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42

kraine:

Stability and

Instability

JohnJaworsky

Approved for public release;

Distribution Uulistftefd

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A popular Government,

without popular information or the means of

acquiring it,

is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or

perhaps both.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance;

And a people who mean to be their own

Governors,

must arm themselves with the power which

knowledge gives.

JAMES MADISON to W. T. BARRY

August 4, 1822
UKRAINE:

STABILITY AND

INSTABILITY

JOHN JAWORSKY

McNair Paper 42

August 1995

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY

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NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY

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From time to time, INSS publishes McNair Paper monographs to provoke

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Clearedfor public release; distribution unlimited.

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Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-9328

ISSN 1071-7552
Contents

THE ISSUE OF STABILITY 1

1. THE ECONOMY 7

2. SOCIAL STABILITY 13

3. ETHNIC TENSIONS 19

4. CENTRIFUGAL TRENDS 29

5. CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL

STABILITY 37

6. RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS 45

7 THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 55

8. SOME CONCLUSIONS 67

9. DEVELOPMENTS FOR

REGIONAL SECURITY 73

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 87
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UKRAINE:

STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

THE ISSUE OF STABILITY

It is a thankless task to attempt to assess the stability of any country

during a period when even liberal democracies are facing a crisis of

governability.' And the task is made more difficult when one is

dealing with a country like Ukraine that is in the throes of a

prolonged and difficult post-Communist transition. Nevertheless,

an analysis that can shed some light on the complex factors

affecting stability in Ukraine would be a useful, albeit modest, step

forward.

The issue of stability in Soviet successor states has attracted a

great deal of attention in the West because of a continuing

preoccupation with the Soviet legacy and fears that the region will

remain a zone of unrest that may eventually require some form of

significant Western intervention. Following the disintegration of the

Soviet Union, the most immediate concern was the fate of its

nuclear weapons and accompanying production facilities. Ukraine

attracted special attention because of fears that its leaders might

attempt to gain operational control of the large number of nuclear

weapons on its territory in 1991.

That anxiety has now abated, but concerns remain that the

deterioration ofthe physical and human infrastructure of the nuclear

energy industry in Ukraine could lead to more Chernobyl-type

accidents or the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials and

technology. In the meantime, other concerns have arisen, including

the prospect of continued economic decline and the spread of civil

conflicts in Ukraine, either of which could lead to an influx of

refugees into Western Europe or the need for greater Western

involvement in the region. An American National Intelligence
2 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

report (reflecting the views ofthe American intelligence community

and the State Department), the details of which were leaked to the

press at the end ofJanuary 1994, supports this concern, mentioning

that Ukraine was the most likely former Soviet republic to

precipitate a major continentwide crisis.2

Western commentaries frequently refer to a number of actual or

potential threats to Ukraine stability. These include continuing

economic decline, which has led to growing social distress and

great dissatisfaction among the population; an increase in ethnic

tensions and their potential transformation into communal conflict;

centrifugal trends, sometimes linked to ethnic grievances, resulting

in autonomist or separatist movements; weak and discredited

political institutions and widespread political apathy, which could

leave the country open to the rise of authoritarian rulers or outside

interference in its internal affairs; and a growth in tensions between

Ukraine and Russia.3 An examination of the factors influencing

Ukraine's stability should also devote some attention to the

behavior of institutions, such as the military and security forces,

that can play an important role in deterring attempts to destabilize

the situation in Ukraine or can themselves become destabilizing

forces in certain circumstances.

Assessments of the significance of these threats to Ukraine

stability have been hampered because Ukraine remains an

unpredictable terra incognita for most statesmen and scholars, as

well as the public at large, in North America and Western Europe.

Whatever the negative images associated with Russia, this country

and its people traditionally had a prominent profile in the West,

largely because popular treatments of the Soviet Union frequently

equated this state with Russia. This facile equation was broadly

accepted, even if only at a subconscious level, in many political and

academic circles in the West. After the USSR's disintegration, the

great majority of the officials and scholars who had followed

developments in the USSR switched their attention, without much

difficulty, to Russia. Interest in other regions of the former Soviet

Union has grown rapidly in recent years, but the inertia inherent in

traditional Moscow-centered, Russocentric views of developments

in the Soviet Union means that many scholars and analysts have had

great difficulty adjusting to the new post-Soviet circumstances. As

a result, the amount of analytical literature dealing with Ukraine and

other Soviet successor states (with the exception of Russia) is still
THE ISSUE OF STABILITY 3

limited, and the situation in Ukraine has often been viewed through

the prism of developments in Moscow.4In this context Ukraine has

sometimes been viewed as a "problem," complicating the West's

relations with Russia, which in many respects regards itself (and

has, on the whole, been regarded in the West) as the "legitimate"

successor to the Soviet Union.

This is not to deny that there have been good reasons to be

concerned about Ukraine's stability. However, in spite of numerous

predictions of civil war, the country's breakup, the rapid

establishment of Russian hegemony over Ukraine, and other dire

outcomes, to date these scenarios have not materialized. Further,

any discussion of the sources of instability in Ukraine must also

address the reasons for its relative stability to date and the prospects

for the maintenance of this stability.

DEFINING STABILITY

There is no consensus on how best to assess the relative importance

of the factors contributing to the stability or instability of a given

state, and hard evidence about the general mechanisms producing

stability or instability in political systems is limited. In addition,

most of the literature on this topic is comparative and attempts to

address the question of why some political systems are more stable

or unstable than others.5

Even the term stability is ambiguous. At one extreme one can

talk of a certain "minimal" stability—the absence of civil war and

other forms of open armed conflict on a state's territory. If a given

state exists in a very turbulent environment, maintaining this

minimal level of stability is of crucial importance. In the rapidly

changing setting of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), characterized

by widespread violence in Tadzhikistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and

now Russia (Chechnya), the absence of large-scale civil strife

certainly establishes an important "bottom line" of stability.

In, such a turbulent environment stability is often achieved

through means far from democratic, and the need to preserve

domestic stability in a hostile setting is often used as a ready excuse

to maintain dictatorial forms of rule. However, where this minimal

stability has been achieved through inflexible authoritarianism, by

maintaining the old status quo or by addressing serious internal

problems only when they can no longer be safely ignored, it can

quickly and easily break down.
4 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

At the other extreme one could argue that a state is most stable

when the structures that maintain the state and the personnel

occupying these structures are very flexible and capable of quickly

and creatively responding to ever-present internal and external

pressures for change. It is sometimes argued that only powerful and

highly skilled elites can properly manage a society facing such

pressures. However, there is a general consensus that a political

system will be healthier and more stable the more a population as

a whole, and its politically active representatives in particular, are

drawn into a democratic political process and influence this process

through their activity in a wide range of public organizations

independent of government control ("civil society").

Some of the states of the FSU (e.g., Estonia) have shown that

they are capable of rising above the challenge of simply avoiding

civil war. To the surprise of many observers even Ukraine has been

marked by an absence of violent domestic strife. During most of

the post-independence period, however, there were numerous

indications that destabilizing trends were pushing Ukraine toward

a crisis situation, and pessimism concerning Ukraine's future was

widespread both inside and outside Ukraine.

Certainly, at present Ukraine can only aim at a middle ground

between the two poles of stability noted above. It is still far from

effectively satisfying even the basic needs of a large part of its

population, and many structures in Ukraine are fully preoccupied

with simply maintaining the status quo. In fact, in many respects

Ukraine continues to exist in a profound state of disequilibrium.

Thus in 1995 the challenge facing Ukraine's leaders is not to

forge ahead rapidly in creating a model, market-based, liberal

democracy. Rather, the challenge is to combat effectively a number

of destructive forces undermining the basis for a legitimate, lawgoverned, and economically viable state, and to promote a reform

process that would begin to slow and then gradually reverse

Ukraine's socioeconomic decline.

Given the numerous difficulties involved in assessing a

country's stability, no attempt will be made in this paper to engage

in facile predictions about the direction of long-term future

developments in Ukraine. Rather, this is an attempt to assess the

validity of current concerns regarding this country's stability and to

analyze the factors that have influenced and will continue to

influence the domestic political and socioeconomic situation in
THE ISSUE OF STABILITY 5

Ukraine. Special emphasis will be placed on evaluating how the

current reform process may contribute to the country's success or

failure in achieving "mid-range" stability. Some of the strategic

implications of recent developments in Ukraine for regional

security will also be discussed briefly.

In the end, any observations are inevitably based on a

subjective evaluations of a very complex and constantly changing

set of circumstances. They are informed evaluation, however, made

by numerous visits to Ukraine and extensive research on political

and security-related issues in Ukraine.
1.

THE ECONOMY

Although some early analyses of the economic prospects of an

independent Ukraine painted a fairly optimistic picture,6 more

realistic prognoses indicated that the country would find the

transition to a market economy difficult. In 1991 Ukraine's

industrial infrastructure was outdated, energy-intensive, and heavily

polluting; even Ukraine's well-known agricultural potential had

been negatively affected by extensive soil pollution and erosion as

well as an aging rural work force.7In addition, Ukraine was

burdened with a large proportion of the Soviet Union's inefficient

military industrial complex and with the devastating (and costly)

legacy of the Chernobyl nuclear station disaster.8

Thus Ukraine's economy was in poor shape when the country

became an independent state in 1991, but the country's leaders made

a bad situation much worse. In particular, Ukraine's first president,

Leonid Kravchuk, was reluctant to make a clean break with the old

Soviet establishment, made poor use of the expertise of reformminded advisers, tolerated massive corruption at all levels of

government and among his closest advisers, and had little interest

in economic policy. As a result, the deterioration of Ukraine's

economy, which had commenced well before the country gained

independence, greatly accelerated after 1991. All Western and

Ukrainian evaluations agree that this precipitous decline had a

devastating impact on all sectors of the economy and the

population's living standards. For example, wages are so much

higher in Russia that large numbers of Ukrainian citizens now work

there illegally or semilegally, and the conditions in which they work

are often very poor.9 There has also been a significant brain-drain

ofscholars and highly qualified technical personnel from Ukraine.10

Ukraine's economic problems were exacerbated by certain

external factors, such as the impact of rising prices of energy

imports from Russia under its terms of trade. In addition, given the

tremendous challenge of restructuring the hidebound Ukrainian
8 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

economy, a certain economic decline was inevitable no matter what

policies were adopted. However, Ukraine's first post-independence

leaders behaved in an irresponsible fashion and contributed to this

decline by conducting a loose monetary policy until the end of

1993, incurring massive budget deficits, and failing to introduce a

coherent reform program. These and other factors led to a very great

fall in production in almost all sectors of the economy.11

Ukraine's first 2 years of independence were marked by

hyperinflation, limited economic liberalization, large credits to

heavy industry and the agricultural sector, and irrationally

confiscatory taxation. As a result of numerous and often confusing

regulations, especially on foreign trade, many top government

officials quickly took advantage of this situation to enrich

themselves, and the limited privatization carried out primarily

benefitted former state officials.12

The prospects for meaningful economic reform did not improve

significantly until the summer of 1994, with the election of

Ukraine's second president Leonid Kuchma, who made the

improvement of the economy his top priority. After quickly

initiating an anticrime and anticorruption campaign, he assembled

a number of young reform economists, and three members of this

group were added to the government: First Deputy Prime Minister

Viktor Pynzenyk, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Mitiukov, and

Minister of Privatization Yurii Yekhanurov. In conjunction with the

incumbent Minister of Economy Roman Shpek and Viktor

Yushchenko, the chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, they

comprised a powerful reform team.

President Kuchma presented his economic reform plan to the

Ukrainian parliament in October 1994. It entailed a rapid transition

to a market economy, and included the liberalization of all prices

with the exception of natural monopolies, deregulation of domestic

trade, a significant liberalization of foreign trade, significant tax

reform with sharp tax reductions, mass privatization, and private

ownership ofland. Shortly afterward, Ukraine's parliament voted in

favor ofthe reform program. Although most of the large number of

left-leaning legislators disagreed with many elements of this

program, they generally lent it their support because no viable

alternative existed.

In September 1994, Ukraine's representatives and the

International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached an agreement at staff
THE ECONOMY 9

level on a Systematic Transformation Facility (STF), and in late

October ofthat year the agreement was aproved by the IMF board.

Ukraine committed itselfto unifying the exchange rate, doing away

with import subsidies, raising or liberalizing key prices (notably of

food, energy, and communal services), and liberalizing exports.

Ukraine's representatives also promised to reduce the country's

budget deficit for 1994 to 10.3 percent of GDP.

Implementation of these reform measures has taken place

roughly as promised. By March 1995 the exchange rate had

essentially been unified and all import subsidies abolished. Prices,

domestic trade, and foreign trade are at least formally liberalized,

and energy prices for enterprises have been allowed to reach world

levels. The only significant subsidies are for rent, household energy,

and collective transport, and from January 1995 export quotas and

licenses have been limited to four commodity groups, scrap metals,

and grain.13

There has also been considerable success in obtaining

international financing to support reform plans. In the fourth quarter

of 1994, the IMF took the lead to raise a total of $1 billion to

finance Ukraine's balance-of-payments deficit from the beginning

ofthe STF program, although only approximately two-thirds of the

financing materialized. The IMF and Ukraine then negotiated a fullfledged standby program, which was to lead to the full stabilization

of Ukraine's currency. The key feature of this program was a

predicted 1995 budget deficit of approximately 5 percent of GDP;

it foresaw the abolition of virtually all government subsidies,

including those to agriculture and coal.

This austere program came under considerable criticism in the

Ukrainian parliament but it gave its final approval to the 1995

budget in April 1995, thus meeting a vital precondition for a $1.8

billion IMF credit. This will help a great deal to satisfy Ukraine's

gross 1995 financing needs, which totalled approximately $6

billion, according to Anders Aslund, the senior Western economic

adviser to President Leonid Kravchuk. Most of the remaining

financing needs are being met by contributions from the World

Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

and by a rescheduling of debts by Turkmenistan and Russia.

It is not clear whether Ukraine will receive all the financing aid

promised, and the debt rescheduling agreement with Russia can

always be held hostage to a deterioration in Russian-Ukrainian
10 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

relations. Nonetheless, representatives of institutions such as the

IMF and World Bank have shown great confidence in the ability of

Ukraine's economic reform team to hold to its current program, and

Ukraine has now received most of the support it needs to press

ahead with its reform program. In addition, in early April 1995

Ukraine's parliament accepted the resignation of Prime Minister

Vitalii Masol, who had been appointed by former President Leonid

Kravchuk, and passed a no-confidence vote in the government he

had headed. President Kuchma now has greater freedom to appoint

a strong team of reformist ministers to a new Cabinet of Ministers.

These recent positive developments by no means guarantee the

success of President Kuchma's reform program. In particular, in

April 1995 it was still not clear whether President Kuchma would

receive the additional executive powers he needs to fully implement

his plans. Even ifthese powers are granted, a great deal will depend

on public reactions to the additional hardships (e.g., large-scale

unemployment) that will accompany the new austerity regime being

imposed on Ukraine, and on whether social peace can be maintained

during the next phase of the country's transition to a market-type

economy. In addition, although few corruption scandals have

affected the reputation of President Kuchma's reform team, only a

modest beginning has been made to deal with the massive network

of corrupt activities that has been a major drain on Ukraine's

economy and has greatly demoralized society at large.

Last, the rapid implementation of economic reforms will require

at least the grudging cooperation of regional elites and midlevel

bureaucrats throughout Ukraine. Reform-minded elites are quite

strong in some regions of Ukraine, including, paradoxically, some

of the industrial centers of eastern Ukraine.14 However, in other

regions and in Ukraine's rural areas, where most of the population

is still employed on old-style collective farms, strong resistance to

reforms can be expected.

Some setbacks will be inevitable. From the beginning of his

term in office, however, President Kuchma, in contrast to his

predecessor, has made the revival of Ukrainian economy his top

priority, and he has not wavered from the reform platform initially

enunciated in October 1994.15This priority has even been reflected

in the activities of Ukraine's diplomatic service, which has

reoriented its activities to focus much more attention on trade

promotion and attracting foreign investment in the Ukrainian
THE ECONOMY 11

economy.16 Thus the reform team now guiding Ukraine's economic

development is doing a great deal to create the conditions that will

allow for a gradual revival of Ukraine's economy.
2.

SOCIAL STABILITY

Ukrainian society has gone through a very difficult and traumatic

period since 1991, a period first characterized by euphoria and now

marked by apathy and cynicism. As a result of the economic decline

and associated problems noted above, social tensions continue to

rise and the potential for societal conflict is high.

In the last 4 years Ukraine has begun a number of important and

dramatic transitions:

• From a "colony" of the Soviet "empire" to an independent

state

• From authoritarianism to liberal democracy

• From a semi-militarized command economy to a markettype economy.

In the process, the old Soviet "social contract"—where die ruling

elites provided the population with a modest but stable standard of

living and a guaranteed minimal level of social services—has been

abandoned without being replaced by a new social contract.

At the same time, old ideals of egalitarianism, social justice,

and consensus are being replaced by a new value system

emphasizing the virtues of social differentiation and stressing the

principle of survival of the fittest. One of the greatest challenges

facing President Kuchma's administration, then, is the formulation

of a new social contract which will accommodate the values of

economic effectiveness, social justice, and political democracy in

a fashion acceptable to an increasingly cynical and alienated

electorate.

One important precondition for the introduction of a new social

contract is already in place. Survey data show that when asked to

define the most important challenges facing Ukrainian society,

respondents most frequently choose the option "the preservation of

social stability." The percentage of respondents choosing this

option rose significantly between 1992 and 1993 (from 44 to 55

13
14 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

percent), and it was chosen more frequently than options such as

"the creation of a strong state," "the implementation of profound

socioeconomic reforms," "the development of market relations,"

and "the development of democracy." Maintaining social stability

was thus clearly a priority value for a large part of Ukraine's

population during this period in spite of the disruptive social

changes they had endured. When protest actions were contemplated,

a strong preference was given to protests that remained within the

framework of the law.17

In the immediate post-independence period Ukraine's postCommunist elites often took advantage ofthis great desire for social

stability by arguing that any significant changes to the status quo

would threaten social peace. However, the resulting failure to

introduce meaningful reforms led to the deepening socioeconomic

crisis described above, and greatly increased the chance that a large

sector ofsociety would reconsider the priority value they placed on

social stability in the past.

The extent of the challenge faced by President Kuchma's

administration should not be underestimated. A survey conducted

in May 1994 showed that by far the most important motive that

would impel residents of Ukraine's capital Kiev to engage in protest

actions would be a further decrease in the standard of living of their

families. The great majority of residents of Kiev have considerable

difficulty making ends meet; other surveys have confirmed that

concerns over continuously declining living standards, which have

affected a majority ofthe population, have clearly assumed priority

over other concerns. It is interesting to note that half of Kiev's

residents manage to get by largely because they grow many of the

food products they use on small plots of land or get such products

from relatives who live in villages.18

One positive aspect ofthis economic crisis is that many people

have been forced to look for alternative sources of income, and in

the process have become less dependent on the state. However,

most working adults either lack the opportunity to gain additional

income or lack the time and energy to take advantage of such

opportunities. In addition, although most of Ukraine's population

still prefers to use legitimate means of expressing their social

grievances, a majority of Kiev residents are convinced that protest

actions will have no positive results. In order to prevent a further

deterioration oftheir standard of living, therefore, in May 1994 one
THE ECONOMY 15

quarter of Kiev's residents were ready to engage in illegal or

semilegal activities, a reflection of a substantial degree of moral

alienation and contempt for the law.19

The likelihood of social conflict has also increased as a result

of growing social differentiation and a resulting polarization

between a small wealthy elite and an increasing majority of the

population who live in poverty or are close to the poverty line. Only

a small category of individuals can be said to belong to the middle

class, which is usually seen as a guarantor of stability in society. By

the end of 1994 the impoverishment of the greater part of the

population of Ukraine had reached a critical level, and the main

reason mass protests did not occur was probably the lack of serious

and respected leaders and organizations who could channel and

benefit from such protests.20

This growing social differentiation in Ukraine will impede the

mobilization of broad public support for economic reforms, for

there is a widespread conviction that the reform process has allowed

those who are wealthy to enrich themselves by dishonest means.

According to one survey, 40 percent ofrespondents were convinced

that one could become wealthy only by robbing state property. Only

24 percent indicated that commercial skills and only 4 percent

indicated that talent and hard work could lead to wealth.21

The prospects for mobilizing the population to support

socioeconomic reforms are also limited because of the extent to

which fears among the public dominate over hopes. This has

resulted in a despondent, frustrated, and largely inert population

that feels it has little influence on the situation unfolding around it.

Social frustration and disorientation have been exacerbated by

widespread fears that prices will continue to rise, and by the

growing conviction that the growth of criminal activities will allow

organized crime to increase its control over the country. When

combined with a loss of faith in the state and its ability to

administer the country, this creates favorable circumstances for the

emergence of populist demagogues.22

In fact, it is surprising that Ukraine's population has shown such

a high degree of patience in the face of recent adversity. There is no

fully satisfactory explanation for the widespread aversion in

Ukraine to violent protest as a means of expressing socioeconomic

and political grievances. Some commentators rather

impressionistically refer to a "traditional Ukrainian habit ofsettling
16 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

issues peacefully."23 More significantly, however, one should note

that because ofits exposed and strategically significant location, as

well as its rich resources, during both World Wars Ukraine was the

scene of very fierce combat, accompanied by great physical

destruction and human losses. Its population suffered a

disproportionately large percentage of the casualties incurred by

tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union during these conflicts. In

addition, Ukraine's large and relatively prosperous rural population

was heavily victimized during Stalin's drive to collectivize

agriculture in the 1930s. The cumulative impact of these events

appears to have encouraged a certain conservatism among Ukraine's

population, and emphasis on maintaining the status quo. This is

based on the (largely correct) perception that in this century rapid

socioeconomic and political change has been accompanied by

massive devastation and loss of human life. Perhaps this is why

there is a widespread unwillingness in Ukraine, especially among

its older citizens, to support political strategies which could lead to

physical conflict.

There is, of course, a limit to the patience shown by the

Ukrainian population in the last few years; this has been reflected,

for example, in various strikes and other protests called by trade

unions protesting deteriorating living standards. (The labor

movement in Ukraine, however, lacks strong, dynamic leaders and

has splintered into numerous trade unions that often compete with

each other. At present labor movement activities do not appear to

pose a threat to state stability.24)

In general, in recent years socioeconomic discontent has not

been channeled into mass protests and violence; rather, it has been

internalized and reflected in the growth of various social

pathologies such as alcoholism, absenteeism and shoddy work

performance, and breakdown of the family unit. Some of these

phenomena are particularly widespread among youth, who are faced

with very high levels of unemployment after completing their

education.25

Ukraine's socioeconomic difficulties have not provoked mass

protests threatening the stability of the state, but they have led to

increasing alienation, demoralization and political apathy among a

large part of the population and among members of the younger

generation in particular. Even if the economic situation in Ukraine

soon begins to improve, it will be a considerable period of time
THE ECONOMY 17

before the impact ofthese negative phenomena can be reversed. In

the meantime, many of Ukraine's most talented scholars, scientists,

and graduate students, unhappy with their prospects in the country,

have emigrated or are considering emigration.
3.

ETHNIC TENSIONS

Since 1991 many Western commentaries have stressed the potential

for interethnic conflict and violence throughout the former USSR,

including Ukraine. A certain preoccupation with such a prospect is

understandable in light of the spread of communal conflicts in the

Caucasus region and growing tensions among ethnic communities

in some other parts of the former USSR.

The ethnodemographic profiles of the USSR's successor states

vary a great deal, however, and in each of these states relations

among its ethnic groups have been shaped by a distinctive and

complicated set of historical and socioeconomic factors. General

commentaries stressing the potential for interethnic tensions and

violent conflicts throughout the Soviet Union's successor states are

therefore rarely enlightening and often obscure, and sometimes

mislead rather than inform.

The painful legacy of Soviet nationality policy in Ukraine

includes a lengthy and brutal effort to eliminate the Ukrainian

nationalist movement in Western Ukraine during and after World

War Ü, and the deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population

to Central Asia in 1944.26 More recently, in the 1970s and early

1980s a number of national rights activists in Ukraine were

sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment for peacefully

defending the rights of their language and culture.27 Given this

legacy it is not surprising that resentments concerning past

mistreatment remain strong and some interethnic tensions are

apparent in Ukraine. What is surprising is that these tensions have

not, with some exceptions, been translated into widespread violent

conflict.

Ukraine, like other Soviet successor states, has faced a difficult

challenge in formulating and implementing new language policies

and finding the right balance between its citizens' individual rights

and the group rights of ethnic minorities as well as members ofthe

19
20 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

state's titular ethnic group. In particular, some Ukrainian activists

have argued that ethnic Ukrainians were the victims of centralized

discriminatory policies in the past and their cultural interests were

seriously neglected. They feel that the present government of

Ukraine is fully justified in introducing "Ukrainization"

measures—a form of "affirmative action"—to help compensate for

the negative impact ofthis discrimination. Some of the complaints

voiced by these activists are justified; however, they are often

insensitive to the fact that attempts to introduce rapid changes in

cultural/linguistic policies and practices run the risk of alienating

the sizable non-Ukrainian populations in Ukraine as well as many

Russified Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian government's treatment of its ethnic minorities

is important for two reasons. First, interethnic conflicts could play

a major role in destabilizing the Ukrainian state and increasing

interstate tensions in the region, especially if neighboring states

were to intervene on behalf of fellow countrymen. Second,

government policies toward minorities reflect the political elites'

level of tolerance of pluralism and their commitment to liberaldemocratic principles. Further, one of the criteria by which all of

the USSR's successor states are being judged by the world

community is treatment of minority ethnic groups.

Prior to Ukraine's independence, the future of the country's

minorities drew considerable attention as Western scholars,

politicians, and journalists warned of the possible negative

consequences of a rise in Ukrainian nationalism and of the

problems national minorities might face in a new Ukrainian state.

As President George Bush said during an address to the Ukrainian

parliament in August 1991:

As Lord Acton observed, "The most certain test by which we

judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security

enjoyed by minorities." Freedom requires tolerance. . . .Yet

freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not

support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off

tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who

promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.28

In contrast, many leading Ukrainian politicians have not only

proudly noted the virtual absence of open ethnic conflict in

Ukraine, but have sometimes even foolishly claimed that the
ETHNIC TENSIONS 21

preconditions for such conflicts do not exist in their country.29

Ukraine's first president, Leonid Kravchuk, and many of his

colleagues frequently emphasized that the results of the 1991

referendum on independence showed that the great majority of nonUkrainians in Ukraine strongly supported the country's sovereignty.

Broad and facile generalizations motivated by political

considerations can be easily dismissed, but Ukraine was, in fact,

remarkably free of ethnic conflict both during and after the

independence referendum in December 1991, and the positive state

of interethnic relations in Ukraine has been noted in a variety of

Western sources. For example, a report by the Economist

Intelligence Unit summarizing developments in the CIS in the last

quarter of 1992 concluded, "More than one year after independence

Ukraine remains a model of inter-ethnic accord in spite of a very

large Russian minority on its territory."30 In addition, a report

prepared by the United States Congress' Commission on Security

and Cooperation in Europe states:

Ukraine's treatment of its minorities has been encouraging, and

Ukraine, unlike many other former Soviet republics, has been

largely untouched by ethnic conflict. To date, inter-ethnic stability

has been maintained.31

One could try to explain the absence of open ethnic conflict in

Ukraine, especially between the majority Ukrainian population and

the large Russian minority, by stressing, in the tradition of standard

Soviet (and Russian) historiography, the supposedly "special"

historical relationship between the two peoples, which led to their

intermingling in Ukraine, and a cultural "rapprochement," which

resulted in the Russification of significant numbers of Ukrainians.

One could also search the historical record for "evidence" that

members of the majority Ukrainian ethnic group are blessed with

special virtues of tolerance and understanding. However, both

approaches are based on a selective and idiosyncratic use of

evidence which inevitably yields the results desired by the

researcher.

More methodologically rigorous approaches to the study of

ethnic group relations usually attempt to uncover the causal

conditions or factors that have given rise to the political activity (or

passivity) of various ethnic groups. Such approaches are frequently
22 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

very abstract and implicitly or explicitly rely on the concept of

relative deprivation, which emphasizes the role of ethnic groups as

instruments of economic interests. These approaches usually deny

ethnic institutions and their leaders any meaningful autonomy in the

political process and downgrade the role of politics and policy in

general.

However, in a situation where ethnic tensions have not yet been

transformed into open conflict, political action or inaction can play

a very important role in shaping the environment of interethnic

relations. By focussing on the way in which crucial elites in

Ukraine have attempted to shape or influence interethnic relations,

one can achieve more balanced explanations of ethnic political

behavior than those provided by the causal approaches noted above.

The situation of Ukraine's ethnic minorities is greatly

influenced by the fact that it is a "new" state on the European stage,

with limited experience of independent statehood in the 20th

century. In many respects, Ukraine's "youth" has hampered its

emergence onto the international stage. However, it also means that

Ukraine has greater freedom than many of its neighbors to mold a

distinctive nationality policy, for it is not overly weighed down by

traditions of statehood that, in the East European context, usually

implied legitimization of the state through a heavy reliance on

ethnic nationalism.

More than in the case of most other states in the region, the

success ofUkraine's nationality policy has depended on the specific

fashion in which it is designed, rationalized, and implemented. The

emphasis here will be on some of the political factors that have led

to ethnopolitical stability in Ukraine.

The most obvious factor helping to preserve interethnic calm in

Ukraine is a consistent government policy, with strong support in

the Ukrainian parliament, of reassuring ethnic minorities

concerning their legal status and cultural freedom in Ukraine. In

July 1990, in the Ukrainian parliament's Declaration on the State

Sovereignty of Ukraine, a firm commitment was made to respect the

national rights of all the peoples of Ukraine, and the section on

citizenship guaranteed equality before the law to all citizens of

Ukraine regardless of their ancestry and racial or national identity.

In its provisions on cultural development the declaration asserted,

"The Ukrainian SSR... guarantees to all nationalities living on the
ETHNIC TENSIONS 23

territory of the republic the right to free national and cultural

development."32

This was followed by the establishment in July 1991 of a

Committee of Nationalities, attached to the Ukrainian Council of

Ministers, which was to monitor the implementation of laws on

minority issues and help fulfill the social and cultural needs of

Ukraine's national minorities. In November 1991 the Ukrainian

parliament unanimously adopted a declaration guaranteeing all

citizens equal political, economic, social, and cultural rights; in

June 1992, a legislative base for Ukraine's minority policy was

established when the Ukrainian Supreme Council adopted the law

"On National Minorities in Ukraine." All major political parties in

Ukraine supported this legislation, which states that the languages

of ethnic groups residing compactly in particular territories will

have coequal status with Ukrainian.33 In addition, Ukraine's draft

constitution contains numerous provisions guaranteeing the rights

of minorities in Ukraine.34

In April 1993, Ukraine's President Kravchuk issued a decree on

the creation of anew Ministry on Nationality Affairs and Migration

on the basis ofthe above-mentioned Committee of Nationalities. To

head this ministry Kravchuk appointed a well-respected jurist,

Oleksandr Iemets', who had earlier served as Kravchuk's senior

advisor on legal-political affairs.35 His successor, Mykola Shul'ha,

appointed in September 1994, is a well-known specialist in the field

of interethnic relations.36

On a more symbolic but equally significant level, both Ukraine

presidents and many other senior politicians have repeatedly

denounced all forms of xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism in

Ukraine and have consistently spoken out in favor of a state based

on the principle of equal citizenship for all, regardless of ethnic

background. To date there has been little evidence of the

widespread use of an "ethnic key" in appointments to senior

government positions. The appointment of Ivan Dziuba in

November 1992 as Ukraine's first Minister of Culture was also a

positive step, for Dziuba had been a prominent and consistent

supporter of extensive rights for national minorities and a

determined opponent of all forms of ethnic intolerance.37

One can put forward several reasons for the liberal nationality

policy adopted in Ukraine. Ukraine's senior politicians may be truly

committed to the ideals of ethnic pluralism, although a more cynical
24 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

perspective would hold that they have found it quite easy to adapt

the old and tattered Soviet slogans of "the friendship of peoples"

and "socialist internationalism" to present-day circumstances.

On a more pragmatic level, the most important factor

influencing the direction of Ukraine's nationality policy has been

the presence on its territory of a large and potentially restive

Russian minority that is heavily concentrated in several oblasti in

the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. The only ablast' in

which Russians formed a demographic majority (67 percent) of the

population in 1989 was the Crimean oblasf. However, prior to

Ukraine's independence the Russian minority was, in many respects,

a "psychological" majority throughout most of Ukraine (the

exception was Ukraine's western oblasti) because of tsarist and

Soviet policies that provided the Russian population in Ukraine

with a full range ofRussian-language facilities to satisfy its cultural

and educational needs.

At the same time, the spheres in which the Ukrainian language

was used were gradually narrowed, and it was implicitly treated as

a rural, "peasant" language. Over time this image of the "inferior"

nature of the Ukrainian language and culture was internalized by

many ethnic Ukrainians, especially in the eastern and southern

regions, and the resulting inferiority complex has not been easy to

overcome in those regions where Ukrainian was eliminated from

l 38 most spheres of public use or, in fact, never penetrated.

As a result, in 1989,59.5 percent ofUkrainians in Ukraine were

fluent in Russian and approximately 12.3 percent considered

Russian their native language, whereas only 1.6 percent of Russians

in Ukraine considered Ukrainian their native language, and only

32.8 percent were fluent in Ukrainian. In addition, over time

Russian had become the dominant language of government

bureaucracy in Ukraine, with the partial exception of western

Ukraine.39 In many respects Ukraine's tolerant nationality policy

would simply represent a pragmatic accommodation with

demographic and linguistic reality, the reality being there are many

ethnic Ukrainians who would have difficulty accepting, or adapting

to, a harsh and rapid policy of "Ukrainization."

However, Ukraine's nationality policy was also greatly

influenced by the principled stance adopted by Ukraine's major

political parties and organizations, which quickly reached a

consensus in 1990-91 on the need to guarantee the rights of all
ETHNIC TENSIONS 25

ethnic groups in Ukraine. Of particular importance was the early

position taken by Rukh, the Ukrainian popular front movement that

initially served as an umbrella organization for the emerging

national-democratic parties of Ukraine and played a crucial role in

the campaign for Ukraine's independence. Rukh's policies on this

issue reflected the liberal-humanistic traditions shared by many

members of the literary-cultural intelligentsia, and one of the

keynote speakers during Rukh's constituent congress was Ivan

Dziuba, a former dissident and the well-known author of

Internationalism and Russificationl Over the years he had strongly

opposed all expressions of intolerance and xenophobia in the

Ukrainian national movement and his speech, as well as the

speeches ofseveral other speakers at the congress, strongly stressed

the importance of good relations among Ukraine's ethnic groups.40

In addition, over time many ofthe leadership positions in Rukh,

and in some of the political parties that began to spring up in

Ukraine in 1990-91, were assumed by individuals who had been

harshly persecuted by the Soviet security apparatus during the

1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.41 A politician's credentials as a former

dissident or political prisoner did not necessarily testify to his/her

moral qualities, tolerance, and political judgment. However, most

of the former dissidents who have been active in political life in

Ukraine at the national level have supported ethnic minority rights

even though they had been harassed (and often imprisoned) by the

Soviet authorities primarily because of their supposed "nationalist"

activities.

Given their strong commitment to the development of the

Ukrainian language and culture, and the principle of national selfdetermination, one might have expected these former dissidents to

be somewhat ambivalent concerning ethnic minority rights.

However, the most prominent members of the national rights

movement in Ukraine had based their activities on liberaldemocratic principles that were not abandoned when they were

arrested and imprisoned. In addition, in the camps where they were

detained the attempts by camp authorities to set dissidents of

different ethnic backgrounds off against each other were so crude

that they actually had the opposite effect and led to their

cooperation against the common enemy—the camp administration.

This discussion has focussed on only one of the many factors

that helped to shape Ukraine's nationality policy, and it was by no
26 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

means decisive. Still, one should not underestimate the impact of

the stand taken by these former political prisoners on public opinion

and public sentiments, especially during the period just prior to

Ukraine's declaration of independence. Strongly influenced by the

Soviet propaganda machine that had consistently portrayed the

national rights activists as xenophobic chauvinists, most residents

ofUkraine expected that they would live up to this reputation, being

embittered by the repression they suffered.

In the early phase of Ukraine's independence, therefore, an

important role was played by official statements and policies

concerning minority groups and interethnic relations, and by former

dissidents, who channeled their activities into Rukh and eventually

into a variety of different political parties. In effect, at a crucial

stage in the state-building process, a sociopolitical climate was

created that made the expression of xenophobic views (such as the

slogan "Ukraine for Ukrainians") unpopular and hampered the

growth of extremist organizations. When a sample of Ukrainian

citizens was asked in 1993 to rank their fears for the future, only 18

percent of the respondents indicated they feared the outbreak of

interethnic conflicts, a decrease in 6 percent from the previous year.

Higher rankings were given to the growth of crime, rapid increases

in prices, hunger, unemployment, and the consequences of the

Chernobyl disaster.42

Some grounds for concern in the area of interethnic relations

remain. The advocates of extremist forms of Ukrainian nationalism,

based primarily in Western Ukraine, still remain a marginal force in

Ukrainian politics. However, these extremists have had some

modest success in strengthening and broadening their base of public

support; if it continues to grow, their promotion of xenophobic

views could eventually pose at least a modest threat to interethnic

harmony.43

Kiev's ability to implement a consistent and effective

nationality policy has also been greatly hindered by the critical

socioeconomic situation in Ukraine. Thus limited resources have

made it difficult to provide even minimal funding to satisfy the

needs of ethnic minorities. In addition, the poor state of Ukraine's

legal infrastructure has made it difficult to counter the activity of

extremist groups and prosecute cases of discrimination on the basis

of ethnic background.
ETHNIC TENSIONS 27

Most significantly, however, Ukraine's leaders are still faced

with the challenge of finding the proper "formula" for the

development of a distinctive, overarching national identity to unify

the various ethnic groups and regions of Ukraine. Given the large

Russian minority in eastern and southern Ukraine and the low

prestige value of Ukrainian language and culture in these regions,

as well as the significant number of Ukrainians who are

linguistically and culturally Russified, any attempt to foster a

national identity based on the Ukrainian ethnic identity would

greatly exacerbate the ethnic cleavages in Ukrainian society.

Interethnic harmony would be seriously threatened if

"Ukrainization" policies were implemented in a rapid and

injudicious fashion, by crude administrative measures. However,

the current minister responsible for nationality affairs, like his

predecessor, has spoken out strongly against the use of such

measures, and the Kuchma administration has been cautious in its

statements concerning language issues. President Kuchma himself

has generated some creative ambiguity on this issue by advocating

that Russian, together with Ukrainian, be considered official

languages, at the same time underlining that Ukrainian will be the

country's sole state language. He has been careful, however, not to

clearly delineate the difference in status between an official and

state language.

President Kuchma has intentionally stressed the need for

nonethnic sources of identity to help unify the population and

regions ofUkraine, and at the end of his state of the nation address

in April 1995 he suggested that the economic rebirth of Ukraine

represent an appropriate unifying idea for the entire population.44

However, even if the current reform process underway in Ukraine

yields rapid results, economic success alone cannot provide the

emotive basis for a full-fledged national identity.

There is a tendency in some political circles in Ukraine to

encourage the development of a national identity that, if not based

on Ukrainian ethnic identity, will be at least partly based on an antiRussian animus. Persistent attempts by Russia's leaders to intervene

in the affairs of neighboring countries have greatly contributed to

the maintenance of anti-Russian sentiments in some sectors of

Ukrainian society. However, it would be dangerous if these

sentiments were to play a very significant role in shaping the

Ukrainian identity, as this could easily alienate a large part of
28 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

Ukraine's population of Russian background and isolate Ukraine

from a neighbor on which it is still dependent for most of its fossile

fuel supplies and raw materials.

Given his background, President Kuchma is in an excellent

position to promote the idea of a Ukrainian political identity not

based on anti-Russian sentiments, and to encourage a shift from an

ethnic-linguistic to a civic idea of the Ukrainian nation that would

successfully integrate all those living in Ukraine, no matter what

their ethnic background. All Ukraine's senior politicians continue

to demonstrate a strong and consistent commitment to maintaining

ethnic peace in Ukraine, and with the exception of Crimea there is

no evidence that interethnic conflict could emerge as a major threat

to Ukraine's stability in the near future.
4.

CENTRIFUGAL TRENDS

CRIMEA

Centrifugal forces are present in several regions of Ukraine,

although the situation in Crimea is by far the most dramatic and has

attracted the most attention in the West. For most of the postindependence period, a major failing of the country's national

security system was a consistent misreading of the political and

socioeconomic situation in Crimea and other regions of Ukraine,

which in turn promoted a growing inability to exert a significant

influence on developments in the country's periphery. A cause of

this misreading may have been deficiences in Kiev's informationgathering capabilities. Kiev did little to ensure that it regularly

received reliable and timely information about the state of affairs in

Crimea.45 When the appropriate information did become available,

Kiev lacked a coherent regional policy framework within which the

information could be analyzed.

In the first few months of President Kuchma's administration,

Kiev continued to lose control over its remaining levers of influence

in Crimea. In particular, the central authorities initially did little to

take advantage of the favorable play of forces that emerged when

both Crimean President Meshkov and the Crimean parliament

succeeded in largely discrediting themselves during the fall of

1994. There seemed a general lack of will in Kiev to face up to

harsh realities, make difficult decisions, and devise and implement

consistent policies concerning the country's regions. As a result,

inertia or ad hoc policymaking prevailed in the capital, and with

some exceptions the old Soviet-era administrative elites in the

regions were accommodated, probably in the hope they best

understood and could therefore best control developments in the

regions on Kiev's behalf. The best example of this accommodation

was President Kravchuk's consistent support for Mykola Bahrov,

the former first secretary of the Crimean branch of the CPSU and

29
30 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

one of Kravchuk's old colleagues.46 Given the great shortage of

experienced administrators who could act as alternatives to the local

power bosses, rapid changes in the composition of the latter were

not feasible, but President Kravchuk's administration did little to

encourage the emergence of new, reform-minded elites in the

regions. , . .,

Ukraine's central authorities were also slow to devise other

means of influencing die situation in Crimea, to include ensuring

that Crimea's population had access to various points ot view

concerning current and future developments in the peninsula and

Ukraine as a whole. There were also few efforts to support the

development of high-quality independent media outlets in Ukraine

and improve the professional standards of state radio and television

broadcasts47 The situation and quality of the media are far from

satisfactory anywhere in Ukraine,48 and the inhabitants of Crimea

are particularly lacking in die diversity of information necessary for

them to make decisions in Üieir own best interests. The peninsula is

almost totally dominated by local media and broadcasts and

periodicals from Russia that almost always portray Kiev s policies

in a highly negative and tendentious fashion.

Kiev's inability to effectively predict, analyze, and influence

developments in Crimea is symptomatic of other significant

weaknesses of the Ukrainian state. Thus Üiere was a considerable

danger in early 1995 that the emergence of a vacuum of power in

Crimea could lead to a further destabilization of the situation in this

region. For example, die predominantly pro-Russian senior officers

of die Black Sea Fleet, who had increasingly linked die fate ot Üiat

fleet to diat of Sevastopol' and Crimea as a whole, could have taken

advantage of this situation to increase their leverage on the local

political scene.

Russia's representatives are well aware of these weaknesses

(e g Ukraine's indebtedness to Russia, largely the result of a heavy

reliance on Russian fossil fuels) and have readily taken advantage

of them to push for major concessions from their Ukrainian

negotiating partners. However, even moderate concessions will

leave the Russian military and its political masters in a strong

position in Crimea. They will possess an excellent opportunity to

continue influencing local political developments and, if necessary,

quickly project force throughout the Black Sea region, especially

Sie south of Ukraine. Kiev's decision in March 1995 to abolish
CENTRIFUGAL TRENDS 31

the post of President of Crimea and to annul the Crimean

constitution as well as a number of Crimean laws that do not

correspond to Ukrainian laws, represents the most decisive action

to date taken by Kiev to control the situation in Crimea.50 Although

the Presidium of the Crimean legislature and many of its deputies

have protested Kiev's moves there have been no mass protests in

Crimea, and a substantial minority of the peninsula's legislators

have even supported Kiev's actions.51 However, although President

Kuchma has indicated that Crimea will be allowed to maintain its

autonomy, it still appears that Kiev has no coherent strategy to deal

with Crimea's anomalous status in Ukraine and centrifugal trends in

other regions of the country.

REGIONAL POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Ukraine's weaknesses have also affected its ability to respond to

challenges in other restive regions of the country, giving rise to

concerns that centrifugal trends could eventually result in domestic

conflict, foreign intervention, and ultimately Ukraine's

disintegration. The situation in Crimea is only symptomatic of the

broader problems Ukraine faces in formulating a consistent and

coherent regional policy.52

Discussions ofregional issues in Ukraine are frequently placed

in the context of a debate on the virtues or drawbacks of introducing

federalism in Ukraine. However, on the whole this debate has been

marked more by emotions and sloganeering, as well as considerable

ignorance of the comparative experience of federal states, than by

a sober analysis of the pros and cons of federalism for Ukraine.

In particular, it has become popular among representatives of

national-democratic and nationalist parties in Ukraine, to

"demonize" the possible introduction of a federal system in Ukraine

as inevitably leading to the strengthening of separatist movements

in several of its regions. For example, a civic organization called

"Mutual Understanding," recently launched by former President of

Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, set as one of its goals

Consolidating the Ukrainian people and reaching a mutual

understanding among the patriotic forces of society in the struggle

against separatism, federalism, linguistic and cultural divisions,

and in support of the unity and territorial integrity of our

country.53
32 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

However, many of the arguments against a federal system for

Ukraine are based on rather flimsy logic. When pressed to explain

the reasoning behind the apocalyptic scenario noted above, the

opponents of a federal system for Ukraine frequently mention the

worrisome precedent of the recent demise of federal states such as

the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. However, these were

hardly typical federal political systems. For example, the literature

on comparative federalism usually treats the USSR as a prime

example of an authoritarian state that was only nominally federal

and was actually more centralized than many unitary states.54

On a more emotional level, Ukrainian critics of federalism often

try to discredit the idea by pointing out that a number of politicians

in Russia have praised the virtues of introducing federal systems in

Ukraine and other Soviet successor states. These politicians are

perceived to have a hidden agenda, encouraging federalism in order

to ensure weak neighbours that could readily be dominated by

Russia or eventually be incorporated, in whole or in part, into a

reborn Russian state or empire.55 Ukrainian critics of federalism

also frequently consider regional elites to be potentially disloyal,

harbouring ambitions of re-uniting their regions with the Russian

"elder brother" or other neighboring states.56

There is some validity to these claims. For example, Russian

officials negotiating the withdrawal of the 14th Army from the

"Dniestr Republic" in Moldova strongly supported a federalization

of Moldova that would provide Transnistria with considerable

autonomy and the right to seek independence in the case of

Moldovan integration with Romania.57 However, devoting too

much attention to such external pressures clearly detracts from a

sensible discussion of the merits and drawbacks of federalism and

actually precludes consideration of the ways in which the

introduction of federal structures can actually undercut the

development of separatist movements. Instead one usually

encounters a reflexive "fear of federalism" based largely on the

conviction that Ukraine, as a weak state with numerous internal

problems, simply cannot afford the luxury of undertaking major

administrative-territorial reforms that might contribute to the

country's destabilization.

The drastic deterioration of Ukraine's economy since

independence has created a highly unfavorable setting for serious

consideration of federal or other proposals for major territorial-
CENTRIFUGAL TRENDS 33

administrative reforms. It is therefore understandable that after

President Kuchma was elected in 1994, he and his associates

focussed their attention on the crucial priority of promoting

socioeconomic reforms. However, sooner or later the question of

territorial-administrative reform will re-emerge, since Ukraine's

present structure is a rather artificial legacy of the Soviet past.

In addition, the anomaly of an autonomous Crimea within an

otherwise united Ukrainian state will continue to pose major

problems for Ukraine unless an attempt is made to "regularize"

Crimea's status. One option that would help resolve the Crimean

anomaly, one frequently advocated by nationalist and some

national-democratic politicians in Ukraine, is to revoke Crimea's

present status as an autonomous republic within Ukraine and return

it to the status of one of many provinces (oblasti) in a united

Ukrainian state. However, such an initiative would meet with fierce

resistance in Crimea. Given the extent to which the officers of the

dominant Russian portion of the Black Sea Fleet have come to

identify their interests with those of Crimea, there is a strong

likelihood that the Black Sea Fleet, and in turn Russia, could be

drawn into any resulting conflict between the Crimean and central

Ukrainian authorities. A more feasible option is to allow Crimea to

maintain autonomy and encourage a "creeping federalization" of

Ukraine; this would satisfy some of the critics of radical federal

experiments but gradually regularize Crimea's status. The example

of Spain, which began a transition to liberal democracy in 1975 and

engaged in a gradual form of federalization after a long period of

authoritarian, centralized rule, could serve here as an interesting

example for Ukraine.58 However, discussions on territorialadministrative reform in Ukraine will likely become more fruitful

only after Ukraine evolves more in the direction of the model of a

"civil society."

Certainly, one can seriously question the depth and sincerity of

the interest in federalism of regional political elites, and the extent

to which they are prepared to engage in the extensive, continuous

negotiations and numerous compromises which are an integral part

of any healthy federal system. In some regions, such as the Donets'k

and Dnipropetrovs'k oblasts, local politics largely consist of the old

Soviet nomenklatura practice of strongly defending local "clan"

interests and fighting off other "clans" for influence in Kiev.59 In

other regions, such as the Zakarpats'ka and Odessa oblasts, regional
34 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

elites have simply tried to insulate themselves from the influence of

Kiev and gain the maximum amount of economic autonomy. As one

journalist noted with respect to the latter regions, "The idea of an

open and honest dialogue with Kiev, and influencing it to engage in

legal federalization has no support, and is not even enunciated." In

combination with Kiev's failure to understand the extent of

Ukraine's regional diversity, the result is that "federalization is

perversely transformed into feudalization, and the dialogue of

regions and cultures is transformed into conflict."60

Finally, any form of federalism introduced in Ukraine would

have to be very flexible to accommodate the legitimate interests of

the indigenous Tatar population of Crimea. In general discussions

concerning Crimea, the Crimean Tatars unfortunately often are

relegated to the status of a persistent "problem," which only

complicates the already difficult situation in the peninsula.

However, it should be emphasized that the Crimean Tatar leaders

have been very consistent in advocating firm but peaceful means to

achieve their primary aim, the re-establishment of a viable Crimean

Tatar community in their homeland.

Thus the claims of the Crimean Tatars have more than just a

moral basis, for their calm and measured behavior in the face of

numerous provocations on the part of the local Crimean authorities

has demonstrated that in some respects they are a stabilizing rather

than destabilizing force. Certainly, the Crimean Tatars have shown

themselves to be worthy partners in any dialogue between Kiev and

Simferopol, and it would be a great mistake to fail to include them

in such a dialogue.

The state-sponsored "homogenization" of all forms of

sociopolitical activity during the Soviet period did a great deal to

level regional differences in Ukraine. However, the historical

legacies of the various regions of Ukraine are diverse, and the

impact of these legacies has been supplemented by a renewed

process ofregional differentiation since Ukraine's independence. In

fact, given the weak leadership displayed by the central authorities

in recent years, it was inevitable that the regions largely go their

own way in dealing with numerous local problems, and begin to

depend more and more on their own resources. Decisive economic

reforms will further encourage the process whereby the regions

become more self-confident and self-reliant, diminishing their
CENTRIFUGAL TRENDS 35

dependence on directives from the center and thus creating a more

favorable setting for the possible federalization of Ukraine.

However, the importance of seriously addressing the option of

a federal system for Ukraine has been stressed not because it is

ideally suited to Ukraine, would be easy to implement, would

satisfy all of its regions, and provides a fool-proof solution to the

problems ofregional conflict management, as Duchacek points out:

There is really no reliable way of answering the question as to

when the constitutional federal recognition and guarantee of

diversity may ultimately contribute to a sense of satisfaction and

unity or when, on the contrary, the federal formula may reinforce

the sense of a separate territorial destiny, including the possibility

of going it alone. Occasionally the road to territorial disintegration

has been paved with the best of federal intentions.61

Nonetheless, Ukraine's politicians need to engage in a more

balanced discussion of Ukraine's neglected regional problems and

the ways in which they can best be managed.62

In contrast to President Kravchuk's administration, which was

marked by a dearth of dynamism and innovative thinking, President

Kuchma's administration has shown great determination in

formulating and beginning the implementation of long-overdue

economic reforms. It has shown less initiative and creativity in

dealing with regional issues; however, it is doubtful whether the

regional status quo can be maintained much longer.

If President Kuchma and his advisors intend to introduce major

territorial-administrative reforms it is understandable that they

would want to lay the appropriate groundwork and ensure at least

the preliminary cooperation of crucial regional elites before

entering into substantive negotiations. However, there is little

evidence of such groundwork, although there is a great need to

finally break the self-destructive pattern whereby Kiev simply

reacts (often with considerable delay and with limited effectiveness)

to events in individual regions of the country.

The continued absence of a vigorous but reasoned debate on the

virtues of a federal or quasi-federal variant of administrativeterritorial reform in Ukraine is disturbing, because it allows the

initiative to pass into the hands of those who advocate the strict

subordination of all regions to Kiev's authority, with little

recognition of their distinctive historical traditions and socio-
36 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

economic characteristics. In addition, it is illogical to reject the idea

of a federal Ukrainian state simply because it is advocated by many

senior politicians in Russia, as well as regional leaders in Ukraine

who are building personal fiefdoms or might harbour separatist

ambitions. However, the longer a clear decision on Ukraine's

territorial-administrative structure is delayed, the more this

hesitation will embolden those in Russia and Ukraine who are

looking for signs of weakness on the part of Kiev and who are ready

and willing to exploit it.

CONCLUSION

If Kiev's resolve to promote economic reforms begins to bear fruit

soon and Ukraine's leaders devote more attention to Ukraine's

regions, it is likely that centrifugal trends in Crimea and elsewhere

will begin to fade away. For example, the Donbas, Ukraine's

industrialized coal-mining region, is also frequently mentioned as

a hotbed ofseparatism and pro-Russian sentiments. However, given

the reality of the region's antiquated industrial infrastructure, the

ever-increasing costs of mining Donbas coal, and the numerous

environmental problems in this region, Moscow is unlikely to

consider it an attractive prize. The Donbas can exert much more

influence on Kiev than it could ever hope to exert on Moscow, and

a growing awareness of this reality will do a great deal to dampen

separatist sentiments in this region.63
5.

CIVIL SOCIETY AND

POLITICAL STABILITY

The term civil society is often used too broadly, and in the early

1990s it was almost chanted like a mantra by well-meaning

intellectuals, in both East and West, who saw the revival or

establishment of civil society as a panacea for all of Eastern

Europe's problems. The definition used here refers to civil society

as the realm of autonomous organizations, of both a formal and

informal nature, which mediate between the individual and the state

and are outside the direct control of the state.

There is a general consensus that a healthy civil society is an

important prerequisite for a flourishing liberal democracy and its

long-term stability. At a minimum, the establishment or revival of

civil society must accompany and support transitions from

authoritarian to liberal-democratic rule. A bogus form of stability

can be ensured by means of authoritarian rule and drastic

limitations on human rights. However, such stability would be

temporary, and destabilization could rapidly set in once

authoritarian controls were lifted.

Even if one argues that Ukraine will always remain, to a certain

extent, within Russia's sphere of influence, the gradual emergence

of a healthy civil society would greatly increase Ukraine's stability

and its ability to withstand external pressures. It is important at

least to assess briefly a few of the indicators usually taken into

account in an evaluation of the state of civil society.

• The level ofpopular political participation is an important

factor, especially when it is channeled through an effective

multi-party system. However, a full-fledged multi-party system

is only beginning to emerge in Ukraine. Typically the

membership of parties is small, they are dominated by a few

individuals, and party members are overwhelmingly

concentrated in large urban centers. The programs of many

37
38 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

parties are very similar, their proposals concerning social

policy and economic reform are usually vague, and they

generally have made poor use of the media.64

• The electoral system in place in 1994 appeared

intentionally designed to downplay the role ofpolitical parties.

As a result a large number of deputies in the current parliament

are independents with no party affiliation, and party discipline

is weak among the others. Most parties have a strong regional

base and have demonstrated limited efforts (and sometimes

little desire) to broaden their support, or have found it difficult

to gain votes outside oftheir local strongholds. Most parties are

dominated by a few strong individuals and bitter intra-party

factional disputes are common.

• Popular political participation is limited, cynicism is

widespread concerning the honesty and capabilities of

Ukraine's political elites, and the population as a whole is

characterized by a high level of political apathy, especially

among youth65 However, despite this general apathy, voter

turnout in the 1994 elections was high in most regions of the

country, and some other positive trends are beginning to

emerge. Some ofthe original party leaders who belonged to the

cultural intelligentsia and who were long on rhetoric but short

on practical experience are slowly being replaced by a younger

and more practically oriented generation of politicians. After a

long period of proliferation of parties, most of them with

negligible memberships, some amalgamation of these parties is

now taking place, and the next national elections in Ukraine are

to be held under the provisions of a new, simpler body of

electoral legislation. As a result these elections will take place

under conditions which should lead to a more professional,

structured parliament.66

• The communications media also reflect the nascent state of

civil society in Ukraine. One can find a great deal of diversity

in Ukraine's print media, but the circulation of newspapers is

low and the state continues to dominate the broadcast media.

President Kuchma and government officials have repeatedly

assured representatives of the media that they support their

independence and have imposed few restraints of any kind on

newspapers, which are often very outspoken.67 However,

President Kuchma and his associates have occasionally taken
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STABILITY 39

advantage of the state's levers of influence over the electronic

media to advance their agenda and restrict the access of reform

opponents to radio and television.68

In addition, the publication runs of newspapers are small,

and none of them is widely circulated. The quality of the

broadcast media in Ukraine is poor, and a large part of the

population relies on television and radio broadcasts from

Russia, so the media have not played a significant role in

supporting the development of a healthy civil society and

helping to create a voluntary consensus on the need for reforms

in Ukraine.69 For example, Ukraine lacks a national newspaper

with the authority and popularity of Russia's Izvestiia.

Political control of or influence over the mass media is of

vital importance in the struggle for power in the turbulent

context of Eastern Europe. Because the independent media in

Crimea are weak and Kiev is unable to effectively penetrate the

information space in this region, the central government lacks

an important means of influencing public opinion in Crimea.

• Trade unions independent of the state can also play an

important role in building a civil society. The old and highly

bureaucratized Communist-era Federation of Trade Unions has

survived die challenges posed to it by independent trade unions

and has even expanded some of its activities. Meanwhile, the

free-trade union movement has seen a decrease in the real

growth of its membership. In early 1995, there were still no

strong free-trade unions in the steel or chemical industries or

among teachers,70 and according to Ukraine's Ministry of

Statistics, only 0.5 percent of the workforce took part in strikes

in 1994 as opposed to 1.1 percent in 1993.71

• Survey data show that the percentage ofthe population of

Ukraine that did not belong to any voluntary organization

greatly increased between January 1991 and June 1993, from

44 to 86 percent72 When President Kuchma was elected to

office in 1994, Ukrainian society remained largely unstructured

and was still establishing die initial infrastructure of a future

civil society. This amorphous situation was reflected in the

absence of a clear and effective legal and constitutional

framework within which independent associations could

operate with a clear knowledge of Üieir rights and obligations.
40 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

Thus a rather paradoxical situation arises. Public frustration

seemed to be on the point of spilling over into mass protests,

especially if there were a further decrease in living standards.

However, a high premium was placed on maintaining social peace

because of fears of the potential explosion underlying social

tensions, and because most ofthe population was still committed to

lawful means of protest. By manipulating strong fears of the

disruption that could be caused by social change, local and central

elites maintained for a considerable period of time a gradually

deteriorating status quo that led to the gradual impoverishment of

the population.

In countries like Ukraine, where civil society and the legal

system are still greatly underdeveloped, social conflicts can rarely

be institutionalized; there are very few situations in which the

appropriate rules and regulations exist that would allow for such

conflicts to be readily resolved or managed. The other alternative,

social revolution, is excluded in all but the most extreme of

circumstance because of deeply ingrained fears of the consequences

of social disruption and the absence of appropriately motivated

revolutionary elites.

As in the case of other countries with a poorly developed civil

society facing dramatic social change involving a massive

redistribution of resources, it is difficult to envisage that such

change can take place peacefully without a "strong hand" wielding

legitimate authority and helping to create a certain social consensus

on the need for reforms. In fact, a survey in November 1993 showed

that there was a widespread desire in society at large for such a

"strong hand" which would bring "order" to the country. Thus 50

percent ofrespondents agreed with the statement that "a few strong

leaders are capable of doing more for our country than all laws and

discussions" (16 percent of respondents did not agree with this

statement, and 26 percent did not indicate their opinion).73

In retrospect, it is clear that when he re-emerged on Ukraine's

political scene as a candidate for the post of president, Leonid

Kuchma was seen by many to fit the requirements noted above

because, as the former director of the Pivdenmash (Iuzhmash)

Rocket Factory, he had the reputation of a capable manager with a

direct and uncompromising style of work. He also benefitted from

his background as a partly Russified Ukrainian with roots in central

Ukraine, because many residents of the heavily populated and
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STABILITY 41

partially Russified industrial regions of Ukraine could readily

identify with this background and accept him as a representative of

local interests.74 Also, Kuchma's terse bluntness and apparent

pragmatism appealed to many who were disillusioned with

President Kravchuk's rather florid and long-winded rhetoric.

President Kuchma made economic reform his top priority and

moved quickly to address other issues frequently mentioned by

survey respondents in Ukraine, such as the problem of pervasive

corruption, although it is too early to discuss successes.75President

Kuchma also repeatedly called for closer economic ties with CIS

countries, although at the same time he has frequently stressed and

convincingly demonstrated that he will stubbornly defend Ukraine's

interests and sovereignty.

President Kuchma is above all a pragmatist, and he appears to

have adopted a technocratic approach to governing which suits his

personal style and background, and which has been favored by

other politicians/technocrats who launched successful economic

reform programs in various political settings.76 Many of his advisers

are quite young and, with the exception of Dmytro Tabachnyk, the

head of the presidential administration, none has attracted a great

deal of controversy.77 Last but not least President Kuchma has

maintained a consistently high popularity rating, considerably

higher than that of any other senior political figure, in all opinion

polls conducted since he took office. In a poll conducted in

December 1994, 46 percent of all respondents positively assessed

President Kuchma's influence on the economy, while 22 percent

backed the cabinet and 17 percent supported the parliament in this

sphere.78

The Ukrainian public's general political passivity and

preference for lawful, democratic forms of protest79 have already

given President Kuchma and his reform team breathing space to

initiate significant reforms in the economy and several other

priority sectors. In the process President Kuchma has gained the

respect of many Western leaders and a considerable amount of

financial aid and credits. In addition, he has managed, albeit with

some difficulty, to get the Ukrainian parliament's support for many

of his most important projects, but even if this support continues

President Kuchma's "honeymoon" will soon be over, and within a

few months the general public will expect to see some concrete

results from this reform program.
42 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

President Kuchma must therefore now focus his attention on

ensuring the success of the local implementation of economic

reforms. In initiating the economic reform process, President

Kuchma was able to draw not only on the expertise of Western

economists and other specialists, but also on the growing number

of their local equivalents in Kiev who had studied, worked, or

traveled abroad, even if only for brief periods, within the last few

years. Now, however, implementing the reform process will

probably run into considerable resistance, and possibly sabotage,

from local political conservatives and hidebound mid-level

bureaucrats with little experience in implementing reforms and little

interest in seeing them succeed.

Further success of economic reforms in Ukraine will depend on

the extent to which the center's authority, and the momentum of the

reform process, can be extended to the regions. It will also be

necessary to duplicate, in the regions, the process of consensusbuilding that so far has met with considerable success, albeit within

rather limited circles, in Kiev. It is likely that President Kuchma

will buy extra time for the introduction of economic reforms in the

regions by continuing to press a vigorous anticorruption campaign,

and cleaning up some of the more blatant abuses of authority that

have led to widespread public disillusionment.

One can posit an alternative, more authoritarian path of

development in place of the legitimate "strong hand" approach

favoured by President Kuchma. However, Ukraine is an unlikely

candidate for the imposition of efficient and effective dictatorial

rule. This is not because ofthe strength of democratic traditions and

institutions in Ukraine, but because Ukrainian society is very

diverse, and the Ukrainian public has become accustomed to the

political freedoms now widespread in Ukraine, even if it rarely

takes full advantage ofthem. Unless massive coercion is employed,

any attempt to set up a Ukrainian nationalist dictatorship, a SovietCommunist dictatorship, or a dictatorship serving Russian imperial

interests would meet substantial resistance and have limited staying

power. Currently there are no domestic forces in Ukraine

sufficiently strong and in possession of the necessary will and

determination to introduce effective dictatorial rule throughout the

entire country.

It is easier to envisage a "soft" form of dictatorship based on

what is commonly called the "party of power." This term is used to
CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL STABILITY 43

describe the dominant post-communist oligarchy, largely composed

of former Communist Party functionaries, which has used the

emergence of an independent Ukraine to promote its personal

careers and frequently lining its pockets in the process. However,

this amorphous group lacks a program apart from selfaggrandizement and self-enrichment by means of the maintenance

and manipulation of the status quo, and it is incapable of

introducing reforms that would begin to reverse Ukraine's rapid

economic decline. Given the lack of will and cohesion of this

"power of power" and Ukraine's increasing impoverishment, it is

unlikely that this category of individuals could install and maintain

an effective dictatorship even if it truly desired to do so.80

However, the weakness of domestic forces favoring a dictatorial

regime does not in any way ensure that Ukraine can engage in an

easy transition to some relatively stable form of liberal democracy

and a market-type system. President Kuchma has done an excellent

job of preparing the setting for further reforms, but even if they

unfold according to plan (which is unlikely) they will be

accompanied by a sharp rise in unemployment, the continued

demoralization of a large part of the population, and other

problems.

One can envisage a number of scenarios whereby growing

political apathy among the population at large, combined with a

continuing economic decline, could lead to significant social unrest

and a succession of weak governments in Ukraine. Ukraine's

neighbors would naturally be tempted to take advantage of such

weakness; in particular, in such a situation Russia would, over time,

find it relatively easy to establish hegemony over Ukraine.
6.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN

RELATIONS

It is important to avoid extremes when discussing the delicate issue

of Russian-Ukrainian relations and their impact on the stability of

Ukraine. One extreme is to explain away many, if not most, of

Ukraine's domestic difficulties by blaming the infamous hidden (or

not so hidden) hand of Moscow. This tactic was regularly used by

many of Ukraine's politicians during the first 2 years of Ukraine's

independence, sometimes with the aim of diverting attention from

reluctance to deal with or incompetence in addressing the many

domestic problems.

The other extreme is to minimize Russia's influence on

developments in Ukraine and to take at face value official Russian

government statements concerning full respect for Ukraine's

sovereignty. According to this complacent point of view, the

occasional expression of dissatisfaction by certain Russian

parliamentarians or private individuals concerning, say, Kiev's

policies regarding Crimea is of little or no consequence as long as

there is no change in Russia's official policy of respect for Ukraine's

sovereignty, and no direct actions to undermine this sovereignty.

It is not easy to determine the reality between these two

extremes. Russia's leadership and its policies concerning Ukraine

are clearly not responsible for the majority of the problems now

facing this country. Where direct Russian interference in domestic

Ukrainian affairs can be identified, it has not involved dramatic

forms of intervention with clearly identifiable consequences.

Rather, it usually consists of attempts to take advantage of

Ukraine's internal problems to promote Russia's domestic or

international interests. The many displays of incompetence by

Ukraine's leaders following the euphoria of independence certainly

provided Russia's politicians and officials with many such

opportunities.

45
46 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

On the other hand, most outside commentators now

acknowledge that the majority of Russia's politicians are convinced

that Ukraine's independence in its present form will not last for

long. There is a widespread conviction in Russia that, at a

minimum, hegemony will readily be established over Ukraine, and

a recent analysis of the positions taken by various Russian

politicians concerning Russian-Ukrainian relations concludes that

for a majority of the political forces in Russia,

The current separation with Ukraine, rightly or wrongly, is more

and more being treated as very much analogous to the German

division after the Second World War. The implications behind

this analogy are very clear. First, there is a belief and conviction

that re-unification between the two states is ultimately inevitable;

and secondly, there is a clear preparedness in much of the Russian

political class to wait for as long as it takes to achieve reunification. In other words, therefore, the issue will not go away

from the Russian political agenda for the foreseeable future.81

Such attitudes are considered, at best, to be arrogant and patronizing

by the large number of Ukrainians committed to their country's

independence. The most provocative comments concerning Ukraine

are usually voiced by individual politicians or by the legislative

branch ofthe Russian government, radier than by President Yeltsin

or other members ofthe executive branch of government. However,

the regular disparaging or openly hostile comments concerning

Ukraine emanating from the Russian parliament and representatives

of political parties in Moscow have a significant impact on the

political scene in Ukraine. They receive considerable coverage in

the Ukrainian media, help mobilize the nationalist and nationaldemocratic forces already suspicious of Moscow's intentions, and

help prevent the emergence of a consensus in Ukraine on the nature

offuture relations wiüi Russia. They also add another psychological

burden to the many other burdens carried by Ukrainian citizens.

The two issues having the greatest symbolic and political

impact on Ukrainian-Russian relations are very tightly linked. They

are the fate of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) and its infrastructure, as

well as the fate of the Crimean peninsula as a whole. Given the

limited capabilities of the BSF it seemed logical to assume that,

following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, representatives of

Ukraine and Russia would quickly devise a pragmatic formula that
RUSSIAN-UKRANIAN RELATIONS 47

would allow for a division of the BSF and resolve the fate of its

infrastructure—but these issues quickly became enveloped in

highly emotional rhetoric.

In Russia, attitudes concerning the BSF have been greatly

influenced by attempts to foster the myth of a great and noble

Russian/Soviet naval tradition, although the Russian/Soviet navy,

and the Black Sea Fleet in particular, did not play a particularly

glorious role in Russian/Soviet military history.82 However, the

heated rhetoric in Russia concerning the fate of the BSF is only

partially linked to its past or current military-strategic importance.

Its roots can more easily be traced to the continuing popularity of

an imperial myth portraying the conquest of Crimea in the 18th

century as striking a fatal blow to Ottoman influence in the south of

Russia, subsequently allowing Russia to play a major role in the

Black Sea and beyond. Many Russians, including representatives

ofRussia's democratic camp, strongly feel that Crimea is an integral

part oftheir country's patrimony, that Crimea's current status as part

of Ukraine is unnatural, and that sooner or later Crimea (possibly

together with much if not all of the rest of Ukraine) will "return" to

Russia. In particular, many Russian politicians have clearly linked

the fate of the BSF to that of Crimea as a whole.83

Coinciding with widespread nostalgia for Crimea among the

general public is a growing trend in official circles, reflected in the

evolution of Russia's military and foreign policies following the

disintegration of the Soviet Union, to regard this country's

neighbors within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

as falling into an unquestioned sphere of direct Russian interests in

which one will see an ever-increasing tendency towards economic,

military, and political integration. As part of this trend, Russia's

leaders have demonstrated a strong commitment, widely held

among Russia's political parties, to maintain military bases in CIS

member states and promote the military integration of the latter.84

Establishing control over the Black Sea Fleet and its

infrastructure provides Russia with the most logical avenue for

maintaining such bases in Ukraine. The BSF may be incapable of

playing any significant role outside of the Black Sea basin, but

military bases in Crimea would provide Russia with an important

and strategically convenient means of influencing developments

throughout the entire Black Sea region. In particular, if there was an

escalation oftensions with Ukraine, Russia could use these bases to
48 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

quickly establish control of Crimea quickly, project force along

Ukraine's entire Black Sea frontier, and then control Ukraine's

maritime trade.

Such control would be of particular importance if a major oil

terminal is built in the Odessa region, which would greatly reduce

Ukraine's dependency on fossil fuels from Russia and Central Asia.

Russia's leaders have shown a keen awareness of the importance of

such fuel supplies for the western states of the CIS.85 They appear

intent on maintaining this dependency, and this strengthens the elite

consensus in Russia on the need for a strong naval presence in

Crimea.

This presence is also important to Russia because of the

impressive military infrastructure in Crimea. The monetary value

and strategic importance of this infrastructure far outweigh that of

the actual ships and aircraft of the BSF, since it includes a variety

offacilities for testing new equipment, as well as naval tactics and

operations, and training naval personnel. In addition, a large

percentage ofthe Soviet Union's military shipbuilding capacity was

located in Crimea.86

In historical terms, Crimea does not have the same symbolic

importance for Ukraine that it has for Russia, and as a new and

economically weak state Ukraine clearly cannot afford to support

the BSF in anything like its present form. However, the rhetoric on

Crimea emanating from Kiev is not motivated solely by concerns

about the potential security implications of a major Russian base

strategically located on the Crimean peninsula. In Kiev,

developments in Crimea and the Russian military's presence there

are perceived as a crucial symbol of threats to Ukraine's territorial

integrity.

Western journalists and analysts sometimes imply that because

Crimea was supposedly arbitrarily transferred from the Russian to

the Ukrainian republics of the USSR in 1954, one could easily

envisage a similar transfer of Crimea from Ukrainian to Russian

jurisdiction in the future. This argument ignores the fact that,

although political considerations probably played a role in this

transfer, it was not an arbitrary move, and it took place in a very

specific context. It was abundantly clear in 1954 that because of its

proximity and direct territorial links with Crimea, Ukraine was by

far the most convenient supplier of basic inputs into the Crimean

economy, for Ukraine provided (and continues to provide) Crimea
RUSSIAN-UKRANIAN RELATIONS 49

with almost all of its water, electricity, industrial raw materials,

etc.87 It appears to have been a simple and logical administrative

measure, in the context of the highly centralized USSR of the time,

to arrange for Crimea's transfer to Ukraine's jurisdiction.

However, present circumstances are very different, because

Ukraine, as a newly independent state, is still establishing its

identity and international profile and is bound to react strongly to

any challenges, real or perceived, to its territorial integrity. Thus

Russia's strong commitment to maintaining a major naval base in a

strategically significant region populated largely by Russians could

not fail to provoke concern in Kiev. A disturbing example of the

disruptive influence ofRussia's military presence in a fellow Soviet

successor state could, after all, be found directly on Ukraine's

western border. In Moldova's Transdniestria region (the so-called

"Dniestr Republic"), there is a prime example of what one observer

has labelled a Russian "protection racket":

Encouraging separatist movements under the guise of defending

embattled Russian minorities, and then intervening as peacemaker

when the conflicts between the separatists and the successor

regimes get out of hand.88

An agreement that foresees the withdrawal of Russian troops from

the Transdniestria region in 1997 was signed by Moldovan and

Russian negotiators in October 1994. However, Russia's 14th Army

in Transniestria has developed such a close relationship with the

territory on which it is stationed that a full and unambiguous

withdrawal is unlikely:

Most of the officers [of the 14th Army] reportedly identify the

Dniestr Republic as their home, and local residents are being

recruited into the enlisted ranks. The result is a unit that has its

own set of strong interests tied to the existence of the Dniestr

Republic. ... Even if the 14th Army is eventually "withdrawn"

from the region, it is likely to be replaced by a Russian "militia"

that would deploy much the same weapons and many of the same

officers and enlisted men.89

In addition, the commander of the 14th Army, General Lebed, has

evolved into a "rogue" officer who has entered into numerous open

conflicts with his superiors in Moscow and is highly popular among
50 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

Russia's military personnel. Lebed has refused to accept military

posts outside the Transdniester region, and it is widely believed that

he will soon leave the military to play a significant role on Russia's

political stage.90

Similar uncertainty surrounds the eventual fate of the Black Sea

Fleet and its infrastructure. Although the draft of a comprehensive

agreement on Russian-Ukrainian friendship and cooperation was

initialed in Kiev in February 1995, it did not resolve the BSF

dispute, and this as well as other contentious issues continue to

prevent the signing of a final version of the agreement. It is clear,

however, that the negotiators for Russia are driving a hard bargain

with their Ukrainian counterparts and are continuing to insist that

Russia maintain a strong, long-term presence in Crimea.151

Of particular concern to the Ukrainian authorities is that in the

past, a number of BSF personnel were allowed to stand as

candidates for office to both the Crimean Supreme Soviet and the

Sevastopol city council, where they formed a powerful military

lobby. An increasingly symbiotic relationship developed between

the BSF, which has for all intents and purposes been transformed

into a Russian Black Sea Fleet, and the local administration in

Crimea. For example, the Russia-Unity fraction in the Crimean

parliament, which includes a number of former BSF officers, is led

by a former deputy commander of the BSF, Vice-Admiral O.

Frolov. The interests of a Russian BSF are also strongly defended

by the great majority of the many former Soviet/Russian military

officers who have retired in Crimea.92

This growing symbiosis was reflected in a speech delivered by

Admiral Eduard Baltin, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet,

when he appeared before the State Duma of the Russian Federation

in November 1994 to describe the situation in the BSF and Crimea.

In his presentation he stressed, "The infrastructure of Sevastopol'

and the fleet have grown together so tightly that it is now

impossible to separate them."93 However Admiral Baltin, who is

supposed to represent the interests of both Russia and Ukraine, was

clearly interested in more than just the military equipment and shore

facilities of the BSF. He was openly speaking on behalf of Russia

and pro-Russian forces in Crimea when he stated, "From a political

point of view Sevastopol', with its clearly defined Russian

mentality, provides Russia with its last opportunity to strengthen its

positions in Crimea."94 Thus a network of mutually supportive
RUSSIAN-UKRANIAN RELATIONS 51

relationships has arisen among the pro-Russian majority of officers

in the BSF, the municipal Sevastopol' and Crimean authorities, and

certain political circles in Moscow.

In comparison, until recently the steps taken by Ukraine's

leaders to influence developments in the BSF, deal with autonomist

and separatist trends in Crimea, and counteract Moscow's initiatives

generally appeared to be inconsistent, indecisive, and ineffective.

Former President Leonid Kravchuk's Crimea policy was, in effect,

anonpolicy, because it relied on maintaining the status quo on the

peninsula, and he preferred that difficult Ukrainian-Russian

negotiations over issues such as the division of the Black Sea Fleet

conclude with ambiguous statements that could be interpreted

variously by both sides.

Kiev's passivity in this and other policy sectors fostered the

emergence of a scenario in accordance with which Russia would

gradually extend its control over Ukraine as a result of the latter's

eventual inability to resolve its own domestic problems. Such

control would not necessarily threaten Ukraine's formal

sovereignty, as many of Russia's current or potential leaders would

probably prefer to maintain Ukraine as a pliant vassal state rather

than incorporate it into a reborn Russian empire.

Many of President Kuchma's nationalist critics were greatly

perturbed when he seemed to initially confirm their suspicions that

he was out to appease Russia and "sell out" Ukraine. In line with

his pre-election commitments, his administration quickly took a

number ofsteps that should have reduced tensions between the two

countries. For example, the renewal of economic ties between

Ukraine and Russia was strongly encouraged, and although Ukraine

had developed a strong commitment to NATO's Partnership for

Peace program from its very inception, President Kuchma stressed

that Ukraine would remain a neutral state outside of all military

blocs.

President Kuchma's administration has also clearly indicated

that it plans to continue the inclusive policy of building a political

rather than ethnic nation on the territory of Ukraine, and less

emphasis has been placed on introducing the Ukrainian language in

all spheres of life. As a result it has become more difficult for

Russia's authorities to argue for some form of intervention on behalf

of ethnic Russians in Ukraine on the grounds that they are suffering

discrimination.
52 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

However, it soon became clear that these policies were not

intended to mollify Moscow, but to adjust Ukraine's policy

priorities and give them a more pragmatic orientation. This became

apparent when the Kuchma administration shifted its attention from

economic reform to the situation in Crimea, and took a number of

decisive steps in March-April 1995 to subordinate Crimea to Kiev's

authority and move ahead with negotiations concerning the division

of the Black Sea Fleet.

In the process a number of the differences between Russia and

Ukraine have taken on a more distinct profile. For example, until

recently Russia's President Yeltsin could blame the Russian

parliament's provocative but rhetorical statements concerning

Crimea's future (and especially the status of Sevastopol) for much

of the bad feeling between Kiev and Moscow. However, now that

intergovernmental negotiations concerning the fate of the Black Sea

Fleet have focussed on the concrete details of the basing rights of

the Russian share of the Fleet, it has become clear that Russia's

official negotiators are demanding a degree of control over the

entire city of Sevastopol, as the main base of the Fleet—clearly

unacceptable to the Ukrainian side.95

The question ofthe basing of the Black Sea Fleet will continue

to pose problems to Ukraine because of the Fleet's symbiotic link

with the local Crimean administration, and the emotional fervor

now surrounding this issue. However, with respect to the question

of Ukraine's general control over Crimea, as well as other

contentious issues in Russian-Ukrainian relations, the Ukrainian

side is in a much more advantageous situation now than in 1992-93.

The local pro-Russian authorities in Crimea have largely been

discredited, the Crimean public is in an apathetic frame of mind,

and a major split has recently occurred in the Crimean parliament,

with a sizable number of deputies (according to one report, 42 out

of a total of 98) calling on Kiev to dissolve the assembly.96 In

addition, it appears that the decisiveness and dynamism

demonstrated by President Kuchma in promoting economic reforms

is now being applied to the fields of regional and foreign policy.

This comes at a time when Moscow is preoccupied with issues such

as winding up its campaign in Chechnya, which has drawn

widespread condemnation in the world community.

As a result, Ukraine's peaceful moves to re-establish its control

over Crimea have drawn a generally favorable response from the
RUSSIAN-UKRANIAN RELATIONS 53

international community (e.g., the Europarliament97), and the

situation on the peninsula is now being monitored by

representatives of organizations such as the OSCE, which will help

deter outside intervention in the affairs of the peninsula. In fact,

Western interest in Ukraine and support of its current policies have

grown considerably, and some Russian newspapers have claimed

that the West is now more supportive of Ukraine than Russia.98

However, Western support for Ukraine is no substitute for

friendly, mutually beneficial relations between Russia and Ukraine,

if only because of the long and "transparent" border between the

two countries. Ukraine cannot isolate itself from Russia, and

President Kuchma seems sincere in his intention to pursue better

relations with Moscow. Nonetheless, he is insistent that Ukraine be

treated as a fully independent state by Moscow. Even if liberal

democratic trends prevail in Russia, however, it will take a

considerable period of time before most Russians become fully

accustomed to the idea of an independent Ukraine, and thus a fairly

lengthy period of tensions between the two states is inevitable.

Over time, frictions between the two countries will become

increasingly centered on their economic relations, and this will the

area of greatest challenge for Ukraine. If it does not continue

moving rapidly to reform its economy, Ukraine could well end up

as an agricultural periphery to a more dynamic Russia. In the short

to medium term, Russia has a significant lever of influence on

Ukraine (short of the use of force, which does not seem likely)—

possible restrictions on the supply of fossil fuels to Ukraine—

which will lose its significance only when Ukraine cuts down on its

consumption of such fuels and ensures that it has access to

alternative sources of energy.
7.

THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY

Dealing with the legacy of the Soviet Armed Forces and the KGB

has posed enormous domestic challenges for some of the states of

the Former Soviet Union, especially Russia and Ukraine. For

example, after World War II Ukraine played a major role in the

Soviet Union's military contingency plans and was divided into

three strategically significant military districts. As a result, a very

large proportion of the Soviet Union's military personnel,

equipment, educational establishments, etc., was located in Ukraine,

and there were close to 800,000 individuals in military uniform in

Ukraine when it declared independence.

In addition, Ukraine was second only to Russia in terms of the

concentration of military-related industries in the Soviet Union.

According to several estimates, in the 1980s approximately 20

percent of Soviet defense production came from Ukraine, and a high

proportion of Ukraine's industrial work force was employed within

the military-industrial complex."

After independence, Ukraine, like Russia, was faced with the

daunting task of drastically reducing the number of military

servicemen on its territory and converting much of its military

production to civilian use. Just keeping track of all the military

equipment in Ukraine has been difficult, and inevitably some of this

equipment has fallen into the hands of various criminals—the

infamous post-Soviet "mafia."

General discussions of military developments in the

Commonwealth ofIndependent States usually focus on the Russian

Armed Forces. To a certain extent this is natural, as on several

occasions the Russian military has played a dramatic and sometimes

bloody role in the domestic affairs of the Russian Federation. This

includes the shelling of the Russian parliament in October 1993

and, most recently, the massive use of military force in Chechnya.

55
56 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

Military developments in Ukraine have attracted much less

attention. The exceptions are the now increasingly irrelevant

controversy over the fate of the nuclear weapons on Ukraine's

territory, and the continuing dispute over the division of the Black

Sea Fleet. However, the creation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

was in itself a very significant and dramatic act. In addition, the

military and other organs of coercion such as Ukraine's National

Guard (internal security forces) can, depending on the

circumstances, play an important role in stabilizing or destabilizing

the situation in Ukraine.

Ukraine's declaration of state sovereignty in July 1990 clearly

stated that the republic had the right to establish its own armed

forces;100 however, in the first 12 months following this declaration

little was done to implement the declaration's clauses concerning

the military. The first concrete steps to establish the foundations of

the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) were taken following the

abortive coup attempt of August 1991—on 24 August 1991 the

parliamentary opposition stressed Ukraine's helplessness when it

was faced, during the coup, with the possible use of military force.

On the same day the parliament resolved to create a Ukrainian

defense ministry and place all military formations deployed on

Ukraine's territory under its jurisdiction.101

In fall 1991 the Ukrainian parliament approved a package of

draft laws on national defense, and by the end of December 1991

the legal basis for the UAF had been fully established. By the time

the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist, in December 1991, and

the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) came into being,

Ukraine had already created the framework for its own military and

was the very first state within the CIS to do so. An independent

Russian army did not emerge until May 1992, after it became clear

that Ukraine would refuse to engage in collective security

arrangements.

This strong focus on quickly developing a Ukrainian military

and a distinctive Ukrainian defense policy was part of the overall

process of state-building in Ukraine. Given Ukraine's limited (and

incomplete) experience of independent statehood in modern times,

it was natural that a great deal of attention be devoted to the process

of acquiring quickly the most visible and significant attributes of

statehood. Because the defense of a state's territory through the

establishment and maintenance of an independent military
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 57

capability remains an important component of sovereignty in the

international state system, this became a top priority in Ukraine.

It is easy to criticize this early emphasis on institutions, such as

the military, that were to guarantee Ukraine's security and respond

to challenges by the use offorce. It is clear, for example, that far too

little consideration was given to the economic and social aspects of

security. However, the problem was not so much an overemphasis

on the development of Ukraine's military, but more an

imderemphasis on the need for socioeconomic reform. In fact, it

was inevitable that military issues would assume a very high profile

in an independent Ukraine in late 1991, and the reason is simple.

After the abortive August 1991 coup attempt, close to 800,000

confused and disoriented servicemen, with access to a large volume

of military equipment, were physically located on Ukraine's

territory. Many if not most of these personnel had little or no

meaningful attachment to the territory on which they accidentally

happened to find themselves after Ukraine declared independence,

and thus had they not been rapidly subordinated through clear lines

of authority to the Ukrainian government, they could have posed a

significant threat to Ukraine's sovereignty or, at a minimum, could

have caused considerable disruption in Ukraine.

It is surprising that the initial stages in the formation of the

UAF were so remarkably peaceful. This was partly because the

strength ofthe drive for Ukraine's independence and its leadership's

determination to establish the UAF kept Moscow politicians as well

as the old Soviet military command off balance throughout the fall

of 1991 and the first few months of 1992. Thus they were unable to

respond quickly and effectively to developments in Ukraine.

Between August 1991 and prior to the formation of the

Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991, the

central military and political elites of the Soviet Union strongly

condemned all discussions on dividing the Soviet Armed Forces

(SAF). It was proposed that the governments of the republics be

given a greater role in the formulation and implementation of

defense policy and that the SAF be restructured. However, the

establishment of independent national armies was firmly

opposed,102 and in fact, SAF representatives continued to emphasize

the need for a highly unified defense structure for several months

following the establishment of the CIS, arguing that only such a

structure could ensure the security of member states.103
58 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

However, the peaceful initial phase of the military transition in

Ukraine cannot be attributed solely to confusion in Moscow. It was

also the result of the quiet but persistent work of a small, energetic

group of officers and civilians headed by Col. Gen. Kostiantyn

Morozov, Ukraine's first Minister of Defense. Although this team

was provided with limited resources and facilities, it tackled its

goals in a serious and energetic fashion, and the results, at least

initially, were generally positive.104

The peaceful initial period of military transition was also

because of the absence of concerted domestic opposition to the

creation of the UAF. The various conservative forces in Ukraine

opposed to the disintegration of the USSR and the demise of the

SAF were greatly disoriented by developments following the

August 1991 coup attempt and were unable to put up any coherent

opposition to these processes. In addition, all nationalist and

national-democratic forces in Ukraine were united in supporting the

rapid creation of the UAF, and gave this goal their whole-hearted

support in spite of numerous disagreements on other issues.

In its work, Morozov's team was also greatly aided by the

Union of Officers ofUkraine (UOU). This organization was created

in July 1991 on the basis of various groups and committees that had

begun to advocate the creation of a Ukrainian Armed Forces as

early as 1989 and gradually coalesced under the umbrella of the

national-democratic "Rukh" organization. Following the failed coup

attempt of August 1991 the UOU benefitted from the euphoria

accompanying the drive for independence and gained considerable

prestige and stature. A number of its activists quickly rose to senior

positions in the UAF, playing a significant role in providing a

cohesive "core" of officers committed to the formation and

consolidation of the UAF, and promoting patriotism within its

ranks.105 UOU activities were generally supported by Defence

Minister Morozov, who even advocated involving the UOU in

identifying and removing corrupt officers.106

This official support for what was in effect a military pressure

group is far from what would normally be considered a desirable

pattern of civil-military relations. However, the situation in the

newly independent Ukraine was hardly normal, and the UOU

provided crucial assistance to Defence Minister Morozov in

implementing government policies during a critical phase in the

development ofUAF. In fact, during Morozov's term in office, the
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 59

UOU was partly coopted by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and

probably served as a conduit for the expression of certain views,

held by some senior personnel in this ministry, that could not

otherwise be openly enunciated.

However, reality soon set in, and Ukraine's growing

socioecoomic problems inevitably had a major impact on the

military. For example, the Ukrainian authorities greatly

underestimated the cost of maintaining a large and powerful

military, and a significant proportion of the state budget was

consumed by military-related expenditures.107 Ukraine continued

to carry a very heavy military burden at a time when its economy

was declining dramatically.

In spite of these growing resource constraints, the process of

establishing the budget for the UAF was chaotic, and there is no

evidence that Ukraine's leaders attempted to conduct even a

rudimentary cost-benefit analysis of military-related expenditures.

In fact, on several occasions Ukraine's second Minister of Defence,

Col. Gen. Radetsky, complained that the UAF had existed for over

2 years without a budget.108

The slow pace of economic reform in Ukraine also had a

negative impact on the conversion process within Ukraine's large

military-industrial complex, which has also been administered in a

rather chaotic fashion. According to one source, conversion was not

carried out "in accordance with a systematic program, but as a result

of a spontaneous reduction in the production of military technology

and weapons." Additional complications included a drastic

reduction in orders for military goods from Russia, the low wages

of workers in the machine building and military-industrial

complexes, and very limited Western investment in Ukraine's fully

state-controlled defense industries.109

The possibility of Western investment in Ukraine's defense

industries and its conversion programs has increased now that

nuclear disarmament measures are proceeding, and Ukraine has

pledged to abide by recognized treaties to limit ballistic and nuclear

missile proliferation.110 However, until recently such investment

was hampered by the slow pace of economic reform in Ukraine.

As Ukraine's economy declined, the standard of living of its

military personnel deteriorated, leading to growing dissatisfaction

in the ranks ofthe UAF. A rapid decline in the prestige of military

service and a considerable increase in the number of cases of draft
60 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

evasion and desertion followed in 1992-93.1UThese problems were

particularly severe in western Ukraine and the Kiev area, in spite of

the high levels of national consciousness in these regions.112

Complaints increased concerning the lack of appropriate

housing for officers and their families, low salaries for officers, and

a deterioration in the level and quality of social services for military

professionals.113 Deteriorating living conditions encouraged

corruption within the UAF, which paralleled the growth of

corruption in society at large and became so widespread that it

contributed significantly to the diminishing prestige of service in

the armed forces. As a result, many young and enterprising officers

lefttheUAFinl992-93.114

In addition, many of the flaws inherent in the rapid pace of the

restructuring ofthe UAF became increasingly apparent in 1993. For

example, a major controversy emerged when a decision was made

in 1992 to reduce the large number of specialized military

educational institutions in Ukraine and to rationalize their

operations.115 Other controversies surrounded the decision to

liquidate the Kiev military district (subordinating its military

personnel to the Odessa military district) and create a unified Aerial

Defense Troops structure by amalgamating the Air Force and Air

Defense Troops in Ukraine.116

The self-interest of those negatively affected by these changes

was behind much of the opposition to these and other reform

measures. However, the reform process was also hampered by a

lack of resources to carry out expensive reforms and by the small

number of nongovernmental research institutions ("think tanks") in

Ukraine that could provide informed and critical commentary on

military and military-related issues.117

Certain political problems also emerged. In the fall of 1992

criticism of Defense Minister Morozov in the Ukrainian parliament

became increasingly vociferous. The criticism that Gen. Morozov

had done little to reduce corruption in the UAF was contrived, for

he had, in fact, mounted a vigorous campaign to combat such

corruption, albeit with relatively little success due to circumstances

largely beyond his control. However, there were also accusations

that the UAF were becoming highly politicized. In particular, Col.

Gen. Morozov was strongly criticized for encouraging and

supporting the activity of the UOU. 118
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 61

Some of this criticism was justified, since Defense Minister

Morozov had clearly cooperated with the UOU from the very

beginning of his term of office. However, this cooperation can

largely be explained by the enormity of the task of creating a

cohesive Ukrainian military on the basis of officers who were

largely of non-Ukrainian ethnic background, and in many cases had

little or no genuine commitment to defending Ukraine's territory.

Although some of the officers who were least interested in serving

in the UAF soon left its ranks, legitimate doubts remained

concerning the loyalty of many who continued to serve in the

Ukrainian military.

The UOU was therefore seen as assisting Ukraine's Ministry of

Defense (MOD) in "Ukrainizing" the UAF—that is, promoting

measures such as the greater use of the Ukrainian language and the

introduction of Ukrainian military traditions in the UAF. In

addition, members of the UOU were to help expose the theft and

sale of military hardware and other forms of corruption and abuse

in the UAF. Still, although the UOU made an important

contribution to the construction of the UAF, its activity introduced

a glaring anomaly into the development of civil-military relations

in Ukraine. Officials within the Ukrainian MOD attempted to

unofficially supervise and steer the activities of the UOU, but such

supervision was not always possible or effective.119 Thus it was

inevitable that as Ukraine's MOD became more firmly established,

the ambiguous role of the UOU as an officially approved military

pressure group was increasingly seen in some circles as a liability.

Additional controversy was provoked by the work of the

Social-Psychological Service (SPS) of the UAF, the successor in

certain respects of the Main Political Administration, which had

coordinated all political socialization activities in the old SAF. The

first head of the SPS, Volodymyr Muliava, was, for example,

accused of dictatorial tendencies and artificially speeding up the

"Ukrainization" of the Ukrainian military. However, Muliava and

his supporters never denied that the work of the SPS was highly

political. They simply argued that such politicization was fully

justified, since its aim was to offset the impact of many years of

pro-Soviet propaganda in the SAF. The political socialization effort

in the SAF had been highly critical of even the most innocent

expressions of so-called Ukrainian "bourgeois nationalism" and of

all military traditions which could be linked to the drive for
62 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

Ukraine's independence. Thus the work of the SPS was seen as

helping to guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of

Ukraine by raising the patriotic consciousness of conscripts and

officers.

These aims were not unreasonable, and much of the criticism

directed at Muliava came from officers who were resistant to any

changes in military practices. However, Muliava alienated a number

of officers who felt that he was promoting a rather parochial form

of patriotism in the UAF. In addition, he appeared to be intolerant

of criticism and attacked many of his critics in an intemperate

fashion. Further, the work of the SPS was often conducted, at the

local level, by the same political instructors who had been

responsible for the Marxist-Leninist indoctrination effort in the old

SAF. Some of these instructors had difficulty "restructuring" their

work, and its quality left a great deal to be desired.120

Another development that has hampered the normal

development of civil-military relations in Ukraine is the activity of

paramilitary groups. Such groups have remained largely on the

margins of Ukrainian politics, and their significance has often been

exaggerated.121 However, there is one significant paramilitary group

in Ukraine called UNSO—-the Ukrainian People's Self Defense

Forces. This organization is the military wing of the right-wing or

Ukrainian National Assembly, and it has been very flexible in its

tactics. Thus although the Ukrainian parliament has prohibited the

formation of all unofficial paramilitary detachments, and some

UNSO members have been arrested, the Ukrainian government has

failed to establish firm control over the UNSO and it continues to

conduct its activities in a relatively open fashion.122

The UNSO sees itself as complementing the work of the armed

forces and militia, and it has supported elements in the UAF who

are dissatisfied with their wages and living conditions.123 It has also

tried to gain support among representatives of the militaryindustrial complex, and has tried to establish certain links with the

UOU.124 Until the second half of 1993, the state authorities appeared

to tolerate the UNSO, possibly because it provided a certain

counterweight to the activity ofRussian chauvinist organizations in

Ukraine. However, recent attempts to restrict UNSO's activities

have been complicated by the unsettled political situation in

Ukraine, and may be further complicated by the recent election of

three members of the UNA to the new Ukrainian parliament.125
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 63

The initial phase in the development of the UAF ended in

October 1993, when Defense Minister Morozov offered his

resignation after facing increasing opposition in the Ukrainian

parliament and openly disagreeing with the position taken by

Ukraine's President Kravchuk during the Russian-Ukrainian

Massandra summit in Crimea in September 1993.126 He was

replaced by Colonel General Vitalii Radetsky, formerly the

commander of the Odessa Military District.

It appears that President Kravchuk perceived Radetsky as more

flexible than Morozov, more capable of getting the approval of

conservative parliamentarians for certain military reforms, and

better suited to help rationalize the production of Ukraine's militaryindustrial complex. In fact, parliament approved Ukraine's military

doctrine less than 2 weeks after Radetsky took office, and he

devoted a great deal of attention to military "hardware" issues.127

For example, several discussions between representatives of the

ministries of defense of Ukraine and Russia on the joint planning

and preparation of defense production took place in late 1993 and

early 1994.128

At the same time, Radetsky made it clear that the process of

"Ukrainizing" the UAF would be slowed down and that he

disapproved of military involvement in politics, thus discouraging

the activities ofthe UOU in the UAF.129 He also quickly moved to

restructure the controversial SPS. Muliava was reassigned to other

duties, and the SPS was renamed the Main Administration for

Educational and Social-Psychological Work.130 However, this

organization, whose personnel have had to undergo another "reorientation" in their work, has continued to lose credibility and has

proven incapable of stemming the renewed growth of so-called

"informal" practices such as hazing in the UAF,131 an activity that

has pitted servicemen from one area of Ukraine against those from

another along ethnic or linguistic lines.132

In addition, in 1993-94 the military came under increasing

budgetary pressure because of Ukraine's continuing economic

decline, for even the highest priority sectors are greatly suffering

because of the severity of the country's economic crisis. Surveys

have shown that the great majority of officers in the UAF are

unhappy with the conditions of their service, which has led to the

growth of independent trade union activities in the UAF.133
64 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

In addition to expressing grievances concerning low pay,

inferior living conditions, and poor social security provisions,

officers have frequently complained about a deterioration in the

military's combat capabilities, since financial constraints have

restricted opportunities for training and for the development and

purchase of new weapons systems.134 Another commonly expressed

grievance is the continuation of widespread corrupt activities in the

senior ranks of the top-heavy military.135

In spite ofthe many problems faced by the Ukrainian military,

it is still trusted by a large part of the population, and its "rating" in

various opinion polls is quite high, although it has declined in the

last year. In fact, according to one poll taken in 1994, the only other

major social institution with a similarly high rating was the

church.136 However, this is less an indication of the military's

widespread popularity and more a reflection of very low levels of

public trust in most other public institutions, with the major

exception of the presidency, especially under Kuchma.

In spite of the activities of the UOU, the Ukrainian military

generally appears to be less politicized than the Russian military,

One reason is that the Ukrainian military has not been used to help

deal with domestic opposition to the current central political

authorities. None of the major actors on the Ukrainian political

scene owes major debts to, or has tried to curry special favor with,

the military. In addition, the vigorous role which the Russian

military has played in certain neighboring countries (e.g.,

Tadjikistan, Georgia, Moldova) has contributed a great deal to its

growing politicization. In contrast, the UAF have not seen service

abroad, with the exception of contingents of peacekeeping troops in

the former Yugoslavia.

There are few indications that military officers in Ukraine are

prepared to directly intervene in the political process. The main

exceptions consist of some officers serving in the Black Sea Fleet,

and certain officers who have engaged in protests to publicize their

deteriorating living standards. The major threat to the stability of

civil-military relations in Ukraine appears to be discontent among

military servicemen stemming from their deteriorating

socioeconomic status and uncertainty about the future. For example,

funding shortages have restricted the number of military officers

who can be retrained to enter civilian occupations, in spite of

continuing plans to drastically reduce the size of the UAF.137
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY 65

However, a number of Western institutions have provided some

funding for such programs, although one can hear numerous

anecdotes in Kiev concerning the effectiveness of attempts to

retrain military officers to work as managers and businessmen.

The Ukrainian press has continued to carry numerous reports of

poorly heated barracks, of military personnel ashamed to appear in

public because of their thread-bare uniforms, and so on.138 If the

state of the Ukrainian economy does not improve, and the

socioeconomic concerns of military officers are not addressed in a

satisfactory fashion, the relative calm that characterizes civilmilitary relations in Ukraine to date (at least outside of Crimea)

could be seriously threatened.139

The trends in civil-military relations in Ukraine after Leonid

Kuchma, Ukraine's new president, took office in the summer of

1994 have generally been positive, since the pattern of civilmilitary relations in Ukraine is becoming more similar to the pattern

taken for granted in most liberal democracies. Most significantly,

there is a possibility now that the economy can be stabilized and

that over time one will see an end to rapidly declining living

standards, the major cause of dissatisfaction in the UAF. It is also

important to note that Ukraine's third defense minister, Valerii

Shmarov, is the first civilian to occupy this post. Shmarov's

appointment was treated with some dismay by Ukraine's defense

establishment, which is totally dominated by military professionals,

but it did not encounter any significant resistance.

Ukraine is moving decisively to cut back further on the size of

its bloated defense forces, and impose more discipline on the

chaotic process of budgetary planning for the armed forces and the

country as a whole. In addition, a concerted drive to deal with the

debilitating and demoralizing effects of corrupt activities within the

armed forces has paralleled a similar drive in society at large. If the

momentum generated by these developments is maintained, and is

accompanied by further reform measures, one can expect a gradual

stabilization of civil-military relations in Ukraine in the next few

years. Given the situation in which Ukraine found itself in late

1991, it is hardly surprising that the process of building the

Ukrainian Armed Forces was complex and often contradictory.

What is surprising is that it was not even more complex and

contradictory.
8.

SOME CONCLUSIONS

Many observers have noted the importance of stability in Ukraine,

and of its peaceful relations with Russia, for regional and even

international security. However, during the first 2 years following

Ukraine's independence, many of these commentaries had a pro

forma ring to them, as if their authors knew that something

significant was occurring in Ukraine and felt compelled to speak

out on this topic, but had little of substance to say.

As interest in Ukraine has grown, the quality of commentary on

this country has improved. A growing realization of the importance

of domestic developments in Ukraine exits. Less news about

Ukraine is "filtered" through Moscow, and the tendency to dismiss

Ukraine as a passive periphery region inevitably dominated by a

core Russian state is decreasing. In fact, in recent months the

pessimism that pervaded commentaries on Ukraine in early 1994

has been replaced, in some reports, by almost euphoric praise of the

Kuchma administration and its reform program.

It must be recognized, however, that a profound degradation of

Ukraine's socioeconomic infrastructure has taken place in recent

years, and it will take a lengthy period of time to reverse its effects.

In the meantime, public dissatisfaction with low standards of living

and very poor social services is growing. This dissatisfaction has

not been expressed in the form of mass disobedience and violence

largely because ofthe absence of vigorous and respected leadership

figures and organizations that could mobilize and channel public

discontent. The public's patience is wearing thin, however, and one

can easily imagine the emergence of demagogues who would try to

take advantage of increasing popular discontent.

Certainly, throughout much of 1994 there was good reason to

doubt that Ukraine would break out of a vicious cycle of growing

public apathy and cynicism fed by widespread perceptions (largely

correct) of a passive leadership with no clear socioeconomic and

political strategy. Even in these circumstances it was unwarranted

67
68 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

to paint an unremittingly bleak picture of Ukraine's imminent

collapse, as more likely scenarios included the installation of an

authoritarian regime in Ukraine or its subordination by Russia.140

However, the maintenance of minimal stability was probably the

best that could have been expected given the circumstances that

prevailed throughout most of 1994.

Even if favorable conditions for effective socioeconomic

reforms are soon created, it will be at least several years before

Ukraine can achieve a level of stability that would justify a high

level of confidence in its future. However, under the Kravchuk

administration it appeared unlikely that one would see the

emergence of such conditions. In contrast, the Kuchma

administration has shown great determination in tackling this task,

setting in motion a reform process that is beginning to acquire

considerable momentum. Thus the rhetoric of economic reform

voiced by President Kuchma in fall 1994 was soon followed by

concrete reform measures, and Ukraine's leadership took a number

of important steps in spring 1995 to establish its control over the

restive Crimean peninsula.

Following the Ukrainian parliament's vote of no confidence in

the government's cabinet in April 1995, the final distribution of

political power in Kiev remained undetermined, but most observers

have concluded that President Kuchma's position has improved as

a result, because it will probably allow him to streamline the cabinet

and appoint more reform-minded ministers. Aware of the lack of

public confidence in Ukraine's central legislature, in recent months

its members have generally backed away from sharp confrontations

with the executive branch of government, and in contests between

the legislature and the executive, the latter has usually emerged

triumphant.

Initial reports concerning the new acting prime minister (and

former head of the Ukrainian security apparatus), Evhen Marchuk,

indicate that he is a tough and able manager and negotiator, and his

access to the resources of Ukraine's security apparatus clearly

strengthens his hand in dealing with the current administration's

domestic opponents. In addition, there has been little open dissent

to date among President Kuchma's closest advisers, who remain

quite united in pressing for further reform measures. To date

President Kuchma and his advisers have shown great skill in

advancing their agenda and taking advantage of the weaknesses of
SOME CONCLUSIONS 69

their opponents, and these successes have been gained without a

resort to blatantly authoritarian methods.

Ukraine's transition to a relatively stable form of liberal

democracy would be greatly facilitated by support from a fullfledged civil society, clearly lacking in Ukraine. However, the

presence of a well-developed civil society is not essential for such

a transition, as long as it becomes established in the course of the

transition. As one scholar noted,

It may be that in these cases charismatic leaders, wise institutional

designs, and exogeneous factors can play a role—not in making

up or substituting for the civil society which is not there, but in

helping the process by which such a society comes about. This

role would require elites to pay close attention not only to the

design of political institutions but also, and mainly, to the design

of social institutions such as markets, social pluralism, and the

public sphere.141

President Kuchma is not charismatic, but his blunt and direct style

continue to appeal to a large number of voters, and he has retained

a high popularity rating. In addition, he has devoted considerable

attention to creating the preconditions for the development of a civil

society, and there is little evidence that he is prepared to engage in

any significant subversion of the democratic process. As an

example, President Kuchma has generally supported the

independence of the mass media and strongly stressed the need for

a more capable and professional legal system. A good chance exists

that the reform process in Ukraine will also be accompanied by the

rapid development of a civil society, so essential for the long-term

sociopolitical stability of any country.

Conversely, it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will become the

scene of mass violence followed by civil war. An unpredictable

chain of events could possibly lead to large-scale civil conflict, but

extremist forces in Ukraine still have only a narrow social base and

lack political influence. Of the mainstream political forces in

Ukraine, none currently possesses the will, social support, and

organizational resources needed to launch and sustain a major

challenge to the current administration's authority. Equally

important, none of these forces has a coherent plan for leading

Ukraine out of its present crisis situation.
70 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

The absence of widespread violence in Ukraine is probably also

due to another, less tangible factor: the great emphasis most citizens

of Ukraine place on maintaining social peace. The importance of

peaceful conflict resolution has been conditioned by die great losses

of life experienced by Ukraine during the many wars and other

conflicts on its territory in the 20th century, as well as the

devastation wrought by the brutal forced collectivization of

agriculture in Ukraine in the early 1930s.

However, as memories ofthese traumatic events fade, their role

in restraining the population from new acts of protest and violence

has gradually decreased and will continue to diminish. In turn, as

economic reforms proceed, their differential impact on various

social groups and regions ofUkraine will grow, as will the potential

for social conflict, increasing the need for new formulas and

"visions" to unify Ukraine's populations and its various regions.

Leonid Kuchma, who, during the 1994 presidential campaign

was demonized by nationalist and national-democratic forces as a

Russophile ready to sell Ukraine down the river, has paradoxically

emerged as one such unifying force. With his family roots and work

history connected with central and eastern Ukraine, and his wife of

ethnic Russian background, Leonid Kuchma, who spoke poor

Ukrainian only a few years ago, was initially perceived in many

quarters as an "Easterner" with little emotional commitment to the

cause of Ukrainian independence. Certainly, many commentators

argued that if he achieved the presidency this would greatly

accentuate the east-west cleavage in Ukraine.

However, by winning the presidential elections as a result of

strong voting support in eastern and southern Ukraine, President

Kuchma has given these regions a strong stake in developments in

the Ukrainian capital. As he repeatedly demonstrates his strong

commitment to Ukraine's independence, his popularity also quickly

grows in western Ukraine. In fact, President Kuchma has managed

to cobble together an increasingly influential coalition of moderate

national democrats from western and central Ukraine, and centrists

and social democrats from eastern and southern Ukraine. They are

marked by a technocratic/pragmatic approach to politics and

generally reject the option of emphasizing ethnic

(cultural/linguistic) identity to promote the political integration of

Ukraine's population. Rather, they have maintained the strategy,

consistently adhered to since Ukraine's independence, of promoting
SOME CONCLUSIONS 71

a civic (political) identity based on the principle of citizenship

rather than ethnic origin.

The nature of the civil/political identity that will evolve in

Ukraine has yet to be clearly defined. It will emerge slowly, and

during this period circumstances could conceivably arise (e.g.,

continued economic decline in Ukraine and vigorous economic

growth in Russia, accompanied by clumsy regional policies

emanating from the central government in Kiev) that would

seriously disrupt or even threaten the nation-building process.

However, cautious optimism regarding developments in Ukraine is

fully warranted given the current positive trends noted above.
9.

DEVELOPMENTS FOR

REGIONAL SECURITY

Although it was slow to develop, there is now a growing consensus

in the West that the maintenance of Ukraine's independence and

Russia's full acceptance ofUkraine's independent status are of great

importance for regional security and Russia's development as a

democratic state. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Michael Mandelbaum

supports this point of view:

So long as it [Ukraine] remains independent it is a buffer between

Russia and the rest of Europe. More important, an independent

Ukraine is the best guarantee that Russia will remain a peaceful

nation-state. Conflict between the two would have adverse

repercussions to the west. And if Moscow absorbed Ukraine or

attempted to do so, Russia would again become a multinational

empire harboring a large, resentful subject nation, with poor

prospects for the construction of a stable democratic system.'42

There is also a consensus that Russia's present leadership is

committed to strongly promoting the economic and military

integration ofthe post-Soviet space, especially that encompassed by

the Commonwealth of Independent States. There is considerable

disagreement in Moscow over the means by which this integration

should be pursued and the desired end result of the process.143 It is,

however, being driven by an increasingly assertive and nationalist

agenda in Moscow, an agenda which aims at Russian hegemony

within the CIS.

The challenge facing the NATO countries and Ukraine's East

European neighbours is to support Ukraine's independence without

giving undue encouragement to nationalist forces in Moscow. This

is a difficult challenge, because Moscow greatly resents all foreign

efforts to influence developments in what it considers to be its

73
74 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

immediate "back yard." In fact, according to one influential theme

in Russian nationalist thought, Ukraine's independence has always

been linked to foreign "intrigues" aimed at undermining the unity

of the East Slavic lands and is therefore a bogus phenomenon.

If one accepts the above-mentioned consensus concerning

Ukraine's central role in ensuring regional security, this adds an

important perspective to the current debates on the possible

expansion of NATO. Ukraine is rarely mentioned in these debates,

and it is usually assigned to the end of the line of potential NATO

members. However, it is Ukraine rather than the most favored

candidates for NATO membership (the Czech Republic, Poland,

Hungary, and Slovakia) that is most vulnerable to potentially

aggressive Russian behavior, the most important rationale for

quickly broadening NATO.

A rapid expansion of NATO to include the Visegrad countries

would partly satisfy their long-term security concerns, but it would

leave Ukraine in a partial security vacuum, between NATO and a

potentially aggressive Russia. One potential reaction in Ukraine,

which defines itself as a neutral state, would be to engage in a

military buildup and possibly abandon the policy of ridding the

country of all nuclear weapons on its territory. This could most

easily be achieved under an authoritarian regime that would

probably abandon the current program of political and

socioeconomic reforms being introduced in Ukraine.

A more likely result of NATO expansion would be increasingly

vigorous and insistent attempts on the part of Russia to integrate

Ukraine fully into the heavily Russian-dominated CIS collective

security system. Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma and other

senior Ukrainian officials have openly voiced their concerns

regarding the latter scenario as well as their unhappiness with the

image ofUkraine as a "buffer" zone. They have argued that a quick

decision to move NATO's eastern borders to Ukraine's western

borders would not help to ensure regional or European stability.144

Given these constraints, in the present circumstances the most

desirable option, for both Ukraine and the West, appears to be a

slow expansion of NATO accompanied by its gradual

transformation into, or replacement by, a new European collective

security organization. A new body of this kind would carry little of

the political baggage now associated with NATO. It would also be
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 75

easier for Russia to join this body eventually if it wished to do so,

and play a constructive role.

Russia is still a weak state. Although its behavior in the socalled "near abroad" has often been cynical and manipulative,

especially with respect to the independent states of the Caucasus

region, this behavior has not, to date, directly threatened Western

security. Although one can easily understand and sympathize with

the security concerns of the Visegrad countries, which are seeking

firm protection against the revival of Russian imperial behavior, at

present there is no pressing need for NATO expansion.

The situation in Russia remains confused and unpredictable.

Certainly, in view ofRussia's increasingly aggressive foreign policy

stance with respect to the CIS countries, there are good reasons to

doubt its commitment to maintaining the current post-Cold War

status quo. For some time to come the United States and other

NATO countries must be prepared to mount a vigorous response, in

the form of an anti-Russian coalition, to a possible resumption of an

imperial Russian foreign policy. The transformation of NATO into

a new European collective security organization must be gradual

and must not impair its ability to mount such a response.

Given Ukraine's importance as a linchpin of regional security

and the special difficulty Russia's political elites have faced in

accepting Ukraine's independence, it is also important that the West

not encourage Russia's attempts to promote political-military

integration within the CIS, especially where Ukraine is concerned,

by accepting NATO/CIS equivalency. On the contrary, Ukraine

should be encouraged to maintain its neutral, nonbloc status and to

participate in the widest possible range of regional and international

confidence-building measures. This would provide Ukraine with

much-needed expertise in dealing with international security

arrangements and eventually allow it to play a role in helping to

shape these arrangements.
76 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

NOTES

1. See for example, A. Birch, "Overload, Ungovernability, and

Delegitimation," British Journal ofPolitical Science 14 (April 1984): 135-

160.

2. The Washington Post, 25 January 1994.

3. See the comments in Elizabeth Pond, "An End, Maybe, to

Sleepwalking in Ukraine," The Washington Quarterly 18 (Winter 1995):

73-74.

4. On Ulis topic see the discussion in Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj, "Russian and

Ukrainian Studies and the New World Order," Canadian Slavonic Papers

34 (December 1992): 445-458.

5. See, for example, David Sanders, Patterns ofPolitical Instability

(London: Macmillan, 1981).

6. Juergen Corbet and Andreas Gummich, The Soviet Union at the

Crossroads: Facts and Figures on the Soviet Republics (Frankfurt:

Deutsche Bank AG, Economics Department, 1990), 11.

7. "Panel on Patterns of Disintegration in the Former Soviet Union,"

Post-Soviet Geography 33 (June 1992): 390; and Georgii S. Golitsyn,

"Ecological Problems in the CIS during the Transition Period," RFEIRL

Research Report 2, no. 2, 8 January 1993, 33-42.

8. On Ukraine's MIC, its drain on the Ukrainian economy, and the

problems of conversion, see John Tedstrom, "Industrial Conversion in

Ukraine: Policies and Prospects," Report on the USSR, no. 34, 23 August

1991,12-16; and the chapters by Antonov and Bodruk in Henry S. Rowen

et al., eds., Defense Conversion, Economic Reform, and the Outlook for the

Russian and Ukrainian Economies (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).

9. For example, according to Nasha respublika, 1 April 1995, 2, over

2,000 trolleybus repairmen from all regions of Ukraine were workin in

Moscow in early 1995, which contributed significantly to the deterioration

of the public transportation system in Ukraine.

10. On this brain-drain, the demoralization of Ukraine's intellectual

elite, and the poor state of Ukraine's educational system, see the articles by

Astakhova and Horodianenko in the Kharkiv journal Sovremennoe

obshchestvo no. 3, 1994.

11. The discussion in this and the next few paragraphs is based on the

following sources: Oleh Havrylyshyn, "The Ukrainian Economy,"

Perspectives on Contemporary Ukraine 1 (Nov.-Dec. 1994): 2-4; David

Marples, "The Ukrainian Economy in the Autumn of 1994: Status Report,"

Post-Soviet Geography 35 (October 1994): 484-491; the special section

"Unruly Child: A Survey of Ukraine," in The Economist, 1 May 1994;

Valerii Popovkin, "Suchasna katastrofa ukrainskoi ekonomiky (Vytoky i

shliakhypodolannia),"5«c/iflj/i«fno. 9 (1993): 94-106; and conversations

in April 1995 with Mr. Michael Zienchuk, Economic Analyst/Advisor to
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 77

the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine as well as his unpublished paper

entitled "Ukrainian Economic Policy: Now Getting it Right," written in

February 1995.

12. A very high percentage of the individuals at the highest levels of

government have been accused of various forms of corruption. See, for

example, the analysis in Moscow News no. 10, 17-23 March 1995.

13. The information in this and the next few paragraphs is based on

reports in the newspapers Finansovaia Ukraina and Post-Postup, and well

as articles from the Economist and news items from the OMRI Daily

Digest.

14. See, for example, the article by Mar'iana Chorna in Post Postup

no. 36, 6-12 1994, 3. For a more analytical discussion of the roots of

liberalism in the Donbas region see Iurii Iurov, "Liberal'nyi trykutnyk

Donbasu," Studii politolohichnoho tsentru Heneza no. 1, 1993,43-52,

15. For a good report on President Kuchma's first 100 days in office

by VolodymyrZolotar'ov see Post Postup no. 37, 20-27 October 1994, 3.

16. See, for example, the interview with Ukraine's ambassador to

Germany in Vseukrainskie vedomosti, 6 April 1995.

17. V.S. Nebozhenko, Sotsial'na napruzhenist' i konflikty v

ukrains'komu suspil'stvi (Kiev: Abrys, 1994), 17-18; 32-33.

18. Ibid., 21-24.

19. Ibid., 24-28.

20. Ibid., 30-32.

21. Ibid., 43-45.

22. Ibid., 38-42.

23. Mikhail Beletsky, "Ukraine: Alignment of Forces on the Political

Scene," New Times, January 1995,45.

24. Anatolii Rusnachenko, "The Workers' and National-Democratic

Movements in Contemporary Ukraine," Journal of Ukrainian Studies 18

(Summer-Winter 1993): 123-149; and Most no. 6, 13-19 February 1995.

25. Vseukrainskie vedomosti, 25 March 1995. See also the bleak

picture painted by a document, entitled Ukraine Human Development

Report, published by the United Nations. For a summary of the contents

of the report see Ukrainian Weekly, 19 March 1995.

26. See, for example, Ihor Vynnychenko, "The Deportation,

Incarceration, and Forced Resettlement of Ukrainians in the Soviet Period,"

Journal of Ukrainian Studies 18 (Summer-Winter 1993): 55-68; and

Andrew Wilson, The Crimean Tatars (London: International Alert, 1994).

27. John Jaworsky, "Dissent, Ethnonationalism, and the Politics of

Coercion in the USSR," unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Carleton University

(Ottawa), 1990, Chapters 5-6.
78 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

28. Ukrainian Weekly, 4 August 1991. For negative reactions to

President Bush's speech, which was criticized as being condescending and

quickly labelled his "Chicken Kiev" speech, see the Ukrainian Weekly,

August 11 and 18, 1991.

29. See, for example, the statement by Chornovil in Za vil'nu Ukrainu,

3 October 1992.

30. The Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report: Commonwealth

ofIndependent States no. 4, 1992,43.

31. Staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,

Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Human Rights and

Democratization in the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet

Union (Washington, January 1993), 60.

32. Literaturna Ukraina, 19 July 1990.

33. For the text of this legislation, see Holos Ukrainy, 16 July 1992.

34. For analyses of the draft constitution of Ukraine see Ukrainian

Weekly, 6 September 1992, 20 September 1992, and 15 November 1992.

The full text of the draft was published in Holos Ukrainy, 11 July 1992.

35. Uriadovyi kur'ier, 26 April 1993.

36. For interviews conducted with Shul'ha soon after his appointment,

see Kyivs'ka pravda, 8 September 1994 and Vseukrainskie vedomosti, 19

October 1994.

37. See, for example, Dziuba's presentation delivered at the

international conference, "Problems of Ukrainian-Jewish Relations," held

in Kiev 7-9 June 1991, in a special issue of Svit, Nos. 3-4, 1991, 1. For a

good recent overview of Ukraine's nationality policy see the interview with

the Vice-President of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences in Nasha

respublika no. 13, 7 April 1995.

38. The significance of this "Little Russian" inferiority complex is

assessed in "Little Russianism and the Ukrainian-Russian Relationship: An

Interview with Mykola Ryabchuk," in Ukraine: From Chernobyl' to

Sovereignty: A Collection ofInterviews, ed. Roman Solchanyk (Edmonton:

Can. Inst. of Ukr. Studies Press, 1992), 19-30.

39. Roman Solchanyk, "Language Politics in the Ukraine," in

Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages, ed. Isabelle T.

Kreindler (Berlin: Mouton, 1985), 57-105; and "The Politics of Language

in Ukraine," RFEIRL Research Report 2, no. 10, 5 March 1993, 1-4.

40. The speeches delivered at this congress, including Dziuba's

speech, and other congress materials, were published in Suchasnist' no. 12

(December 1989).

41. Much of the material which follows is based on Jaworsky,

"Dissent, Ethnonationalism and the Politics of Coercion."

42. Nebozhenko, Sotsial'na napruzhenist', 42.
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 79

43. See Bohdan Nahaylo, "Ukraine," in the special issue, entitled "The

Politics of Intolerance," of RFEIRL Research Report 3, no. 16, 22 April

1994,42-49.

44. Summary of address by President Kuchma to the Supreme

Council of Ukraine, 4 April 1995, supplied to author by the Ukrainian

Embassy in Ottawa.

45. On this point see, for example, Viacheslav Savchenko, "Kryms'ki

uroky Leonida Kravchuka," UNIAN-Polityka no. 0074, 1 August 1994.

46. Savchenko, "Kryms'ki uroky," 11.

47. For a recent assessment of the quality of the programs on

Ukraine's main state television channel (UT-1), see the article by Inha

Balyts'ka in Visti z Ukrainy, 8-14 December 1994.

48. See, for example, the section on Ukraine in "The Media in the

Countries of the Former Soviet Union," RFEIRL Research Report 2 (2 July

1993): 5-6. On the great popularity in Ukraine of Russia's Ostankino

television broadcasts, see Oleksandr Vyshniak, "Bezperechnym liderom

sered telekanaliv...," UNIAN-Polityka no. 0019, 16 June 1994, 5.

49. Mykola Riabchuk, "Krym: ni Honkonhu, ni Bosnii," UNIANPolityka no. 0012, 13 June 1994, 17; and Savchenko, "Kryms'ki uroky,"

12.

50. See the coverage of the Crimean issue in The Ukrainian Weekly,

26 March 1995 and 2 April 1995.

51. OMRI Daily Digest, 20 April 1995.

52. For a useful introduction to this issue, see Roman Solchanyk, "The

Politics of State Building: Centre-Periphery Relations in Post-Soviet

Ukraine," Europe-Asia Studies 46, no. 1 (1994): 47-68.

53. Ukrainian Republican Party Bulletin in, 21 January 1995; and

Ukrainian Weekly, 15 January 1995. It should be noted, however, that

Kravchuk's early policy concerning Crimea was inconsistent with his later

emphasis on a unitary Ukrainian state, and that he supported the Crimean

bid for autonomy in

1991.

54. Daniel Elazar, "Federal Democracy in a World Beyond

Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism," in Soviet Federalism, Nationalism

and Economic Decentralisation, ed. Alastair McAuley, (Leicester:

Leicester University Press), 2-3.

55. For an early version of this argument, pre-dating the disintegration

of the USSR, see Iaroslav Dashkevych, "Maibutnia Ukraina: Federatsiia?"

Slovo no. 12 (June 1991): 6.

56. I. Kuras, "Federatsiia chy unitarna derzhava?" Polityka i chas no.

6 (June 1993): 8.
80 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

57. Lepingwell, in "The Russian Military," 80-81, 86, notes several

examples of support by Russian political leaders for the federalisation of

Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia.

58. Audrey Brassloff, "Spain: The State of the Autonomies," in

Federalism and Nationalism, ed. Murray Forsyth (Leicester: Leicester

University Press, 1989), 24-50.

59. Dzhanhirov, "Donets'k i Dnipropetrovs'k," 6-8.

60. Zolotar'ov, "Odesa iak lokomotyv feodalizatsii," 20.

61. Ivo D. Duchacek, The Territorial Dimension ofPolitics Within,

Among, and Across Nations (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), 117.

62. The issue of territorial-administrative reform in Ukraine has

attracted very little attention in the West. However, one recent comment

on the situation in Ukraine has briefly noted the possible benefits of the

introduction of a federal system in Ukraine. See Gert Weisskirchen, "The

Ukraine at the Crossroads," Aussenpolitik no. 4 (1994): 331.

63. For background information on the Donbas and the "politics of

coal" in this region see Chapter 6 ("The Donbass Miners and the 1989 Coal

Strike") in David Marples, Ukraine Under Perestroika: Ecology,

Economics and the Workers' Revolt (Edmonton: University of Alberta

Press, 1991).

64. Taras Kuzio, "The Multi-Party System in Ukraine on the Eve of

Elections: Identity Problems, Conflicts and Solutions," Government and

Opposition 29 (Winter 1994): 109-127; and Peter Potichnyj, "Formation

of Political Parties in Ukraine," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of

the Canadian Association of Slavists, Learned Societies conference,

Ottawa, 5 June 1993.

65. Nebozhenko, Sotsial'na napruzhenist', 51-52.

66. For a recent description of some elements of Ukraine's party

system, and a list of political parties registered by Ukraine's Ministry of

Justice, see Ukrains'ka hazeta, 30 March 1995.

67. See, for example, the text of President Kuchma's address to the

editors of Ukraine's main newspapers on 12 January 1995, in Ukrinform,

Ukraina: khronika podii, 13 January 1995.

68. Information provided by Rostyslav Chomiak, from Kiev, on the

Ukes-News list, 9 January 1995.

69. See, for example, the section on Ukraine in "The Media in the

Countries of the Former Soviet Union," RFEIRL Research Report 2 (2 July

1993): 5-6. On the great popularity in Ukraine of Russia's Ostankino

television broadcasts see Oleksandr Vyshniak, "Bezperechnym liderom

sered telekanaliv," UNIAN-Polityka no. 0019, 16 June 1994, 5.

70. Most no. 6, 13-19 February 1995.

71. Ukrinform, Ukraina: Khronika podii, 1 March 1995.
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 81

72. IE. Bekeshkina, Konfliktolohichnyipidkhid do suchasnoi sytuatsii

v Ukraini (Kiev: Abrys, 1994), 35.

73. Bekeshkina, Konfliktolohichnyi pidkhid, 46.

74. In contrast, former president Kravchuk was born and raised in the

region of Volhynia, one of the traditional "homelands" of Ukrainian

nationalism.

75. For President Kuchma's rather pessimistic evaluation of the

accomplishments of the campaign against corruption and organized crime,

see the text of his speech in Ukrinform Ukraina: khronika podii, 31

January 1995.

76. See J. Williamson, ed., The Political Economy ofPolicy Reform

(Washington, DC: Institute for National Economics, 1994), and the

commentary by Ivan Koropets'kyi, "Vyhliady na uspikh ekonomichnykh

reform v Ukraini," Suchasnist' no. 11 (November 1994): 59-72.

77. For example the chief of the Presidential Informational-Analytic

Service, Viktor Nebozhenko, is a sociologist who conducted many of the

opinion polls cited in this study. See the interview with Nebozhenko in

Sil'ske zhyttia, 23 February 1995.

78. Holos Ukrainy, 19 January 1995.

79. See Nebozhenko, Sotsial'na napruzhenist', 32-33.

80. On the "party of power" see the excellent article by Mykola

Riabchuk, "Deshcho pro 'partiiu vlady ta kryzu demokratychnoho rukhu,"

in Suchasnist' no. 12 (1994): 50-60.

81. Jeremy Lester, "Russian Political Attitudes to Ukrainian

Independence," The Journal ofCommunist Studies and Transition Politics

10 (June 1994): 227-28. On this topic see also Roman Solchanyk, "Russia,

Ukraine, and the Imperial Legacy," Post-Soviet Affairs 9 (Oct.-Dec. 1993):

358-362.

82. Clarke, "The Saga," 46-49.

83. Solchanyk, "Russia, Ukraine, and the Imperial Legacy," 358-362.

For a good general survey of political attitudes in Russia concerning

Ukraine, see Lester, "Russian Political Attitudes to Ukrainian

Independence," 193-233.

84. A number of articles have recently dealt with this issue. See, for

example, Andrei Zagorsky, "Russia, the CIS and the West," International

Affairsno. 12 (December 1994): 65-72; and John W.R. Lepingwell, "The

Russian Military and Security Policy in the 'Near Abroad'," Survival 36

(Autumn 1994): 70-92.

85. See the observations on "pipeline politics" in J.P. Dorian, I.S.

Rossi, and S.T. Indriyanto, "Central Asia's Oil and Gas Pipeline Network:

Current and Future Flows," Post-Soviet Geography 35 (September 1994):

423-429.

86. Clarke, "The Saga," pp. 45-46; and "Rusting Fleet," 29-31.
82 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

87. Denis J.B. Shaw, "Crimea: Background and Aftermath of Its 1994

Presidential Election," Post-Soviet Geography 35 (April 1994): 222, 226.

88. Charles King, "Eurasia Letter: Moldova with a Russian Face,"

Foreign Policy no. 97 (Winter 1994-95): 107.

89. Lepingwell, "The Russian Military," 81.

90. OMRI Daily Digest, 26 and 27 April 1995.

91. On Russia's negotiating stance concerning the BSF see Petro

Pavliuk, "Resursy kompromisiv vycherpano," Visti z Ukrainy 12-18

January 1995.

92. Pavliuk, "Resursy"; and Viacheslav Savchenko, "Hnit, shcho

horyt' z dvokh kintsiv," UNIAN-Polityka no. 0107, 31 August 1994,

93. For the text of Baltin's speech, see Flag Rodiny, 17 November

1994. See also the response in Flot Ukrainy, 17 December 1994.

94. Flag Rodiny, 17 November 1994.

95. See, for example, the report in OMRI Daily Digest no. 82, 26

April 1995; and "Ukraina" Press Agency, 24 April 1995.

96. OMRI Daily Digest no. 77,19 April 1995.

97. "Ukraina" Press Agency, 21 April 1995.

98. OMRI Daily Digest, 27 April 1995, quoting Nezavisimaia gazeta,

26 April 1995.

99. John Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance of Recent

Developments in Ukraine, Project Report no. 645, Operational Research

and Analysis, Directorate of Strategic Analysis, Department of National

Defence, Ottawa, August 1993, 93-96.

100. Literaturna Ukraina, 18 July 1990.

101. Military developments in Ukraine prior to mid-November 1991

are described in John Jaworsky, "Ukrainian Nationalism and the Future of

the Soviet Armed Forces," revised version of paper delivered at the 3rd

Bedford Colloquium on Soviet Military-Political Affairs, 15 August 1991,

Bedford, Nova Scotia.

102. Jaworsky, "Ukrainian Nationalism," 19-20.

103. Stephen Foye, "The CIS Armed Forces," RFEIRL Research

Report 2, no. 1 (1 January 1993): 41-44.

104. Author's impressions based on conversations with military

personnel in Ukraine in early December 1991.

105. Taras Kuzio, "Ukraine's Young Turks—The Union of Ukrainian

Officers," Jane's Intelligence Review, January 1993, 23-26.

106. Molod' Ukrainy, 23 July 1992.

107. According to an article published in one of the organs of

Ukraine's Ministry of Defence, in 1992 almost 20 percent of Ukraine's state

budget was consumed by military-related expenditures. This figure did not

include expenditures on conversion. Oleksandr Honcharenko et al.,

"Kontseptsiia natsional'noi bezpeky Ukrainy: problemy i perspektyvy
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 83

rozbudovy," Viis'ko Ukrainy no. 5 (1993): 9.

108. See for example Kievskie vedomosti, 9 April 1994; and

Ukrains'ka hazeta, 20 January-2 February 1994.

109. Molod' Ukrainy, 17 May 1994. Ukraine has had very little

success breaking into the international arms market. On this topic, see the

comment by former Defense Minister Morozov in Visti z Ukrainy, 10-16

March 1994. For general information on conversion in Ukraine, see Ilya

Bass and Leslie Dienes, "Defense Industry Legacies and Conversion in the

Post-Soviet Realm," Post-Soviet Geography 34 (May 1993): 302-317.

110. Ukrainian Weekly, 22 May 1994. On the state of Ukraine's

rocket-space technology sector, see Narodna armiia, 12 April 1994.

111. Kievskie vedomosti, 12 June 1993.

112. Foye, "The Ukrainian Armed Forces: Prospects and Problems,"

RFEIRL Research Report 1, no. 26, 26 June 1992, 56-57; and Molod'

Ukrainy, 1 June 1993.

113. Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance, 87-89.

114. Ibid., 91-92.

115. A recent article has noted that Ukraine inherited a

disproportionately large proportion of the Soviet Union's military

educational institutions, while almost all military research institutions were

located in Russia. Narodna armiia, 21 April 1994. Vigorous debates

concerning the fate of military educational institutions in Ukraine were still

being waged in early 1994. See, for example, Visti z Ukrainy, 24 February2 March 1994.

116. Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance, 108-110.

117. Ibid., 108. The two main "think-tanks" in Kiev which focus on

security issues are the National Institute of Strategic Studies and the

International Institute on Global and Regional Security.

118. Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance, 111-112. A

strongly-worded attack on Morozov's "politicization" of the UAF and his

support of the UOU was recently published in Nezavisimost', 8 April 1994.

119. Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance," 100-101.

120. Ibid., 112-113.

121. On right-wing extremism in Ukraine in general, and the UNAUNSO in particular, see Bohdan Nahaylo, "Ukraine" in the special issue,

entitled "The Politics of Intolerance," of RFEIRL Research Report 3, no.

16, 22 April 1994,42-49.

122. Ibid.; Jaworsky, The Military-Strategic Significance, 102-104;

Taras Kuzio, "Ukrainian Paramilitaries," Jane's Intelligence Review,

December 1992, 540; and Demokratychna Ukraina, 9 August 1993. On

the participation of UNSO members in the conflict between Georgia and

Abkhazia see Kievskie vedomosti, 18 August 1993; and Nezavisimost', 27

August 1993. In this conflict UNSO supported the Georgian side, since the
84 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

UNA leadership claimed that Russia was clearly behind the Abkhaz rebels.

123. On attempts by the UNA to gain support among poorly-housed

military officers, see Respublika, 4-10 November 1993.

124. Links between representatives of the UOU and the UNSO are

noted in Kievskie vedomosti, 15 May 1993; and Vechirnii Kyiv, 11

November 1993 (citing Moskovskie novosti). The head of the L'viv branch

of the UOU recently stated that he personally approves of the work of the

UNA-UNSO. "Kontakt" Television program (Toronto), 16 April 1994.

125. An interesting interview with Iurii Tyma, one of the UNAUNSO representatives who was elected to the Ukrainian parliament, was

published in Kievskie vedomosti, 6 May 1994.

126. Lengthy excerpts from the autobiography of former Defense

Minister Morozov, detailing his view of the events leading up to his

resignation, were published in the January-March 1994 issues of

Ukrains'ka hazeta.

127. Ustina Markus, "Recent Defense Developments in Ukraine,"

RFEIRL Research Report 3, no. 4, 28 January 1994, 26-32. On the

adoption of Ukraine's new defense doctrine, see Kievskie vedomosti, 21

October 1993.

128. Uriadovyikur'ier, 11 January 1994. Regular working meetings

between delegations of the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries have

taken place to discuss further technical cooperation. See, for example, the

report in UNIAN-Novyny, 27 April 1994, at 21.40. During the conference

on "The Mlitary Tradition," former Defense Minister Morozov noted that

most representatives of Ukraine's military-industrial complex are strongly

in favour of a high level of integration of the economies of Ukraine and

Russia.

129. The UOU's Fifth Congress, and changes in official attitudes

towards the UOU, are described in Vechirnii Kyiv, 6 January 1994. A

plenum of the UOU has sharply criticized many of Radetsky's policies,

noting that the Russian language is now used in many of the defense

ministry's internal bureaucratic procedures, and that national Ukrainian

military traditions are being de-emphasized in the UAF. The plenum also

criticized the introduction of "officers' assemblies" in the UAF, arguing that

they would serve as an official avenue of pressure by the "reactionary"

military leadership on servicemen. See Visti z Ukrainy, 3-9 March 1994.

The operation of the officers' assemblies is described in Armiia Ukrainy,

26 February 1994 and 30 March 1994, and they are criticized in

Martyrosian's article in Vechirnii Kyiv, 30 April 1994.

130. On the reassignment of General Muliava to other duties see

Ukrains'ke slovo, 17 November 1993. See also Kievskie vedomosti, 12

April 1994. In an interview in Molod' Ukrainy, 6 May 1994, Radetsky

criticized the hitherto prevailing tendency to criticize all SAF traditions as
DEVELOPMENTS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY 85

having no relevance to Ukraine's Armed Forces. However, Ukraine's

military press continues to publish articles dealing with themes which were

strongly encouraged by Muliava. See, for example, the article on the

military-educational preparation of OUN members in 1939-41 in Armiia

Ukrainy, 29 March 1994. General descriptions of the work of the SPS's

successor can be found in Armiia Ukrainy, 22 March 1994 and 2 April

1994.

131. Pravda Ukrainy, 1 February 1994; Vechirnii Kyiv, 29 March

1994; and Kievskie vedomosti, 24 November 1993. According to a survey

whose results were published in Visti z Ukrainy, 19-25 May 1994, the

continued practice of "didivshchyna" is the main reason why conscript-age

youths are reluctant to serve in the UAF.

132. Oleg Strekal, "No Way to Run an Army," The Bulletin of (he

Atomic Scientists, January/February 1994, 34. Defense Minister Radetsky

surveyed many of the problems facing the UAF, and called for determined

action to weed out phenomena such as didivshchyna, in his "open letter" to

military servicemen, members of their families, and members of the

community at large in Armiia Ukrainy, 9 March 1994.

133. Narodna armiia, 18 March 1994; and Kievskie vedomosti, 30

March 1994. On the difficulties of introducing and implementing effective

reforms in the UAF during an economic crisis, see the interview with the

chair of the Ukrainian parliament's Commission on Defense and State

Security, Valentyn Lemish, in Kyivs'kyi visnyk, 25 January 1994. The

activities of the Independent Trade Union of Military Servicemen of

Ukraine are described in Kievskie vedomosti, 23 November 1993.

134. Hobs Ukrainy, 10 March 1994; Vechirnii Kyiv, 6 January 1994;

and the article by Oleksandr Manachyns'kyi in Narodna armiia, 29 April

1994.

135. For statistics on the growth of various forms of corruption and

other "pathologies" in the UAF in early 1994 see the article on the work of

Ukraine's military procuracy in Holos Ukrainy, 8 April 1994. In May 1994

a number of senior military officials were accused of financial irregularities

in connection with the use of military aircraft for commercial transport

purposes. UNIAN-Novyny, 13 May 1994, at 22:00.

136. Kievskie vedomosti, 30 March 1994; and Vechirnii Kyiv, 6

January 1994.

137. Kyivs'kyi visnyk, 25 January 1994. On new initiatives to re-train

military personnel entering the reserves see Narodna armiia, 29 April

1994.

138. Kievskie vedomosti, 9 February 1994; Ukraina moloda, 6

January 1994; and Uriadovyi kurier, 6 November 1993.
86 UKRAINE: STABILITY AND INSTABILITY

139. For example, according to a "Ukraina" Press Agency report

dated 27 April 1995, Minister of Defense Shraarov stated that the most

serious problem in the armed forces was social security.

140. See the discussion on this topic in Alexander J. Motyl's "Will

Ukraine Survive 1994," The Harriman Institute Forum 7 (January 1994):

3-6.

141. Victor M. Perez-Diaz, The Return of Civil Society: The

Emergence ofDemocratic Spain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 1993), 40.

142. Michael Mandelbaum, "Preserving the New Peace: The Case

Against NATO Expansion," Foreign Affairs 74 (May/June 1995): 10-11.

143. Sherman W. Garnett, "The Integrationist Temptation," The

Washington Quarterly 18 (Spring 1995): 35-36.

144. President Kuchma stated his concerns re the expansion of NATO

in an interview during a state visit to the Czech Republic, summarized in

a Reuters dispatch, 25 April 1995. See also Vseukrainskie vedomosti, 1

April 1995.
About the Author

John (Ivan) S. Jaworsky is Assistant Professor, Department of

Political Science, University of Waterloo, where he teaches courses

on politics in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe.

He is the of author several publications, including "The

Military-Strategic Significance of Recent Developments in

Ukraine" (Department of Defence, Canada), and is currently writing

a book entitled, Public Policy and Ethnonational Minorities: The

Case of Ukraine.

Dr. Jaworsky received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science

from Carleton University, Ottawa.

87
McNair Papers

The McNair Papers are published at Fort Lesley J. McNair, home ofthe

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July 1944.

Thefollowing is a complete listing ofpublished McNair Papers. For

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Manager, Publications Directorate & NDU Press, Fort Lesley J. McNair,

Washington, DC 20319-6000 (telephone: commercial 202/475-1913; DSN

335-1913).

1. Joseph P. Lorenz, Egypt and the New Arab Coalition, February 1989.

2. John E. Endicott, Grand Strategy and the Pacific Region, May 1989.

3. Eugene V. Rostow, President, Prime Minister, or Constitutional

Monarch?, October 1989.

4. Howard G. DeWolf, SDI and Arms Control, November 1989.

5. Martin C. Libicki, What Makes Industries Strategic, November 1989.

6. Melvin A. Goodman, Gorbachev and Soviet Policy in the Third World,

February 1990.

7. John Van Oudenaren, "The Tradition of Change in Soviet Foreign

Policy," and Francis Conte, "Two Schools of Soviet Diplomacy," in

Understanding Soviet Foreign Policy, April 1990.

8. Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk, A Strategic View ofInsurgencies:

Insightsfrom El Salvador, May 1990.

9. Steven R. Linke, Managing Crises in Defense Industry: The PEPCON

and Avtex Cases, June 1990.

10. Christine M. Helms, Arabism and Islam: Stateless Nations and

Nationless States, September 1990.

11. Ralph A. Cossa, Iran: Soviet Interests, US Concerns, July 1990.

12. Ewan Jamieson, Friend or Ally? A Question for New Zealand, May

1991.

13. Richard J. Dunn III, From Gettysburg to the Gulf and Beyond: Coping

with Revolutionary Technological Change in Land Warfare, March 1992.

14. Ted Greenwood, U.S. and NATO Force Structure and Military

Operations in the Mediterranean, June 1993.

15. Oscar W. Clyatt, Jr., Bulgaria's Questfor Security After the Cold War,

February 1993.

16. William C. Bodie, Moscow's "Near Abroad": Security Policy in PostSoviet Europe, June 1993.
17. William H. Lewis (ed.), Military Implications of United Nations

Peacekeeping Operations, June 1993.

18. Sterling D. Sessions and Carl R. Jones, Interoperability: A Desert

Storm Case Study, July 1993.

19. Eugene V. Rostow, Should Article 43 ofthe United Nations Charter

Be Raised From the Dead? July 1993

20. William T. Johnsen and Thomas Durell-Young; Jeffrey Simon;

Daniel N. Nelson; William C. Bodie, and James McCarthy, European

Security Toward the Year 2000, August 1993.

21. Edwin R. Carlisle, ed., Developing Battlefield Technologies in the

1990s, August 1993.

22. Patrick Clawson, How Has Saddam Hussein Survived? Economic

Sanctions, 1990-93, August 1993.

23. Jeffrey Simon, Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Divorce," Visegrad Cohesion,

and European Fault Lines, October 1993.

24. Eugene V. Rostow, The Future ofPalestine, November 1993.

25. William H. Lewis, John Mackinlay, John G. Ruggie, and Sir Brian

Urquhart, Peacekeeping: The Way Ahead? November 1993.

26. Edward Marks and William Lewis, Triagefor Failing States, January

1994.

27. Gregory D. Foster, In Search of a Post-Cold War Security Structure,

February 1994.

28. Martin C. Libicki, The Mesh and the Net: Speculations on Armed

Conflict in a Time ofFree Silicon, March 1994.

29. Patrick Clawson, ed., Iran's Strategic Intentions and Capabilities,

April 1994.

30. James W. Morrison, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy: An Assessment of a

Russian Ultra-Nationalist, April 1994.

31. Patrick M. Cronin and Michael J. Green, Redefining the U.S.-Japan

Alliance: Tokyo's National Defense Program, November 1994.

32. Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert Storm and Beyond,

December 1994.

33. John N. Petrie, American Neutrality in the 20th Century: The

Impossible Dream, January 1995.

34. James H. Brusstar and Ellen Jones, The Russian Military's Role in

Politics, January 1995.

35. S. Nelson Drew, NATOfrom Berlin to Bosnia: Trans-Atlantic Security

in Transition, January 1995.

36. Karl W. Eikenberry, Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms

Transfers, February 1995.

37. William W. Mendel and David G. Bradford, Interagency Cooperation:

A Regional Modelfor Overseas Operations, March 1995.

38. Robbin Laird, French Security Policy in Transition: Dynamics of

Continuity and Change, March 1995.
39. Jeffrey Simon, Central European Civil-Military Relations and NATO

Expansion, April 1995.

40. James W. Morrison, NATO Expansion and Alternative Future Security

Alignments in Europe, April 1995.

41. Barry R. Schneider, Radical Responses to Radical Regimes:

Evaluating Preemptive Counter-Proliferation, May 1995.
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