As Ukraine heads into its 28th year of independence, many forces still pull on its strings.
Some are trying to unravel it. Others say they are trying to pull Ukraine towards a better place but aren’t always succeeding. Internal tugs of war take place over the fate of the country’s institutions.
The Kyiv Post asked analysts about the many pressures facing Ukraine, including Russia’s ongoing attempts to destabilize Ukrainian independence and Ukraine’s ongoing struggle to meet international requirements and reap the promised rewards.
Despite these troubles, many said that it would be a mistake to frame Ukraine as helplessly reacting to adversity.
Victim mentality
“Ukraine needs to shed its image as a victim,” said Bohdan Nahaylo, a political expert and journalist who occasionally contributes to the Kyiv Post.
The Russian Federation has employed every tool at its disposal to fight what it perceives as Western encirclement. Many agree that one of the Russia’s major ongoing missions is to neutralize Ukraine as an independent world actor and regain control.
There is the fact that Russia annexed Crimea and occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, cutting many people off from taking part in Ukraine’s political or economic system.
There is the simmering war in the Donbas, which had been called a key Russian bargaining chip by Mykhailo Samus, the deputy director for international affairs at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies.
Several analysts pointed to the economic exploitation of the occupied east and control of coal production and key industries there, as well as control over energy supplies that Ukraine acquires indirectly.
Analysts also pointed out the disinformation campaigns and diplomatic pressure aimed at discrediting Ukraine internationally and demoralizing it internally. Some of the goals of these campaigns try to reduce trust in Ukraine’s leadership and make it seem like the armed conflict will go on indefinitely until Ukraine makes a concession. Any concession would draw outrage from many Ukrainians and any potential unrest might also help Russia, according to Samus.
Russian narrative
But multiple analysts said that a key undermining factor to Ukraine’s independence is its perceived lack of agency as a geopolitical actor.
Hanna Shelest, editor-in-chief at Ukraine Analytica, said that Russia has been pushing a narrative of “in-betweenness” on Ukraine, which is replacing former rhetoric referring to Ukraine as a buffer zone or a bridge between East and West. The new narrative paints Ukraine not as a geopolitical actor but as a vague “thing without shape,” without the means to make its own decisions or forge its path in the world.
“When they promote this idea, they persuade all others to speak with Russia and not with Ukraine,” said Shelest.
Shelest said that Ukraine needs to be able to present its own narrative, not just fight against the Russian ideas. As long as the country is merely reacting to Russia, it’s going to be losing the information war.
“Strategic communication on the state level will be extremely important in demonstrating this independence and introducing our own narratives,” she said.
Vitaliy Tytych, a lawyer and member of the watchdog Public Integrity Council, said that agency is a key factor in Ukraine’s ongoing troubles.
“In the context of war with Russia, the Ukrainian government does a bad thing,” he said. “It runs to the West, complains to them and waits for handouts.”
Credibility at stake
The poor credibility and sketchy motivations of multiple political figures who represented independent Ukraine were part of the problem. Western officials could easily see when such officials were focused on corruption and could not be taken seriously, said Tytych.
“These kinds of people cannot represent the country,” he said, adding that Ukraine needs to be represented by people who can have realistic authority.
Nahaylo said that Ukraine had suffered not only at the hands of oligarchs and Russia and former President Viktor Yanukovych’s choices, but also critical mismanagement and the population’s reluctance to let go of the shadow economy.
In the meantime, even as Ukraine sets its hopes on the association agreement, including a free trade agreement, the country continues to struggle.
Balasz Jarabik, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had written that the West should consider changing its economic policy towards the region. As necessary as macroeconomic stabilization has been, it had been painful and did not bring large-scale investments or help alleviate a mounting trade deficit.
No clear EU path
Moreover, following the 2016 Dutch referendum, the EU and the Netherlands agreed that association was not necessarily a path towards full membership and does not commit the EU to provide major financial assistance. And assistance is something that Ukraine needs, as its companies are simply not competitive enough with their EU counterparts.
Jarabik pointed out that Central Europe received a lot of assistance to alleviate regional inequalities when it was going through a similar stage but the EU is not providing such assistance to Ukraine.
“Ukraine cannot tap into the EU’s structural cohesion funds, those which the members are actually able to,” he said. “And this is a big problem… to compete in the European market comes with more costs from Mariupol than from, let’s say Brussels.”
He added that international financial institutions championing less state intervention do not make it any easier for Ukrainian business.
“Without state intervention, how are they going to be competitive?” said Jarabik. “This is not to say that the DCFTA is a bad idea, it just comes with strings attached. Ukraine should be ready to provide assistance and, with these restrictions, it cannot.”
While most analysts agree that the reforms pushed for by international bodies are essential for Ukraine, Tytych said that the international expert organizations he observed, especially in the area of judicial reform, have done a poor job of monitoring and ensuring actual results.
“To them, a result is a well-prepared report… having no correlation with actual results,” said Tytych. “This often harms the (reform) process.”
