When Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, overwhelmingly passed a bill 10 days ago that fundamentally redefines the country’s war against pro-Russian separatists in the restive East, it promised a much harder line out of Kiev regarding the conflict.
That drew immediate rebuke from Russia. Moscow cast the bill, which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko supports and is expected to sign soon, as a declaration of war, noting that its passage coincides with a US decision to provide Kiev with lethal weapons.
But Ukrainian experts say the motives for the bill are rooted much closer to home: the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections, which must be held this year, and Ukrainian presidential polls slated for March 2019. Public opinion surveys suggest Mr. Poroshenko’s popularity is around 10 percent, on a par with his rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been holding a more militantly anti-Russian line. With the new bill, Poroshenko can leapfrog Ms. Tymoshenko in the polls by posing as a “war president” who refuses to compromise with the enemy.
But the cost, critics say, is that the bill completely sidelines the European and Russian-backed Minsk Agreements as a path to peace in the troubled region. By recasting the conflict, they say, Ukraine is apparently jettisoning outside mediation through the Minsk accords, which risks alienating already exasperated Europeans and closing off the only currently existent mechanism for peacefully ending the unrest in the East.
“Poroshenko’s powers as chief commander are bolstered under the law, and all security forces are now to be subordinated directly to him,” says Vadim Karasyov, director of the Kiev-based Institute of Global Strategies, an independent think tank. “The top-down power vertical has been strengthened, and a clear political and diplomatic message has been sent: there is no conflict between Kiev and [the rebel region of] Donetsk, but there is one between Kiev and Moscow, even if there is no hope of resolving it.” Read more...