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: Tom Tugendhat
Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the United Kingdom parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, might not seem like a typical candidate for Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and winner of an Order of Yaroslav the Wise, but then again, he’s not a typical chairman.
For one thing, Tugendhat is a former army officer, whereas most U.K. lawmakers tend to be drawn from the worlds of business and law. For another, he’s a dual British-French citizen, and his father-in-law, the French diplomat Pierre Morel, is part of the Trilateral Contact Group working on the achieving the Minsk II peace agreement to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Perhaps it’s that background that has contributed to Tugendhat having a firm grasp of the threat posed by Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin’s resurgent Russia. Or it may be the recent attempted murder in the U.K. of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia (almost certainly by Kremlin agents and almost certainly on Putin’s orders).
But whatever it is, Tugendhat has opened fire on the Kremlin with a blistering report called “Moscow’s Gold: Russian Corruption and the U.K.,” which argues that the dirty money flowing from Putin’s kleptocratic regime now represents a threat to the country’s national security.
“The government cannot afford to turn a blind eye as kleptocrats and human rights abusers use the city of London to launder their ill-gotten funds and to circumvent sanctions, putting that money directly into the hands of regimes that would harm the UK, its interests and its allies,” the conclusion of the report reads.
In the report, Tugendhat and his committee not only show they have a good understanding of the methods that Putin and his regime have used to undermine and attack the West’s unity, democracies and institutions, they also recognize that the scale of the threat is not overwhelming, and that there is plenty that can be done to curb Putin’s ambitions short of a serious confrontation.
“President Putin’s regime uses asymmetric methods to achieve its goals, and others—so-called useful idiots— magnify that effect by supporting its propaganda,” the report’s conclusion reads. “Russia’s economy—which, it is worth recalling, is approximately the size of Spain’s—is deeply interconnected to the Western financial system. This gives the U.S., E.U. and other G7 countries, acting together, significant leverage in seeking to counter the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior.”
The committee also recommends taking actions that many in Ukraine have long called for: “The U.K. should work with E.U. partners, both before and after leaving the E.U., to identify and sanction the individuals and entities on whom the Kremlin relies in carrying out its acts of aggression—including, but not limited to, destabilization of its neighbors, disinformation campaigns, interference in democratic processes and assassination attempts on foreign soil,” the report reads.
Specifically, the committee calls for a crackdown on the overseas tax havens used by Putin’s cronies to launder their dirty cash before they “invest” it in London real estate and businesses. These havens, many of which are British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, allow Russia’s corrupt elite to set up webs of shell companies to conceal their ownership of assets looted from the Russian state and people.
“In its response to this report, the government should set out its plans for assisting the governments of the Overseas Territories to establish publicly accessible beneficial ownership registers before Dec. 31, 2020,” the report goes on. “We also call on the government to provide the same level of assistance to the Crown Dependencies, and to encourage them to take steps to meet the same standard of transparency.”
This is welcome reading after hearing for years only expressions of “deep concern” from the West over the Kremlin’s dismemberment of Ukraine. Now that the U.K. and other Western states are feeling the effect of the Kremlin’s corrupt influence themselves, they are finally waking up to the threat.
If the U.K. government heeds Tugendhat’s report and starts to act on its recommendations along with its Western partners, there is still a chance to stop Putin in his tracks, and contain his regime. Let’s hope it does.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Vladimir Konstantinov
Vladimir Konstantinov, the current chairman of the Crimean parliament under Russian occupation, in 2012 strongly condemned those calling for the Ukrainian peninsula to be taken over by Russia. In a statement on the parliament’s website he branded members of the Popular Front, a pro-Russian group, “marginals who don’t represent anyone in the republic,” adding that “the absurd demands of these political midgets will receive the treatment they deserve in court.”
Konstantinov has of course changed his tune since Russian invaded and started to occupy the Ukrainian territory in late February 2014, and is now a firm supporter of the Kremlin.
In the latest violation of the rights of the population under Russian occupation in Crimea, Konstantinov has defended an Orwellian Kremlin scheme to force teachers to pressure their students to spy on their parents, so as to establish whether they have obtained Ukrainian biometric passports.
One of the most tangible benefits of the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014 is that Ukrainian passports, which grant the holders the right to visit many European countries visa-free, are now considerably more useful than Russian ones for international travel.
Nevertheless, Konstantinov branded those in the Russian-occupied territory who wanted “not just the benefits from Russia, but something else as well,” as being “crafty.”
In fact, since Ukraine has waived the ban on holding more than one passport for those in occupied Crimea, there is nothing wrong with people there seeking to benefit from the travel rights that their citizenship grants them.
Russia, on the other hand, has attempted to force its citizenship on the occupied population, making it difficult for ordinary Crimeans to retain or obtain employment, or access medical and other services if they refuse a Russian passport.
This represents a failure by Russia to follow its commitments as an occupying power under the Geneva Conventions, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention on the rights of civilian populations under occupation.
Russia is obliged to observe the Fourth Geneva Convention because its claim to have annexed the territory is bogus: under international law, the annexation of conquered territory is illegal, and though very little blood was spilled during Russia’s military invasion of Crimea, it was still a military takeover (for which Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has handed out campaign medals to his soldiers.)
As such, Crimea is under international law considered to be under temporary occupation by Russia, and Russia, according to international law, should thus make no major changes to the existing legal order on the peninsula. Forcing people en masse to give up their former citizenship is thus surely a breach of Russia’s obligations under international law.
Russia is guilty of far worse violations of the Geneva Conventions in Crimea, of course. As an occupying power, it is prohibited from taking hostages, for example. However, several Crimean Ukrainians have been taken prisoner by Russia’s occupation authorities on sham charges, and have then been jailed in Russia after being subjected to show trials. The most famous of them is the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is currently on hunger strike demanding the release of the other Ukrainian hostages taken by the Kremlin, of whom there are more than 60.
Russia is also guilty of other grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in Crimea, especially with regard to its indigenous population, the Crimean Tatars, whom it has subjected to severe repression since the start of its occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
Konstantinov, who is guilty of supporting the Kremlin’s illegal occupation of Crimea and its numerous breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, is unlikely to face justice any time soon. In the meantime we must be content with naming him Ukraine’s Foe of the Week and a winner of the odious Order of Lenin, while hoping, using his own words, that this political midget will one day receive the treatment he deserves in court.
