Thursday, August 21, 2008<\/p>\n
Paul Goble<\/p>\n
Vienna, August 21 \u2013 Having watched Moscow\u2019s moves in Georgia and listened to various Russians suggest that the Crimea, where Russia\u2019s Black Sea Fleet is based, is or should be Moscow\u2019s next target, Ukrainian politicians, diplomats, and foreign policy analysts are discussing the nature and dimensions of the Russian threat and what Kyiv should do to parry it.
\nIn addition to Russian actions and threats, this issue has heated up in recent days because of calls by senior Ukrainian officials for Russia to begin preparing to move its fleet out of Sevastopol by or possibly even before 2017, statements that most Russian politicians have refused to take seriously and most military analysts say would be very difficult.
\nToday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodomyr Ogryzko said that Moscow must begin thinking about moving both men and materiel from Sevastopol now because regardless of what some may think, Kyiv will honor its agreement with Moscow but \u201cin any case after 2017, the Russian fleet will not be on our territory (news.mail.ru\/politics\/1960873).
\nOgryzko said that the Ukrainian government cannot understand why Russia has simply \u201crefused\u201d to discuss the situation or any plans to withdraw its forces and close the base. As a sovereign country, the minister said, Ukraine will meet its treaty obligations, but he underscored that Ukraine has \u201cthe right to make a choice\u201d about any bases on its territory.
\nAnd if Ukraine makes the decision not to have such bases, the foreign minister continued, \u201cno one, including Russia can influence our decision. \u2026 If in Moscow, they do not yet understand this, that governments live according to such rules throughout the world, then this is Russia\u2019s problem\u201d and not Ukraine\u2019s.
\nBut recent Russian behavior in Georgia and Moscow\u2019s reactions to Kyiv\u2019s positions on this and other issues has convinced many Ukrainians that Russia\u2019s problem in this regard is becoming a problem for their country because of the danger that Moscow will try to destabilize its neighbor to ensure its continued control of Sevastopol or even seek to seize Crimea.
\nThose concerns have been exacerbated by three new developments: suggestions by some officials that Timoshenko should be charged with treason, a statement by a Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian parliamentarian that Moscow has many levers to use in Crimea, and an assessment by Ukrainian military analysts of what Moscow is already doing.
\nThe first of these, charges that opposition leader Yuliya Timoshenko should be investigated for possible treason on behalf of Russia, has already been extensively discussed, with some analysts arguing that this scandal by itself represents an effort by Moscow to destabilize and discredit the Ukrainian government.
\nBut the second and third deserve more attention. Today, Mustafa Dzhemilyev, who is both the leader of the Crimean Tatars and a deputy in the Ukrainian parliament, said that he is convinced that the large number of Crimeans who have dual citizenship with Russia by itself points to a possible South Ossetian scenario for that peninsula (www.vlasti.net\/news\/20236).
\nMoreover, he continued, unlike in South Ossetia, \u201cthere is no need [for Russia] to introduce forces [because] there is a sufficiently large and not badly armed contingent of the Russian Black Sea Fleet already there.\u201d Consequently, Moscow could move even more quickly than in did in Georgia, he said.
\n\u201cIn order to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine,\u201d the Crimean Tatar leader said, Kyiv should \u201cclose Russian consulates which are violating the law by handing out to citizens of Ukraine Russian passports.\u201d Indeed, Ukrainian officials should force those \u201cwho have illegal dual citizenship to annul one of the passports.\u201d
\nMoreover, Ukrainian officials must focus on the activities of pro-Russian organizations whose statements and activities are exacerbating interethnic tensions and creating the conditions for a Russian move. And Dzhemilyev said, Kyiv should insist that the Black Sea Fleet leave Sevastopol long before the 2017 date established by agreement.
\nThe third event was the release, also today, of a report by the Kyiv Center for Research on the Army, Conversion and Disarmament, which argued that \u201cRussia has created in the Crimea all the preconditions\u201d for a military operation to keep control of Sevastopol, detach Crimea from Ukraine, and weaken the rest of the country as well (www.nr2.ru\/kiev\/192334.html).
\n\u201cFor the achievement of these goals, Russia doesn\u2019t need a major military conflict with Ukraine,\u201d the center\u2019s analysts said. Instead, \u201cit is sufficient to destabilize the situation in a single Crimean region\u201d through the use of precisely targeted operations using \u201cthe forces of the Russian special services and particular units of the Black Sea Fleet.\u201d
\nMoreover, they continued, Moscow will build on \u201cto the maximum extent possible\u201d the pro-Russian segments of the population and the pro-Russian social and political organizations that Moscow and its friends in Ukraine have been promoting ever since Ukraine gained its independence in 1991.
\nThe center\u2019s analysts suggested that the first stage of such a conflict might consist of \u201cactions directed at the sharpening of relations between personnel of the Black Sea Fleet and representatives of Ukrainian authority in nearby areas,\u201d possibly by means of \u201ca provocation\u201d taking the form of a supposed Ukrainian attack on the fleet.
\nAfter that happens, according to the center\u2019s scenario, \u201cthe pro-Russian population will rise to the defense of the Russian personnel\u201d and then there \u201cwill begin clashes with the law enforcement bodies of Ukraine.\u201d That in turn will lead both countries to increase their military presence in Crimea, at which time Moscow will raise the issue of Ukraine\u2019s right to Crimea.
\nKyiv would then appeal to the West, the center said, but its analysts argued that Ukraine would not be any more successful in attracting anything more from Western countries than verbal support. And consequently, Russia could then \u201cswallow\u201d Crimea at its leisure, confident that Ukraine by itself would not be able to block its moves.
\nThe center\u2019s director added that he does not believe that Moscow is likely to follow such a scenario, but he added that \u201cRussia has already created all the necessary conditions for its realization,\u201d including official statements questioning Ukraine\u2019s right to control Crimea, ramping up anti-Ukrainian feelings among Russians, and \u201calso dominating Ukraine\u2019s information space.\u201d
\nToday also, Ukrainian media carried the assessments of five political analysts. Sergei Dzherdzh, the president of the Ukraine-NATO League, agreed that Russia could move in Crimea, but he suggested that \u201cmore sober\u201d heads in Moscow were likely to act with restraint given Moscow\u2019s experiences in Chechnya and Georgia (www.vlasti.net\/news\/20336).
\nVadim Grechaninov, president of the Atlantic Council in Kyiv, said that Russia will launch \u201cnot a real war but an information one\u201d and will seek to dominate Ukraine by creating \u201ca fifth column,\u201d a powerful pro-Russian lobby within the government, the leaders of the country\u2019s political parties, and in the regions.
\nPolitical scientist Viktor Nebozheno said that Ukraine was entering a dangerous period because both Russian and Georgian \u201chawks\u201d might seek to stage provocations in Sevastopol in order to achieve their goals elsewhere, a view echoed by the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy\u2019s Aleksandr Paliy, who said Russia has constantly been staging provocations in Ukraine.
\nBut Vadim Karasev, a political scientist, said that Ukraine is in fact in a good position to counter any Russian moves of this kind. If it blocks the formation of \u201cunrecognized formations\u201d and \u201cseparatist groups\u201d prepared to help Russia and if it adopts \u201ca new regional policy\u201d to ensure that Crimea develops, then Moscow will have a much harder time in pursuing its goals.
\nBut \u201cthe main thing,\u201d Karasev said, is for Ukraine \u201cnot to do anything stupid\u201d that Moscow would then exploit.<\/p>\n
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