Putin's Wars (46 page)

In the Russian war of nerves with Ukraine Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox
Church, also played an important role. From July 27 to August 5, 2009, Kirill visited
Ukraine. His tour brought him not only to the pro-Russian eastern part, but equally
to the western part of the country. One of his objectives was to suppress the pro-independence
mood of the local church.
^[30]
Kirill talked a lot about the “common heritage” and the “common destination” of
Ukraine and Russia. However, his intervention went further than simply delivering
a spiritual message. According to Pavel Korduban, “One of his [Kirill’s] chief ideologists,
Andrey Kuraev, was more outspoken, threatening Ukraine with a civil war should a single
church fully independent from Moscow ever be established.”
^[31]
Olexandr Paliy, a historian at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ukrainian Foreign
Ministry, commented: “We’ve seen more of a Russian state official than a religious
figure. . . . The Church is being used as an instrument in the Kremlin’s game.”
^[32]
Oleh Medvedev, adviser of Yulia Tymoshenko, then Ukrainian prime minister, was
more outspoken. He described Kirill’s tour “as a visit of an imperialist who preached
the neo-imperialist Russian World doctrine.”
^[33]
When the archives of the KGB were opened after the demise of the Soviet Union,
also a file on Kirill was found, indicating that he had worked for the KGB under the
code name “Mikhailov.”
^[34]
It is, therefore, no surprise that the patriarch is working hand in hand with the
Kremlin. Under Putin the Russian Orthodox Church has acquired the status of a semiofficial
state church and the relations between the hierarchy and the political leadership
have become even closer than in tsarist times. How close the relationship between
the Moscow patriarchate and the Kremlin has become was particularly evident when,
immediately after his visit to Ukraine, Kirill went to the Kremlin to report to President
Medvedev.

Kirill’s visit in the summer of 2009 was clearly part of a broader psychological and
political offensive. Some weeks after Kirill’s visit President Medvedev published
a video blog and an open letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on the Russian
presidential website. On this video Medvedev was overlooking the Black Sea where one
could see two frigates menacingly on the horizon. Medvedev was dressed in black.
The Economist
even spoke of an “ominous black.”
^[35]
Being dressed intimidatingly in threatening black had become a part of the symbolism
used by the Kremlin when it addressed—directly or indirectly—the Ukrainian leadership,
as if to emphasize that between the two countries normal, civilized, diplomatic relations
no longer existed. Some observers, such as Brzezinski, made comparisons with the black
clothing of Mussolini.
^[36]
Others made comparisons with the
oprichniki
, the secret police of Ivan the Terrible, who were also dressed in black. Medvedev’s
open letter was a reaction to the expulsion by Ukraine of two Russian diplomats, accused
of undermining activities. “We are more than just neighbors,” wrote Medvedev in his
open letter, “our ties are those of brothers.”
^[37]
He went on, citing Gogol, that “there are no bonds more sacred than the bonds of
brotherhood.” After this declaration of brotherly love there followed a list of complaints
concerning Ukraine’s support for Georgian President Saakashvili and the “overt distortion
of complex and difficult episodes in our common history, the tragic events of the
great famine in the Soviet Union, and an interpretation of the Great Patriotic War
as some kind of confrontation between two totalitarian systems.”
^[38]
Medvedev’s letter explicitly referred to Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Ukraine, which
was considered “an event of great significance.” “I had a meeting with the Patriarch
following the visit,” wrote Medvedev, “and he shared my impressions and said many
cordial words. We both are of the same opinion that the two fraternal peoples may
not be separated as they share [a] common historical and spiritual heritage.” Such
a message from the Kremlin master that the two “fraternal peoples”
may not be separated
was not reassuring for worried Ukrainians, who shortly before had read articles in
the Russian media, announcing Ukraine’s imminent “desovereignization.” Special attention
should also be paid here to the
language
of Medvedev’s message. The use of fraternal and paternal metaphors has a long tradition
in Russia. “We have a good idea of what Stalin has in mind,” wrote Richard Sennett,
“when he declares ‘I am your father.’ He is going to force other people to do his
bidding; he asserts his right to do so because he is the collective father. After
a while people will habitually obey; the habit of obedience is discipline.”
^[39]
Using the “brother” metaphor Medvedev spoke as the older brother to the smaller,
younger brother, implicitly claiming authority over the other. As Sennett rightly
observed: “Metaphors are put to oppressive uses.”
^[40]

Medvedev concluded his open letter with the words that “there can be no doubt that
the multifaceted ties between Russia and Ukraine will resume on a fundamentally different
level—that of strategic partnership—and this moment will not be long in coming.”
^[41]
These words could be perceived by the Ukrainians as an unveiled threat, because
the “strategic partnership” the Kremlin wanted to establish with Ukraine would certainly
include a restriction of Ukraine’s freedom of choice over its security arrangements,
a freedom that nevertheless figured prominently in the Founding Act of 1997. Since
the election of the more Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych in 2010 the Russian
pressure on Ukraine has not subsided. On the contrary: Russian pressure on Ukraine
to join the Customs Union and Eurasian Union has only increased. The Kremlin uses
both carrot and stick. The carrot is represented by a Russian offer to sell its gas
to Ukraine for $160 per cubic meter instead of $425—a discount of more than 62 percent!
^[42]
The stick consists of a potential restriction of the number of Ukrainian migrant
workers in Russia, estimated at between two and three million per year.
^[43]
The Russian authorities have already announced that from January 2015 citizens
from the CIS countries need foreign passports to travel to Russia.
^[44]
The Russian pressure, however, also takes the form of outright blackmail. An example
of the latter is the so called “Yamal-Europe Two” project—a proposal, made on April
3, 2013, by Putin and Gazprom’s CEO Aleksey Miller to Poland, to build a new gas pipeline
over Polish territory to Slovakia. This project, aimed “to demonstrate that Moscow
can shift gas export volumes into new bypass pipelines, away from Ukraine’s gas transit
system to Europe, eventually nullifying the system’s value.”
^[45]
This proposal was experienced by the Ukrainians as a direct attack. Some weeks
later, on April 25, 2013, Putin, in a televised phone-in session in Moscow, went so
far as to issue a warning that if Ukraine did not join the Eurasian Union it faced
the potential “de-industrialisation” of multiple sectors within its economy.”
^[46]

In the meantime negotiations between Ukraine and the European Union on an Association
Agreement have reached a decisive phase. On March 30, 2012—after five years of intensive
negotiations—the chief negotiators of the EU and Ukraine initialed the text of the
Association Agreement, which included setting up a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade
Area (DCFTA). The text was hailed by some as “the most extensive international legal
document in the entire history of Ukraine and the most extensive international agreement
with a third country ever concluded by the European Union.”
^[47]
Unfortunately, however, due to election fraud and selective justice (the imprisonment
of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko), the EU decided to delay the signing of
the agreement. Although association with the EU would be in the long-term interest
of Ukraine, eventually raising the prospect of EU membership, it is not certain that
the Ukrainian government would make the necessary efforts to take up this opportunity.
Russia, which does not formulate conditions of democratic governance or human rights,
makes things much easier for Yanukovych. Moreover, the benefits (lower energy prices)
are immediate. It is still an open question whether Ukraine will be able to resist
the Russian pressure. On May 22, 2013, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum
applying for observer status in the Russia-dominated Customs Union.
^[48]
Ukraine considers association with the EU compatible with a similar relationship
with the Customs Union/Eurasian Union. However, this is not the case for Moscow. The
Kremlin put enormous pressure on Viktor Yanukovych to shelve an Association Agreement
with the EU, which the Ukrainian president planned to sign in Vilnius on November
28, 2013. The Kremlin’s blackmail was successful. Yanukovych refused to sign the agreement—the
result of six years of hard, protracted negotiations—in exchange for the Kremlin’s
offer of a $15 billion loan and a discount in the price of Russian gas. Yanukovych
met with mass protests at home. The protesters were not reassured by his statement
that a Ukrainian membership of the Eurasian Union was not (yet) on the agenda. It
is clear, however, that most European governments, treating the relationship with
Ukraine as a technocratic problem, have massively underestimated the important geopolitical
implications of Ukraine’s choice. However, it is not sure that this is also the case
for Moscow. If Ukraine were to opt for deeper integration into the European Union,
a Georgian scenario could not be excluded, in which the Kremlin could provoke riots
in Eastern Ukraine or the Crimea, where many Russian passport holders live. This would
offer Russia a pretext for intervening in Ukraine in order “to protect its nationals”
and dismember the country. Unfortunately, such a scenario cannot be excluded. It is
a corollary of the five principles of Russian foreign policy, formulated by President
Medvedev on August 31, 2008. The fourth principle he mentioned was “protecting the
lives and dignity of our citizens,
wherever they may be.
”
^[49]
It leaves the door open for military adventures throughout Russia’s “neighborhood.”

In 1992 Brzezinski warned: “The crucial issue here . . . is the future stability and
independence of Ukraine.”
^[50]
In 2012—twenty years later—in his book
Strategic Vision
, Brzezinski repeated this warning, writing: “It cannot be stressed enough that without
Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated,
Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
^[51]
Brzezinski’s warning is, more than ever, still relevant today. It is not without
reason that Polish analysts especially, or analysts of Polish origin, warn about the
dangers of Russia’s new imperialism.
^[52]
Their country was, in the twentieth century (and in the centuries before), the
main victim in Europe of the aggression from the imperialist powers, which dismembered
and occupied the country. When the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski was asked:
“Can you imagine any kind of renewed geopolitical conflict to your west in your lifetime?”
he answered “I have a vivid imagination, but no, I cannot imagine an armed conflict
between us and Germany.”
^[53]
When asked: “Does your imagination extend to the possibility of a future conflict
to the east?” he answered: “Our relations with Russia, like yours [U.S.A.], are pragmatic
but brittle. And unfortunately, after the war between Russia and Georgia, I’m afraid
conflict in Europe is imaginable.”
^[54]
Another East European politician, Czech President Vaclav Havel, expressed the same
concern sixteen years earlier: “I have said it so often: if the West does not stabilize
the East, the East will destabilize the West.”
^[55]
This is a warning that should be taken seriously.