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By APD writer Wu Jian
Translated by Deng Xianlai
The law “on the peculiarities of the state policy on securing Ukraine's state sovereignty over temporarily occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions," or the so-called Donbass reintegration law, came into force on Feb. 24, one day after the full text of it was published in the Ukrainian parliament’s Holos Ukrainy newspaper. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, adopted the law on Jan. 18.
According to the legal document, the regions of the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast that are not controlled by President Petro Poroshenko’s government in Kiev are “occupied territories,” and the president is given the right to use armed forces inside the country without the parliament’s consent, including for the purpose of “liberating the territories” in the east of Ukraine.
The enactment of the law drew a sharp backlash from Russia, one of the four members of the Normandy format talks created on June 6, 2014 with the aim of finding a resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The talks in the Belorussian capital Minsk had resulted in two ceasefire agreements, with the first collapsing just days after its adoption on Sept. 5, 2014, and the second, reached on Feb. 12, 2015, also becoming fragile.
Commenting on the Donbass reintegration law, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Kiev has ultimately confirmed its aim at a military solution of the conflict in the southeast of Ukraine. “The practical application of the law threatens with risks of a major escalation of the situation in Ukraine’s southeast … We hope the country’s Western supervisors realize this and would be able to use the influence they have on Kiev not to allow this scenario (to happen) … which threatens unforeseen consequences for European stability and security.”
Crossing the line
This latest decision by the Rada is but one of the many events that have made Russia increasingly frustrated. The United States have been intensifying its arms aid to Ukraine since 2017. In August, it started building a maritime operations center at the Ochakiv Naval Base close to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014 when the Ukrainian crisis reached culmination.
In addition to the already existing commercial export of lethal weapons to Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump approved in December government sales of lethal weapons to Poroshenko’s troops, lifting what experts said was a de facto ban by the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly shown photos of American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Ukraine has long sought to defend itself against the tanks used by pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in Donbass. It is the first time that Ukrainian government forces have acquired such weapons since the conflict erupted three years ago.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the United States, by giving the green light to lethal arms sale at the government level, had “crossed the line” and was pushing Ukraine to “new bloodshed.” “The U.S. weapons can lead to new victims in our neighboring country (Ukraine), to which we cannot remain indifferent,” Rybkov said.
Now that the government in Kiev has stressed in the form of legislation that the use of force is a means to end the conflict in Donbass, Russia’s aim in the region, which experts said was to create a zone of “frozen conflict,” has largely failed.
No time to rest
With the United States covertly encouraging and supporting the Ukrainian military’s war preparations, the Russian-backed militias in the Donbass region will face growing pressures in the future, and Russia will have to pour more resources into coping with the Ukrainian crisis -- a situation the United States undoubtedly would like to see.
Constantly annoyed by the investigation into his alleged collusion with Russia, Trump has since assuming office been forced to take a tough stance on Russia, at least during public appearances. In his national security strategy delivered on Dec. 18, he defined Russia as a biggest threat to the United States. It is estimated that Trump’s long-term strategy toward Russia will remain a confrontational one.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, faces a situation that is completely different than Trump’s. The conflict in eastern Ukraine is far more complicated than in Syria, where Russia appeared to have gained an absolute upper hand when Putin ordered the withdrawal of a large portion of Russian troops from the battleground at the end of 2017.
Support from the Syrian government forces is indispensable to the victory of Russia’s combat mission in Syria, but apparently such an ally is nowhere to be found in Ukraine, where the government has never given up its attempt to reclaim the lost territories in the Donbass region, now controlled by the pro-Russian separatists. There are fears inside Russia that the troops returning from Syria will be sent again to the battlefield on the Russian-Ukrainian borders.
No easy way out
Russian military experts said the U.S. military presence in the Black Sea would inevitably invite countermeasures from Russia, which could bring targets like the Ochakiv Naval Base into the striking range of Russia’s precision-guided munitions. Although Russia has yet to give an official response, it is expected to fortify its Black Sea Fleet to confront U.S. expansion in the region.
What’s more, the Russian military has been constructing military bases along its borders with Ukraine since 2015. According to U.S. media reports, Russia has built large military bases with capacities to station heavy weapons in the border region with Ukraine, meaning that Moscow has been preparing for prolonged confrontation with Kiev.
What has added to the escalation of the situation is that Ukraine’s cabinet has suspended a cooperation agreement with Russia regulating interaction between the two countries in exporting military products to third countries. According to an intergovernmental agreement signed between Russia and Ukraine in 2003, the two countries agreed to cooperate on developing, supplying as well as maintaining military equipment.
The Kiev government endorsed a draft resolution on terminating the agreement at a meeting on Aug. 9 2017, an incremental move to suspend military interaction with the Kremlin following an order by Poroshenko in June 2014 to stop exporting military and dual-purpose goods to Russia.Russian military experts said scrapping the deal was a mere formality thatwouldn’t have much of an impact on Russia.
Wu Jian, Research Fellow at Asia Pacific Institute, is the chef editor of News Network in China Radio International.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
