Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week: Peter B. Doran
Russia’s brazen attack Nov. 25 on Ukraine in the Black Sea, in international waters near the Kerch Strait between Russia and Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, marked a new high of Moscow’s aggression against its neighbor.
The attack, in which three Ukrainian navy vessels were seized and their 24 crewmembers taken prisoner, was clearly planned ahead of time, evidence provided by Ukraine and Russia itself shows.
But most significantly, this is the first time that Russian forces have openly attacked the Ukrainian armed forces: all other times, Russian troops have concealed their affiliation by wearing unmarked uniforms, pretending to be members of local militias, mercenaries, or volunteer fighters.
This dangerous escalation demands a firm response from the civilized world, as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will take inaction from the West as an invitation to press forward with more aggression.
However, two weeks on from the attack, the European Union is yet to announce any fresh sanctions against Russia, and the United States has done nothing more than indicate that it was preparing to send a warship to the Black Sea – that was reported by U.S. cable news channel CNN on Dec. 5. Nothing more has been reported about the planned deployment of the warship.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of ways to respond to Russia’s aggression short of military ones, and Peter B. Doran, the president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, listed six of them in an open letter to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Dec. 12.
The letter, which was co-signed by 48 Russia and Ukraine experts, warns that unless there is a firm response to the latest Russian outrage, the Kremlin will continue to tighten its effective blockade of Ukraine’s Azov Sea ports. Such actions are inimical to the values the West, and American in particular, Doran explains.
“For too long, the West has allowed Russia’s leaders to have it both ways: to enjoy the benefits of international rules and norms while simultaneously violating them,” Doran writes. “In the maritime spaces around Ukraine, Russia has violated one of America’s oldest and most sacred principles: the free navigation of international waters. This is what makes global commerce and our prosperity possible. In order to protect American interests and those of our allies, it is necessary for you to send a message of strength and resolve to Russia’s leaders. If they wish to benefit from the international economy, they must also abide by its rules.”
Doran lists six measures the Trump administration should take to raise the costs for Russian rule-breaking. First, the existing U.S. sanctions should be fully enforced and implemented. Second, Ukraine should be provided with additional coastal defense weapons, equipment and vessels. Third, encourage Europe to maintain sanctions and NATO allies to bolster their presence in the Black Sea. Fourth, target Russian banks and financial institutions with fresh sanctions. Fifth, persuade Germany to suspend its support for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. And sixth, prepare U.S. sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, and be ready to implement them should Moscow not back down.
These are sensible proposals from Doran, Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and winner of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise. Ukraine would certainly approve of such firm actions, which would send a message to Putin that he should not continue to bully his neighbor, which indeed has powerful friends.
We only wish we could have more confidence that these recommendations will be acted on by the Trump administration. Doran’s letter shows that plenty can be done to counter Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine in the Azov and Black seas. There simply has to be the will to do it.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Eduard Basurin
Seasoned Ukraine watchers will not have been surprised to hear Eduard Basurin, the self-styled “defense spokesman” for the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, warn on Dec. 10 of an imminent Ukrainian offensive in the Mariupol area of the front in Russia’s war on Ukraine in the Donbas.
Basurin, Ukraine’s Foe of the Week and a winner of the Order of Lenin, makes similarly ludicrous claims every few months or so. None of his dire warnings have ever come true.
Basurin’s lie this time, however, was more elaborate than usual, and incorporated a recently favored trope of Russian propaganda – a chemical attack. According to Basurin, an explosion at a plant in Mariupol, with the release of dangerous chemicals, will be used as a pretext by Ukraine to launch an offensive against Russian-led forces in the Donbas on Dec. 14.
Russia is under pressure from the international community because of the use of chemical weapons by its client dictator, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and its own suspected use of a deadly nerve agent in a botched assassination attempt in the United Kingdom (which nevertheless resulted in the death of an innocent woman). It has thus been throwing about claims of the use of chemical weapons by others to distract attention from its own misdeeds.
But the timing of Basurin’s lie is concerning, however, coming as it does only two weeks after Russia, for the first time in nearly five years of war against Ukraine, openly attacked Ukrainian forces: On Nov. 25 Russian coast guard attacked and its special forces troops seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in international waters in the Black Sea, near the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. Since then, Ukraine has been warning of a build-up of Russian forces in the Azov Sea area and the threat of a Russian offensive to establish a land corridor between the Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea.
Moreover, on Dec. 15, there will be a meeting of Orthodox clergy to pick a new church leader for Ukraine, ahead of the granting of a tomos, or deed of independence, to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on Jan. 6, freeing it from the subordination of the Russian Orthodox Church for the first time in around 300 years.
The granting of independence to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is yet another sign of the waning influence of Moscow on Ukraine, and has greatly irked the Kremlin, which has allied itself with the church in recent years to bolster the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian church breaking free of Moscow’s control is thus seen as an affront to the Russian state itself.
Add to that the fact that it is a common tactic of aggressive, authoritarian states to accuse their victims of “provocations” ahead of their own offensives, Basurin’s lie has some in Ukraine more worried than would usually be the case. Russia’s recent actions in the Azov Sea indeed represent an escalation in its aggression against Ukraine, and the lack of a strong response from the West increases the chance that Putin might attempt to go further.
It is much more likely, however, that the Kremlin is simply taking advantage of the mood of nervousness in Ukraine, encouraging Kyiv to cry wolf again while it quietly tightens its economic stranglehold on Ukraine in the Azov Sea.
There were reports on Dec. 13, for instance, that Russia was refusing to agree fishing quotas with Ukraine for the sea, which would seriously damage the industry. Many Ukrainian fishermen in the area already fear to leave port because of the threat that the Russian coast guard will seize their vessels.
Russia is also reported to be restricting merchant shipping to the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk on the Azov Sea by refusing Ukrainian-flagged vessels the right to pass through the Kerch Straits.
While the threat of a fresh Russian military attack on Ukraine cannot be discounted, it should not be overestimated. The Kremlin managed to invade and occupy Crimea when Ukraine was at its weakest, wracked by revolution and lacking an effective government. It launched its covert military intervention on mainland Ukraine in the Donbas when Ukraine could field at most 6,000 combat-ready troops. The Kremlin has since been fought to a standstill, with Ukraine suffering no further major losses of territory since 2015.
Any Russian offensive against Ukraine at this point, now that Kyiv has 40,000 troops deployed in the Donbas theater, and can call on an army of 255,000 and 180,000 reserves, would be a costly and risky undertaking for Putin. On the other hand, even with its rebuilt army, Ukraine is still not in a position to launch its own offensive, given Russia’s air superiority and massive reserves of equipment and manpower in the region.
We should not be overly concerned by Basurin’s lie, therefore – it will simply join a long list of untrue statements made by this mendacious tool of Kremlin propaganda. We look forward to the day he is captured and stands trial. When he answers to the law, he may even tell the truth for a change.
