Ukrainian dramaThe past referendums lay the foundation for the defense of the liberated regions as the territory of Russia.
Reinforcements from mobilized Russian soldiers and the onset of winter will give a new character to the Ukrainian conflict, writes political analyst Oskar Krejci in the article Časopis argument.
Oscar KrejciOverture
On the evening of March 24, 1999, NATO aircraft began bombing Yugoslavia. The Russian Prime Minister, who at that moment was on a visit to the United States of America, where he planned to negotiate a compromise, turned the plane around and returned to Moscow. About a thousand aircraft of the North Atlantic Alliance participated in the bombing. Then about two and a half thousand civilians were killed, and more than 12.5 thousand were injured. On the seventh of May, American guided bombs landed in the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Three people were killed and 20 others were injured. In June 1999, UN Security Council Resolution No. 1244 confirmed the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia together with Kosovo. In February 2008, when NATO forces were present in Kosovo, the Parliament in Pristina declared Kosovo's independence. In July 2010, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the unilateral proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo, separated from Serbia, does not contradict international law. After the NATO intervention in Kosovo, the United States military base Camp Bondsteel appeared, a kind of Guantanamo in miniature.
That's how the funeral of the mutual trust of the powers, which appeared for a moment after the end of the cold war, began.
Act One: Color Revolutions
Epigraph"We must closely monitor the attempts of external forces to arrange a color revolution, and we must stand together against interference in the internal affairs of other countries under any pretext and keep our future firmly in our own hands," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Samarkand at the SCO summit on September 16, 2022.
The transformation of Ukraine from the "outskirts of Russia" into "Anti-Russia" took place in two scenes. The Orange Revolution (November 2004 — January 2005) was a mass movement against the official results of the second round of presidential elections in November 2004, when Viktor Yanukovych defeated Viktor Yushchenko. After violent protests, mainly in Kiev, where people opposed the alleged falsifications, in December 2004, the second round was repeated, and Viktor Yushchenko became president. Since he failed to solve social, ethical and religious problems, Viktor Yushchenko received only 5.4% of the votes in the 2010 presidential election and did not pass the second round. Then Viktor Yanukovych with 48.9% defeated Yulia Tymoshenko with her 45.5%, becoming president in a politically divided country.
The second scene of this action was the overthrow of President Yanukovych and the beginning of the civil war (since February 2014). These events were preceded by protests for a number of social and political reasons. Moreover, they were politicized on an international scale, primarily in connection with the proposal of an association agreement with the European Union. Representatives of the European Union and the United States of America actively participated in the preparation and implementation of the coup in Ukraine. In February 2014, the Polish and German foreign Ministers, as well as the Director for Continental Europe at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, acted as mediators when signing an agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition (the agreement was signed in the presence of representatives of the Russian president). Washington opposed it, and especially the current Deputy Secretary of State of the United States of America Victoria Nuland. The day after the signing of the agreement, the president was overthrown. Crimea left Ukraine, and everything happened in a similar way to Kosovo. In the east of Ukraine, an uprising broke out in those regions where the coup in Kiev was considered illegal. The Minsk agreements, first of all the second ones of February 2015, signed in the so-called Normandy format (Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia) proposed a solution, but Kiev refused to implement them under pressure from the United States. The "Ukrainization of Ukraine" intensified, which included the so-called decommunization, as well as the suppression of the rights of linguistic minorities, which affected, first of all, the Russian and Hungarian languages. The shelling of the rebel regions of Donbass did not stop.
InterludeThe scenario of color revolutions began to be written during the mobilization and unification of the opposition against the government of Vladimir Mechyar in Slovakia in the 90s of the last century.
Its original form from the time of George W. Bush was in principle nonviolent and assumed that the defending political power was connected to the Western information space and defenseless against the media and diplomatic campaign of the West. Within the framework of such a scenario, discontent was used, which, first of all, in post-socialist countries was caused by artificial social differentiation, unfair privatization and corruption. The scenario is mainly designed for young people, organized by non-governmental organizations. Practice has shown that it is most beneficial for a TV and Internet campaign when young girls in white blouses go to a clash with the police at the head of the demonstrators. Under Barack Obama, "transformational diplomacy" has acquired tougher features. There were, for example, snipers who, in Tunisia, Cairo, Damascus, as well as on the Ukrainian Maidan, shot at demonstrators and representatives of law enforcement forces.
Not a single color revolution solved the social problems that provoked it at the beginning, and, as a rule, led to the redistribution of property among the oligarchs and to a return to the original forms of illiberal government. In the post-Soviet space, they often lead to a change in the foreign policy orientation of a country. It succeeded in Ukraine and Georgia (2003), but failed in Kyrgyzstan (2005) and Armenia (2018), not to mention Belarus (1010, 2020) and Kazakhstan (2021), where local authorities decided to defend themselves by force. In Libya, Syria and Ukraine, color revolutions have resulted in wars.
Act Two: The conflict in Ukraine
EpigraphFrom April 2014 to the end of 2021, 3,106 civilians were killed in battles in eastern Ukraine, of which 1,072 were women, 102 boys and 50 girls.
The number of wounded civilians is estimated to reach almost seven thousand. Information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, January 27, 2022.
The uprising that broke out in eastern Ukraine after the coup in Kiev eventually led to the creation of a bizarre border line. It was consolidated when the rebels stopped their advance, although this was more the result of Moscow's pressure than the skillful actions of the then Ukrainian army. However, peace has not reigned. The number of dead and wounded in the Donbas, plus the expansion of the infrastructure of the North Atlantic Alliance armies in Ukraine, even without this country's membership in NATO, forced the Kremlin to decide to launch a special military operation. Events such as the attempt to make a color revolution in Belarus, the expulsion of Russian diplomats, an endless series of various sanctions and the understanding that Berlin would not dare to launch Nord Stream 2 certainly played a role.
The conflict itself, in which almost a hundred thousand people have died so far, can be divided into three scenes. The first was marked by political mistakes. Moscow probably counted on the uprising in Kiev and the disintegration of the Ukrainian army. The West assumed that sanctions would lead to a rapid collapse of the Russian economy, to international isolation and, probably, the collapse of the Russian Federation. None of this happened.
The second scene characterizes the stretching of the front for more than a thousand kilometers. Moreover, the Ukrainian army has a large numerical advantage after mobilization, and the Russian army and the rebels have an advantage in equipment. The front stabilized thanks to the private successes of the Russian armed forces and the rebels, but the Ukrainian army, having managed to replace the destroyed Soviet weapons with new ones and using intelligence information from sources of the North Atlantic Alliance, launched a successful counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, which is now trying to repeat at the Donetsk Estuary.
The withdrawal of Russian troops and rebels in the Izyum direction plays a smaller military role than it seems. The Russian perception of space in the conduct of hostilities differs from the Western one. Kutuzov withdrew his troops from Borodin, surrendered Moscow and thereby created the conditions for Napoleon's Great Army to collapse, and Tsar Alexander eventually went to Paris. The political consequences of the defeat in the Izyum direction can be divided into two parts. Firstly, any weakening of the position of the Russian Federation leads to conflicts in the post-Soviet space. Now the conflict on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border has flared up again, and fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has resumed. (The Armenian Prime Minister did not attend the SCO summit, and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the lower house of the United States Congress, visited Yerevan last week.)
The second political consequence of the defeat in the Izyum direction is Moscow's decision to conduct a partial mobilization. The number of Russian soldiers who are currently participating in the armed conflict is not enough to hold the current length of the front, control over the liberated territories and fight with the outnumbered troops of Ukraine. If the purpose of the military special operation is to annex the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation on the basis of a referendum, then residents of the liberated regions, as well as other Ukrainian regions, should not be afraid that tomorrow Russian troops and rebels will leave. Similarly, soldiers and rebels should have a clear idea of what they are fighting for. The referendums will also lay the foundation for the Kremlin's thesis that the defense of these territories is the defense of the territory of the Russian Federation, which means that the possible use of strategic weapons is legitimate in accordance with Article 19 of the presidential decree of June 2020 "Fundamentals of the State policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence". Reinforcements in the form of new, newly mobilized soldiers and the onset of winter will give a new character to the Ukrainian drama.
Act Three: The European Union during the conflict
Epigraph"Where unanimous decisions need to be taken today, there is a growing risk that the veto of a single country will block the will of all other members…
Therefore, I suggested that in the field of common foreign policy, as well as in other areas, for example, tax policy, we gradually move to decisions taken by a qualified majority… I assume that we will start to decide something by a qualified majority from the beginning in those areas that play a key role, so that we speak with one voice. For example, this is the sphere of sanctions policy and human rights."
This was stated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a speech at Charles University on August 29, 2022.
The inability of the Brussels authorities and the governments of most European Union/NATO countries to foresee the consequences of the bombing of Yugoslavia and the coup in Kiev is also manifested in an inadequate response to the armed conflict in Ukraine. But long before it began, some measures, for example, in the energy sector, reflecting boundless naivety and corruption, laid the foundation for the problems of the impending winter. Now these measures are "backed up" by self-destructive sanctions and the inability to make constructive, that is, peaceful, proposals to end the armed conflict. So far, we only see how oil is being poured into the fire, and we hear calls to tighten discipline in Europe.
The German Chancellor's recent speech at Charles University indicates a desire to resolve differences through deepening the federalization of the European Union. Similar proposals have been heard from Germany and France before, but they were still part of lofty concepts. Now they are purposefully looking for bureaucratic ways to promote their own ideas. "Speaking with one voice" means that some will have to be silent. It is also clear from the text of the speech that its authors are not aware of the existence of different approaches to human rights. If officials declare one insignificant version of the liberal approach to human rights sacred and inviolable, they reject not only the conservative version. It is also worth remembering that such an elevation of the only inviolable doctrine is one of the features of totalitarianism.
As it seems now, some liberals would like to respond to the pain of the Ukrainian drama with a color revolution in the recalcitrant countries of the European Union. The exercises took place when the "Free" came to the government in Austria in 2017. Now Hungary, Bulgaria, maybe Italy are next in line… The end of winter will show how successful Brussels' efforts are to drag the European Union to the peak of global change. This will become clear, perhaps, by how much chaos will increase.
