Jacobin Magazine: Ukraine on the Brink

Neither the NGOs nor the parties could articulate any progressive, egalitarian agenda. It was pretty clear from the outset that even progressive liberals were in the minority, never mind socialists. They were only loosely organized, and had no substantial influence, either on the development of the protests or on their ideological framing. They were probably more important in terms of framing the protests for parts of the Western audience which, in a kind of wishful thinking, focused on the most progressive elements of the movement but not the much stronger reactionary ones. From the outset it was clear that if the Maidan protests succeeded, they would bring right-wing opposition parties to power.[...]

What we’ve seen in the five years since then is that Ukraine has become poorer. The IMF recently updated their global statistics on GDP per capita, and Ukraine’s is now the lowest in Europe. The only countries even lower down the scale are located in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Ukraine is the northernmost of the Global South — and not just in terms of economic statistics. Its economic structure is also more typical of the Third World: it is export-oriented and primarily focused on raw materials. And unlike Southeast Asia, Ukraine is not industrializing but deindustrializing — particularly because the most advanced parts of Ukrainian industry, which were inherited from the Soviet Union and primarily served the markets of the former Soviet republics, have been harmed by the introduction of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union; they are not usually competitive on global markets. A significant part of those industries is located in Donbass, where the war is going on. [...]

Many argue that this lack of parliamentary representation means that all the talk about Ukrainian fascists and the far right is simply Russian propaganda. But this is wrong — at the extra-parliamentary level, the radical nationalists have become much stronger. No party or coalition of liberal NGOs can mobilize so many people on the streets as the Ukrainian nationalists do every year on their key dates. These include the day of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which is now a national holiday in Ukraine (it wasn’t before Maidan), and the birthday of Stepan Bandera (the leader of the Ukrainian nationalists during World War II, and of a movement which conducted ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in western Ukraine, as well as collaborating with the Nazis in the Holocaust). The nationalists gather tens of thousands of people for these rallies, and it’s incomparable to anything that the liberals can mobilize.[...]

First, it’s important to understand that radical nationalists don’t actually have so much popular support. It may seem surprising, but they have more legitimacy within civil society than among Ukrainian society at large — many so-called “Ukrainian liberals” are basically just moderate nationalists. The far-right parties’ electoral support, even if they were to unite, would at best be 5–10 percent. That’s support for the parties — support for some nationalist ideas would be higher. The reason for this low support is that the politics is dominated by much better-resourced oligarchic parties that control the media and have money they can put into electoral campaigns. [...]

Another problem with Tymoshenko is that she is unpredictable, not only at the level of her views on the EU and NATO. The same concerns her social populist rhetoric. This is an easy way to criticize Poroshenko: nobody wants to pay more for utilities and so on, and obviously most people don’t want austerity — they are poor and do not see many prospects in this country. But that doesn’t mean a Tymoshenko administration will really be more redistributive — definitely not consistently.

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Quartz: Putin picked a very Putin time to seize three Ukrainian ships

When Russian president Vladimir Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, his approval ratings were at record lows and the world was watching the Sochi Olympics. When he went to war with Georgia in 2008, the world was consumed by the Beijing Olympics. [...]

On the back of controversial pension reforms, Putin’s ratings are again in a deep trough. In fact, they’re at the lowest point since 2014. After the seizure of Crimea, Putin’s ratings climbed dramatically and he rode extraordinary levels of support for four years.[...]

More conflict in the east is the last thing Europe needs. Among European countries, the UK is traditionally the most hawkish on Russia—but Brexit negotiations are at their busiest point in two years, consuming both Britain and the continent. Amid all that, Britain and Spain are having their own territorial dispute over Gibraltar. [...]

Now is a good time to mess with Ukrainian politics. It’s just four months until the 2019 election, and polls for president Petro Poroshenko—a Putin foe—are looking dire. The Kremlin is unlikely to be happy with whoever wins—former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, who has a long and bitter history with Russia, is in pole position at the moment.

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Politico: Misha’s return reignites Ukraine’s political bonfires

Within hours of his return, the man known to his supporters as “Misha” had already galvanized anti-government forces to promise a “unified democratic opposition” and angered his ally-turned-rival President Petro Poroshenko, who could have him arrested or deported.

Saakashvili — who became a Ukrainian citizen two years ago and was made governor of the Odessa region, only to have his Ukrainian citizenship revoked in July, leaving him stateless — entered Ukraine late Sunday despite being barred from the country. Hundreds of supporters helped Saakashvili push past Ukrainian border guards at the Shehyni border crossing. [...]

One option open to Ukrainian authorities is to extradite Saakashvili to Georgia, where he’s wanted for abuse of power while in office (charges that Saakashvili claims are politically motivated).

However, any move to arrest or deport him could backfire as the saga promises to be a ferocious legal fight, with Saakashvili bound to challenge the arrest as well as his revoked citizenship in Ukrainian and international courts. More than that, it’s going to be a political one. [...]

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former head of Ukraine’s intelligence services who went into opposition politics, told POLITICO that he, former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, Saakashvili and others would create a “unified democratic opposition” to conduct “common protests around the country.”

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Politico: Enemies of Putin, but no longer friends

A few days ago, Poroshenko hit back with a much harder blow than a satirical song. He signed an order stripping Saakashvili of the Ukrainian citizenship he had granted only two years earlier. That left Saakashvili — a former head of state — stateless, since he lost his Georgian passport when he became Ukrainian.

What lies behind the latest twist in the men’s fraught relationship depends on who’s telling the story. Saakashvili says he is being punished for speaking out against rampant graft under Poroshenko. The president’s allies insist the move was legally justified but also speak of Saakashvili as an impulsive, ungrateful figure who turned on the man who brought him back from the political dead. [...]

Officially, Saakasvhili was stripped of Ukrainian nationality because he failed to provide details in his citizenship application of a criminal case against him in his native Georgia.

But figures across the Ukrainian political spectrum — including rivals of Saakashvili such as former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky — said the move smacked of a witch hunt. [...]

Saakashvili’s reforms in Odessa made only modest headway. Critics said he quickly lost interest in the daily nitty-gritty of running a far-flung province. Saakashvili and his team said they were being blocked and undercut by Kiev.

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The Washington Post: The window for reform is closing in Ukraine

Ukraine has some genuine achievements to which it can point. Some important reforms have taken place. Macroeconomic fundamentals are good; the value of the currency has stabilized. And Ukraine hasn’t lost the war despite the direct involvement of Russia, whose forces are far more powerful. [...]

The sad reality is that Ukraine’s reforms have stalled, and the window of opportunity is starting to close. None of former president Viktor Yanukovych’s cronies have been prosecuted. Vested interests have blocked the process of building a clean Supreme Court from scratch. Although the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has succeeded in bringing charges against two notoriously corrupt officials, former parliamentarian Mykola Martynenko and former head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, powerful forces are pushing back. The court considering Nasirov’s case refuses to examine all of the evidence. There are growing indications that the director of the anti-corruption bureau could be fired soon, and activists and parliamentarians worry that the bureau’s powers may soon be curtailed. [...]

If things continue as they are, Ukraine’s most talented will leave. More than 70 percent think the country is going in the wrong direction. The reforms that would better people’s lives materially still haven’t materialized, and some that have – such as restructuring of the natural gas market to eliminate corruption – hurt average people badly. As journalist Vitaliy Sych notes, “People are tired, their patience is running out, and many are leaving.” In 2016, nearly 1.3 million Ukrainians received temporary work permits in Poland, and another 116,000 were working there on longer-term permits. Ukrainians already make up the largest ethnic minority in the Czech Republic, and the second-largest in Italy and Portugal.

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College of Europe: The risky game of Yulia Tymoshenko

Two years after Maidan the post-revolutionary consensus in Ukrainian politics has all but vanished. While Petro Poroshenko and his bloc still hold a firm grip on power, this year the President has had to face a government crisis and increasingly declining approval rates [1]. In this scenario, Yulia Tymoshenko and her party Batkivshchyna are strengthening their position by channeling popular frustration against institutions – and so far their efforts are paying off [2]. However, if Tymoshenko were to win next elections her inability to deliver on her promises risks undermining the public’s trust in the credibility of the political class and in the feasibility of reforms even further. [...]

Yulia Tymoshenko is a political heavyweight – a household name for Ukrainians and foreigners with top government experience. Yet, what foreigners may fail to appreciate is how controversial her political figure is among her compatriots. Together with Yushchenko, she was the face of the Orange Revolution in 2004, but she was also responsible for the ensuing failure to strengthen the reform process. Her detention between 2011 and 2014 had a major impact in spoiling relations between Yanukovich and the West, but Maidan developed independently from her and from political parties. To most Ukrainians Tymoshenko merely represents the old system that failed to implement reforms and to prevent the rise of Yanukovich. After Maidan, she was even abandoned by former party allies, such as Yatsenyuk, who did not want to continue to act in her shadow and left Batkivshchyna to create the People’s Front. [...]

All the same, Batkivshchyna seems focused on playing its game: populist rhetoric in exchange for immediate electoral benefits. However, this strategy has evident drawbacks. Firstly, making proposals that cannot be delivered once in power is a dangerous practice in a country which already has a low regard of politicians. Secondly, the party’s attention to gas prices suggests that Tymoshenko is more focused on attacking unpopular yet necessary reforms in order to gain the sympathies of pensioners – a key electoral constituency – than addressing the actual shortcomings of the reform process. Therefore, an electoral victory of Batkivshchyna would not represent a real change but would probably coincide with another season of popular disillusion in Ukrainian politicians and in their ability to live up to their promises of reform.

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