international crisis group ukraine
The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict Both the UN and OSCE have administered elections in the past with some success. This account was corroborated in Crisis Group online correspondence during June and December 2017 with an anti-mining activist in Olevsk. [fn]Crisis Group interview, Olevsk, Zhytomyr oblast, February 2017.Hide Footnote Other liberal, Maidan-supporting Polissians find themselves, in spite of their core beliefs, looking enviously across the border at autocratic Belarus, where strict laws on soil usage and draconian enforcement have helped preserve the forests. [fn] Crisis Group interviews, staff from international humanitarian organisations still operating in areas outside Kyiv’s control, Kyiv, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Sviatohirsk, September-December 2017. While, in principle, there may be reasons for it to seek a way out of a costly intervention in eastern Ukraine, the small force proposed would more likely freeze the conflict than resolve it. Poroshenko’s ruling coalition claims Ukraine will implement even Minsk’s most divisive measures with or without opposition consent. Crisis Group interviews, Kyiv city, February 2017, April 2017, September 2017. In September 2014, after Ukraine retreated from Ilovaisk six months into the crisis, negotiators from the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) – Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE – as well as representatives of separatist-held areas, signed a ceasefire agreement in Belarusian capital Minsk. A peacekeeping compromise could serve Russian interests in other ways. The December 2016 report Military Deadlock, Political Crisis argued that the main goal of Moscow’s interference in Donbas was to destabilise Ukraine and freeze its path to Eurointegration – and that Kyiv, through stalling on anti-corruption reforms, was only aiding this goal. Konstantin Dolgov’s Facebook page, accessed 3 November 2017. “Ukrainian deputies unveil details of discussion with Volker on UN peacekeeping for Donbas”, Kyiv Post, 28 October 2017.Hide Footnote Whether Volker will remain in the job past March 2018, when his post formally closes, is unclear. To provide personal security for participants in the consultations. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, Kherson oblast self-government official, Kherson city, March 2017; village head, Sarny district, Rivne oblast, April 2017.Hide Footnote As of September 2017, buyers typically paid $1,600 or more per kilo in Ukraine before selling abroad at more modest mark-ups of as low as ten per cent. See “XE Currency Charts: USD to UAH”, XE, http://bit.ly/2qYm80Y.Hide Footnote With the new volume of mining came increased chaos. The ensuing conflict, which has [fn]Crisis Group correspondence, trader, October 2017; Crisis Group interview, miner, October 2017; Crisis Group phone call, anti-mining activist, December 2017.Hide Footnote, In July 2015, Poroshenko denounced law enforcement and security service officials in the three amber oblasts for protecting the illegal industry. “Some provincial deputy could not have organised this scheme”, the activist said, insisting that the president must have been aware of it. U.S. Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine, 16 May to 15 August 2017, p. 7. European officials have supported U.S. diplomacy, even as many privately express concerns it has been insufficiently inclusive. His ultimatum gave them two weeks to purge their ranks of amber racketeers, using a variation of the Russian word krysha, which means “roof” both literally and in the sense of protection racket. One senior U.S. official suggested instead that it would actually be harder to capture Putin’s attention after his re-election; the status quo would settle in and the opportunity disappear. For various estimates of the population of the de-facto entities, see Delovaya Stolitsa. A wide gulf still separates what Russia has proposed and what Ukraine and Western powers would accept. [fn]The hryvnia’s value fell from about $0.13 in February 2014 to less than $0.03 in February 2015. Crisis Group interview, Russian expert, October 2017. International actors should work with local and regional leaders to let life-saving aid through. “Salary more than 1 thousand euros: the top countries to which Ukrainian doctors go to work”, video, YouTube, 20 November 2017, http://bit.ly/2BqOtCj.Hide Footnote compared to the $900 they can make next door in the EU. Rozenblat later accused deputies who voted against the law of “state treason”. In particular, it denies peacekeepers a role along the Ukraine-Russia border, essential for reestablishing Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. 6,000 Ukrainian defenders – military and volunteers – ultimately surrendered the strategic rail hub on 18 February 2015, six days after Minsk II was signed on 12 February and three days after it ostensibly took effect on 15 February. For example, according to media reports and Ukrainian specialists interviewed by Crisis Group, anthracite coal and other minerals travelled freely across the line of contact into Ukraine from the start of the conflict in 2014 until the blockade. Russia proposed on Monday creating an international support group to mediate in the Ukraine crisis but outlined terms that are unlikely to be acceptable for Kiev and the West. The first is whether the Security Council would deploy a UN mission or mandate a group of states to act with its blessing, with one acting as lead, or framework, nation. Crisis Group interview, Ukrainian diplomat, New York, October 2017. cit.Hide Footnote Located in the far south west, it shares a border with four European Union (EU) countries. For now, it appears more plausible Putin was testing the waters after French and German elections, almost a year into a new U.S. administration initially expected to be friendlier to Moscow, and ahead of Russia’s March 2018 presidential election. The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict. Envoy Kurt Volker has met several times with Vladislav Surkov, aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss peacekeeping options. [fn]The estimate of 300 tonnes is cited in “Янтарная лихорадка: зачем Украине легализация добычи 'солнечного камня'” [“Amber fever: why Ukraine needs to legalise extraction of the 'sunshine stone'”], Segodnya (online), 7 August 2015. It should also encourage discussion on whether the Minsk provisions themselves, or rather misinformation and misunderstanding about them, drive resistance. [fn]“Медики Закарпатья массово выезжают работать за границу – больницы пустеют” [“Hospitals empty out as Zakarpattya doctors leave en masse to work abroad”], Ua-Reporter.com, 27 October 2016.Hide Footnote Despite a 20-30 per cent salary hike at the start of 2017, a new Ukrainian doctor can still only expect to make roughly 2,500 hryvnia (about $90) a month,[fn]Crisis Group interview, oblast official, Uzhhorod, March 2017. This deal collapsed almost immediately, leading to some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, including the battles of Donetsk airport and Debaltseve in January and February 2015, which saw separatists with significant Russian support deal Kyiv two crippling defeats and seize strategic territory. [fn]Volker repeated this number before his third bilateral meeting with Surkov. A fourth is the extent to which the Security Council would grant peacekeepers explicit enforcement capability, how robust a posture they would adopt in the face of spoilers and the manner in which they would deploy. That separatist forces are likely to withdraw – at least initially – only as far as existing depots, which already prove hard for the OSCE SMM to monitor, poses another challenge. The UN has administered elections over the past two decades in Timor Leste and Afghanistan, and earlier in other countries, though has not had an executive mandate for elections administration for some time. A long-awaited prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia marks a positive development in their bilateral relationship. Статистика и динамика” [“Crime in Ukraine. Taken on 19 May 2016. An August 2015 session on the issue provoked street fighting between Ukrainian nationalist demonstrators and national guardsmen assigned to cordon off and protect parliament, climaxing with detonation – by a member of the far-right Svoboda party’s paramilitary wing Sich – of a grenade in the crowd outside, killing four national guardsmen. In a 2008 webchat hosted by Lviv-based ethnic Ukrainian online outlet VGolos, Parubiy said he “was one of the founders” of the far-right Social-National Party of Ukraine, and that “since that time until now, neither my political orientation, nor ideological foundations have changed”. 1409-1” [“USSR Law No.1409-1 from 3 April 1990”]. Rival bands vying for turf filled the vacuum left by the consolidated protection racket that disintegrated after Yanukovych fled. To the Rivne, Volyn, and Zhytomyr oblast governments: Approve the Office for Self-government’s plan for redistricting within the framework of decentralisation reform. Ukrainian concerns about Russia’s proposal are not only motivated by distrust of Moscow. Moreover, even then, only sanctions related to Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine would be lifted; sanctions related to Russian actions in Crimea, 2016 election interference, or the Magnitsky Act would not be affected. Reinstatement of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine throughout the conflict area, starting on day 1 after the local elections and ending after the comprehensive political settlement (local elections in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the basis of the Law of Ukraine and constitutional reform) to be finalized by the end of 2015, provided that paragraph 11 has been implemented in consultation with and upon agreement by representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the framework of the TCG. Instead, Kyiv must confront their root cause by following through on old promises to hold accountable corrupt officials at all levels. Prospects for cooperatives are also addressed in Denis Kazanskiy, “Мафія бессмертна, або хто саботує легалізацію видобутку бурштину?” [“The immortal mafia, or, who is sabotaging the legalisation of amber mining?”], Tyzhden, 7 July 2016.Hide Footnote Of course, such an arrangement would need to be handled carefully, so as not to merely reinforce local entrenched interests. The Horn: What Does Reconciliation among Gulf States Mean for Africa? cit. Crisis Group interviews, European Commission representatives, Brussels, November 2017. LIVE” [“Viktor Baloga, people’s deputy. In April 2017, Ukraine’s prosecutor general accused Rivne oblast’s police force of systematically covering up crimes involving amber. The commission also raised concerns that while the law at least provides flexibility regarding the teaching of EU languages, no such provisions are made for Ukraine’s second-most commonly used language, Russian. Yet the key obstacles may be political: authorities are loath to allow hromadas to form in majority-minority areas, lest this encourage ethnic divisions, and their concerns have only grown amid recent tensions between Kyiv and Budapest. Europeans for the most part have supported his efforts. [fn]Crisis Group interviews, Ukrainian civil society and politicians, Kyiv, Donbas and Berlin, September-November 2017.Hide Footnote Others argue that all who collaborated with unrecognised authorities in the self-proclaimed republics, including even doctors and teachers, should be brought to justice. His Special Representative to the Trilateral Contact Group facilitates the negotiation process. (“Я был одним из основателей СНПУ, с того времени и до сих пор мои политические ориентиры не изменились, как и мои идейные основы”.) “Медики Закарпатья массово выезжают работать за границу – больницы пустеют” [“Hospitals empty out as Zakarpattya doctors leave en masse to work abroad”], Ua-Reporter.com, 27 October 2016. Bar pro-Russia parties, Poroshenko’s ruling coalition is Minsk sole defender; were it to lose the 2019 vote, implementation of Minsk’s political provisions could be harder still. [fn]Ibid.Hide Footnote. Volker himself has compared such a force to the UN-mandated NATO force in Kosovo, K-FOR. Just as Kyiv cannot afford to maintain its current stance on Donbas, where it lacks a coherent policy to reintegrate a war-scarred population ruled by Kremlin-backed separatists, it cannot retain its current haphazard approach to vulnerable populations on the far side of the country. Remarks by a hotel owner in Mezhhirye present an unusually hyperbolic example of this: “I’m basically against dividing Ukraine”, he said. See “Регіональні дані ЗНО-2016” [“Regional EIE (External Independent Evaluation) data, 2016”], Ukrainian Center for Education Quality Assessment (http://stat.testportal.gov.ua/), 2007-2016. “Правопорушення” [“Crimes”], State Statistics Service of Ukraine (www.ukrstat.gov.ua), 21 February 2017; and “В Украине стремительно растет преступность: Луценко назвал причины” [“Crime is rapidly growing in Ukraine: Lutsenko names the reasons”]. A Sarny village leader said miners simply find new ways to avoid authorities’ attention. While Russia’s proposal provides an opportunity for Western allies to explore what role peacekeepers could play, the discussion risks overlooking important dynamics in Ukraine itself. Russkiy Reporter editor-in-chief Vitaliy Leybin’s Facebook page accessed 3 November 2017. [fn]IMF Country Report No.17/83, April 2017, p. 84. Of all Minsk provisions, Kyiv is perhaps most nervous about local elections, fearing they would legitimise existing structures in the self-proclaimed republics. Crisis Group interviews, New York, November 2017.Hide Footnote Even were consensus to emerge on peacekeeping, finding a mix of troop contributors acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow, and persuading them to commit forces, would likely prove a challenge. Implementation of the February 2015 Minsk II agreement, which Ukraine’s Western allies and Moscow still insist is the only way to end the crisis, has stalled.