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How to Stop the War in Eastern Ukraine

This is the second installment of a series called Stereoscopic Ukraine, which examines various aspects of contemporary life in that country. The project was launched by n-ost, a Berlin-based network for reporting on Eastern Europe, and TOL is an English-language media partner. Other partners include faz.net, the online edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Colta online magazine in Russia, Poland’s Tygodnik Powszechny magazine, and the ostpol website in Berlin. – TOL

 

Over the past year Ukraine has at times seemed an insensate object, for all the consideration its reality has received from various outside groups participating in the numerous peace talks. Are international communications really so ineffective that, even after the agreements in Minsk, the war continues?

 

Explosions similar to that that rocked Kharkiv last week are becoming a daily reality in peaceful cities of Ukraine – and this is a threat to our security, to our democratic future. What measures must be taken for there to be peace? Sanctions, supplying arms, or diplomacy, following the recommendation that Ukraine “give up Donbas” – what will finally bring the war in eastern Ukraine to an end?

Olena Stepova is a blogger from Sverdlovsk, in the Luhansk district.

I, like thousands of my countrymen, have been forced to migrate. We are running across our own land to get away from the war. But where are we running? Where does the war end?

A friend of mine left Donetsk for Mariupol. She lost her property and she went gray at 36. She was just returning to her normal self when the shelling began.

They ran barefoot over shards of glass, slipping on the blood of the dead, their child in their arms. A shell had hit the car next to them. At that moment, the rest of the world was discussing the agreements made in Minsk, taking pride in the established “truce.”

Why is it that Ukraine’s pain is not heard by the global community? Aren’t they afraid of repeating our fate?

From the very beginning of the war, the term “ATO” (anti-terrorist operation) was used to describe operations carried out by the SBU (Secret Service of Ukraine) against a group of local terrorists. Those “local” terrorists had Russian citizenship and Russian weapons, and they didn’t know where the local [coal] mines were located.

The external aggressor (Russia) was replaced with an internal aggressor – residents of Donbas – as the party interested in pursuing a war. Europe, imprisoned in an informational haze, still does not understand that this is not about Donbas, but about a third world war, a fact that its hidden supporters are trying to mask.

Today we should give up Donbas, tomorrow Kharkiv, the day after tomorrow, Kyiv and Lviv.

The conflict will not be resolved by diplomacy, provision of arms, or “peacekeepers.”

The conflict will be resolved by a complete blockade of Russia. I would be interested to know: are the accounts of Putin, and of the deputies of the State Duma who support the destruction of Ukraine, frozen in Europe?

Ivan Yakovina, originally from Moscow, lives in Lviv and works in Kyiv. He is an analyst for Novoye Vremya (New Times) magazine and host of the Hromadske.tv in Russian television program. He was editor of the independent Russian online magazine lenta.ru until spring 2014, when the chief editor was fired and replaced by a more Kremlin-friendly figure.

Kyiv must come to terms with reality – it must understand that the complete blockade of Russia that Olena Stepova dreams of will never happen. Even Ukraine is not ready to cut ties with Russia. Therefore it would be the heighth of impudence to demand that Europe and the rest of the world do so.

This is simply impossible. But there is another possibility: Kyiv must break the rules of the military-political game, forced upon it by Vladimir Putin, in order to force the Russian president to adjust his plans on-the-go and to make mistakes.

A threat from Kyiv to “disengage” from Donbas, as Israel did with Gaza in 2005, could have served those ends. Eastern Ukraine interests Moscow only as a means to put pressure on Kyiv from within Ukraine. It has no inherent value.

Kyiv giving up Donbas would have made it impossible for the Kremlin to implement its strategy – to replace the existing Ukrainian confederation with an eastern region controlled by Moscow but supported by Kyiv.

Furthermore, since Donbas is not capable of surviving independently, it is Russia that would have to pay for its rebuilding and future operating costs if it separated from Ukraine. Moscow is not planning for these types of expenses and is not willing to take them on. Therefore, even a threat from Kyiv to give up Donbas would sow a lot of confusion in the Kremlin – it simply would not know how to react to such a turn of events.

Russian propaganda claims that eastern Ukraine is fighting “for freedom.” Granting the separatists this “freedom” should, in theory, bring the war to an end – unless, of course there is another point, such as establishing Russian control over Kyiv.

The threat of disengagement would force Putin to enter into direct talks with Ukraine, because its implementation would destroy his own plans, but not those of the leaders of the separatist movement.

Oleksandra Dvoretskaya is a human rights activist from Simferopol in Crimea. In March 2014, she fled to Kyiv, where she works as a coordinator for Vostok SOS, an organization that helps Ukrainians displaced by the fighting.

In order for the conflict in Donbas to stop and for peace to be established, Russia must cease to exist. At least in the form in which it exists today – a large, poor empire.

The supply of arms does not bring peace; it merely changes the dynamics of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Russia, just as before, is fighting by outnumbering the enemy: Russia has a big population, and its leaders do not value people’s lives. Its military superiority over the world’s armies is just a soap bubble, but the so-called “West” has learned to value peace over the last 70 years and is not in a rush to give it up.

While some diplomatic talks without changes within Russia itself are possible, if Russia remains as it is, tension will remain a constant in Donbas. Russia will have enough money to fund Ukrainophobia, terrorist attacks, and political persecution.

Even if we could consider giving up the territory of Donbas, we cannot give up the people of Donbas. Russia (read: Putin) does not need Donbas, with its wrecked infrastructure and businesses and its depressed population. It has enough of its own such territory and population. Clearly, the goal of Russia’s current policy is to create constant problems for Ukraine, for its leaders, for its political development. If we reflect on the development of the conflict, it’s clear that we cannot buy ourselves out of this war by “giving up” Donbas. The problems will spread farther, to Kharkiv, to Odessa, to Nikolaev.

Peace, unfortunately, is possible only if Russia’s internal problems – isolation, economic problems because of the sanctions, falling living standards, and the progressive population’s growing discontent with political repression – cause the country to collapse, which will force Putin not simply to step down as head of state, but to change the way the country is governed. By that point, thinking about Ukraine will likely become too uncomfortable and too expensive for the political elite.

Boris Khersonsky is an internationally recognized poet and doctor from Odessa who was active in the Soviet-era samizdat movement.

The radical concession proposed by Ivan – giving up Donbas – will not solve the problem. First of all, people who identify with Ukraine are living there. And strengthening the enemy’s position has never stopped him.

On the day I wrote this text, two Azov Battalion fighters were buried in Odessa. One of the bodies showed signs of torture. They wanted to bury him in a closed casket. His mother said – open it. Let everyone see.

Against a backdrop of daily casualties and cynical behavior from Russia, which has decided to “deny everything,” the passivity of our leaders, and what is, to be honest, the stalling and the indecisiveness of our failed (?) allies, appear undignified.

The only way to understand this situation is to understand that no one wants a big war. Apart from one powerful country. Apart from the aggressor country. Apart from Russia. Today, the power in that country is concentrated in one person’s hands. At his disposal: an army equipped with the latest weapons. He also has a little nuclear briefcase.

Putin is truly a frightening figure. History eloquently illustrates what happens when enormous power is concentrated in a dictator’s hands. History also shows that you cannot prevent war by “appeasing” the aggressor. You can only move it back, push it to a later time.

And we have to remember that the aggressor will take advantage of this delay.

The meetings in Minsk are being compared with the Munich Agreement of 1938. If we recall what happened so long ago, we get the impression that an identical scenario is being played out.

Today, it is Ukraine that is on the altar of yet another Moloch. And, alas, for many these sacrifices appear to be acceptable. Many people think that after having absorbed the territories of Crimea and of Donbas, the Moloch will stop. …

Ukraine is not the only post-Soviet state that is home to a Russian and Russian-speaking population. After the Georgian war, we asked ourselves – who’s next? It turns out that Ukraine was next.

But one question remains – who’s next?

Roman Dubasevych is chairman of East and West Slavic Philology at the University of Greifswald’s Department of Slavonic Studies.

An acquaintance of mine worriedly asked me about the events in Odessa that Boris Khersonsky has also mentioned: “For how long can we just watch all of this? Why is Europe not speaking out about the violations of the cease-fire? How can we get the Europeans to pay attention?”

Meanwhile, I witnessed how the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden is commemorated in Germany. Almost every single discussion on television concluded with a reminder of the fact that only a two-hour flight away, neighboring Europeans are living through a similar nightmare – for the first time, Germans were saying the word Debaltseve. …

I realized that Germans have finally understood the horror of what is happening in Ukraine. We had to wait for almost a year for this to happen. Now it’s up to the politicians.

The global community must tighten control over compliance to the cease-fire and consider bringing in peacekeepers. At the same time, it is no less important to deter Ukraine’s leaders from pursuing insane ideas such as “breaking all of Russia’s teeth,” and defending themselves “to the last bullet.”

Ukraine’s most powerful weapon is how it can, in these difficult circumstances, take care of its citizens, regardless of whether or not they lived under separatist control.

Although the story about the disfigured soldiers was broadcast on several channels, I didn’t have the strength to watch it.

Largely because its horrors simply paralyze my brain, allowing room for a single train of thought – despair, revenge, or fierce resistance. In that sense, withdrawing from Debaltseve is not a betrayal, as the hotheads from the battlefields insist, but perhaps the only correct step to take. It is the beginning of a difficult and unpopular journey, which we will be able to make only with the global community beside us.