Key message: Russia’s aggression is expanding to southern Ukraine and further to the West. Corruption is one of the Kremlin’s main weapons of war in undermining democracies.
Michael Carpenter
“The problem now is that Russia’s Black Sea fleet has more than 50 warships, and Ukraine’s navy is still very small and weak in comparison to Russia’s.”
Hanna Hopko
“I hope President Petro Poroshenko will use the martial law period to submit to parliament important reform bills on the State Security Service, intelligence, transparency in defense procurement — everything to meet NATO standards.”
Brian Whitmore
“The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is going to pump gas to Europe. But it is also going to pump corruption as well.”
Archil Tsintsadze
“The main thing for Ukraine here is to shift slowly from passive measures, such as defending itself, to active measures.”
Russia’s increasingly aggressive actions in the Azov Sea show this area and Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast will most likely be the next theaters of the Kremlin’s war on the West, speakers at this year’s Kyiv Post Tiger Conference said during the opening Innovations in Security and Defense panel on Dec. 11.
Moderated by Michael Carpenter. senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the panelists agreed that the threat to Ukraine’s southern ports, such as Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Kherson, is real.
Hanna Hopko
“The vulnerability of southern Ukraine is what (Russian President Vladimir) Putin knows a lot about,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Hanna Hopko said.
Local elites in Ukraine’s south still have very close contacts with the Kremlin, she said, contributing to the nation’s vulnerability.
With its actions in the seas, the Russian leadership won’t cease pursuing its plan to create a land bridge to Kremin-occupied Crimea by capturing Ukraine’s Azov Sea coast, the lawmaker believes.
Hopko said Ukraine’s defenses in the south need more investment and international help. Russia’s attack and seizure of Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea on Nov. 25 is a signal that there must be an immediate defense plan for the southern coast, she added.
“We also need more financial assistance for Berdyansk, Mariupol, (and) more real projects supporting local initiatives. This is how we can avoid social instability, social unrest as a result of the blockade of the Azov Sea.”
At the same time, she noted that Ukraine was placing high hopes on help from the United States and their NATO allies if there is a new wave of Russian aggression or an all-out invasion.
Meanwhile, Ukraine will continue to push through progressive reforms of its dysyr security services and bring more transparency to defense production, which would clearly be a positive signal to nations that are friendly to Kyiv, Hopko said.
However, with the increased threat from Russia to the Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s military still badly needs advanced training, more aid, and now also a Western military presence to help ward off Russian forces.
Archil Tsintsadze
Archil Tsintsadze, a retired Georgian army colonel and currently an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, also agreed that the southern coast of Ukraine was under the greatest threat in the past few years.
He said Russia could use any pretext, such as the need to protect Orthodox Christians as Ukraine’s domestic church gains independence from Moscow, as a caucus belli for launching an invasion of the region.
Therefore, Tsintsadze said, Ukraine urgently needs to respond actively.
“The main thing for Ukraine here is to shift slowly from passive measures, such as defending itself, to active measures. That’s why I’m for a harsher policy and stronger resistance from the Ukrainian government, and that’s why I’m strongly in favor of the (imposition of) martial law.”
Parliament on Nov. 28, at the request of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, introduced martial law in 10 oblasts of Ukraine that border Russia, Transnistria, or the Black and Azov Seas.
Brian Whitmore
Brian Whitmore, a senior fellow with Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington D. C., noted that the escalation of tension in the region following the Nov. 25 incident was more serious than simply another wave of threats against Ukraine by the Kremlin.
The unprecedented open attack and seizure of 24 Ukrainian sailors by the Russian navy in international waters was yet more evidence that Russia’s aggression was directed against not just Ukraine, but the whole Western democratic world, the expert said.
“There’s a kinetic war by Russia to bring its empire back together again, beginning with Ukraine, but certainly not ending with Ukraine,” Whitmore said.
“But there’s also a non-kinetic war to spread… the so-called ‘systema’ — the patronage system within the Soviet Union, the system of corrupt deals and relationships that endured the collapse of the Soviet communism.”
Spreading this wretched pattern of oligarchic authoritarian rule by a mafia state was the ultimate goal of the Kremlin’s policy, Whitmore said, adding that Moscow had gained considerable success in penetrating the West.
“They’ve managed to spread the ‘systema’ to the West. I think we have to look at the conflict in Ukraine in terms of their global (aim) — to spread the systema as far in the world as possible, at the same time putting the Soviet empire back together again by force. These two things cannot be separated.”
Although the world is not coming through a new Cold War in its classical sense, Whitmore added, but this authoritarian, corrupt governance was already challenging and corroding Western rule of law and democracy.
“Mr. Putin did not invent money laundering, or offshores, or shell companies. We did that,” Whitmore said.
‘All Ukrainians’
“And now he is using those things to undermine us. And when I say “us”, I include Ukraine in that “us.” We are all Ukrainians in this fight.”
Corruption in Ukraine allows Kremlin influence to enter the country, Hopko added.
As an example, the lawmaker mentioned the failure to fully implement Ukraine’s law on sanctions on Russian businesses in the country.
“This law hasn’t been perfectly implemented,” she said. “We can (still) see Russian oligarchs like (Pavel) Fuks, and other oligarchs in the energy sector, or (Mikhail) Fridman, who is still organizing jazz festivals and sponsoring various events in Ukraine.”
“Don’t we have Ukrainian banks to support the promotion of activities abroad? Do we need to ask for this money of Mr. Fridman, who is close to Mr. Putin?”
Countering Russia’s aggression requires barring Russian oligarchs from earning money and assets from Ukraine’s key strategic sectors like energy, Hopko said.
One of the Ukrainian oligarchs close to the Kremlin with assets in Ukraine’s energy sector is Dmytro Firtash, who is fighting U.S. bribery charges and resides in Austria. However, Austria has repeatedly refused to extradite him to face the U.S. courts.
‘Real support’ needed
Hopko posed a rhetorical question to Austrian Ambassador to Ukraine Hermine Poppeller, who was in the audience, asking why Firtash had not yet faced U.S. justice. “For people like me, who are fighting the old system, the ‘systema’, it is very important to see real support from the West,” Hopko said.
“Because on the one hand, the West criticizes Ukraine for corruption, while on the other hand, Firtash is still in Austria, not in the United States undergoing trial. Another example is (Ihor) Kolomoisky. Who provided him with European citizenship? And (Rinat) Akhmetov and (Victor) Pinchuk buying luxury apartments, and nobody in Europe is asking them show how they earn their money. (Viktor) Medvedchuk (has a) $200 million yacht.” It’s hypocrisy, she said. “They demand we fight corruption in Ukraine, while providing oligarchs with very luxurious conditions.”
