Tag Archives: Putin

Popular defiance of the Russian military intervention – the Ukrainian style

8 Mar

march of unarmed Ukrainian soldiersIn the current standoff between Ukraine and Russia any military conflict favors the Russian army and the Russian regime. The Russian army, militarily stronger, is likely to defeat the Ukrainian army in any major confrontation. The Russian regime will also harness the Russian nationalism and rally its people around the flag in case of the armed struggle in Ukraine.  Coffins of the Russian soldiers arriving back to Moscow will only give credence to the propaganda of the Russian regime that Russia fights in Ukraine with terrorists and “Banderovcy.” Putin would then turn the conflict into the existential struggle of all Russians against the “Ukrainian fascists.” Any violent struggle in Ukraine will be, by necessity, bloody and protracted. Afterall, Ukraine is much more important for Russia than Afghanistan ever was for the Soviets. And the Soviets stayed and fought in Afghanistan for 10 years.

Some in Ukraine say that there are only two choices ordinary Ukrainians have in the current situation: to surrender or go to war.  This bipolar choice is highly misleading.  In-between the armed resistance and the lack thereof there are other actions that Ukrainians can and do undertake. These actions could gain even greater importance if only Ukrainians managed to come to a general consensus about the goals of their struggle.

It has to be acknowledged that the Russian regime and Putin are neither afraid of the military confrontation with the Ukrainian army, the economic pressure of the West, its military power nor a diplomatic isolation. Otherwise they would have already backed down from the planned annexation of the Crimea. The Russian regime and Putin are afraid of noone but the Russians themselves. The Russian society is the key to the victory and failure of any conflict that the Russian regime wages. Therefore the regime uses all state resources: money, security apparatus and the propaganda machinery to ensure the voluntary (preferably) and coerced (if needed) support of ordinary Russians for the regime. So far, it is quite successful in doing so. An independent polling shows the Russian public support for Putin – 67% – at its highest (March 6) though more than 70% opposed (on Feb. 24) Russian intervention in the Ukrainian affairs.

Sensibly, any resistance that Ukrainians undertake in the face of the Russian annexation of the Crimea and the lingering threat of further incursion of the Russian army and its “tourists” into the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine would include the following four goals:

1. save LIVES – of Ukrainian people and soldiers, as well as Russian soldiers and ordinary Russians
2. unite ALL Ukrainians, including ethnic Russians living in Ukraine and other ethnic groups in the country around at least two basic goals
  • no to military intervention and occupation
  • no to dismembering of Ukraine
3. bring the Russian society on the side of the Ukrainian people
4. show a high degree of restraint and nonviolent discipline, particularly in the face of clear provocations and protracted struggle.

These goals would necessarily determine the nature of the resistance campaigns and tactics. The above goals cannot be reached, for example, with the use of  arms. In fact, armed resistance could only jeopardize these goals and bring easier victory to the violent aggressor. Majority of Ukrainians realize this. They began a number of grassroots, innovative resistance actions and campaigns to show their active opposition towards the Russian military invasion without resorting to violence. These actions, among others, include:

  • still-limited but growing boycott in Ukraine of produce made in Russia or imported from Russia. Boycott could be helped by some of the biggest supermarkets in Ukraine. The Ukrainian activists pointed to the German supermarket chain Billa in Ukraine that, coincidentally, a couple of days ago began placing small national flags, including the Russian one, next to the price tags of produce on the shelves thus helping customers identify with ease the countries where particular goods were from. This could help the boycott, activists said.
  • open letter of the Russian speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians in Ukraine to the president Putin rejecting his military intervention and stating that their interests do not need to be protected by another state. More than 140,000 people signed and counting. Ordinary Russian-speaking individuals in Ukraine issue their own public pleas to the Russian government and president Putin to withdraw their troops from Ukraine and respect country’s territorial integrity. Russian citizens in Ukraine in the videopost say they do not need to be rescued by Russia. The Ukrainian Jews (who in majority are the Russian speakers) issued the open letter to Putin in which they say that they “do not wish to be defended” by the Russian state and strongly oppose “sundering Ukraine and annexing its territory.”
  • open letters written and signed by Ukrainians of various professions and addressed to their Russian counterparts. The letter of the Ukrainian cinematographers to their Russian colleagues with the request for solidarity stipulated the latter’s public response in which they stated their opposition to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Famous Russian rock singers called for peace and friendship between Russians and Ukrainians. Well-known Ukrainian actors and writers post their video appeals to Russians.
  • marches of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers to challenge the Russian army blockade of their military bases. On March 4, – see the picture above – more than one hundred Ukrainian soldiers marched without arms towards the Russian military units that blocked the Belbek military airfield near Sevastopol. The warning shots flew over their heads while they pressed on. They forced negotiations with the Russians and won the domestic and international sympathy and admiration. Other Ukrainian army units physically blocked the Russian army from capturing warehouses with weapons. Meanwhile, the wives of other Ukrainian officers protected their husbands and reduced the hostilities by creating a human shield between them and the Russian soldiers.
  • solidarity and unity demonstrations joined by several thousands of residents in Donetsk (10,000 protesters), Kharkiv and Odessa (20,000 protesters) took place on March 2, March 4 and March 5. People sang patriotic songs and called for territorial integrity of Ukraine.
  • at the beginning of March, the city councils of Odessa, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk condemned the Russian aggression.
  • 31 rectors of the universities in Kharkiv (the city traditionally close to Russia) publicly criticized the Russian military intervention.
  • Some Crimeans, including the head of the Bahchisaraysky region, called for the boycott of the referendum on the status of the peninsula that the new Crimean authorities, in consultation with the Russian regime, scheduled for March 16.
  • building coalitions across the Ukrainian-speaking and Russian speaking populations. On February 26, to protest the manipulation of the language issue by the politicians in Kyiv and in solidarity with the Russian-speakers Lviv appealed to its residents to speak Russian at home, in public spaces and work places. In response, the activists from Donetsk and Odessa – the Russian speaking regions – called for using Ukrainian on that day. Eventually, the acting president vetoed the language legislation passed by Verkhovna Rada.
  • Automaidan –  active during the revolution against Yanukovych – organized auto-actions in Odessa on March 8 in front of the Russian consulate to protest the Russian military invasion.
  • Ukrainian army unit in Kerchi (in the Crimea) organized the anti-war music concert. The Russian soldiers stationed nearby heard the concert. They said they liked the music. Fraternization ‘from a distance’ between the Russian and Ukrainian soldiers can also take on a more humorous encounter like the one between the Ukrainian captain and the Russian vice-admiral. The Russian ship ordered the Ukrainian military frigate ‘Ternopil’ to surrender. The response was of the Ukrainian captain was that “Russians do not capitulate.” When asked to explain the captain said that he is ethnically Russian but swore the allegiance to defend the Ukrainian people and Ukraine and he cannot break that oath. The Russian vice-admiral was reported to have said to his soldiers: “Learn [from this captain] how to serve with honor and dignity.”
  • Ukrainian retired and serving soldiers are reaching out to the Russian army officers with the appeal not to support the military intervention in Ukraine. An Ukrainian writer sends an open letter to his colleague and a former classmate from the military college who is now the general in the Russian intelligence directorate and asks him to influence the decisions of his bosses so the blood of “your and our children will not be spilled.” In the last part of the letter he offers his classmate the examples of heroic actions by other soldiers who saved civilian population in the past conflicts even though they knew they would face the consequences for their disobedience.
  • Ukrainians are reaching out to their family members, friends and colleagues in Russia to explain that the Russian regime manipulates the information about Ukraine and the situation of Russian speaking population that is neither discriminated nor asked for the external military help.
  • People remain mobilized in Kyiv. Activists and the police are now on joint patrols throughout the city to maintain the security on the streets. Activists also maintain the maidan barricades and pressure the politicians to move Ukraine’s closer to the EU and begin implementing needed socio-economic reforms.
See earlier blog about how other nations fought the foreign occupiers without arms.
My co-authored article on nonviolent victory of the Ukrainian maidan revolution includes examples of how Ukrainians fought the Yanukovych regime.

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Increasing danger of repressions in Ukraine

7 Dec

Yanukovych made deal with Russia. Domestic crisis helped him
It is reported that yesterday evening, President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych has signed the strategic agreement with Russia. According to Edward Lucas from The Economist Putin made immediately available to Yanukovych $5 billion, and cut the gas prices by half to $200 per 1000 cubic meters in exchange for Yanukovych agreement to join the Russian-led custom union.

6825-730785If the deal is confirmed Yanukovych won from Putin much more than the threats that he likely heard during the secret meeting with the Russian President on Nov. 9 that soon afterwards led Yanukovych to make an abrupt U-turn in the negotiations with the EU.  Paradoxically, ongoing demonstrations might have inadvertently helped Yanukovych to get a better deal from Putin than otherwise. In fact, Yanukovych might have been interested in rising the tensions in the country to win more concessions from Putin and, by default, become Putin’s indispensable man that will keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit. The crackdown on the protesters ordered by Yanukovych regime in the early morning of Nov. 30 might have been actually designed to raise these tensions.  The demonstrators were in fact preparing to wind down their protest after the EU Vilnius summit and thus there was little rationale for the regime to use a brutal force. However, if what was needed was the crisis that would provide Yanukovych with more leverage over Putin (which he fears) then the last week crackdown was a rationally-driven, calculated sinister plot on the part of the regime and its president.

Greater likelihood of crackdown in Ukraine
It is now clear that after the Nov. 9 secret meeting with Putin Yanukovych re-oriented himself entirely towards Moscow. This U-turn was then sealed with yesterday’s strategic agreement with Russia.  Yanukovych no longer needs the crisis that helped him win concessions from Putin. This means that the Ukrainian regime might be ready to initiate crackdown with the goal to effectively put down the protests. We now know that Yanukovych and his allies will not hesitate to use violence against peaceful protesters. We also know that it was Yanukovych as the Prime Minister and the presidential hopeful during the 2004 Orange Revolution, who demanded the use of violent force against the demonstrators on the Maidan. The then outgoing President Kuchma rejected these demands. Yanukovych can now try to enforce the hardline policies whose very absence he blamed for his humiliating defeat in 2005.

Consequently, the danger of the widespread crackdown has increased with the deal between Yanukovych and Putin. In fact, Putin might have encouraged Yanukovych to deal with the protesters decisively to pave the way for the implementation of the agreement and the money transfer.  In the back of his mind Yanukovych might also think that even if the crackdown backfires and he might lose Kyiv he will still have eastern Ukraine.  In the worst case scenario, Yanukovych can be forced to depart to Donetsk and, with the help of Russia and the Ukrainian oligarch Medvedchuk, he could push for a partition of Ukraine and continue his rule over the industrial and richer eastern part where his main constituency resides.

Strategy for nonviolent resistance
Given the increasing danger of a violent repression the Ukrainian activists must plan accordingly, particularly this coming weekend when massive demonstrations are expected. Until now, the activists have relied on a familiar repertoire of nonviolent actions taken from the Orange Revolution toolbox that include tactics of concentrations such as mass-based demonstrations and occupations of the municipal buildings and main squares in the cities. However, the civil resisters face a different opponent than 9 years ago. In 2004, their adversary – President Kuchma-  was a former communist aparatchik. This time, the opposition challenges a thug and a convict who came from the criminal world.

Violent provocations can provide the authorities with the pretext to try to initiate the crackdown against the protesters which are an easily identifiable target.  This will happen unless the opposition mobilizes millions and manages to sustain that level of mobilization, which is not certain. And even if the high level of mobilization can dissuade the authorities from using violence it might not be enough to weaken the regime or force it to compromise.

The need for the new nonviolent strategy on the part of the Ukrainian activists should stem not only from the realization that there are increasing dangers of a possible violent repression and thus more urgent need to minimize the risks but also the necessity to impose higher economic costs on the regime and its allies. Strikes in the industries that the government relies on for a continuing revenue and employment as well as boycotts of the regime’s business proved historically effective against the entrenched undemocratic regimes. It also helped minimize the exposure of the protesters to state violence.  When people stayed at home and did not show up for work or stopped buying specific products the regime had much harder time to repress such disobedience while it was experiencing (together with its allies) considerable economic costs.  The “buying power” of the organized masses has been vividly depicted in the segment on antiapartheid struggle in South Africa from A Force More Powerful documentary  which is available online for viewing in honor of Nelson Mandela. I encourage Ukrainians to watch it and draw the conclusions  for their own resistance from the rich history of nonviolent struggles.

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