sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence in line with the OSCE’s founding Helsinki principles, not to mention international undertakings.
Frozen conflicts perpetuate rather than cure instability. They mean not only sporadic lethal violence, but also long term disruption and inconvenience for hundreds of thousands of people. They get in the way of international cooperation on other common challenges. No state committed to security and co-operation in Europe would have an interest in seeing another one on the European continent.
The fundamental fact of a national border as defined in International law has to be understood by Russia without reservation. Until this fact is accepted; conflict will always be something Russia may have to consider in relation to their isolation as a diplomatic community.
Thanks for comments. Just to be clear – this blog is not a comprehensive statement of UK policy on Ukraine. Week after week at OSCE the UK, with EU partners, US and others keep pressure on RF over illegal annexation of Crimea and its role in Donbas and restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty. We have made clear our commitment to seeing those responsible for missile attack on MH17 brought to account.
As a British citizen resident in Kyiv, I appreciate the main thrust of this blog, but would like to note that it misses several important points.
1. Crimea isn’t mentioned at all. Russian aggression is legitimized if the annexation of Crimea ignored in the hope that we can come to a solution in the Donbass. The truth is that without first the capture of the peninsula, the whole conflict in East Ukraine would not have found popular support.
2. The repercussions of the shooting down of MH17 still have to be dealt with. Enough destruction and atrocities have already been committed on the ground, without letting Russia and its proxies get away with murder in the skies.
3. This conflict will remain exactly how Putin wants it, until your government and NATO as a whole, faces up to the rogue state to Ukraine’s north and east.
Anything else remain half measures…
You are 100% correct, Phillip. The west’s current lineup of “leaders” (and I use the term sarcastically) are pinning their hopes on a Minsk agreement that Putin has absolutely no intention whatsoever of honoring. There is no way that he is going to hand over control of the entire border to Ukraine because doing so would prevent him from easily being able to send money, weapons, agents and, if necessary, front line troops into the Donbas again if that’s what’s needed to keep the pressure on Kiev’s western-oriented government. This whole charade is just Putin’s way of trying to stick Kiev with the bill for restoring and maintaining the separatist territories while he retains the ability to start trouble there again whenever it suits him.
Instead of continuing our current policy of meekly playing along and hoping for the best, the west should drastically tighten its economic sanctions against Russia while simultaneously providing Ukraine with state-of-the-art 21st century weapons systems so as to greatly increase the cost to Putin of any further adventurism. We sh0uld also help the Ukrainians construct a formidable physical barrier along the entire length of the Russia-Ukraine border that the Ukrainians still control.
Finally, Ukraine should be given the green light to cut off the separatist territories entirely by establishing a new de facto national border along the current line of contact. We should tell Russia … “Hey, you broke it, so you can pay for it from here on in. They’re all yours now. Hope you enjoy ‘Novorossiya’.”
Half of the population of the occupied territories … by and large, the younger, more productive half with marketable skills … has already left. The industrial base is in shambles. The economy is a basket case. So let Russia have it. Let’s see how the people of the DNR and LNR like depending on “Mother Russia” for support. My guess is that within 5 years time they’ll be begging to be let back into Ukraine.
But there’s not much chance of any of this happening as long as gullible creampuffs like Barack Obama and Angela Merkel are calling the shots. But in a little over a year, Obama will be gone, hopefully replaced by a president with some actual backbone and a knowledge of world history.