AMERICAN INTEREST
UKRAINE AND RUSSIA
Zelensky Walks the Knife’s Edge
KIRK BENNETT
The deck may be stacked against the Ukrainian President’s peace through-negotiation approach, but it is not so thoroughly stacked that failure is a foregone conclusion.
A
fter nearly six years of conflict with Russia, there is in Ukraine today a somewhat fluid spectrum of public opinion that breaks down broadly into two camps. These are not the camps into which Kremlin propaganda usually—and erroneously—divides Ukrainians: a party of peace and a party of war. Instead, they are divided between those who believe in the near-term possibility of negotiating a peace agreement with Russia that safeguards Ukrainian sovereignty, and those who do not. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has placed himself unequivocally in the first camp. Along with his pledge to battle corruption, Zelensky’s peace-through-negotiation approach, juxtaposed to incumbent President Petro Poroshenko’s sovereignty-by-resistance policy, secured his landslide electoral victory.
Unfortunately for Zelensky, events have conspired to create an inauspicious set of circumstances under which to pursue his chosen path—a situation that could both destabilize his government domestically and undermine Ukraine with respect to its great northern antagonist. By all accounts, Zelensky acquitted himself well in his first major test at the Normandy Format Summit on December 9, but the underlying state of affairs will remain disproportionately fraught for both Ukraine and Zelensky.
The essential problem is that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is fundamentally asymmetrical, and most of the asymmetries—but, perhaps crucially, not all— work in Russia’s favor.
The issue is not just that Russia is bigger, more populous, stronger, and richer than Ukraine. The struggle is an existential one for Ukraine, but not for Russia.
The fighting is taking place on Ukrainian soil, is destroying Ukrainian housing stock, infrastructure, and industrial plant, and is killing Ukrainians on an almost daily basis. The conflict therefore looms darkly over just about every aspect of Ukrainian life. In contrast, the war is a distant one for most Russians, scarcely intruding into their daily lives. Since 2015, the diminished scale of the fighting and of direct Russian military involvement ensures that Russian casualties are few and can be easily disguised as victims of military training accidents. [
I would not so easily discount the reality that people are routinely being killed because of the Russian aggression, or so easily suggest a diminished role of Russian engagement. Putin continues to run the show. RAM
]
Western sanctions and the cost of maintaining the Kremlin’s clients in the Donbas certainly sap the vitality of the Russian economy, but this burden is bearable in the medium-run. Moreover, Russia’s economic and geographic preeminence in the post-Soviet space enables it to maximize disruption to Ukraine. Most importantly, Putin’s meticulous pipeline policy since 2005 is on the cusp of cutting Ukraine entirely out of the loop. The fact that Russia relies economically on hydrocarbon exports to Europe, with pipeline infrastructure transiting Ukraine, has heretofore severely limited Moscow’s freedom of action against its antagonist. Any disruption to gas transit through Ukraine would entail losses to Gazprom’s
lucrative European markets, and any broad Russian military action against Ukraine would therefore entail immediate and disastrous financial consequences for Moscow. [
Nord Stream II seems to be critical to the positions argued here about Ukraine’s vulnerability. Realizing this seems to be against conventional thinking I am not sure I understand why the pipeline or the outcome of Nord Stream II is so critical to Ukraine’s survival. Russia’s reliance on Ukraine transit has never stopped it from interfering in Ukraine. In fact, it underscores the need to do so from Moscow’s perspective. $2-3 billion in transit revenue should not be so important to a country of 40 million if the economy grows hear its potential. Even if Nord Stream II is completed in 2020 – and the author of this article is more convinced that will happen than I – it would not be running at full capacity until 2021. The five-year transit agreement may well have bought Ukraine time to put its own energy house in order, which it is working on. Bottom line – as always, a strong Ukraine is the only true defense against Putin’s aggression. RAM
]
It was Putin’s great misfortune that the moment of Ukraine’s maximum vulnerability occurred in 2014, before Russia had consummated its pipeline-bypass strategy. If the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completed in 2020 as expected, Moscow could take full advantage of the situation should some future confluence of events favor a decisive Russian blow against its fraternal-yet repugnant neighbor. [
What? Who is the “repugnant neighbor? RAM
]
The recent U.S. sanctions on Nord Stream 2, by all accounts, have come too late to prevent the project’s completion. [
This may be as Russia may be able to complete the thing by itself but I am no expert. RAM
] Moscow’s need to keep gas flowing to Europe in the meantime led to a compromise transit agreement, signed December 31, that commits Russia to continue significant, if reduced, transit of gas through Ukraine for five years. Lest Ukrainians congratulate themselves too fulsomely on their negotiating prowess with respect to Moscow, they should ponder the ominous track record of Russian pipeline infrastructure experiencing catastrophic maintenance problems, and even unexplained explosions, when it
has served the Kremlin’s interests to cut off oil or gas to uncooperative neighbors. [
Yes, well Ukraine surely is not kidding itself that Putin feels bound to his word. That is more an element of western naivete. RAM
]
It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone if, shortly after the completion of Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream, the gas pipeline through Ukraine should experience some calamitous malfunction on Russian territory that defies both explanation and expeditious remedy, giving Russia dubious “technical” grounds to ignore its contractual obligations regarding gas transit through Ukraine.
The Kremlin also has far more leeway when it comes to bestowing favors on, or withholding them from, its adversary: the free movement of goods and people; the exchange of prisoners (one of Zelensky’s priorities); a durable ceasefire from the Russian-controlled side of the line of contact; some relief from intense Russification for the dwindling number of Donbas residents intent on maintaining a Ukrainian identity. Putin giveth, and Putin taketh away. [
Another Ukrainian reality - while sound U.S. and western policy would and should lend far greater support to Ukraine, Ukraine must act as if it is going alone against the Russian threats. History has for decades upon decades repeatedly found that other “greater” western interests have left Ukraine on its own. RAM
]
The possibilities for the Kremlin to torment Kyiv are vast and multifaceted, and there is not a whole lot that Zelensky can do about it—either to preempt Russian actions, to parry Moscow’s moves, or to retaliate in kind.
With little ability to deflect painful blows from Moscow or to ratchet up the corresponding pain to Russia, Ukrainians who advocate sovereignty through resistance face the daunting prospect of a protracted struggle, with lengthy periods of political and economic maneuvering punctuated by occasional open warfare—basically, a 21
st
-century version of the Hundred Years’ War. No wonder so many Ukrainians incline toward the idea of a negotiated settlement. [
Inclined yes, but I am not sure inclined despite the consequences. RAM]
Facing less pressure than Kyiv, and with a greater variety of implements in its toolbox, Moscow is negotiating from a position of relative strength and can afford to play the long game. But what exactly is Moscow’s long game? [
Especially if the West is not clearly prepared to counter continued Russian aggression. RAM
]
Russia’s war aims in Ukraine have been the subject of the most varied Conjecture which is not surprising, since I doubt whether Putin himself could articulate Russia’s minimum demands with any precision, or specify the point at which Russia would be prepared to compromise and forego its more far reaching desiderata with regard to Ukraine.
A number of analysts have posited Finlandization—a neutral Ukraine abjuring NATO or EU membership—as a reasonable concession in return for Russia returning the Donbas. (Crimea is generally seen as “a bridge too far” in these hypothetical settlement scenarios.) It is indicative that the Finlandization option seems to appeal solely to Westerners, not Russians—because it would be perceived by most Russians not as a compromise or a draw, but as a loss. [
That appeal to Westerners goes back to my previous parenthetical comment – Especially if the West is not clearly prepared to counter continued Russian aggression. RAM
]
The fundamental driving force behind Putin’s approach to Ukraine is not alarm over possible NATO enlargement, but the conviction that Ukraine, in whole or at least in large part, is a portion of Russia’s own patrimony wrongfully separated from the motherland. The Kremlin’s primary motivation is not fear, but irredentist umbrage. It is a point repeatedly underscored by Putin’s own pronouncements, most recently in his annual year-end news conference on December 19. In it he alleged that the lands north of the Black Sea (that is, the southern third of Ukraine) were “ancestral Russian territories that had never had anything to do with Ukraine,” but which Lenin, by “a somewhat bizarre decision,” had awarded to the newly created Ukrainian SSR.
In fact, the bulk of the northern Black Sea littoral came under Moscow’s rule for the first time in history only in 1783, so these lands hardly constitute “ancestral Russian territories.”
Moreover, censuses in 1897 and 1926 factually establish that ethnic Ukrainians comprised the preponderant element of the population in these districts when Lenin made his supposedly bizarre decision to include them in Ukraine. Putin’s astonishing assertion reflects the mindset I first heard more than 20 years ago from a Russian diplomat, to the effect that three oblasts of
western Ukraine, collectively known as Halychyna or Galicia, constitute the only “genuinely” Ukrainian lands. Moreover, it is no coincidence that the same southern regions of Ukraine mentioned by Putin were the target of the abortive Russian attempt in 2014 to create an entity dubbed “Novorossiya” that would separate from Ukraine and join Russia.
Unfortunately, Putin’s fresh ruminations on the theme of “ancestral Russian territories” north of the Black Sea do not suggest a man prepared to compromise what he regards as Russia’s sacred birthright, but a man ideologically inclined to resurrect the bogus Novorossiya project at the first available opportunity. And when it comes to the creation of a Russian World—the linchpin of Putin’s strategy to establish Russia as an independent power center in a multipolar world—Ukraine remains the grand prize, the indispensable element for success. [
And significantly dangerous here is the willingness of so many in the West to accept Putin’s distorted historical views as valid. There is a cost for Western historical stupidity. RAM
]
A
s a result, domestically, Zelensky faces the peril of any politician in any country who over-promises and under-delivers. Indications of his willingness to negotiate on Putin’s terms (for example, acceptance of the Steinmeier Formula) have already excited opposition from people who do not believe Moscow is prepared to accept Ukrainian sovereignty. [
A bit of an over-statement to suggest President Zelenskyy accepted Steinmeier in full. His nuances matter. RAM
] However, a toughening of Zelensky’s approach—essentially, a full or partial adoption of the sovereignty-by-resistance policy of his unpopular predecessor—risks draining his support among a war weary electorate led to believe that a near-term settlement is eminently possible.
Squaring this circle will not be easy, with the attendant risk of domestic destabilization that Moscow could exploit. The potential for near-term, self-inflicted discord in Ukraine is not the only factor working in Russia’s favor. Angela Merkel, Putin’s German nemesis, is withdrawing from the geopolitical stage—but not before rendering an invaluable assist to Putin’s longtime goal of a pipeline network bypassing Ukraine. [
Her role and activities are not so one-sided on pipelines. RAM
]
Berlin might believe it has extracted a concession in terms of
continuing transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, but, as I have suggested, it would not be difficult to render this concession inoperative. Once Nord Stream 2 becomes operational, does anyone imagine that Germany would shut it down if Russia reneged on gas transit through Ukraine?
Moreover, Emmanuel Macron is undergoing a startling transformation from being the French presidential candidate toughest on Russia to being Europe’s preeminent
Putinversteher—
or Putin-understander, as the Germans say—and NATO-pessimist. Macron’s grand vision of binding Russia to Europe (or would it be Europe to Russia?) would probably consign Ukrainian interests to little more than an afterthought. [
Macron’s “grand vision” – please! What his vision is today could be the exact opposite tomorrow. His wet, raised finger is always testing the wind. RAM
] Regarding European military capabilities, it is too bad that commentary on Macron’s
Economist
interview has focused almost exclusively on his characterization of NATO as “brain-dead,” obscuring his candid and salutary admission of Europe’s own culpability for its military feebleness.
Frankly, if you want to equate NATO dysfunctionality with a terminal medical condition, the appropriate analogy is not brain death but muscular dystrophy. Macron’s notion of a more robust, independent European military might or might not ameliorate the problem, but it is an improvement over the regnant combination of complacency and wishful thinking that Trump’s departure from the White House will somehow restore Transatlantic comity by papering over Europe’s military debility.
As for the United States, the role of Ukraine in the Trump impeachment drama has had surprisingly little blowback for Kyiv. As for the wider American commitment to European security, a Biden victory in 2020 would ease Transatlantic tensions but would probably provide only a temporary respite from domestic pressure to scale back U.S. commitments overseas. Moreover, the election of a democratic socialist, either in 2020 or thereafter, would herald a massive budgetary reorientation away from defense/security toward social programs and the Green New Deal. The result would be a United States that mirrors Europe—enthusiastically committed to a principled multilateralism but lacking the military means to uphold European security in practice.
Transatlantic comity would ostensibly be restored, but at what price?
If Russians imagine that “historic Ukraine” is limited to the Halychyna region, only a tenth of present-day Ukraine; if they sincerely believe, based on a highly selective and idiosyncratic understanding of history, that most of Ukraine’s territory has been stolen from Russia; and if they have ample reason to anticipate a weaker, more chaotic Ukraine and a flagging of Western interest and resolve in the medium-term, then why might Putin be prepared to yield on positions of deepest principle regarding Russia’s perceived patrimony, accept the territorial integrity of a sovereign Ukraine, or return the Donbas to Ukraine in any form other than a Trojan Horse? Yet such an improbable scenario is the premise on which any hope for a near-term negotiated settlement of the Donbas conflict must be predicated.
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evertheless, if the deck is stacked against Kyiv, it is not so thoroughly stacked that its failure is a foregone conclusion. For Ukraine, victory is measured simply in terms of survival. A Russian victory, however, requires a far more complex and nuanced outcome. The goal is not to reduce Ukraine to a smoldering ruin, but to secure the country more or less intact for incorporation into the Russian World. The Kremlin’s approach will inevitably include a military component, but Moscow must somehow subvert Ukraine without utterly destroying it.
The desired scenario is Crimea in 2014, not the Donbas.
Therefore, Russian recourse to armed force must be excruciatingly limited and laser-focused. Success relies primarily on convincing a critical mass of Ukrainians that their language and national identity are aberrations, and that—to paraphrase the name of a 1990s political party—“their home is Russia.” Yet it seems unlikely that any combination of pressure, blandishments, and Ukrainian war-weariness, even over a lengthy period of time, could produce such an outcome. While Russia’s massive advantages can make life very difficult for its opponent, the prospect of achieving Moscow’s maximal aims appears poor. The asymmetry of the conflict, in a curious way, cuts in both directions.
Though the Ukrainian flag may never wave again over Yalta or Donetsk, if the current Ukrainian state and nation merely endure, then Moscow will have ultimately lost. At what point does the Kremlin internalize this truth, forego the goal of absorbing the bulk of Ukraine, and conclude a lasting peace with Kyiv?
No one will know unless or until it happens—but I would venture to guess that such an epiphany will not occur in the Normandy Format. [
Got that right! RAM
]
Kirk Bennett
is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer who served in both Moscow and Kyiv.
The views expressed here are Mr. McConnell's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation or the members of the Friends of Ukraine Network
