Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Ukrainian Rebs Offered More Autonomy

The Kyiv government has offered greater autonomy to the eastern districts of Ukraine in an attempt to placate the rebels in those areas. This comes after a cease-fire came into effect Friday that appears to be holding despite a handful of violations. It is a pointless offer because it falls far short of what Vladimir Putin and Russia want. Greater autonomy does not move Russia's borders nor does it cripple Ukraine. Therefore, it won't end the conflict.

The good news, of course, is that the Ukrainian and Russian governments are talking and that the shooting has largely stopped. While far from pacifist, this journal agrees that jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Violence merely changes the facts on the ground around which an eventual negotiation occurs.

As part of the cease-fire and negotiations, President Petro Poroshenko made his offer to the secessionist agitators in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The BBC reported that Mr. Poroshenko "said he was seeking a permanent solution to the conflict and had submitted a bill to parliament that would give separatists more autonomy but with a status that keeps these regions in Ukraine. Ukraine will not make any concessions on issues of its territorial integrity," he insisted.

The Deputy Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Andrei Purgin, rejected the proposal out of hand, saying that his followers "are not considering remaining part of Ukraine." Whether this is what he truly believes or whether he said that on orders from the Kremlin is hard to say. However, what one can deduce from this is that a settlement remains a long way off, and the cease-fire may not last very long. While no one is shooting, one can be quite certain that supplies and manpower are being moved into more advantageous positions than they were in last Friday.

Mr. Putin has made clear from the very beginning of this crisis that he wants Ukraine within Moscow's orbit and that anything short of that is unacceptable. While outright annexation is probably not going to happen, crippling Ukraine to the point where it has no choice but to yield to Moscow's dictates is feasible. So long as there are two oblasts in rebellion, foreign investment will be curtailed and economic development will lag. Security concerns will eat up the Kyiv government's time. And so long as Russia is bullying Ukraine, it ensures that the Baltic, Nordic and Slavic states to Russia's west stay worried. If he can't annex a given territory, Mr. Putin certainly seeks to Finlandize it.

The situation is clear. The Russians will not let Donetsk and Luhansk have any peace so long as they have the loyalty of a sufficient number of fighters to put up some kind of resistance. Right before the cease-fire, they were doing more than resisting; they were winning. President Poroshenko himself said, "Before the ceasefire was announced, Ukraine was losing the lives of dozens of its heroes on a daily basis." The BBC added, "Before the current truce came into place, rebels had made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol."

The only time one agrees to a settlement when one is winning territory and weakening the enemy is when one can make the same kind of gains without the same losses as fighting it out offers. The rebels are not going to settle for autonomy so long as they are advancing.

President Poroshenko probably had to make this offer for form's sake, but the initiative is dead on arrival.

© Copyright 2014 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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