The 2022 TCUP Conference Beyond Borderland: 30 Years of Ukrainian Sovereignty kicked off Monday, February 7, with a deep dive into the concept of sovereignty in the modern world. Particularly salient with Russian troops amassing at the Ukraine-Belarus border and with diplomatic negotiations reaching a fever pitch, the panel reflected the urgency of the current moment.
Moderator Carl Dahlman began by painting a broad picture of ways to think about Ukraine and its sovereignty since 1991. He asked panelists about the apparent contradictions in the ways that Russian president Vladimir Putin has viewed Ukraine and the territories he seems to have a vested interest in. Panelist Paul D’Anieri began the conversation by pointing out that Putin’s various resentments aren’t necessarily inconsistent, because they are used to resonate with different audiences and to remedy a situation that Putin finds untenable. D’Anieri argued that, despite Putin’s allegations that his annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine were to protect Russian ethnic and Russian-speaking populations there is a red herring—there has not been mistreatment of these populations at all. Elizabeth Dunn, whose research has focused on Georgia and South Ossetia, agreed. Putin doesn’t care about Russian speakers in Donbas, she said, but he will happily use them as an explanation to justify his actions there, just as he did in South Ossetia (claiming that Russians in the region needed protection and then neglecting the civilian population that was displaced after Russia’s invasion).
Yulia Bezvershenko reminded the audience of the importance of Ukrainian democracy in showing Russia and Russian citizens that their autocratic model of governance is not sustainable. Ukraine is proving that a post-Soviet country can also be democratic, based on freedom of speech and civic action. She stressed the importance of the unity of the democratic world against autocratic models like the one that exists in the Russian Federation. Gerard Toal illustrated Bezvershenko’s points with graphs showing how the relationship between Ukraine and Russia has shifted away from Russian attempts to tilt the Ukrainian political field toward Russia—a transition point that Toal links to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, when Russia lost much of its influence and positive reputation in Ukraine—to Russian efforts to use Donbas as a territorial lever. However, said Toal, this model is not working for Putin, which explains how we got to the current crisis. And, as Dunn pointed out, wars are cheap and occupations are expensive. Putin will try to find a way to expand his political influence in Ukraine without a long and costly war; even a partial occupation of Ukraine—such as the one that has existed in Donbas since 2014—can give Putin some control over Ukrainian political decisions and, indirectly, over NATO.
Dahlman asked the panelists to think about the potential effectiveness of autonomy arrangements in Donbas, especially in the context of the increasingly ineffective Minsk Accords. Dunn posed the question of whether or not it really matters what the official arrangement is, arguing that if Donbas becomes a quasi-state with Russia as its sponsor, then Russia will control its borders, its military, and its economy. If these regions have autonomy within Ukraine, Russia will have those same controls, and Russia will still be able to use Donbas as a “territorial lever” to control the rest of the country. D’Anieri added that Russian support for regional autonomy in Donbas gives Russia a de facto veto in Ukrainian politics, which would help create a legitimate path toward the secession of those regions. Additionally, Russia could already have taken much more territory from Ukraine’s east with its superior military capabilities. Instead, it did not annex the self-declared separatist republics and has not supported their independence; there’s a reason, D’Anieri said, that Russia is holding these territories in limbo, we just can’t be sure of what the reason is yet.
The panelists addressed the problem of public opinion in the currently occupied territories: Toal’s recent survey data shows that most people living in these republics want to be part of Russia. This reflects the usual trends in breakaway republics; people who stay there are not representative of the public opinion of the territory before the war, because so many people were displaced. In other words, what people in Donbas want now is different from what people in Donbas wanted in 2014. Bezvershenko pointed out the differing views of Europe among Ukrainians, especially in 2014. She argued that many people living in Donbas had not been to Europe—and often had not left their region—so their image of Europe was based on what they saw on Russian TV. They see their values as different from European values, a perspective that was reinforced by Russian cultural narratives. This is why, as she noted at the beginning of the panel, we have to look at the big picture and the historical relationship between these two countries.
The panelists dug deeply into the question of how to bring about stability in the region; D’Anieri made the important distinction between stability and justice. He suggested that granting the occupied Donbas autonomy within Ukraine is an unstable situation. While Russia controlling the territories is not perfectly stable, and ultimately would not necessarily prevent Russia from invading the rest of Ukraine, it is a more stable solution than those territories having autonomy within Ukraine. Bezvershenko argued that the ongoing instability makes it difficult for Ukraine to think about the future. All the country’s attention must be on resolving the conflict, so there is no energy left to address other issues, such as state capacity building and economic development. However, more optimistically, Bezvershenko also pointed out the work that ordinary Ukrainians have been doing to build trustworthy state institutions since 2014.
One problem the panelists recognized was that, if Ukraine is able to get the territories of Crimea and Donbas back into Ukrainian control, what will happen to the now very pro-Russian population of those territories? Toal asked whether Ukrainians would be happy with the people the state got back. Or does Ukraine want the territory, and not the people? While Bezvershenko believes in the idea of inclusive nationalism, in which everyone in the territory of Ukraine has the same values of freedom and democracy, she also noted that Putin will never be happy as long as there is pro-Ukrainian sentiment in Ukraine. D’Anieri pointed out the consolidation of Ukrainian national sentiment as a result of Putin’s aggression, as well as through the absence of pro-Russian Donbas residents in Ukraine’s voting public.
A key takeaway from today’s session was the panelists’ lack of optimism around Ukraine eventually joining NATO. D’Anieri found four major reasons that Ukraine would not join the alliance in the near future: German and French opposition; Russian opposition (and its potential response if Ukraine joined NATO); the size of Ukraine compared to other new entrants and the challenge presented in bringing its military up to NATO’s standards; and finally, the level of corruption in Ukraine, including within its military. Dunn asked, what does NATO gain by admitting Ukraine? NATO doesn’t need the manpower, and major players such as Germany would jeopardize their position vis-à-vis Russia by allowing Ukraine membership. Toal agreed, stating that NATO’s challenges increase if Ukraine becomes a member, and he advocated for creating an alternative security structure that includes Ukraine without the promise of NATO membership. Bezvershenko zoomed out further, suggesting we treat NATO’s response to the current crisis as an experiment for Russia. Putin wants to see how NATO and Western allies will react to Russian aggression, and build his future actions based on his analysis of this response. And this experiment is resonating further afield in China, which might be the next great power to make moves to dismantle territorial sovereignty.
The discussion of the first panel set the stage for our close examination of Ukrainian sovereignty this week, revealing what’s at stake for Ukraine and the world. Tomorrow’s panel will delve into the digital sphere to better understand sovereignty in the twenty-first century; join us at noon (EST) again