Ukraine’s war of independence
is fought today against Vlad Putin’s Russia which has resumed its traditional
expansionist routine, invaded the Crimea, and has instigated a rebellion in the
Donbas with a plan for piecemeal disintegration of the Ukrainian state.
Characteristically, Ukraine is fighting this shooting war without
a real army against Russia’s proxy, a
powerful fifth column in Donetsk and Luhansk regions that paralyzed the
country’s political scene in the last 23 years, and had its heyday during the
Yanukovych regime. In the last week, Russia’s
newly arrived Vostok Battalion took control of Donetsk, after ejecting the
rag-tag pro-Russian militants from the administration building.
Ukraine’s government today is acting as if it intends to
hold on to Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are now outside its grasp. Actually,
the government in Kyiv never had much influence over Donbas, much less over its
Mafioso elite. This was mostly the other
way around, with Donbas dominant in Kyiv and with vehement ukrainophobia occasionally
spilling into full-scale embarrassment.
If the story of the last 23 years of Ukraine’s independence
(with a tongue in cheek) and the display of recent exuberance of proactive crowds
in Donbas waving Russian flags has not
led at least some observers to conclude that Ukraine would be better off
without the Donbas, it is fair to ask: Why would it be wrong?
An answer heard lately is: It is the economy, silly. Steel
and steel product exports provide nearly 46 percent of foreign currency
revenues for Ukraine. Most of it, probably close to two-thirds, is produced in
the rust belt of Donbas (although it is heavily subsidized by Kyiv). Ukraine’s
overall exports are about $60 billion a year, of which 60 percent goes to
former Soviet states, and 40 percent to the EU. The GDP is about $190 billion, give or take some.
Does this not sound like the Donbas is of an overwhelming
importance for Ukraine? And so is Russia? And, if that’s the case, then what’s
all the fuss about the European Union? Let’ go a step farther. What’s all the
fuss about Ukraine’s independence? Where do we stop eating the blintsi?
Would be nice to have a cake and eat it too. They say Donbas
is so critical to Ukraine’s economy that ceding it should be the last option,
not a first. Actually, it is very late. The train has already left the last
station. All that remains is some useless checkpoints and a gutted airport, not
worth shedding blood.
Fortunately, cooler heads in Kyiv are in the ascendancy. And
just about everybody understands that the “celestial hundred” at Maidan didn’t
die for saving the steel exports. They had Ukraine’s independence in mind. They
made the tradeoff long before.
From President Petro Poroshenko’s inaugural speech it looks
like he has made the same choice. Yes, the devil is in details and in tactical
maneuvering. But it does seem that at the end of the day Ukraine’s boundary
will be drawn on the east borders of Kharkiv
– Dnipropetrovsk – Zaporizhia regions. With Donbas gone, Ukraine already
looks more like a nation rather than a 50-50 divide.
This was undoubtedly anticipated by Turchynov’s interim
government shortly after the Donbas insurgency swept the two regions, and it
made the right decision not to jump headlong, and instead focus attention on Kharkiv and Odessa. Interim
President Oleksandr Turchynov and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk deserve credit
for clear thinking in extremely difficult time.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
