English-language translation of Russian ‘road map’ for annexing eastern Ukraine

The link to the original story is here.

The following is the Novaya Gazeta introduction:

Novaya Gazeta is publishing the plan for alienation by Russia of some territories of Ukraine, composed in the times when (Viktor) Yanukovych was still president of the country.

According to the information we possess, and also according to the evaluation of experts to whom we showed this analytical note for analysis, “Orthodox businessman” Konstantin Malofeev may have taken part in its preparation.

However, the businessman’s press service, after the preview of this information at Ekho Moskvy radio categorically denied this assumption and said that Malofeev intended to go to court.

The document we’re printing is interesting because, at early stages of the Ukrainian political crisis, even before the escape of Yanukovych and arrival to power of the “Bandera junta,” it lays out, step-by-step, the basis and political and PR logistics of Russia’s interference into Ukrainian affairs and estrangement from Ukraine of Crimea and eastern provinces. Even though the real unfolding of the Ukrainian drama made some corrections, in general a great degree of correlation of this project with the following actions of the Russian authorities catches the eye.

See more editorial comments from Novaya Gazeta in the bottom.

(The text was edited for length.)

1. While evaluating the political situation in Ukraine, we have to firstly recognize political bankruptcy of Yanukovych and his ruling “family,” which is precipitously losing control over political processes.

Secondly, there is a paralysis of the central government and absence in the country of a distinct political subject with whom the Russian Federation could negotiate. Thirdly, there is little probability that such a subject will appear on consensus basis after the announcement of early parliamentary and presidential elections announced by Yanukovych on Feb. 4, 2014.

While in Russia the oligarchy is counterbalanced by a powerful class of bureaucrats, in Ukraine the state apparatus is by definition weaker than oligopolies. It, as well as the public policy sphere, is controlled by the oligarchs.

It is those oligarchs (Rinat Akhmetov, Dmytro Firtash, Igor Kolomoisky) that rule the Kyiv political community, including the Verkhovna Rada and the organized opposition. The sporadic opposition (the so-called Maidan) is not controlled by the leaders of organized opposition. The tone is set by the “field commanders” (mostly football fans and representatives of crime groups), which have no electoral support and apparently controlled not by the oligarch groups per se, but the Polish and British special services. At the same time, many oligarch groups finance the Maidan, to make sure they’re not putting all eggs in the same basket…

President Yanukovych is a man of low moral and volitional qualities. He is afraid to lever the presidential post and simultaneously is prepared to exchange law enforcers for guarantees of preservation of his job as president and immunity after he leaves the job. Meanwhile, parts of the Berkut that were used to subdue disorder in Kyiv, were mostly formed out of natives of Crimea and eastern regions.

According to local observers, any attempts by Yanukovych’s successor to organize repressions against the Interior Ministry and the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) as punishment for suppression of Maidan will inevitably come across a tough power reaction.

Even more ambivalent is the position of the Ukrainian army, which, according to a staffer of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, is “locked in barracks, and officers are guarding stockpiles of weapons so that, God forbid, it does not fall into the hands of contract soldiers, who in this case will start to shoot each other.”

The early parliamentary and presidential election can become an excuse for a new spiral of rallies-and-assault-type civil war, the deepening of the East vs West electoral breakup and, as a result, will speed up disintegration of Ukraine.

The flow and conclusions of the Munich security conference (Editor’s Note: this regular conference was taking place on Jan. 31- Feb. 1, 2014) give enough grounds to suggest that the European Union and USA presume disintegration of the country and do not consider this development of events extraordinary.

The concept of element-by-element absorption of a large Eastern European state by the European Union not only is publicly articulated by a number of official speakers from the EU, but also finds allies in the ranks of the Ukrainian elite. Will Russia take part in this geopolitical scheme?

2. Russian policy towards Ukraine has to finally become pragmatic.

Firstly, the Yanukovych regime is completely bankrupt. His political, diplomatic, financial and information support by the Russian Federation no longer makes sense.

Secondly, in the conditions when a sporadic civil war in the form of urban guerrilla warfare of the so-called “Maidan supporter” against leaders of some regions in the east of the country has become a fact, and when disintegration of the Ukrainian state along the geographical lines separating “western regions plus Kyiv” and “eastern regions plus Crimes” have become a part of the political agenda, in these conditions Russia should by no means limit its policy towards Ukraine with just attempts to affect the political balance in Kyiv and relations between organized opposition (Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko, Oleh Tyahnybok, Petro Poroshenko and so on) and the Council of Europe.

Thirdly, in the conditions of near-paralysis of the central government, which is unable to, even under the threat of default and absence of money for Naftogaz to pay for gas, form a responsible government, Russia…

Primarily this is because our country is under risk of losing not just the consumer market for energy sources, but – even more dangerously – even indirect control over the gas transit network of Ukraine. This will make OAO Gazprom vulnerable in Central and Southern Europe, and cause major damage to our country’s economy.

3. The Constitution of Ukraine can’t become a mechanism that would allow the integration of eastern Ukrainian territories and Crimea into Russian Federation.

Article 71 of the Ukrainian Constitution says that changes of country’s territory can be made only through an all-Ukrainian referendum. At the same time, a referendum, according to the Article 72 of the country’s constitution, can be announced by people’s initiative on demand of minimum three million people with voting rights. The signatures for referendum must be collected in minimum three thirds of Oblasts and with a minimum of 100,000 signatures in each Oblast.

But, paradoxically, the legal basis for integration of Russia and Ukraine has already been created as a system of Russian-Ukrainian Euroregions (European cross-border regions) included into the Association of the European Border Regions, which is itself a member of Assembly of European Regions. Thus, a euroregion “Donbas” includes Donetsk, Luhansk, Rostov and Voronezh Oblasts, a euroregion “Slobozhanshchyna” includes Kharkiv and Belgorod Oblasts, and a euroregion “Dnepr” includes Bryansk and Chernihiv Oblasts.

Using the Euro-regions as an instrument that is legitimate from the point of view of the European Union, Russia should achieve the deals on cross-border cooperation and then establish the direct interstate relations with the Ukrainian territories where the stable pro-Russian electoral sentiments exist.

First of all, these are the Republic of Crimea, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolayiv, Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts and to lesser degree – Kherson and Odesa Oblasts.

(We deliberately excluded Sumy and Donetsk oblasts from this list. The first one because of high electoral influence of Batkivshchyna party there. The second one because of tight business and political links of the local business elite headed by Rinat Akhmetov with several representatives of opposition oligarchic alliance who have interests there.)

The local elites are motivated for the reciprocal movement to the new integration initiatives of Russia more than ever. Before the crisis the elites of eastern Ukraine preferred “weak Kyiv” to “strong Moscow.” But now under the threat of losing everything they are not going to silently wait for massive purges, including over the compromising economic evidences which have been collected against them in the center. After Yanukovych leaves his presidential post, the central authorities will inevitably start these purges regardless of which political forces create the “new Kyiv consensus”. In this situation, the local elites are ready to lose their “independence.”

The ongoing events in Kyiv clearly show that Yanukovych’s authority may come to the end at any moment. So less time remains for an adequate reaction from Russia. The number of people killed in riots in Ukrainian capital shows that civil war is inevitable, and a consensus where Yanukovych could save his post is impossible.

In this situation it would be right to play on decentralization sentiments of several regions of the country in order to initiate including of the eastern oblasts into Russia. Crimea and Kharkiv Oblast should become the dominating regions for these efforts as they already have rather strong groups supporting idea of maximum integration with Russian Federation.

4. If Russia starts supporting Crimea and several eastern territories, it will obviously be a burden for the budget in the current situation.

It will obviously have consequences for the macroeconomic stability and economic prospects. But in geopolitical perspective it will give us a priceless gain – our country will receive access to new demographic resources and highly-qualified personnel in the industrial and transport sphere. In addition to that, it will be able to rely on new Slavic migration flow from west to east contradicting Central-Asian migration trend. The industrial potential of eastern Ukraine with its military industrial sector included into the Russian military industry will allow to fulfill the process of rearmament of Russia more successfully and more quickly.

Last but not the least, constructive and “smoothing” participation of Russia into a highly-probable process of disintegration of the Ukrainian state will not only give impulse for the Kremlin integration projects, it will also allow our country to keep, as it was mentioned above, a control over Ukrainian gas pipeline system. It will also allow to significantly change geopolitical landscape in Central and Eastern Europe, with Russia getting back one of the main roles there.

5. To launch the process of the “pro-Russian drift” of Crimean and Eastern Ukrainian territories, it’s needed to create the events that would give this process political legitimacy and moral justification, beforehand.

And also to built the PR strategy which would emphasize the forced and reactive nature of corresponding moves by Russia and pro-Russian elites of Ukraine’s south and east.

The recent events in western Ukraine (Lviv, Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts), when local opposition proclaimed independence from the Kyiv government, provide the grounds for the eastern oblasts to proclaim their own independence with subsequent reorientation towards the Russian Federation.

6. Eastern Ukrainian actions in response should be double-faceted by structure and scenario:

The participants of protest rallies should demand that the Verkhovna Rada expands the format of constitutional reform being discussed, including simplifying the procedure of organizing all-Ukrainian referendum:

“We cannot be the hostages of Maidan. The unitarian system of Ukraine’s state that allows aggressive nationalistic minority impose its choice to the whole country needs to be revised. Russia is a federal state and such things are unthinkable there. By strengthening the state and legal ties with Russia, we will reinforce Ukraine’s unity.”

In the beginning, the protesters have to articulate their unwillingness to be the “hostages of Maidan,” and its attempts to deprive other regions and majority of population from having their own civilization and political choice, and their refusal to accept the “ideology of civil war and breaking up the country,” followed by the political representatives of western Ukraine.

The protesters, carrying Russian flags, should not insist on changing the constitutional order. They should be given a task of decisive condemnation of actions by “western Ukrainian separatists, who are undermining the country’s territorial integrity at the cue of their foreign masters.” They should also demand to urgently develop “association of eastern Oblasts of Ukraine with the Russian Federation.” “We are with Russia. No to civil war.”

The justified unwillingness “to support with taxes the pro-fascist forces” of western Ukraine and the government that’s dependent upon them and is guided by the demands of European Union, and not its citizens’ needs must become the slogans of the momentum.

It’s recommended to put forth three slogans which would gradually stem from one another:

– The demand to “federalize” (or even confederalize) as a guarantee for these regions that pro-Western and nationalistic forces would not interfere in their internal affairs;

– Eastern and south-eastern Oblasts’ entry to the Customs Union on the regional level, independently from Kyiv, that would enable normal functioning and development of their industry;

– The direct sovereignization with subsequent joining Russia, as the only guarantor of sustainable economic development and social stability.

The political movement supporting pro-Russian choice and association of Ukraine’s eastern and south-eastern territories with the Russian Federation, as we see it, must be constructed in the orderly manner and legitimately registered. In order to do this, it’s necessary to prepare the grounds for holding the referendums on self-determination and further possibility of joining the Russian Federation in Crimea and Kharkiv Oblast (and in the other regions afterwards).

It’s deemed important to hold informal gathering of heads or representatives of eastern regions in Moscow, where a person holding adequate powers would support them and provide political guarantees (if only verbal). Such representatives of eastern Ukrainian elite are N. Dobkin (Mayor of Kharkiv), V. Konstantinov (head of supreme council of Republic of Crimea), S. Aksionov (head of Russian Unity party).

It’s highly important that “international community” would have as few as possible reasons to doubt the legitimacy and integrity of these referendums.

To do that, it’s advisable to provide the referendums with modern mean of verification (web-cameras and online broadcasting). Such preliminary plan has already been developed and can be implemented in two-week time.

7. It is necessary to accompany these events with a PR campaign in Russian and Ukrainian press.

The campaign must include the development of the concept documents – kind of a manifesto of the eastern and the western Ukrainian separatism – and putting them into a media rotation. A wide range of the communities in Russia should show their support to the accession of the eastern regions of Ukraine to Russia (a possible slogan is “Putin 2.0 – give us the Pereyaslavska Rada 2.0”).

Editorial comment of “Novaya Gazeta”:

This document has a few notable features.

1. As we have already noted, it was written before the escape of Yanukovych and before the temporary government of the “systemic opposition” representatives came to power.

That is, before that moment that Moscow calls a “coup”, and which has been the justification for the following actions of Russia.

2. The paper gives a pejorative assessment of Yanukovych, whom Russia will later present as a victim of a coup and the only legitimate leader of Ukraine.

3. The note is compiled in a pragmatic, cynical style. It doesn’t contain any “spiritual-historical” justification for Russian interference in Ukraine. No reasoning about “Novorossiya,” about protection of the Russian-speaking people, about “Russian world” and the upcoming “Russian spring”. Only geopolitics and cold expediency.

4. The authors of the document are concerned about the “legitimacy” of the inclusion of the Ukrainian territories into Russia. They, in particular, believe that there is a legal basis for the first step – mixed Russian-Ukrainian euroregions (the euroregion “Donbass” includes Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as Rostov and Voronezh regions) that are part of the Association of European Border Regions. The authors are sure that by using this legal instrument it is possible to drag Ukrainian regions with “stable pro-Russian sympathies” into direct public-contractual relationship. And thereafter, into “legitimate” referendum on self-determination.

5. The note contains a number of gross distortions of reality aimed to show a “reactivity”, necessity of Russian actions (Maidan leaders are recruited from football fans and criminals, they are controlled by Polish and British intelligence; the U. S. and the European Union allow the disintegration of Ukraine, the European Union started a geopolitical intrigue to split Ukraine, etc). All these arguments were actively used later by Russian propaganda.

6. The paper also contains many arguments of geopolitical and economic kind

that aimed to convince the leaders that the immediate intervention in Ukraine is necessary as it will strengthen the Russian position not only in Ukraine, but also in Central and Eastern Europe, preserving control over the gas transmission networks that go through Ukraine, getting control over Ukrainian military and industrial enterprises located in the east of the country (for faster rearmament), and even replacing the “central Asian” flow of migrants by the “Slavic”, “western” migrants.

In general, it can be seen that the recommendations of the authors of the note about the Russia’s step-by-step interference into Ukrainian affairs, with the ultimate aim to take a range of Ukrainian territories have mostly been embodied in the real actions of Moscow:

organized actions of disobedience to Kyiv regime in areas with pro-Russian moods;

making this process “politically legitimate” and “morally justified”;

demand of the protesters to simplify the procedure of Ukrainian referendums;

then raising of claims for “federalization” or even a “confederation”;

the requirement of independent from Kyiv joining of Crimea and the south-eastern regions to the Customs Union;

organizing “legitimate” and “fair” referendums on self-determination and unification with Russia;

active PR support of these processes in Russian and Ukrainian media.

The significant error of the authors of the document occurs with the definition of the regions, that are most ready to unite with Russian: they name Crimea and Kharkiv Oblast, considering the “Akhmetov empire”, Donetsk region, less promising. Life made its adjustments into these plans. But in general, the scheme was implemented./