The Kennan Institute, a think tank dedicated to the study of post-Soviet countries, will close its Kyiv office after a scandal erupted in Ukraine over its decision to fire country director Kateryna Smagliy.
The Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, of which Kennan is regional program, announced the news in a March 1 message on its website.
“As the safety of our employees and affiliates has been threatened, I have personally contacted high-level U.S. officials to explain my concern and request that all possible steps be taken by them and Ukrainian authorities to protect our people,” center director Jane Harman wrote in the statement.
These security concerns and “administrative challenges” persuaded the center to close the Kyiv office, “while continuing our fierce commitment to scholarship and programming activities involving Ukraine and the region,” she wrote.
But the decision appears unlikely to calm a debate over the actions of the institute that has divided Ukrainian scholars.
Letter campaigns
The controversy began last month, when the Kennan Institute dismissed Kateryna Smagliy as its Kyiv director. In response, on Feb. 27, a group of Ukrainian alumni of Kennan programs released an open letter in support of Smagliy. They also alleged that “growing pro-Kremlin policies” of the Washington, D.C.-based institute and its director, Matthew Rojansky, “threaten to turn the Wilson Center into an unwitting tool of Russia’s political interference.”
The next day, Smagliy published an op-ed in the Kyiv Post asserting that, under Rojansky’s leadership, the institute was “being downgraded to the role of the Kremlin Institute and an instrument of Russia’s hybrid war in the very heart of Washington, D.C.” She also called upon the U.S. government to scrutinize the institute and its funding source. (The Woodrow Wilson Center is funded by a mix of U.S. government financing and private grants and donations.)
There have been tensions between Kennan and its Ukrainian alumni before. In November 2017, the Kennan Institute supported a “Concert of Unity” in Washington featuring composer Valery Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev, two Russian artists who signed a letter in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
In response, a group of the Kennan Institute’s Ukrainian alumni released an open letter criticizing the concert and calling for an open public discussion on the matter.
Personal attacks
But if objections to the “Concert for Unity” represented a divide between Ukrainian alumni and the Washington-based Institute, Smagliy’s firing has proven divisive in Ukraine.
The open letter and Smagliy’s op-ed have sparked heated debate on Facebook. Some view them as an example of political disagreements spilling over into academic research.
In particular, Ukrainians have taken issue with the alumni’s criticism of Mykhailo Minakov, who the Kennan Institute appointed as principal investigator on Ukraine around the same time Smagliy was removed.
A political philosopher and well-known commentator on Ukrainian affairs, Minakov has frequently criticized the government of President Petro Poroshenko and growing nationalism in the country. The open letter describes him as someone “known for his biased analysis of Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan developments.”
Olexiy Haran — a political scientist and former member of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council, who signed the letter — has feuded particularly actively with Minakov on social media. He describes the scholar as “one-sided” and “totally negative” on Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan developments.
However, Haran stresses that this is not about political differences or Minakov personally. Rather, he suggests that Smagliy was fired for political positions that “didn’t fit into the line of the Kennan Institute” and replaced with Minakov, a candidate Kennan found more suitable.
Haran found the Woodrow Wilson Center’s response — suggesting its staff had been threatened — particularly objectionable, calling it a “part of a defamation campaign against those who signed the letter and basically the country.”
“This is very, very cynical,” he said.
The controversy has left some unimpressed. “Ukrainian civil society infighting knows no end,” Devin Ackles, an analyst of Ukraine and Belarus, wrote on Twitter. “Minakov is well respected and, save some personal dislike for him, professionals would be hard pressed to find this “biased” (anti-Ukrainian?) analysis stated in this letter. Very disappointing developments.”
Minakov declined to comment on the situation at the Kennan Institute, but told the Kyiv Post that he considers all the accusations against him “false and politicized.” He confirmed that, although the Kennan Institute may be closing its Kyiv office, its work in Ukraine is not stopping.
“Yesterday, I started work, and now I will be administering this research program,” he said in a message.
Kennan Abroad
Founded in 1974 to promote the study of the Soviet Union, the Kennan Institute opened two offices abroad after the Soviet collapse: in Moscow and in Kyiv.
However, in 2014, the institute closed its Moscow office under political and financial pressure. The institute had come under mounting scrutiny in Russia after the country passed a law requiring non-profits that receive foreign funding and engage in “political activities” to register as foreign agents. But the final blow was a decrease in private donations, director Rojansky told Voice of America.
With the closure of its Kyiv office, which opened in 1998, the Kennan Institute will no longer have any offices in the former Soviet Union.
