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Roman SLYVKA
Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, UKRAINE
No. 13
THE PRECONDITIONS FOR CONFLICTS
IN DONBAS AND CRIMEA: SIMILARITIES
AND DIFFERENCES
1. INTRODUCTION
Geography of conflicts is a promising area of science, especially during the
ongoing territorial and political conflicts (TPC) in Ukraine, which was faced
with serious security threats between 2014 and 2016. Conflicts estimated by the
“Conflict Barometer” (Conflict Barometer 2014: disputes, non-violent crises,
violent crises, limited wars, wars, 2015) to be at the “war” level have influenced
the safety of Central-European and Baltic region's post-socialist states. Many
causes can be identified as key to conflict eruption in Southern and Eastern
Ukraine. They often involve spatial characteristic features that determine the
basic plan (final goal) of those initiating the conflict, directions and limits of its
distribution, intensity, cyclical character (due to some seasonal phenomena),
forms and means of struggle for territory and even the timelines of those
conflicts. In this respect, geography of conflict is much more closely related in
its subject matter to military geography or the art of military tactics and strategy
of fighting than to geopolitics and international relations theory. In the conflict,
the subject of the territorial struggle looks for the most vulnerable places in the
opponent's positions, meaning to cause considerable losses that would neutralise
the opponent and implement the plan of control over the territory and its
resources. Therefore, vulnerability is not only the consequence of but also the
condition for a successful territorial combat. In its absence, intensification of
vulnerability becomes a means of struggle. Vulnerability of both Ukraine as
a whole and its individual regions has become one of the most important pre-
requisites for the emergence of conflict zones.
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2. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL
BASIS OF THE STUDY
There is quite a vast experience of W.N. Adger (2000), R. Leichenko and
K. O'Brien (2002), S.L. Cutter et al. (2003), S. Sterlacchini (2011), J. Bryan
(2015) in researching vulnerabilities of people who are exposed to negative
effects of natural hazards and threats, or vulnerabilities caused by political
conflicts or other economic and social factors.
Vulnerability is one of the concepts in use of which it is difficult to reach
a consensus, and is characterised by many interpretations, since it depends on
research approaches and perspectives. There is no clear understanding of the term
“vulnerability” in literature, so it is open to interpretation – says S. Sterlacchini
(2011).
He believes that vulnerability reflects the ability of an item or a set of items
(organised into the system) exposed to danger to withstand the damage
(Sterlacchini 2011). In geography, vulnerability is defined as the degree to which
a community, structure, service or geographical area may be damaged or de-
stroyed, based on their natural properties or locations under the influence of
specific hazardous risks (Glossary of Environment Statistics 1997, p. 76). The
concept of “vulnerability” is characterised in detail by the authors of United
Nations’ “Human Development Report 2014”. It states that in places where
social and legal institutions, authorities, political space or social and cultural
norms and traditions fail to serve the members of the society equally, and where
they create structural barriers for some people and groups preventing them from
implementing their rights and choices, they generate structural vulnerability
(Human Development Report 2014, p. 19).
Three main groups of people who are more vulnerable to threats are dis-
tinguished: 1) the poor, informal workers, socially excluded; 2) women, people
with disabilities, migrants, minorities, children, the elderly, youth; 3) whole
communities, regions. The report indicates major threats that affect the growth
of vulnerability: 1) economic shocks, health shocks; 2) natural disasters, climate
change and industrial hazards; 3) conflicts, civil unrest. Three main prerequisites
for vulnerability growth are defined: 1) limited capabilities; 2) location, position
in society, sensitive periods in the life cycle; 3) low social cohesion, irrespon-
sible institutions, poor governance (Human Development Report 2014, p. 19).
Nowadays, vulnerability is considered the property of regional systems (Ster-
lacchini 2011). Vulnerability is the inter-action between threats (in TPC – poli-
tical threats – R. Slyvka) and systemic vulnerability that produces certain results.
It is clear that vulnerability is a dynamic characteristic (Cutter et al. 2003).
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
189
In political geography, a long tradition of vulnerable countries and their
separate parts can be traced. 19th-century mercantilism defined a vulnerable state
as one deprived of significant natural, human resources, as well as markets for
finished goods. Political geographers often talk about the vulnerability of
borders connected with probable aggression of neighbours. A well-known theory
of “natural borders” was popular by the mid-20th century and was used to justify
territorial expansion and annexation. Orographic borders, river, lake and sea
borders were considered reliable and profitable. The fatalism of impact of
natural boundaries on international relations is justified in popular scientific and
journalistic literature. The idea of people's vulnerability in some regions of Latin
America as a legitimate reason for the implementation of “humanitarian inter-
vention” of US forces is described in J. Bryan's (2015) article, which points to
the paradoxical situation when the hegemonic state intervened to protect
vulnerable people, while being the one who caused this vulnerability in the past
(Bryan 2015). This interpretation of aggressive action is quite appropriate to
explain Russia's interference in Ukrainian or Syrian internal affairs.
In the context of Ukraine, the vulnerability of this country's plain borders was
described by S. Rudnytskyi (Рудницький 1923). J. Lypa (Липа 1992) con-
sidered the Black Sea coast to be the only reliable line of independent Ukraine.
Polish-American political scientist and geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski
pointed to geopolitical vulnerability of Ukraine (1997). In the context of vulne-
rability issues, Ukrainian geographers M.O. Baranovskyi (Барановський 2010),
M.S. Dnistrianskyi (Дністрянський 2006), F. Zastavnyi (Заставний 2006), and
O. Shablii (Шаблій 2001) paid much attention to the problem of uneven
regional development, which should be interpreted as a threat to national
security. In 2002, Transit published Mykola Riabchuk's article “Ukraine: One
State, Two Countries” (Riabchuk 2002) which was followed by a comment
addressing the discourse of two Ukraines in a critical way1. N.W. Bagrov
(Багров 2002), M.S. Dnistrianskyi (Дністрянський 2011) predicted possible
negative consequences of unbalanced regional and foreign politics and the
growth of devolution processes in the Crimea and South-Eastern Ukraine. The
development of southern and eastern regions of Ukraine in terms of their frontier
position was investigated by O. Afanasiev (Афанасьєв 2012), and in terms of
their political weight by S.W. Adamovych (Адамович 2009). O. Vendyna and
V.A. Kolosov (Вендина и Колосов 2007), T. Zhurzhenko (2002, 2010, 2014)
studied the interaction between Russia and Ukraine in the borderlands. In their
studies, A.B. Shvets (Швец 2007, 2013) and A.N. Yakovlev (Яковлев 2008)
1 http://www.iwm.at/uncategorized/the-myth-of-two-ukraines/.
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emphasised the socio-cultural conflicts in the Crimea. Ukraine's vulnerability
due to blurred legal status of the Crimean autonomy was described by Y. Roznai
and S. Suteu (2015).
At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, scientific discourse on the issue of
vulnerability of some regions and countries to the conflict emerged. It involved
the concept of “Eurasian Balkans” (Brzezinski 1997), crush zones (O'Loughlin,
1999), buffer zones (Prevelakis 2009), in-betweenness (Rey and Groza 2009),
overlapping territorialities (Agnew and Ulrich 2013), or failed/fragile states
(Marshall and Cole 2014).
When developing a geographic approach to understanding the vulnerability
of a region to the emergence of TPC, we paid special attention to the ideas
presented by S. Rudnytskyi (Рудницький 1905), the founder of Ukrainian
geography, expressed in the early 20th century. He stated that, in general geo-
graphy, every object and every phenomenon is thoroughly investigated, focusing
on four major issues: morphological, content-based, dynamic and genetic (Руд-
ницький 1905, p. 25). Shablii notes that due to this approach, Rudnytskyi dif-
ferentiated between two types of geographic laws: 1) spatial (horologic), that can
also be called laws of territorial structure, and 2) genetic (laws of generation,
development) (Шаблій 2001, p. 411). In our opinion, in terms of political geo-
graphy, spatial (horologic) laws are able to explain the morphological and
structural peculiarities of conflict regions. Their dynamic and genetic properties
belong to genetic laws. According to O. Shablii (Шаблій 2001), in modern
geography, the so-called functional laws are singled out; they reflect the
essential links between entrances and exits of local natural, social or natural-
economic systems in the process of changing their states (Шаблій 2001, p. 411).
Assuming that the zone of TPC distribution is a kind of dynamic territorial social
system, the change of state is influenced by the purposeful fight (public and
hidden, inner and outer, violent – using force, soft – using the power of
authority, hybrid – a combination of the previous two) to gain control over the
territory as well as its properties and resources. This fight involves the inter-
action with the systemic vulnerability of the territory, resulting in attempts of the
fighting subject to set control (de jure or de facto) over the disputed territory.
We suggest considering the conflict zone a vulnerable territorial and political
system. Its opposite in terms of quality is a geographically stable political
system. In political geography, it is appropriate to use the term “conflict region
vulnerability”. It can be defined as the degree to which the region is vulnerable
to political threats based on its geographical location, physical and geographical
conditions, socio-geographical structures, political status and functional capacity.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
191
Assuming that the goal of acknowledged rational politics is to achieve a sus-
tainable level of territorial and political system (minimal vulnerability to con-
flict), it seems logical that another possible extreme manifestation – vulnerable
territorial and political system (maximal vulnerability to conflict) is possible as
well. The transitional state is a so-called transit territorial and political system.
The latter may have three dynamic qualities: 1) structural (aimed at achieving
stability of territorial and political systems); 2) destructive (aimed at reducing
the stability of territorial and political systems); 3) fluctuating (random deviation
from the previous development of territorial and political system).
Extreme ideal condition of a territorial and political system involves the
implementation of the religious concept of universal Christian Peace (or Islamic
Ummah), or secular concepts such as utopian ideal city-states of Plato, Cam-
panella or More, communist utopia of Marx and others. Ensuring peace by means
of various military, political, social, economic and cultural tools is actually the
way to reduce the vulnerability of the territorial and political system to the
threats and risks, the extreme of which is war. The ultimate vulnerable territorial
and political system is the “bellum omnium contra omnes” according to Thomas
Hobbes works De Cive (1642) and Leviathan (1651). The aim of territorial and
political organisation of the society is to achieve resilience to threats and risks
that a war, destruction, radical lifestyle changes may bring. At this stage,
a territorial and political system may be exposed to fluctuations, i.e. a deviation
from the constructive or destructive development as a result of shock effects.
The latter include climate changes (Hsiang et al. 2011), ecological crises and
spread of epidemics (Barnett 2009; Environment and Security Program Report,
2009), the deterioration of market opportunities and resource cycles in the world
economy (Collier et al. 2008, Kennedy 2014) and mass migration.
The destructive direction of the territorial and political system is carried out
by the subjects of the struggle for territory and its resources. Their goal is to take
advantage of preconditions that can be well described according to five
parameters: 1) positional vulnerability; 2) structural vulnerability; 3) historical
vulnerability; 4) dynamic vulnerability; 5) functional vulnerability. If they do not
manifest clearly enough, the subject may deliberately act in the direction of
individual components of vulnerability. This destructive effect can be amplified
or attenuated by shock effects, such as falling prices for energy resources and
a decrease in the capacity of “petrol filling countries” in terms of aggressive
rhetoric and actions. The Crimea and Donbas remain vulnerable regions of
Ukrainian territorial and political system. Thus, the investigation of vulnerability
phenomenon is an important task for geography of conflicts as a structural
component of political geography.
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3. POSITIONAL VULNERABILITY
Ukraine is one of the largest countries in Europe by territory; its area
constitutes 5.7% of the total area of the region. The total length of Ukrainian
state borders is 7,700 km, land borders accounting for 5,740 km. The total length
of Ukrainian state borders with Russia is 2,063 km. First of all, they are the
borders, that Ukraine inherited from the USSR; but, taking into consideration the
conditions and circumstances of their establishing, they were mainly imposed
unilaterally during the period when Ukrainian people were not an equitable
subject of international relations and were not able to implement its right of self-
-determination over their whole ethnic territory (Дністрянський 2006, p. 298).
However, owing to the increase in Ukraine’s fragility caused by a number of
internal and external factors, control over individual borderlands, especially in
Donbas and the Crimea, which border with Russia, has become complicated.
The geopolitical buffer position of Ukraine has become a classical definition
of the state's position in political geography. This positional vulnerability of
Ukraine found extreme expression in S.P. Huntington's (1993) findings con-
cerning the presence of civilisational faultline that passes through its territory.
One of the first to point to the geographical position of Ukraine was Brzezinski
(1997; Бжезинский видит… 2015). Most Ukrainian politicians2 themselves
pointed out the positive functions of this position, as Ukraine had to become
a bridge between the East and the West (Украина может… 2016). Thus, the
mass consciousness of Ukrainians have a mental image of it being a buffer
country. By 2013, 42% of Ukrainians were in favour of Ukrainian non-aligned
status, but at present, the number of such people hardly reaches 25%3. The end
of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s passed under the imperative of
multi-vector foreign policy of Leonid Kuchma. As a result, Ukraine has become
a non-aligned country. This largely happened due to the pressure from Russia.
It was a hybrid technology that allowed for creating the conditions for open and
concealed occupation of post-Soviet countries. Last, but not least, Ukraine has
become a victim of Russian aggression because of the adoption of this status.
This may be reminiscent of the “Trojan Horse”, as it opened space for the onset
of Russia4.
2 Preferably, the pro-Russian, such as Viktor Medvedchuk, one of the negotiators in
the peace talks in Minsk.
3 http://gazeta.ua/articles/politics/_na-referendumi-ukrayinci-golosuvali-b-za-nato-so
ciologi/709089.
4 http://gazeta.ua/articles/politics/_na-referendumi-ukrayinci-golosuvali-b-za-nato-so
ciologi/709089.
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193
Ukraine has not gained all characteristics of a geopolitical buffer at once; it
happened after the state's refusal to participate in Russia-initiated Eurasian
integration projects at the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, Ukraine's
participation in the CIS was inactive, the state kept away from the joint projects
with Russia within the framework of common defence and economic policy. On
the other hand, Ukrainian attempts to find new platforms for cooperation with
the West proved unsuccessful. At various times, Ukraine's intention to partici-
pate in the project of NATO-bis or to join the Visegrad Group were announced.
Ukraine has been looking for alternative platforms to integrate with Europe
participating in the Central European Initiative, BSEC, and GUAM for 25 years
of its independence. President Leonid Kuchma tried to find ways of rapproche-
ment with NATO under the “Partnership for Peace”. In January 2008, the
proposition from the second Yulia Tymoshenko cabinet for Ukraine to join
NATO's Membership Action Plan was met with opposition. A petition of over
2 million signatures has called for a referendum on Ukraine's membership
proposal to join NATO. The opposition called for a national referendum to be
held on any steps towards further involvement with NATO. In February 2008
57.8% of Ukrainians supported the idea of a national referendum on joining
NATO, against 38.6% in February 20075.
In 2013, Yanukovych's attempts to bond with the EU in the framework of
association failed, causing protests against the autocratic regime created by him
and sparking the Revolution of Dignity. Under such circumstances, Donbas and
the Crimea became a buffer region of the buffer state. Not coincidently, they
were marked as a zone of instability, “Eurasian Balkans”, on Brzezinski's geo-
political map. What was important here is that in Donbas there was a delimita-
tion line not only between Ukraine and Russia, but also between European
values and the values of the old Soviet totalitarianism. Moreover, Donbas
received another frontier – the contact zone with Turkey, the Middle East and
the Caucasus.
Both regions are close to areas of territorial-political instability and interna-
tional legal vacuum (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh).
All together, they form the “post-Soviet zone of instability”. Strategists in the
Kremlin granted the title of the centre of this area to the Crimea. No wonder that
now Kremlin states that Ukraine has to forget about the return of the Crimea,
apparently in exchange for the stabilisation of the situation in Donbas. In the
future, even if a new base is built near the port of Novorossiysk, consolidating
the position of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Crimea would still be the center of
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations.
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194
gravity of the Russian military footprint, consolidating its ability to project force
deep into the Mediterranean (Goşu and Manea 2015, p. 10). In short, the
annexation of Crimea is already shifting the geography of control in the wider
Black Sea region. In the past, the Black Sea used to be called a Russian lake;
now it is becoming an A2/AD Russian bubble6 (Goşu and Manea 2015, p. 10).
The Ukrainian-Russian border in Donbas, mostly flat and continental, makes
Ukraine more vulnerable to the prevailing Russian armed forces. A small access
of Donetsk region to the Sea of Azov makes it vulnerable to amphibious assault
landings as well. The viability of the project aimed at creating separatist “repub-
lics” in the Donbas is dependent on the constant supply of new materials and
military manpower from Russia. Furthermore, the evidence points to the fact that
Russia's reserves of “volunteers” now appear to have been exhausted. Conse-
quently, in mid-August 2014, Russia began to send regular soldiers to Ukraine.
These latest reinforcements are fighting not for ideological motivations or material
incentives, but on the direct orders of their military superiors (Mitrokhin 2015,
p. 220). The peculiarity of the Crimea is its absence of land border with Russia.
Maritime boundary runs along the inland sea waters of two basins – the Sea of
Azov and the Black Sea. The presence of the naval base of Russian Black Sea
Fleet in Sevastopol and the lack of its own powerful navy did not allow Ukraine
to defend the peninsula against the aggression.
The vulnerability of Azov basin is explained by its unique location, which is
described as an enclosed sea of the semi-enclosed Black Sea, which is a part of
the greater Mediterranean Sea. After the collapse of the USSR, the Sea of Azov
lost the status of internal Soviet sea basin. Russia was deliberately weakening
the Ukrainian position in marine basins. One example of this is the territorial
dispute between Russia and Ukraine in 2003 centred on Tuzla Island in the Strait
of Kerch. Article 2 of the Agreement between Ukraine and the Russian Federa-
tion on the Ukrainian-Russian state border dd. 28.01.2003 7defines a navigation
mode in using the Azov-Kerch basin and complete loss of the status of internal
waters of Ukraine and Russia. Under this agreement, Ukraine had to coordinate
the visits of foreign military vessels in their ports with Russia.
Thus, one of the consequences of morphologically positional vulnerability of
Donbas and the Crimea was the idea of the Russian leadership to invade the
Crimea and Donbas by force, which would later cause the “domino effect”, with
all the other Ukrainian regions pleading to join the Russian Federation.
6 Anti-Access / Area Denial Weapon.
7 http://interlegal.com.ua/en/publications/occupation_of_the_territory_of_ukraine_in
_focus_of_maritime_law/.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
195
4. HISTORICAL VULNERABILITY
For many years after achieving its independence, Ukraine maintained an
invisible “colonial umbilical cord” connecting the Ukrainian society with
Moscow. It was less pronounced in western and central Ukraine, in comparison
to the southeast of Ukraine. Putin's famous statement on Soviet Union's collapse
as the greatest “geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century reflects the desire of
modern Russia to fix an a situation that, in their view, was unfair, through
reintegration of the post-Soviet countries into the neo-imperial project. The
strategy of “short leash” was applied to most European post-Soviet countries
neighbouring Russia. Everywhere it found vulnerable regions in the state
mechanism, it followed a masking strategy – covert interference in the internal
affairs of pro-European neighbours, maintaining the slogans of fraternal
relations with neighbouring nations. In case of Moldova, the region of Trans-
nistria became vulnerable, in Azerbaijan it was Nagorno-Karabakh, in Georgia
– South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and in Ukraine – the Crimea and Donbas. Only
the countries involved in political, military and economic integration projects
spearheaded by Russia (Organizacija Dogovora o Kollektivnoj Bezopasnosti,
ODKB; The Eurasian Economic Union, EAEU) could avoid separatism and
military conflicts. Political instrumentalisation of historical memory played
a key role in Kremlin's strategy.
Historical vulnerability is one of prerequisites of the fact that Ukrainian-
-Russian violent territorial and political conflicts occurred in Donbas and the
Crimea, but not in other border regions of Ukraine, that also had the experience
of national statehood formation; for example, Galicia, located in the west
(declaration of statehood of West Ukrainian People's Republic in Lviv in 1918)
and Transcarpathia (declaration of independence of Carpathian Ukraine in Khust
in 1938). After 1991, the western regions turned from the periphery of the Soviet
empire into the main base of the national democratic movement, as well as
a gateway to Europe. Simultaneously, Eastern Ukraine, which formed an
industrial core of the USSR and contributed essentially to the intellectual and
administrative potential of the Soviet system, with its overwhelmingly Russian-
-speaking population, was marginalised on the new symbolic map of Ukraine
(Zhurzhenko 2002).
It is obvious that Russia regarded these border regions of Ukraine as the
weakest link in the territorial and political system of Ukraine. Loosening the
regions historically less loyal to the national state, according to the Kremlin,
could cause disintegration of the entire Ukraine, or its significant weakening due
to its internal conflicts.
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The main features of historic vulnerability of Donbas and the Crimea are:
1) the dissemination of Russia's imperial and Soviet discourse among the people
of both regions, including the myth about the threat from the West; 2) existence
within the overlapping cultural and information spaces between Ukraine and
Russia; 3) the prevalence of communist ideas and developed traditions of social
paternalism; 4) post-Soviet industrial inertia; 5) the renaissance of Orthodox
Moscow-oriented fundamentalism in late 20th and early 21st centuries; 6) margin-
alisation of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identity, culture and nation-state model.
There are common and diverse features in the manifestation of historical
vulnerability in the Crimea and Donbas. Common to these two regions is a strong
position of the Russian-imperial and Soviet discourses. It can be explained by
the lack of experience in being under the influence of European democratic
culture. The role that the locations of the regions played in the Russian Empire
and the Soviet Union was an important “brick” strongly embedded in the
imperial myth about the historical role of Russia/USSR development.
Differences between regions lie in the fact that Soviet, not Russian imperial
conceptual discourses are represented in Donbas. However, there is a more
visible tendency of the ruling political and economic elite to positioning itself as
a part of global establishment. However, for ordinary citizens, regional authori-
ties prepared a simulacra of the Soviet era. Kyiv did not conduct any active
cultural, educational and information policy here, de facto turning Donbas into
cultural autonomy of Ukraine.
At the same time, the local political and intellectual elites of eastern Ukraine,
above all in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, reinvented their regions as border-
lands, first of all in order to justify the close cultural ties and economic cross-
-border cooperation with Russia. Stressing cultural diversity, bilingualism and
the depoliticisation of ethnicity, the concept of borderlands also helped legiti-
mise the lack of a strong national identity (Zhurzhenko 2014).
Due to poorer resources and industrial capacity, there were not many powerful
business structures in the Crimea. Thus, higher political positions were occupied
by people from the former communist elite. A mixture of nostalgic Imperial
Russian and Soviet concept discourses was more common in the Crimea.
For crystallisation of political myths, the cultivation of the idea of the threat
posed by any Western influences is crucial. What is important here is that the
association of market reforms in late 1980s and 1990s with its negative impact
of Western liberal ideas led to the pauperisation of the population. Skillful ma-
nipulation of political technologists during national elections necessarily implied
the use of techniques of juxtaposing east against west, not only in Ukrainian
context, but also in the context of Europe and Russia.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
197
An excellent perception of the West in Donbas mythology was the pre-
dominance of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and the Great Patriotic War (the
Second World War) as a liberation war against the German invaders and the role
of Donbas in ensuring victory over the enemy. The regional elites of Donbas and
the Crimea supported the cult celebration of the “Great Victory”. Especially
pompous ceremonies in pseudo-Soviet style began to reemerge when Yanukovych
became president of Ukraine. The regional mental map illustrates a taxonomy
that is so brilliantly represented in the names of settlements, streets and squares,
as well as political iconography of monuments of Lenin, Artem, Zhdanov,
Voroshilov and other members of the Bolshevik leadership.
In the Crimea, a mixture of old imperial myths about the colonisation of the
Crimea in the 19th century, the apogee of which was the Crimean War (1853
–1856), was predominant. A symbolic series associated with the defence of
Sevastopol from German occupation (1941–1942), Yalta Conference (1945) and
the redistribution of the postwar world, Turkish threat as a member of NATO
during the Cold War gained its popularity. In addition, common myths of Soviet
propaganda about Crimean Tatars as traitors of the Soviet fatherland, sparked by
accusations of collaboration with the German occupation authorities, were
spread. In such landscape, this mythology found its reflection in the imperial
pseudo-Greek and Soviet topology. Moreover, Tatar names of places after the
deportation of the Crimean Tatar people almost disappeared. The presence of
a large military base and Russian personnel contributed to justification of Fleet
location in Crimea and preservation of myths about the threat.
A characteristic feature for both regions was the common Russian cultural
and information space, almost total domination of Russian media and cultural
figures. Russian cultural products (especially works of popular literature, films
and television shows) dominate the Ukrainian market and serve to export
Russian imperial history and Russian patriotism, to glorify the Russian and Soviet
army and security services, and to excite anti-western sentiments (Zhurzhenko
2014).
In Donbas, the influence of Russian pop culture in the working environment
was manifested to a great extent. In the Crimea, a mixture of modern Russian
mass pop culture and traditional Russian high culture, writers, poets and artists
connected with creative relations to the Crimea such as Alexander Pushkin,
Anton Chekhov, Ivan Aivazovskiy, Appolinary Vasnetsov, Vasily Aksenov
persisted. They actually created artistic images, original artwork for the Russian-
-imperial discourse of the new Promised Land for the Russians.
One common characteristic of both regions is the post-Soviet inertia of
economic development, commitment to communist ideas and deeply rooted
Roman Slyvka
198
ideas of social paternalism. Russian media (especially television) has fostered
deeply paternalistic model of behaviour of Donbas inhabitants. This behavioural
model is closely connected with the conviction that all basic public goods should
be obtained from the transcendent “father”, the image of which is constantly
represented by Putin. A feeling of special mission of these regions in the scale of
the Soviet Union and levelling their importance in Ukrainian period was
common (Донбас і Крим: стратегія повернення 2015).
One of the peculiarities of Donbas is its pronounced inertia of post-industrial
development, and the cult of “honourable professions” of metallurgists and
miners associated with it, as well as so-called “noble dynasties of workers” in
the era of socialist competition. It was not as pronounced in other regions of
Ukraine. Therefore, the post-Soviet mythology for the population of Donbas
was firmly intertwined with the ideas of communist industrialisation of the
20th century. This strengthened the foundation of regionalism in eastern Ukraine.
Soviet internationalism and the preference of class over ethnic identity served to
construe Donbas as a “special case” that escaped the logic of the nationalising
state. The rejection of ethnic categorisation and the emphasis on local identity
was a typical reaction to what was perceived as the “nationalism” of Kyiv and
western Ukraine. This defensive borderlands discourse was linked to the trauma
of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It evoked an undifferentiated, common
cultural space with a local population that valued blurred or hybrid Ukrainian-
-Russian, eastern-Slavic, Orthodox or residual Soviet identities (Zhurzhenko
2014).
The common feature of both regions in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods
was the weakness of Ukrainian national democratic movement, Ukraine's de-
privation of “national” construction in southern and eastern regions; margina-
lisation of pro-Ukrainian activists; negative myths about the Ukrainian national
liberation movement, and its representatives and symbols. One jarring example
of this came in 2008 when students of Donetsk National University launched an
initiative to name their university after its famous graduate, poet, dissident and
political prisoner Vasyl Stus. At that time, the initiative was supported by the
President of Ukraine, Minister of Education and Science, as well as cultural and
public figures. They were opposed by the Regional Council, the Party of
Regions and the administration of the university itself. In addition to naming the
university after Stus, another initiative appeared to name the university after
Vladimir Degtyarev (Soviet Communist Party functionary). As a result, the old
name remained unchanged8.
8 http://misto.vn.ua/news/item/id/9164.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
199
Both regions stayed away from the Ukrainian national state-building process
during the 20th century, except for a few episodes of pro-Ukrainian actions in the
Crimea. In Donbas, there were attempts to create pseudo-national formations
under the protection of Russia, namely the pro-Bolshevik Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih
Republic in 1918, the South East Ukrainian Autonomous Republic in 2004. The
Russian army led by Denikin and Wrangel in 1920–1921 carried out unsuc-
cessful attempts to transform the Crimea into a sort of outpost in the restoration
of the Russian Empire. Crimean Tatar national movement failed in 1918. Being
the part of the RSFSR (approximately 30 years), the Crimea was suffering from
the levelling of national and state life of Crimean Tatars and other ethnic
minorities. The quintessence of such policy was initiated by Stalin's act of
deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944. In early December 1991 in Verkhovna
Rada of the Crimea, attempts were made to take an appeal to the Presidium of
the USSR to withdraw the Act of 1954 on the transfer of the peninsula to
Ukraine. After the referendum on December 1, 1991, a representative body of
the Crimean Tatar, the Mejlis, drafted the Constitution of the Crimean Republic,
in which the right of self-determination was given only to Crimean Tatars, Kara-
ites and Krimchaks, which evoked suspicious and sometimes hostile reaction of
non-Tatar population of the peninsula, and led to excessive politicisation
(Адамович 2009, pp. 371–374). Thus, the experience of the 20th century shows
the historical vulnerability of these Ukrainian regions to the development of
conflict processes.
5. STRUCTURAL VULNERABILITY
As part of Ukraine, Donbas and the Crimea were different in rather distinct
structural characteristics that increased their vulnerability to external interven-
tion. Among them administrative, ethnic, religious, political, criminal and eco-
nomic structures were identified.
The administrative structure. Ukraine is a non-classical unitary state. This
is due to the presence of a single autonomous entity, the Crimean Autonomous
Republic, in addition to its 24 regions and 2 cities of national subordination
(Kyiv and Sevastopol) in its composition. Ukrainian unitarianism was inherited
from its predecessor, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). In 1991
a referendum, which had a positive outcome for Crimean separatists, was ini-
tiated. Against this backdrop, Kyiv offered a compromise, suggesting restoration
of rights for the Crimean autonomous region and the rise of its territorial and
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200
political status to the level of the autonomous republic as well as the exclusion
of Sevastopol from its composition. It was an adequate way to resolve peacefully
and legally the problems of separatism. This was done through full participation
in the political system of the parent state, as well as through various degrees of
regional administrative, cultural and/or fiscal autonomy (Roguski 2015, p. 92).
The so-called territorial autonomy was formed; it had no right to secede from
Ukraine, possessed its own constitution, government, including the cabinet and
parliament, and the formal use of three official languages: Russian, Ukrainian
and Crimean Tatar.
Other regions of Ukraine were characterised by federalist sentiments rather
than those of separatists. Movements for the withdrawal of Ukraine from the
Soviet Union were most active in western regions (historic Eastern Galicia,
Volhynia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia, but to a lesser extent) and Kiev. The
main claim to communist leadership and the Soviet authority was the connivance
of Ukraine's political and national rights. Donbas of the late 1980s was also
marked by significant dissatisfaction, primarily with the economic policies of
Moscow in one of the oldest industrial regions, which suggested the closure
of unprofitable mines in order to provide economic support for coal mining in
Kuzbas (now an industrial region in Russia). For the population of Donbas,
majority of which were Russianised and educated in terms of socialist inter-
nationalism by the Communist Party of the USSR, Ukrainian national political
rhetoric of Western politicians often sounded alien. However, there was a stra-
tegic alliance between the two politically most active regions of the USSR,
possible for joint upholding the sovereignty of Ukraine, according to Adamovych
(2006). The high degree of Ukrainian patriotic sentiment prevalent in Western
Ukraine's political culture could hardly be supported by other regions of the
USSR. That is why, before the proclamation of Ukraine's sovereignty in 1991,
the idea of the appropriateness of the federal structure in Ukraine that would
make it possible to combine the efforts of all the regions to struggle for
independence and develop a regional political culture and the economy in the
forms that were used in late 1980s and early 1990s, was widely spread in the
circles of Ukrainian intellectuals. However, very soon Ukrainian politicians took
the issue from the political agenda on the basis of alleged threat of separatism in
the Crimea and Transcarpathia and the risk of territorial claims from neigh-
bouring countries. The development of Ukraine during the tenure of President
Kuchma between 1993 and 2003 was marked by the formation of soft autocratic
regime power vertical, which excluded the likelihood of an increase of autono-
mist and federalist movements, but on the contrary, contributed to centralised
region management.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
201
Ukraine provided Crimean Tatars, excluded from Crimean political life in the
1990s, and created shadow institutions dealing only with Tatar interior affairs
and serving as a platform for the Tatar community on the peninsula, with limited
personal autonomy. Their representative body, Majlis, was legalised by presi-
dential decree of May 18, 1999, when it received the status of advisory
committee of Ukrainian Presidential Administration (Wilson 2013, p. iiii). This
mechanism ceased to function after 2006 (Aydin 2014, p. 83). However, neither
local nor state authorities officially recognised the Crimean Majlis as a co-creator
of the legislative process. The Ukrainian Parliament did not pass legislation
regarding the status of indigenous people for the Crimean Tatars until after the
Russian annexation either. This law would have provided the Tatars with the
right to national self-determination, and thus grant national-territorial autonomy
in Crimea (Aydin 2014, p. 83–84).
Russia agreed with Crimean autonomy establishing, but preserved its sub-
stantial instrument of influence on Ukraine – and extraterritorial military base
of the Black Sea fleet numbering 25 thousand people, with the main forces
localised in the city of Sevastopol. By 1995, the time of signing Ukrainian-
-Russian agreement on the Black Sea Fleet, the question of the fleet ownership
and the perspectives of nuclear weapons had been the main agenda of Ukrainian-
-Russian relations. The agreement provided for the base localisation until 2017,
but pro-Russian President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych signed the Kharkiv
Pact9 (2010) and prolonged its duration until 2042. Now, it is clear that Russian
military presence on the peninsula did not only project military threat to the
Ukrainian Crimea but also legitimised the presence of Russian authorities and
security forces both on the territory of Russian bases and all over the Crimea.
As far as Donbas is concerned, during one of Ukrainian political crises in
2004, which resulted in the Orange Revolution, the Eastern regional elites tried
to implement the idea of creating autonomous territorial and political structures,
such as South East Ukrainian Autonomous Republic. Their main goal was to
maintain control over political and economic life, not only in Donbas, but also in
Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson regions and in
the Crimea. This scenario was completely typical of Kremlin's geopolitical
ambitions to keep industrial regions of Ukraine under control, but until the
Ukrainian-Georgian war in 2008, Russia had not dared to use the tools of direct
intervention in the territory of the former Soviet Union. The Eastern autonomist
9 Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine was
a treaty between Ukraine and Russia whereby the Russian lease on naval facilities in
Crimea was extended beyond 2017 until 2042.
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202
movement disappeared as a result of the resolution of the situation through the
mediation of the EU.
Ethnic structures in Donbas and the Crimea differed greatly from those
prevailing in other regions of Ukraine. Donbas, which was exposed to massive
Russification and Sovietisation during the Soviet period, had no internal pre-
requisites for ethno-political conflicts. The most irritative problem was the
functioning of the Russian language as regional or the second official one in the
state. However, there were no manifestations of internal conflicts between the
ethnic communities of the region; they were rather conflict breakouts between
supporters of pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian policy.
People who consider Russian as their native language are not exclusive
characteristics of the Crimea and Donbas; they are predominant in almost all
largest cities of Ukraine, except Kyiv, Lviv and Kryvyi Rih. Particularly, in
2001 in Sevastopol they amounted to 90% of all residents, in Mariupol – to 89%,
in Donetsk – 87%, in Luhansk – 85%, in Kharkiv – 66%, in Odessa – 65% and
in Zaporizhia – 57%. In the 21st century, the most powerful Russian commu-
nities of Donbas included Donetsk (899 thousand inhabitants, who considered
Russian their native language), Mariupol (450 thousand inhabitants), Luhansk
(420 thousand) Makiyivka (370 thousand) and Horlivka (260 thousand). The
Crimea in its turn had its largest Russian communities formed in Sevastopol
(340 thousand) and Simferopol (300 thousand) (Лозинський 2012, p. 55). In
such circumstances, it is difficult to talk about any policy of forced Ukrainisation
because, de facto, it did not exist. Instead, R. Lozynskyi (2012) states that:
1) if in Europe mostly the horizontal type of bilingualism, in which both
languages have equal status, is predominant, in Ukraine the vertical bilingualism
is widespread, which means that in the majority of regions the Russian language
has a higher social status due to prolonged restrictions of the Ukrainian
language;
2) a prejudicial attitude towards the state language remains in some regions
of the state;
3) important methods of Russia's influence on neighbouring countries is an
attempt to interfere in their language policy and political pressure to strengthen
the role of the Russian language in these countries, implementing the slogans to
ensure the language rights of the population, particularly the Russian-speaking
one (Лозинський 2012, рр. 113–114).
In 2001, about 240 thousand people in Ukraine spoke the Crimean Tatar
language freely. Crimean Tatars live in all administrative regions of the Crimea.
Their share ranges from 10 to 30% of all residents of Crimean districts. Majority
of the population considering the Crimean Tatar language native live in the
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
203
northern foothills of the Crimean Mountains, namely in the city of Simferopol
itself (over 25 thousand people), and such districts as Bilohirsk (over 19 thou-
sand people, 25% of the total population), Bakhchysarai (over 19 thousand
people, 20%), Dzhankoi (17 thousand, 20%) and Kirov (14 thousand, 25%)
(Лозинський 2012, p. 55).
Fig. 1. Ethno-geographic structure of Donbas and temporarily occupied territories
in the context of rural regions and municipal councils (as of 2015)
Source: http//www.mil.gov.ua/multimedia/infografika-ato.html;
М.С. Дністрянський (2006)
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204
Nevertheless, 2014 military operations resulted in the loss of Ukraine's
control over the territories, where not only Russian-speaking majority lived, but
in fact the Russians were the majority (fig. 1). They are mainly the largest, by
population, urban agglomerations of Donetsk, Makiyivka, Yasynuvata, Yenaki-
yevo, Krasnodon, Luhansk, Krasnyi Luch, Antratsyt, and only one agricultural
district, Stanychno-Luhansk, though with Russian population prevailing, re-
mained under the control of Ukraine.
Sambanis believes that with increasing speed of ethical and religious
diversity (fractionation), the risk of conflict grows too (Sambanis 2001). On the
other hand, P. Collier (2001) denies this claim.
If ethno-social, ethno-religious and ethno-political structures that operate in
the Crimea today were analysed, it would turn out that at present they have
a number of properties that suggest its vulnerability. According to Dnistrianskyi,
the densest concentration of ethnic conflicts can be observed in areas charac-
terised by: a) a high degree of ethno-geographical mosaic; b) mismatch between
ethno-geographical structure and territorial organisation of the political sphere;
c) a relatively high level of self-awareness and political activeness of ethnic
communities or groups that are in a discriminatory position (Дністрянський
2006, p. 67). We claim that all these features are typical of the Crimea. Accord-
ing to Dnistrianskyi's estimation, a mosaic of ethnic structure is a vulnerable
characteristic of the Crimean TPC. During the post-Soviet period, ethnic mosaic
index of Eckel in Ukraine decreased from 0.42 (1989) to 0.37 (2001), while in
the Crimea, it has slightly increased from 0.54 (1989) to 0.59 (2001) (tab. 1).
This is due to returning deported people, Crimean Tatars, to the Crimea
(Дністрянський 2006, p. 219).
Table 1. Changes of the degree of ethnic mosaic index from 1989 to 2001
Population
Total Rural Urban
Ukraine, regions,
autonomy
1989 2001 1989 2001 1989 2001
Ukraine 0.42 0.37 0.25 0.24 0.48 0.41
The Crimean
Autonomous
Republic
0.54 0.59 0.57 0.67 0.45 0.51
Donetsk region 0.55 0.53 0.45 0.42 0.56 0.53
Luhansk region 0.53 0.51 0.44 0.41 0.54 0.52
Ternopil region 0.06 0.04 0.02 0.02 0.14 0.08
Source: M.S. Дністрянський (2006, p. 219).
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
205
Long before the annexation in 2008, Korostelina recorded ten conflict
indicators that were also uncovered in Crimea: High salience of Soviet, Russian,
and regional identity; High economic deprivation; Threat of violence and eco-
nomic threat; Threat to culture; High distrust of national government; Russians'
negative stereotypes; Perception of Russians as a “fifth column”; Low tolerance;
High level of ethnic mobilisation; Desire for independence (Korostelina 2008,
p. 90). These ideas were pronounced by the Russian elite, too. In an interview on
the eve of Crimea's annexation, the last leader of the USSR, the Nobel Peace
Prize laureate who is credited with ending the Cold War, declared that Putin
should not stop at Crimea. All of southern Ukraine, Gorbachev said, is Moscow's
rightful dominion. “In essence, in history, it's just like Crimea”, he told a Rus-
sian news website. “Its population is Russian. It was civilised by Russians”
(Shuster 2014).
The complexity of controlling the Crimea by Ukraine was explained by the
return of deported Crimean Tatar people in the times of Stalinism (1944). In
terms of absence of a legal framework for the restitution of property among the
repressed Crimean and Tatar population, property and land conflicts accompa-
nied by squatting land, aggravated (more about conflicts in the Crimea: Швец
2007, 2013, Яковлев 2008).
In order to pacify separatist movements, Ukraine provided the Crimea with
a status of an autonomous republic within the unitary Ukraine in 1991, but it did
not offer a clear model of relations between the indigenous peoples of the
Crimea. Peninsular position and continuous Russian propaganda contributed to
strengthening regional identity of Russians in the Crimea. In parallel, propaganda
was aimed at the sacralisation of the Crimean territory for Russian citizens to
create an image of the unjustly lost homeland. And this despite the fact that in
the late 19th century Russians were only the second largest ethnic group after
Crimean Tatars, indigenous people of the Crimea (tab. 2).
Table 2. Crimean population of the 19th–21th centuries
Crimean population in %
Ethnic group 1897 1939 1989 2001
Russians 33.11 49.6 65.6 58.5
Ukrainians 11.84 13.7 26.7 24.4
Crimean Tatars 35.55 19.4 1.9 12.1
Other 19.51 17.3 5.8 5.0
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea.
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206
At the beginning of the 21st century, Tatars accounted for only 12% of the
population in the Crimea. The biggest problems of the long-suffering minority
prior to the Russian annexation were poverty and significant obstacles in the
official support of the Crimean Tatar language and culture. Acquiring Ukrainian
citizenship lasted unfeasibly long time. Since Tatars did not have Ukrainian
citizenship, they were not able to elect their representatives for solving public
affairs not only in the Crimea, but also at the level of Ukraine. Socio-economic
disqualification overlapped with political disqualification, which led to lower
living standards resulting from the exclusion from administrative offices and to
anti-Tatar policies carried out primarily by pro-Russian political elites (Klípa
2006). A principle problem was the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet
Union, the Ukrainian government did not bring the desired improvement of the
social status of Crimean Tatars.
A researcher of geography of conflicts, A.B. Shvets (Швец 2007), stated that
during the years that had passed since the repatriation, socio-cultural confron-
tation in the Crimea was continuously changing in its qualitative (more rigid)
and quantitative (more recorded conflict situations) respects (fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Number of conflicts by three type of manifestation in the Crimea
Source: A.B. Shvets (Швец 2007)
A.N. Yakovlev (Яковлев 2008) distinguishes between two types of areas
within the range of the Crimea: the first marked by the apparent predominance
of confessional forms of socio-cultural differences (foot-hill Simferopol,
Bakhchysarai and Bilohirsk regions); the second characterised by the domination
of social and economic contradictions (municipal councils of southern coast of
Yalta, Alushta, Sudak, Feodosia).
Meanwhile in Donbas, people of the Muslim Volga Tatar origin formed the
business elite, which includes Ukraine's richest man Rinat Akhmetov, the main
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
207
sponsor of the “Party of Regions” ruling prior to the Revolution of Dignity.
It was his authority and financial support that made it possible to develop
aggressive election campaigns in Donbas and to place their pro-Russian people
in leadership positions of Ukrainian policy (Kuzio 2014). Thus, an ethnic factor
was used by Russia to the fullest extent in order to destabilise the internal
expense of “Russian speaking compatriots”.
The positivist approach of Ukrainian patriots, based on the perception of
a fundamental thesis that the ethnic origin of most residents of Donbas is an
automatic reason for their loyalty to the Ukrainian state has not been justified.
Unfortunately, disinformation imposed by political propaganda and the media is
capable of influencing the political process in the regions of Ukraine. The lack
of citizens' critical attitude to destructive information facilitated the development
of the sense of “other Ukraine”, which was manifested in the Crimea and
Donbas. “Otherness” is effectively used as a manipulation tool by both external
and internal political subjects. Promotion of regional “otherness” acquired such
forms that, according to D. Harvey, provoked deeper fragmentation of lifestyles,
the emergence of a myriad of new political and cultural subjects, the revival of
regionalism, localism, and a series of fundamentalisms (Minca 2009, p. 366).
The religious structure. According to official data of January 1, 2013, there
were 33,581 religious communities in Ukraine, representing several dozens of
churches, denominations, trends and currents. The number of religious com-
munities, with 10 thousand people or more, was gradually decreasing in eastern
and southern areas, reflecting at the same time the overall reduction of religious
population. The densest was a network of religious communities in Ternopil
(13.2 communities per 10,000 people), Transcarpathia (9.5), Lviv (9.5) and
Ivano-Frankivsk (8.3) regions, while the lowest one was recorded in Luhansk
(1.6), Donetsk (1.4) and Kharkiv (1.3) regions (Дністрянський 2014, p. 230).
This suggests a different historical experience of religious life in individual
regions of Ukraine in the 20th century. Eastern Ukraine was more affected by
70-year long atheistic policy of the Bolshevik regime. That's why a great part of
the inhabitants of the Crimea and Donbas after the revival of the Orthodox
Church in the 1980s and 90s became neophytes. Moreover, unlike the western,
northern and central regions of Ukraine, which in varying degrees were
represented by the Greek Catholic (UGCC), the Orthodox Kiev Patriarchate
(UOC-KP) and the faithful of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church
(UAOC), Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, in the Crimea and Donbas
Orthodox the Church of Moscow Patriarchate was relatively predominant. We
can assume that neophytes to a greater extent accepted obvious or hidden
propaganda of clergymen’s political ideas uncritically. The role of the Patriarch
Roman Slyvka
208
of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill promoting the geopolitical concept of
“Russian World” is widely discussed in Ukrainian politics, which is the result of
his overt comments. For example, on the 3rd of November, 2009, according to
the official website of the Moscow Patriarchate, Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow
and All Russia, presented his “program speech” at the opening of the Third
Assembly of “Russian World”. What is especially notable in this speech is the
fact that the Primate of the largest national Orthodox Church during his
25-minute speech did not mention the word “Christ”, only three times he
referred to “God” and at the same time 38 times repeated the word-combination
“Russian World”, a term that in the context of patriarchal speech sounds like
a geopolitical concept hardly related to the teachings of his Church10.
According to Patriarch Kirill's point of view, the tasks of the Russian
Orthodox Church are: to ensure the Russian World plays a role of a “powerful
player on the world stage”; “to save values and lifestyles precious to our ances-
tors, focusing on which they created the Great Russia itself”; “to become a strong
subject of international global politics”11. Numerous paramilitary structures of
Russian, Don and Kuban Cossacks promoted the idea of protection of Ortho-
doxy in the context of “Russian World”. Obviously, the appearance and
activities of such organisations before or after the conflict had a very clear goal
– to show that Ukraine should be deprived of the influence of competing
confessions – UGCC, UOC KP and UAOC.
Consequently, this complex internal religious structure of Ukraine was used
as a precondition for undermining the political situation. Against the background
of Donbas, the peculiarity of the Crimea was a rapid development of a network
of Muslim communities (414). The organisation of the religious life of Muslims
has every reason to be based in Ukraine upon constructive terms, as evidenced
by the religious infrastructure development (7 schools, 90 Sunday schools, 5 pe-
riodicals) (Дністрянський 2014, p. 235). Moreover, with the increase of the
influence of Turkish preachers in the Crimea, suspicion of the spread of political
Islamism among the Crimean Tatars as possible allies of Turkey emerged among
the pro-Russian forces (Швец 2007). Using the theme of Turkish threat is an old
Soviet myth, another mean of mobilising people loyal to Moscow. It also
contributed to the reasoning of Russian propaganda and fighters in favour of the
establishment of “Russian World” on the peninsula. Moreover, Turkey's foreign
policy, changeable in relation to Russia in terms of the ongoing conflict in
10 http://gazeta.dt.ua/POLITICS/geopolitika_vid_patriarha__tsarstvo_nebesne_vs_rus
kiy_svit.html.
11 http://www.russkiymir.ru/fund/assembly/the-third-assembly-of-the-russian-world/.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
209
Ukraine, did not confirm the connection of such myths with reality. On the
contrary, the annexation of the Crimea and the implementation of legislation and
political culture of Russia, as M. Solík and V. Baar claim (2015), can provoke
manifestations of Islamism on the peninsula.
As M. Dnistryanskyi (2014, p. 232) notes, the fact of the identification of
large populations, including local, with certain denominations is a generator of
regional alienation, especially in combination with historical and geographical
factors.
Economic vulnerability. The share of Donetsk and Luhansk regions made
up 11.7%, and 4% respectively in the structure of the gross regional product in
2012 (Обсяг реалізованої... 2012). Powerful industrial enterprises are located in
the territory of Donbas. The region manufactures large volumes of production in
mining, metallurgical, machine building, food and chemical industries. The
share of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the total volume of industrial pro-
duction in 2012 was 27% (fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Proportion of Donbas and temporarily occupied cities of regional importance
in the total volume of industrial production in Ukraine in 2012, in %
Source: Обсяг реалізованої... (2012)
The potential of natural resources in the region is characterised by significant
reserves of mineral resources that are of great importance on a national scale.
First of all, they are the resources of Donetsk coal basin. According to structural
and tectonic features, the area of Donbas is divided into thirty coal-bearing
regions that differ in their tectonic position, coal composition and supply
(Горючі корисні... 2009, p. 232). Nineteen coal-producing regions are located
in Ukraine. Seventeen of them are of the greatest significance. The remaining
two coal-producing regions today have no commercial value. About 80% of
Ukrainian coal is mined in Donbas (in 2012 the combined share of Donetsk and
Luhansk regions accounted for 78.5% of total coal production in Ukraine, in
2013 – 76.6% and in January-May 2014 – 76.1%). The share of Donetsk region
Roman Slyvka
210
in the production of the extracting industry in 2013 was 24.1%, and that of
Luhansk – 8.4%12. Besides, Donetsk region provides more than 90% of national
production of rock salt and clay for refractory materials, and 79% of fluxing
limestone13; Luhansk region is responsible for 80% of national supplies of
titanium ore and quartzite, which are raw materials for the steel industry14.
Donbas is a major metallurgical center, with considerable production capaci-
ties located there; they are represented by large enterprises of national impor-
tance in cities like Alchevsk, Stakhanov, Luhansk, Mariupol, Khartsyzsk,
Donetsk and Yenakiyevo. The share of two regions in the structure of steel
production in 2012 accounted for more than 45%, Donetsk and Luhansk region
– 36.4% and 8.7% respectively15. Donetsk and Luhansk regions play an impor-
tant role in the production of chemicals; in 2013, their share in total sales of such
products in Ukraine reached 15.9% and 12.9%, respectively16.
Significant capacities of heavy and raw material intensive engineering are
located in Donbas. The region specialises in manufacturing locomotives and rail
cars, machinery and equipment for metallurgy and chemical industry, material
handling and mining equipment17. The share of Donetsk region in the manu-
facture of engineering products in 2012 was 17.4%, while that of Luhansk
– 6.9%18. Besides, military-industrial complexes were also operating before
2014, such as JSC “Topaz” in Donetsk, which was involved in the development
and mass production of complex radio systems and systems for special purposes,
radio equipment for a wide range of uses, and PJSC “Luhansk Cartridge-Manu-
facturing Plant” in Luhansk producing small arms ammunition (Slyvka and
Zakutynska 2016, p. 102).
Above all, the critical importance of industrial East Ukraine for the en-
richment of the budget and the GDP of the whole country should be mentioned.
Problems in this region are immediately experienced by all Ukraine. Economic
structures of Donbas can be seen as a precondition for the region's vulnerability
to conflicts. According to Bogatov's fundamental article “Recent developments
12 http://www.niss.gov.ua/articles/1639/.
13 http://www.kr-admin.gov.ua/dpasport/1.pdf.
14 http://www.ukrproject.gov.ua/sites/default/fil es/upload/lugansk_dlya_saytu_1.pdf.
15 http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/; http://donetskstat.gov.ua/statinform/promisl7_2.php;
http:// www.lugastat.lg.ua/sinf/promis/promis1013_8.php.
16 http://www.niss.gov. ua/articles/1639/.
17 http://www.kr-admin.gov.ua/dpasport/1.pdf; http://donetskstat.gov.ua/statinform/
promisl3 _2.php.
18 http://www.lugastat.lg.ua/sinf/promis/promis1013_8.php; http://www.niss.gov.ua/
articles/1639/.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
211
in Donbas coal industry” (2003), the state monopoly has given way to a mo-
nopoly of large, regional financial–industrial groups. Such a monopoly is
already established in the coking-coal industry and is in the process of forming
in the energy-coal industry as well. These groups consider the coal mines as the
bottom tier of the metals industry and the principal source for cost cuts in metal
production. The controlling groups keep coal prices down to allow the ferrous
metal producers to compete in the international market. The prices, regulated by
the state, and the state subsidies are set at levels that only allow mines to cover
their operating costs, leaving them no money for development. The monopoly
existing in the Ukrainian coal market has virtually put a block on its develop-
ment and growth. On the one hand, it prevents the creation of a competitive coal
market, so prices that would cover both production costs and mine investment
cannot be set. On the other hand, it controls the external investment streams. The
large financial-industrial groups of the Donbas have a firm grip on its coal
industry and the future of this industry is thus entirely dependent on them
(Bogatov 2003, pp. 165–166).
Business elite tried to use economic control over the industrial region of
Donetsk as a resource in the struggle for political monopoly in Ukraine in 2000s.
When their protégé, Viktor Yanukovych, left the country, they began to support
the force scenario in order to maintain their monopoly position and shady
business schemes at least in the richest region of Ukraine. V.V. Kravchenko and
M.O. Zamykula (2014) prove that political elites of Donetsk had claims to
giving their city the status of the capital center and were mentally ready for
them, but did not have a similar historical tradition (as in Kyiv or Kharkiv). This
situation provoked mass stereotypical thinking (used to promote DNR), which
raised the morale of the region and was meant to separate Donbas from the rest
of Ukraine. Here we can cite such examples of popular slogans as “Donbas feeds
Ukraine’, “Donbas does not blather”, “Donbas decides everything” (Kravchenko
and Zamykula 2014). One should bear in mind that none of these slogans
explained any reasons for the uneven distribution of wealth and poverty in
Donbas, specific problems of pollution, gender relations and demographic
decline. The readiness of Donetsk business elite to such course of events was
demonstrated with an attempt to create South East Ukrainian Autonomous
Republic back in 2004. In the spring of 2014, they skilfully exploited the
phobias and ambitions of Donbas residents so that extremists took up arms.
The economic component of structural vulnerability in the Crimea is sig-
nificantly different. The structure of industrial production of the peninsula is
dominated by food, machine building and metalworking, fuel, chemical and
petrochemical industries. The main branches of plant industry are cereal and
Roman Slyvka
212
vegetable cultivation, horticulture, viticulture; breeding livestock – dairy cattle,
poultry and sheep. A separate role is played by huge resort complexes. History
of many Crimean enterprises started after 1954. Economic growth of all
industries in the first decade after the transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine is the
most significant evidence of Ukrainians' decisive contribution to postwar revival
of the peninsula (Москалець 2008). Indicative in this respect is the first
interview of the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, who said that Ukraine
had invested $100 billion in the Crimea19.
“The role of the Crimea in the formation of GDP (of Ukraine) is insig-
nificant. Crimea gives only 3% of total GDP of Ukraine. During the last few
years it was only a recipient, and its influence was insignificant in the overall
Ukraine's GDP” – said the Director of World Bank of Ukraine, Belarus and
Moldova affairs in 201420. Sevastopol city gave 0.7% of the state GDP. In 2013,
the Crimea was only in 15th place among 27 administrative regions in terms of
gross regional product per capita, while Sevastopol occupied the 10th place21.
Gross regional product of the Crimea and Sevastopol steadily increased from
2004 to 2008, but with the beginning of the global crisis, it decreased to the 2006
level, and prior to the last “pre-war” year it gained its lost position. The
peninsula earned half of the funds it needed itself, the other half was sent to the
peninsula from the “mainland”22.
One peculiarity of the industry on the peninsula is the location of quite
a large number of institutions and enterprises of the military-industrial complex,
which were inherited from the Soviet Union. They were of urban importance. In
post-soviet years many plants of this type were closed or reduced their pro-
duction. Among them were: Feodosia research institute that produced parachute
systems for military and space vehicles; Feodosia factory “Hidroprylad” which
created marine underwater weapons; Feodosia optical factory, which at times of
Ukraine was transferred to produce mainly peaceful goods; in Sevastopol
– “Sevmorzavod” and aircraft factories. Demilitarisation in Ukraine during the
2000s explains the lack of orders, layoffs and restructuring of work. This could
cause dissatisfaction of former employees and promote hope for the revival due
to investments and orders from Russia, which on the contrary carried out the
policy of militarisation of the economy. This created a loyal public opinion
about Russia's politics.
19 https://slon.ru/posts/73137.
20 http://dt.ua/ECONOMICS/chastka-krimu-u-vvp-ukrayini-stanovit-ne-bilshe-3-141
028_html.
21 http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/.
22 http://ua.krymr.com/a/27693639.html.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
213
The development of such sentiments was influenced by the fact that among
6 million of tourists in 2013, 65% were residents of Ukraine, the share of
Russians in the tourist flow did not exceed 20%23. However, higher Russian
financial solvency against the backdrop of the global oil boom made them more
attractive customers for local workers of tourism industry; and for many of them
Russian guests were the most desirable. However, the current critical situation of
this sector demonstrates the hollowness of such judgments.
To sum up, in Donbas, ideas to stop subsidising other regions of Ukraine
prevailed as an argument for autonomy. Meanwhile in the Crimea, dissatis-
faction with insufficient attention paid to the economic problems of the region
were predominant. The imbalances in the development of some regions of
Ukraine had a long history, and some deepened in modern times. At some point,
they became the subject of political speculations. We are talking primarily about
touting ideas that, in case of separation from Ukraine, even with the continuation
of the current level of production, can actually increase their standard of living
on the residents of the industrial south-eastern regions of Ukraine, especially
ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking population, by means of information and
psychological influence. D. Gorenburg (2015) provides us with more informa-
tion about the Russian view of Ukrainian reality.
6. DYNAMIC AND FUNCTIONAL VULNERABILITY
Dynamic vulnerability. Ukraine can be characterised by two specific fea-
tures during its independence: being late with reforms and “delayed” European
integration. According to T. Kuzio (2011), until recently, there have been four
factors that had caused the inability of the Ukrainian state to reach effective
changes (Ukrainian state's immobility, p. 54), as well as the existence of cor-
ruption in the country: political culture, weak political will and civil society, lack
of institutions that can effectively fight corruption, weak ideology and mutual
dependence of political parties and business areas.
The country's transient situation increases its vulnerability. The cessation of
old political practices is very difficult and, as it was before, was implemented by
force by elites in the form of Orange Revolution (2004) and the Revolution of
dignity (2013–2014), as well as de facto war in Donbas. One of the most
respected rankings “Polity IV” allows us to trace the inconsistent development
23 http://ua.korrespondent.net/main/3392657-turpotik-do-krymu-skorotyvsia-maizhe-
vtrychi.
Roman Slyvka
214
of democracy in the country. The system of division of political regimes of the
world into categories is as follows: 10 points for the most democratic states,
-10 for the most autocratic. On this scale, anocracy occupies an intermediate
interval from -5 to 5, indicating the transitional state of regimes. Throughout its
brief history, except for 1993, Ukraine belonged to the category of democracy,
mainly at the lower boundary of this indicator (fig. 4).
The authors of “Polity IV” state, that during the early years of independence,
tensions over the terms of economic privatisation, the status of the former
communist party and officials, and conflicting relations and orientations with
Russia to the east and the European Union to the west polarised groups and led
to political paralysis. A compromise was reached between leading members of
the “old regime” and the reformers that culminated in a unity coalition and led to
the July 1994 election of Leonid Kuchma as president. The “unity of necessity”
felt the strains of post-communist transition and began to unravel during the
1999 election campaign as Kuchma began to assert his independence and
attempted to consolidate power24.
Fig. 4. Authority trends, 1991–2003, Ukraine
Source: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/Ukraine2010.pdf
Such constant balancing between East and West has created a favourable
environment for cultivating illusions of a “special path”. It has turned Ukraine
into a buffer state between the EU and Russia. In terms of poor inter-regional
24 http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/Ukraine2010.pdf.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
215
consolidation, it has caused multidirectional dragging of borderlands into the
sphere of influence of neighbouring countries. According to T. Zhurzhenko
(2014), as geopolitically amorphous “in-between” zones, they generate hybrid
identities and create political, economic and cultural practices that combine
different, often mutually exclusive values. Moreover, borderlands are associated
with multiculturalism, cultural authenticity and cosmopolitanism. Yet from the
nation-building perspective, their ambiguity is nothing to be celebrated. Mixed
and overlapping identities and multiple loyalties pose a challenge to the
nationalising agenda and potentially threaten the integrity of a nation-state
(Zhurzhenko 2014).
However, according to Rastow's dynamic model (Rostow, 1996), an indis-
pensable prerequisite of irreversibility of democratic transit is to achieve na-
tional unity. The next phase is a long-term political struggle, during which new
elite emerges and tempers, institutions of civil society appear, citizens' partici-
pation in political processes increases, i.e. the process of instilling political
culture takes place.
According to O.W. Radchenko (Радченко2009), constant political and geo-
political balancing of Ukraine resulted in rapid transformation and emergence of
the democratic model with dominant state as the initiator and leader of demo-
cratic reforms. It is characterised as a “defective” regime with formal (from the
first point of view) democratic institutions which in their real essence are
authoritarian (Радченко 2009). At the same time, Ukraine got in the “trap of
oligarchic capitalism”. In the late 90s and early 2000s, groups closely related to
power and business got the opportunity to make fortunes on monopolies (energy,
metallurgy, food and chemical industries), withdrawing part of funds through
offshore companies, reinvesting the other part in political life and the support of
the status quo. The growth of Ukrainian economy in 2002–2008 was driven by
rapid growth of China and some countries in Southeast Asia that needed supply
of metal and other raw materials produced in our country, as well as the policy
of low interest rates of major world central banks around the world25. Actually, it
was this period when Donbas' regional elites got the chance to accumulate and
concentrate funds and resources of political influence. During the global
economic crisis, these drivers disappeared, but the economic model of Ukraine
based on them remained in a state of inertia. In order to encourage changes,
structural transformations in the economy had to occur, but that would put an
end to the political and economic domination of financial and industrial groups
25 http://politeka.net/242581-tretya-promyshlennaya-revolyutsiya-ukraina-teryaet-vre
mya/.
Roman Slyvka
216
of Donbas. A prolonged and critical course of the transition process in Ukraine
led to increased social unrest, doubt and frustration among the Ukrainian
population, both in the southeast, as well as in the western and central regions.
One of the reasons for this slow transition is the lack of a common vision for the
directions and outcomes of the process. The revolution of dignity had to protect
the pro-European course and accelerate reforms, but it faced a considerable
opposition on the part of regional elites of Donetsk, Luhansk, Simferopol and
Sevastopol, due to the risk of them losing their political and economic positions.
This forced them to stir up anti-Ukrainian and, as a result, pro-Russian propa-
ganda among the masses.
Its success was facilitated by the fact that after the election of President of
Russia Vladimir Putin in 2000, the dynamics of national economies of Ukraine
and Russia differed substantially. If in 2000 Ukrainian GDP per person
amounted to 56% of the Russian index, in 2013 this ratio deteriorated to 35%.
In such circumstances, much of the population of Donbas and the Crimea,
already having a pro-Russian sentiment, influenced by the propaganda of
economic success was prone to idealise uncritically a neighbouring state and to
compare Ukrainian modest successes to those of Russia. We call it uncritical
idealisation, since income distribution, despite significantly worse macroecono-
mic indicators, was much fairer in Ukraine. This may at least be explained by
the dynamics of Gini index, which is significantly better in Ukraine (fig. 5).
Fig. 5. Dynamics of Gini index in Ukraine and Russia in 2000–2012
Source: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=
l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=si_pov_gini&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=
region&idim=country:UKR:RUS&ifdim=region&tstart=972338400000&tend=1351029
600000&ind=false
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
217
The geopolitical effect of demonstrating the economic component of Russia's
“soft power” amplified due to significant labour migration of the population of
Donbas and the Crimea to the neighbouring state (flow of labour migrants to
Russia amounted to 43% of the total number in 2013) (Cирочук 2014). Signi-
ficantly higher earnings in Russia in comparison to other countries reinforced
this effect (fig. 6).
Fig. 6. The size of the average earnings of Ukrainian migrants in different countries
and the average salary in Ukraine, 2010–2012
Source: Звіт щодо методології…, 2013, p. 57; http://www.bankstore.com.ua/ua/
component/option,com_bankstore/Itemid,233/task,showcurrencydailyrates/bank_id,1232
86/currency_id,16/rate_type,0/year,2010/month,1/day,1/
Thus, the transient situation of Ukraine has led to the development of
dissonance in regional policy. This in turn led to an increase of separatism and
hope for external intervention as a way of solving problems. Changing such
sentiments will not be easy, as experts say. Researcher Motyl is sure that the
main factor here is the economy. “If in the next 5 years, Ukraine shows rapid
growth, the regions beyond the control of the government will become loyal to
Ukraine. The state simply has to provide Ukrainians, and especially residents of
Donbas, with those economic opportunities it has been promising for the past
25 years”, says the historian26. This is the way, he states, to overcome the pro-
-Russian sentiments, as they are partly based on the belief “that Ukraine has not
fulfilled its promises and Russia could theoretically do it”. The expert believes
that having seen the improvements, East will be ready to talk with Ukraine in the
same language27.
26 http://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/society/2016/07/160704_ukrainian_Donbas_ag.
27 http://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/society/2016/07/160704_ukrainian_Donbas_ag.
Roman Slyvka
218
Functional vulnerability. As Tomeš and others suggest, among experts
there is a consensus in assessing the impact of one factor of political origin on
the conflict, namely the weakness of state power, failure to provide basic public
functions and prevent undermining legitimate governments, which is also the
cause of these conflicts (Tomeš et al. 2007).
On this occasion, it is appropriate to recall the hierarchy of territorial and
political systems and functions of territorial and political areas by V.A. Kolosov
(Колосов и Мироненко 2002, pp. 291–292) and to combine it with the concept
of dysfunction of social institutions coined by Merton. Merton believes that
some things may have consequences that are generally dysfunctional or are
dysfunctional for some and functional for others. For example, poverty may
benefit the rich because they are allowed to maintain more of their wealth, but it
certainly does not benefit the poor who struggle. At this point, he suggests the
conflict theory, although he does believe that institutions and values can be
functional for society as a whole. Merton states that only by recognising the
dysfunctional aspects of institutions, can we explain the development and
persistence of alternatives (Mann 2009).
Based on the combination of these approaches, in the case of Donbas and the
Crimea, manifestations of dysfunction of political and geographical areas at
different levels in Ukraine can be traced, which led to the destabilisation of the
situation and gave grounds for regionalism and separatism.
1. At the level of primary self-administrative territorial units: crises of poli-
tical culture, inability to adapt to the national and global impacts;
2. At the level of large cities, metropolitan areas, administrative and
territorial units of the second order: difficulty in transferring national impulses to
the regions;
3. At the level of large administrative and territorial unit of the first order:
failure to regulate stability and variability of state political system and crisis of
regional political culture;
4. At the level of a large political district (in case of Donbas and the Crimea
– the South-East of Ukraine): loss of influence on the national political system
and development of the whole country;
5. At the state level, failure to provide administrative impact;
6. At the level of international community: the inability to regulate inter-
actions within the post-Soviet countries (Ukraine and Russia); destruction of
indigenous macro-regional features of post-Soviet political culture.
The preconditions for conflicts in Donbas and Crimea...
219
7. CONCLUSIONS
As T. Zhurzenko (2014) wrote, with the annexation of Crimea and the mili-
tary conflict in the East, the era of post-Soviet ambiguity and tolerance of
blurred identities and multiple loyalties has ended. An important conclusion can
be made that the vulnerability of the state and its individual regions to conflicts
is particularly manifested in countries that are in a state of transformation.
Vulnerability is the result of incompleteness, inconsistency and non-systemic
character of transition to democracy. It creates conditions for conflict mani-
festation in post-Soviet states. The growth of economic power in Russia and
authoritarian tendencies is accompanied with simultaneous restoration of its
hegemony in relations with neighbouring countries. The reaction to such geo-
political challenges could be the formation of an effective state. The only way
for a relatively successful modernisation of post-socialist countries is the Euro-
-Atlantic integration. Almost completed or fully completed final transformation
of post-socialist Baltic countries and those of Central Europe were manifested in
their integration into NATO and the EU, despite numerous protests from Russia.
Due to a number of internal and external reasons, Ukraine did not go through
a similar path.
Because of the burden of post-colonial heritage and developmental inertia, as
well as vulnerable features of its geopolitical position, Ukraine did not manage
to undergo rapid transformation, at the same time “freezing” (Hawrylyshyn
2006) the vulnerable status of Donbas and the Crimea. Pro-Russian separatists
supported by Russia could take the advantage of existing problems that had
emerged not only in the times of independence, but long before the struggle of
Ukrainian people against imperial and Soviet power for their state. This is due to
the effects of weak and inconsistent dynamics of democratic and market
development. In western and central regions of Ukraine, the social costs of
transformation from socialism to capitalism were partially compensated by the
appeal of Ukrainian elites to the patriotism of local people. But in regions in the
South and East, less linked to the Ukrainian statehood movement, government
failed to convince the public of the positive effects of post-socialist changes for
the majority of society, which led to the cultivation of competitive regional
policy (“people of Donbas”) and supranational identities (“Soviet person”,
“Orthodox person”). By 2014, Russia had actively contributed to the process
facing no resistance on the part of regional authorities in the Crimea and Donbas
and, moreover, it had gained the support of the central government under
President Yanukovych. This is what made it possible to prepare the ground for
Roman Slyvka
220
interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, occupation and annexation of this
part of its territory.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the willingness of Russia to use
historical, positional, structural, dynamic and functional vulnerability of border
areas of neighbouring states to initiate and support the conflict is obvious, taking
into consideration the fact that during its independence Russia participated in the
establishing of a number of zones characterised by “frozen” conflicts in Mol-
dova (Transnistrian Moldovan Republic), Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia),
Ukraine (the Crimea, DPR and LPR). Against this background, the willingness
of Ukraine over the past 25 years to participate actively in the cross-border
cooperation of borderlands resulted in the formation of the “Bug”, “Carpathian”,
“Upper Prut”, “Lower Danube” and “Sloboda” Euroregions.
Russia's strategy to strengthen Ukraine's vulnerability failed during 2014. It is
obvious that most of countries and, what is more important, an absolute majority
of Ukrainian society rejected the idea of returning to the era of power
redistribution, boundaries, the Cold War, the restoration of the imperial projects
of the past. In order to preserve its sovereignty and integrity, modern Ukraine is
ready to set an example of converting historical vulnerability to perspective
advantages, to neutralise positional vulnerability, to find a balance in economic,
social and religious structures, to ensure the positive dynamics of changes and
ensure reliable operation of the regions and the state as a whole. The study of
preconditions of conflict development in terms of their historical, positional,
structural, dynamic and functional vulnerability appears to be a promising area
of research in political geography of post-socialist countries, especially in terms
of prevention of such conflicts.
English verification by Jarosław Sawiuk
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