Princes and Oligarchs
Prince Charles has caused a political rumpus by comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler and while there's no suggestion that the Russian President is a fascist, there is a clear similarity in a highly militarised country acting on the basis that it is perfectly reasonable to push its neighbours around, often through the use of force and on the pretext that Russian speaking citizens in these neighbouring countries are under some kind of existential threat.
Which is nonsense, of course, unless you believe that Russia has some kind of ongoing right to interfere in the internal affairs of countries like Ukraine just because they were once treated as puppet states of the former Soviet Union.
Which is nonsense, of course, unless you believe that Russia has some kind of ongoing right to interfere in the internal affairs of countries like Ukraine just because they were once treated as puppet states of the former Soviet Union.
I heard the UKIP leader Nigel Farage say on the radio the other day that you could argue that Russia was being provoked or 'poked with a stick' by the West which is a bit rich coming from someone who has made a political career by complaining about the European Union and its wholly peaceful involvement in the UK's affairs.
Now I'm no fan of Prince Charles, but on the issue of Russian expansionism it seems to me he has a point and while he's not an elected politician with a mandate to speak on anyone's behalf - nor are the Russian oligarchs who keep President Putin in power.
Now as an American I wasn't very surprised to find that Anne Applebaum is critical of the Soviet Union and its 21st century successor in shape of the Russian Federation, but then I delved a bit deeper and found that Anne Applebaum became a Polish citizen in 2013 and is married to the Poland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Radoslaw Sikorski with whom she has two children.
Now as an American I wasn't very surprised to find that Anne Applebaum is critical of the Soviet Union and its 21st century successor in shape of the Russian Federation, but then I delved a bit deeper and found that Anne Applebaum became a Polish citizen in 2013 and is married to the Poland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Radoslaw Sikorski with whom she has two children.
Unchain Ukraine (23 February 2014)
Here's an interesting take on the momentous events in Ukraine by Anne Applebaum who is a American writer and historian apparently with a particular interest in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
So I think that Anne Applebaum probably has an excellent perspective on what's happening in Ukraine because she now lives in a country which managed to shake itself free of the Soviet Union without falling into the clutches of of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
I thought to myself after reading the article that if I didn't live in Scotland, would I rather live in Poland or Russia?
But I didn't have to think for long because there's no contest really - Poland and the European Union would win out every time and that's what the people of Ukraine are fighting for - their freedom.
The pictures from Kiev don't tell the whole story
The conflict in Ukraine is, at heart, about politics – not an ethnic, geographical or linguistic dispute – and nor is it confined to Kiev
Fanning the flames: anti-government protesters clashing with police in Independence Square in Kiev early Photo: Getty Images
By Anne Applebaum
Yes, the photographs from Kiev this week were uncanny, even “apocalyptic”. The orange sky, the burning buses, the blood on the barricades did indeed create scenes which looked like a Second World War movie. They made the city seem foreign, exotic, unreal – which is precisely why you should be wary of them.
Certainly there were quite a few things that the pictures didn’t show. The rest of Kiev, for example: it was far from business as usual in the Ukrainian capital this week, but neither was the entire city a war zone. The fighting was concentrated in a few places, and the rest of Kiev looked no different from any other European city.
The rest of the country wasn’t in the pictures either. In the city of Lutsk, in Western Ukraine, police not only refused to fight anti-government demonstrators, they joined them in demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
In truth, large parts of the country are already run by people who bitterly oppose Yanukovych and will happily say so quite loudly. Even if Kiev were permanently cleared of government opponents, the government’s problems would not be over. Disagreement is spread far beyond the capital.
More importantly, the pictures didn’t explain the motives of those who are taking part in these scenes. Nor did they explain why others, including many who were nowhere to be seen, went out of their way to create this kind of havoc.
This latest round of violence began, after all, with a surprise attack. On Monday, negotiations to alter the constitution and limit the powers of the president seemed to be progressing. Some demonstrators had even agreed to withdraw from government buildings that their protest camps had been blocking for many weeks.
But on Tuesday, the parliament, which is controlled by the president, abruptly blocked the reform. At the same time, police launched a violent attack on the remaining protesters, who had spent weeks preparing for just such an eventuality. To protect themselves, they set fire to the barricades which had surrounded them. Those flames made the Kiev scenes appear so dramatic.
The riot police did not act alone. In addition to the men in uniform, the Ukrainian government also employs plain-clothes thugs who periodically show up and wreak mayhem. In the past few weeks, groups of unidentified men – death squads – have grabbed activists off the street, beaten them or tortured them, cut off their ears, and left them in the woods for dead.
On Tuesday, they stopped the taxi of a well-known journalist, pulled him out and shot him. This wasn’t “crowd control”. Nor was this a legitimate response to troublesome demonstrators or an accident caused by circumstances. This was a planned murder.
When violence is deliberately provocative, it is always important to ask why – and in whose interests? Some of this state-organised thuggery was, of course, intended to scare people, to keep them away from the barricades and prevent them from joining the protests. But it was also intended to inflame people: violence can make any situation spin out of control.
To some extent, the attempt to make people very, very angry has succeeded. There were no violent protesters in November, when the unrest began: the original demonstrators were mostly young people profoundly disappointed by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision not to sign a trade treaty with Europe, and to join a Russian-led Customs’ Union instead.
There was no violence on New Year’s Eve either, when many tens of thousands of Ukrainians came to central Kiev to hear speeches, wave the European flag, and sing the national anthem.
But since then, the government’s opponents have been provoked, threatened and teased by a president who awarded himself dictatorial powers, then rescinded some of them, who has agreed several times to make big changes and then stopped short.
Now he has once again reversed: after two days of unexpectedly terrifying violence – and with heavy encouragement from three European foreign ministers and the threat of personal EU sanctions – he has agreed to bring back the old constitution, to hold early elections, and not to press charges against anyone.
It is possible that the opposition will still be reluctant to go home. After many months, Ukraine’s peaceful protest movement has developed into a much different, angrier and more volatile crowd, one which will indeed tear up paving stones and throw them at police who are spraying them with water cannons, or will capture police guns and ammunition and begin to use those as well.
And this is precisely the transformation that some wanted. Photographs of such violence certainly help the cause of the Russian parliamentarian who has just declared that he and his colleagues are “prepared to give all the necessary assistance should the fraternal Ukrainian people ask for it”. Since “fraternal assistance” was the term used to describe the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1979, this was clearly understood as a threat of military intervention.
Violence also helps the cause of those who want to describe all of the demonstrations as a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by “fascists” or “far-Right” extremists. It is just as useful for those who still want to organise an “anti-terrorist operation” and carry out martial law.
The chief of the Ukrainian security agency called for precisely such an “anti-terrorist operation” this week, and interior ministry troops were being prepared. Yanukovych has, for the moment, abandoned that plan: after signing the agreement negotiated with the opposition and the EU yesterday, riot police once again pulled back from the central square and the army is presumably back in its barracks.
But if Yanukovych wants to reverse himself again, there is still time.
Finally, the photographs of violent struggle and burning buses are misleading because they mask what is, in fact, a legitimate argument about the future of Ukraine.
Appearances to the contrary, the conflict we are witnessing is not an atavistic, ethno-linguistic struggle between Russians and Ukrainians, or some kind of tussle between street thugs and police. There are no ancient ethnic rivalries at stake.
It is not even clear that the Ukrainian political struggle is really just a geographic dispute, as it is so often characterised, between the more “European” western half of the country and the more “Russian” East.
On the contrary, this is a political conflict, and one which is not that hard to understand. On the one side are Ukrainians (both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who want to live in a “European” democracy with human rights and rule of law, one which is genuinely integrated with the European Union and the rest of the world. The supporters of this “European” option include students, pacifists, gay and environmental activists, as well as Right-wing nationalists and people motivated by memories of the terrible crimes that Stalin carried out in Ukraine 80 years ago.
On the other side are Ukrainians (also both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who support an undemocratic, oligarchic regime which is politically and economically dependent on Russia, more cut off from the European Union, and affiliated instead with the customs union controlled from Moscow.
Some of this regime’s supporters are the tiny elite who have made such massive profits from Ukrainian corruption, and who have famously purchased some of London’s most expensive homes (and, if rumours are correct, may have rapidly taken up residence in them this week).
Others without such wealth may fear the violent extremists they have seen on the television news, and the forces of general disorder. Still others may fear that even a trade agreement with Europe would entail deep reforms and economic changes, threatening their jobs.
Either way, this is not a fight over which language to speak or even over who controls Kiev’s main square. Historical allegiances are not an issue, either. Though both get bandied about, neither the word “fascist” nor the word “communist” is correctly applied to either side.
On the contrary, the fighting on the street this week was the latest manifestation of a deep national disagreement over the nature of the Ukrainian state, the shape of Ukraine’s economy, the status of the legal system, the country’s membership of international organisations. This is a legitimate political argument, and ultimately it can only have a political solution. And, in the end, this is why you should treat those dramatic photographs with caution.
This is not a war, or even a conflict which either side can win with weapons. It will have to be solved through negotiations, elections, political debate; by civic organisations, political parties and political leaders, both charismatic and otherwise; with the participation of other European states and Ukraine’s other neighbours.
The thugs, riot police and men bearing arms may be part of the problem right now, but in the very long term, they won’t bring about a solution.
Anne Applebaum is a writer and historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Her latest book 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe’ (Penguin) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £9.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
The pictures from Kiev don't tell the whole story
The conflict in Ukraine is, at heart, about politics – not an ethnic, geographical or linguistic dispute – and nor is it confined to Kiev
Fanning the flames: anti-government protesters clashing with police in Independence Square in Kiev early Photo: Getty Images
By Anne Applebaum
Yes, the photographs from Kiev this week were uncanny, even “apocalyptic”. The orange sky, the burning buses, the blood on the barricades did indeed create scenes which looked like a Second World War movie. They made the city seem foreign, exotic, unreal – which is precisely why you should be wary of them.
Certainly there were quite a few things that the pictures didn’t show. The rest of Kiev, for example: it was far from business as usual in the Ukrainian capital this week, but neither was the entire city a war zone. The fighting was concentrated in a few places, and the rest of Kiev looked no different from any other European city.
The rest of the country wasn’t in the pictures either. In the city of Lutsk, in Western Ukraine, police not only refused to fight anti-government demonstrators, they joined them in demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
In truth, large parts of the country are already run by people who bitterly oppose Yanukovych and will happily say so quite loudly. Even if Kiev were permanently cleared of government opponents, the government’s problems would not be over. Disagreement is spread far beyond the capital.
More importantly, the pictures didn’t explain the motives of those who are taking part in these scenes. Nor did they explain why others, including many who were nowhere to be seen, went out of their way to create this kind of havoc.
This latest round of violence began, after all, with a surprise attack. On Monday, negotiations to alter the constitution and limit the powers of the president seemed to be progressing. Some demonstrators had even agreed to withdraw from government buildings that their protest camps had been blocking for many weeks.
But on Tuesday, the parliament, which is controlled by the president, abruptly blocked the reform. At the same time, police launched a violent attack on the remaining protesters, who had spent weeks preparing for just such an eventuality. To protect themselves, they set fire to the barricades which had surrounded them. Those flames made the Kiev scenes appear so dramatic.
The riot police did not act alone. In addition to the men in uniform, the Ukrainian government also employs plain-clothes thugs who periodically show up and wreak mayhem. In the past few weeks, groups of unidentified men – death squads – have grabbed activists off the street, beaten them or tortured them, cut off their ears, and left them in the woods for dead.
On Tuesday, they stopped the taxi of a well-known journalist, pulled him out and shot him. This wasn’t “crowd control”. Nor was this a legitimate response to troublesome demonstrators or an accident caused by circumstances. This was a planned murder.
When violence is deliberately provocative, it is always important to ask why – and in whose interests? Some of this state-organised thuggery was, of course, intended to scare people, to keep them away from the barricades and prevent them from joining the protests. But it was also intended to inflame people: violence can make any situation spin out of control.
To some extent, the attempt to make people very, very angry has succeeded. There were no violent protesters in November, when the unrest began: the original demonstrators were mostly young people profoundly disappointed by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision not to sign a trade treaty with Europe, and to join a Russian-led Customs’ Union instead.
There was no violence on New Year’s Eve either, when many tens of thousands of Ukrainians came to central Kiev to hear speeches, wave the European flag, and sing the national anthem.
But since then, the government’s opponents have been provoked, threatened and teased by a president who awarded himself dictatorial powers, then rescinded some of them, who has agreed several times to make big changes and then stopped short.
Now he has once again reversed: after two days of unexpectedly terrifying violence – and with heavy encouragement from three European foreign ministers and the threat of personal EU sanctions – he has agreed to bring back the old constitution, to hold early elections, and not to press charges against anyone.
It is possible that the opposition will still be reluctant to go home. After many months, Ukraine’s peaceful protest movement has developed into a much different, angrier and more volatile crowd, one which will indeed tear up paving stones and throw them at police who are spraying them with water cannons, or will capture police guns and ammunition and begin to use those as well.
And this is precisely the transformation that some wanted. Photographs of such violence certainly help the cause of the Russian parliamentarian who has just declared that he and his colleagues are “prepared to give all the necessary assistance should the fraternal Ukrainian people ask for it”. Since “fraternal assistance” was the term used to describe the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1979, this was clearly understood as a threat of military intervention.
Violence also helps the cause of those who want to describe all of the demonstrations as a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by “fascists” or “far-Right” extremists. It is just as useful for those who still want to organise an “anti-terrorist operation” and carry out martial law.
The chief of the Ukrainian security agency called for precisely such an “anti-terrorist operation” this week, and interior ministry troops were being prepared. Yanukovych has, for the moment, abandoned that plan: after signing the agreement negotiated with the opposition and the EU yesterday, riot police once again pulled back from the central square and the army is presumably back in its barracks.
But if Yanukovych wants to reverse himself again, there is still time.
Finally, the photographs of violent struggle and burning buses are misleading because they mask what is, in fact, a legitimate argument about the future of Ukraine.
Appearances to the contrary, the conflict we are witnessing is not an atavistic, ethno-linguistic struggle between Russians and Ukrainians, or some kind of tussle between street thugs and police. There are no ancient ethnic rivalries at stake.
It is not even clear that the Ukrainian political struggle is really just a geographic dispute, as it is so often characterised, between the more “European” western half of the country and the more “Russian” East.
On the contrary, this is a political conflict, and one which is not that hard to understand. On the one side are Ukrainians (both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who want to live in a “European” democracy with human rights and rule of law, one which is genuinely integrated with the European Union and the rest of the world. The supporters of this “European” option include students, pacifists, gay and environmental activists, as well as Right-wing nationalists and people motivated by memories of the terrible crimes that Stalin carried out in Ukraine 80 years ago.
On the other side are Ukrainians (also both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who support an undemocratic, oligarchic regime which is politically and economically dependent on Russia, more cut off from the European Union, and affiliated instead with the customs union controlled from Moscow.
Some of this regime’s supporters are the tiny elite who have made such massive profits from Ukrainian corruption, and who have famously purchased some of London’s most expensive homes (and, if rumours are correct, may have rapidly taken up residence in them this week).
Others without such wealth may fear the violent extremists they have seen on the television news, and the forces of general disorder. Still others may fear that even a trade agreement with Europe would entail deep reforms and economic changes, threatening their jobs.
Either way, this is not a fight over which language to speak or even over who controls Kiev’s main square. Historical allegiances are not an issue, either. Though both get bandied about, neither the word “fascist” nor the word “communist” is correctly applied to either side.
On the contrary, the fighting on the street this week was the latest manifestation of a deep national disagreement over the nature of the Ukrainian state, the shape of Ukraine’s economy, the status of the legal system, the country’s membership of international organisations. This is a legitimate political argument, and ultimately it can only have a political solution. And, in the end, this is why you should treat those dramatic photographs with caution.
This is not a war, or even a conflict which either side can win with weapons. It will have to be solved through negotiations, elections, political debate; by civic organisations, political parties and political leaders, both charismatic and otherwise; with the participation of other European states and Ukraine’s other neighbours.
The thugs, riot police and men bearing arms may be part of the problem right now, but in the very long term, they won’t bring about a solution.
Anne Applebaum is a writer and historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Her latest book 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe’ (Penguin) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £9.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
Here's an interesting take on the momentous events in Ukraine by Anne Applebaum who is a American writer and historian apparently with a particular interest in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
So I think that Anne Applebaum probably has an excellent perspective on what's happening in Ukraine because she now lives in a country which managed to shake itself free of the Soviet Union without falling into the clutches of of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
I thought to myself after reading the article that if I didn't live in Scotland, would I rather live in Poland or Russia?
But I didn't have to think for long because there's no contest really - Poland and the European Union would win out every time and that's what the people of Ukraine are fighting for - their freedom.
The pictures from Kiev don't tell the whole story
The conflict in Ukraine is, at heart, about politics – not an ethnic, geographical or linguistic dispute – and nor is it confined to Kiev
Fanning the flames: anti-government protesters clashing with police in Independence Square in Kiev early Photo: Getty Images
By Anne Applebaum
Yes, the photographs from Kiev this week were uncanny, even “apocalyptic”. The orange sky, the burning buses, the blood on the barricades did indeed create scenes which looked like a Second World War movie. They made the city seem foreign, exotic, unreal – which is precisely why you should be wary of them.
Certainly there were quite a few things that the pictures didn’t show. The rest of Kiev, for example: it was far from business as usual in the Ukrainian capital this week, but neither was the entire city a war zone. The fighting was concentrated in a few places, and the rest of Kiev looked no different from any other European city.
The rest of the country wasn’t in the pictures either. In the city of Lutsk, in Western Ukraine, police not only refused to fight anti-government demonstrators, they joined them in demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
In truth, large parts of the country are already run by people who bitterly oppose Yanukovych and will happily say so quite loudly. Even if Kiev were permanently cleared of government opponents, the government’s problems would not be over. Disagreement is spread far beyond the capital.
More importantly, the pictures didn’t explain the motives of those who are taking part in these scenes. Nor did they explain why others, including many who were nowhere to be seen, went out of their way to create this kind of havoc.
This latest round of violence began, after all, with a surprise attack. On Monday, negotiations to alter the constitution and limit the powers of the president seemed to be progressing. Some demonstrators had even agreed to withdraw from government buildings that their protest camps had been blocking for many weeks.
But on Tuesday, the parliament, which is controlled by the president, abruptly blocked the reform. At the same time, police launched a violent attack on the remaining protesters, who had spent weeks preparing for just such an eventuality. To protect themselves, they set fire to the barricades which had surrounded them. Those flames made the Kiev scenes appear so dramatic.
The riot police did not act alone. In addition to the men in uniform, the Ukrainian government also employs plain-clothes thugs who periodically show up and wreak mayhem. In the past few weeks, groups of unidentified men – death squads – have grabbed activists off the street, beaten them or tortured them, cut off their ears, and left them in the woods for dead.
On Tuesday, they stopped the taxi of a well-known journalist, pulled him out and shot him. This wasn’t “crowd control”. Nor was this a legitimate response to troublesome demonstrators or an accident caused by circumstances. This was a planned murder.
When violence is deliberately provocative, it is always important to ask why – and in whose interests? Some of this state-organised thuggery was, of course, intended to scare people, to keep them away from the barricades and prevent them from joining the protests. But it was also intended to inflame people: violence can make any situation spin out of control.
To some extent, the attempt to make people very, very angry has succeeded. There were no violent protesters in November, when the unrest began: the original demonstrators were mostly young people profoundly disappointed by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision not to sign a trade treaty with Europe, and to join a Russian-led Customs’ Union instead.
There was no violence on New Year’s Eve either, when many tens of thousands of Ukrainians came to central Kiev to hear speeches, wave the European flag, and sing the national anthem.
But since then, the government’s opponents have been provoked, threatened and teased by a president who awarded himself dictatorial powers, then rescinded some of them, who has agreed several times to make big changes and then stopped short.
Now he has once again reversed: after two days of unexpectedly terrifying violence – and with heavy encouragement from three European foreign ministers and the threat of personal EU sanctions – he has agreed to bring back the old constitution, to hold early elections, and not to press charges against anyone.
It is possible that the opposition will still be reluctant to go home. After many months, Ukraine’s peaceful protest movement has developed into a much different, angrier and more volatile crowd, one which will indeed tear up paving stones and throw them at police who are spraying them with water cannons, or will capture police guns and ammunition and begin to use those as well.
And this is precisely the transformation that some wanted. Photographs of such violence certainly help the cause of the Russian parliamentarian who has just declared that he and his colleagues are “prepared to give all the necessary assistance should the fraternal Ukrainian people ask for it”. Since “fraternal assistance” was the term used to describe the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1979, this was clearly understood as a threat of military intervention.
Violence also helps the cause of those who want to describe all of the demonstrations as a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by “fascists” or “far-Right” extremists. It is just as useful for those who still want to organise an “anti-terrorist operation” and carry out martial law.
The chief of the Ukrainian security agency called for precisely such an “anti-terrorist operation” this week, and interior ministry troops were being prepared. Yanukovych has, for the moment, abandoned that plan: after signing the agreement negotiated with the opposition and the EU yesterday, riot police once again pulled back from the central square and the army is presumably back in its barracks.
But if Yanukovych wants to reverse himself again, there is still time.
Finally, the photographs of violent struggle and burning buses are misleading because they mask what is, in fact, a legitimate argument about the future of Ukraine.
Appearances to the contrary, the conflict we are witnessing is not an atavistic, ethno-linguistic struggle between Russians and Ukrainians, or some kind of tussle between street thugs and police. There are no ancient ethnic rivalries at stake.
It is not even clear that the Ukrainian political struggle is really just a geographic dispute, as it is so often characterised, between the more “European” western half of the country and the more “Russian” East.
On the contrary, this is a political conflict, and one which is not that hard to understand. On the one side are Ukrainians (both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who want to live in a “European” democracy with human rights and rule of law, one which is genuinely integrated with the European Union and the rest of the world. The supporters of this “European” option include students, pacifists, gay and environmental activists, as well as Right-wing nationalists and people motivated by memories of the terrible crimes that Stalin carried out in Ukraine 80 years ago.
On the other side are Ukrainians (also both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who support an undemocratic, oligarchic regime which is politically and economically dependent on Russia, more cut off from the European Union, and affiliated instead with the customs union controlled from Moscow.
Some of this regime’s supporters are the tiny elite who have made such massive profits from Ukrainian corruption, and who have famously purchased some of London’s most expensive homes (and, if rumours are correct, may have rapidly taken up residence in them this week).
Others without such wealth may fear the violent extremists they have seen on the television news, and the forces of general disorder. Still others may fear that even a trade agreement with Europe would entail deep reforms and economic changes, threatening their jobs.
Either way, this is not a fight over which language to speak or even over who controls Kiev’s main square. Historical allegiances are not an issue, either. Though both get bandied about, neither the word “fascist” nor the word “communist” is correctly applied to either side.
On the contrary, the fighting on the street this week was the latest manifestation of a deep national disagreement over the nature of the Ukrainian state, the shape of Ukraine’s economy, the status of the legal system, the country’s membership of international organisations. This is a legitimate political argument, and ultimately it can only have a political solution. And, in the end, this is why you should treat those dramatic photographs with caution.
This is not a war, or even a conflict which either side can win with weapons. It will have to be solved through negotiations, elections, political debate; by civic organisations, political parties and political leaders, both charismatic and otherwise; with the participation of other European states and Ukraine’s other neighbours.
The thugs, riot police and men bearing arms may be part of the problem right now, but in the very long term, they won’t bring about a solution.
Anne Applebaum is a writer and historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Her latest book 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe’ (Penguin) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £9.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
The pictures from Kiev don't tell the whole story
The conflict in Ukraine is, at heart, about politics – not an ethnic, geographical or linguistic dispute – and nor is it confined to Kiev
Fanning the flames: anti-government protesters clashing with police in Independence Square in Kiev early Photo: Getty Images
By Anne Applebaum
Yes, the photographs from Kiev this week were uncanny, even “apocalyptic”. The orange sky, the burning buses, the blood on the barricades did indeed create scenes which looked like a Second World War movie. They made the city seem foreign, exotic, unreal – which is precisely why you should be wary of them.
Certainly there were quite a few things that the pictures didn’t show. The rest of Kiev, for example: it was far from business as usual in the Ukrainian capital this week, but neither was the entire city a war zone. The fighting was concentrated in a few places, and the rest of Kiev looked no different from any other European city.
The rest of the country wasn’t in the pictures either. In the city of Lutsk, in Western Ukraine, police not only refused to fight anti-government demonstrators, they joined them in demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
In truth, large parts of the country are already run by people who bitterly oppose Yanukovych and will happily say so quite loudly. Even if Kiev were permanently cleared of government opponents, the government’s problems would not be over. Disagreement is spread far beyond the capital.
More importantly, the pictures didn’t explain the motives of those who are taking part in these scenes. Nor did they explain why others, including many who were nowhere to be seen, went out of their way to create this kind of havoc.
This latest round of violence began, after all, with a surprise attack. On Monday, negotiations to alter the constitution and limit the powers of the president seemed to be progressing. Some demonstrators had even agreed to withdraw from government buildings that their protest camps had been blocking for many weeks.
But on Tuesday, the parliament, which is controlled by the president, abruptly blocked the reform. At the same time, police launched a violent attack on the remaining protesters, who had spent weeks preparing for just such an eventuality. To protect themselves, they set fire to the barricades which had surrounded them. Those flames made the Kiev scenes appear so dramatic.
The riot police did not act alone. In addition to the men in uniform, the Ukrainian government also employs plain-clothes thugs who periodically show up and wreak mayhem. In the past few weeks, groups of unidentified men – death squads – have grabbed activists off the street, beaten them or tortured them, cut off their ears, and left them in the woods for dead.
On Tuesday, they stopped the taxi of a well-known journalist, pulled him out and shot him. This wasn’t “crowd control”. Nor was this a legitimate response to troublesome demonstrators or an accident caused by circumstances. This was a planned murder.
When violence is deliberately provocative, it is always important to ask why – and in whose interests? Some of this state-organised thuggery was, of course, intended to scare people, to keep them away from the barricades and prevent them from joining the protests. But it was also intended to inflame people: violence can make any situation spin out of control.
To some extent, the attempt to make people very, very angry has succeeded. There were no violent protesters in November, when the unrest began: the original demonstrators were mostly young people profoundly disappointed by Yanukovych’s last-minute decision not to sign a trade treaty with Europe, and to join a Russian-led Customs’ Union instead.
There was no violence on New Year’s Eve either, when many tens of thousands of Ukrainians came to central Kiev to hear speeches, wave the European flag, and sing the national anthem.
But since then, the government’s opponents have been provoked, threatened and teased by a president who awarded himself dictatorial powers, then rescinded some of them, who has agreed several times to make big changes and then stopped short.
Now he has once again reversed: after two days of unexpectedly terrifying violence – and with heavy encouragement from three European foreign ministers and the threat of personal EU sanctions – he has agreed to bring back the old constitution, to hold early elections, and not to press charges against anyone.
It is possible that the opposition will still be reluctant to go home. After many months, Ukraine’s peaceful protest movement has developed into a much different, angrier and more volatile crowd, one which will indeed tear up paving stones and throw them at police who are spraying them with water cannons, or will capture police guns and ammunition and begin to use those as well.
And this is precisely the transformation that some wanted. Photographs of such violence certainly help the cause of the Russian parliamentarian who has just declared that he and his colleagues are “prepared to give all the necessary assistance should the fraternal Ukrainian people ask for it”. Since “fraternal assistance” was the term used to describe the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968, or Afghanistan in 1979, this was clearly understood as a threat of military intervention.
Violence also helps the cause of those who want to describe all of the demonstrations as a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by “fascists” or “far-Right” extremists. It is just as useful for those who still want to organise an “anti-terrorist operation” and carry out martial law.
The chief of the Ukrainian security agency called for precisely such an “anti-terrorist operation” this week, and interior ministry troops were being prepared. Yanukovych has, for the moment, abandoned that plan: after signing the agreement negotiated with the opposition and the EU yesterday, riot police once again pulled back from the central square and the army is presumably back in its barracks.
But if Yanukovych wants to reverse himself again, there is still time.
Finally, the photographs of violent struggle and burning buses are misleading because they mask what is, in fact, a legitimate argument about the future of Ukraine.
Appearances to the contrary, the conflict we are witnessing is not an atavistic, ethno-linguistic struggle between Russians and Ukrainians, or some kind of tussle between street thugs and police. There are no ancient ethnic rivalries at stake.
It is not even clear that the Ukrainian political struggle is really just a geographic dispute, as it is so often characterised, between the more “European” western half of the country and the more “Russian” East.
On the contrary, this is a political conflict, and one which is not that hard to understand. On the one side are Ukrainians (both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who want to live in a “European” democracy with human rights and rule of law, one which is genuinely integrated with the European Union and the rest of the world. The supporters of this “European” option include students, pacifists, gay and environmental activists, as well as Right-wing nationalists and people motivated by memories of the terrible crimes that Stalin carried out in Ukraine 80 years ago.
On the other side are Ukrainians (also both Russian and Ukrainian-speaking) who support an undemocratic, oligarchic regime which is politically and economically dependent on Russia, more cut off from the European Union, and affiliated instead with the customs union controlled from Moscow.
Some of this regime’s supporters are the tiny elite who have made such massive profits from Ukrainian corruption, and who have famously purchased some of London’s most expensive homes (and, if rumours are correct, may have rapidly taken up residence in them this week).
Others without such wealth may fear the violent extremists they have seen on the television news, and the forces of general disorder. Still others may fear that even a trade agreement with Europe would entail deep reforms and economic changes, threatening their jobs.
Either way, this is not a fight over which language to speak or even over who controls Kiev’s main square. Historical allegiances are not an issue, either. Though both get bandied about, neither the word “fascist” nor the word “communist” is correctly applied to either side.
On the contrary, the fighting on the street this week was the latest manifestation of a deep national disagreement over the nature of the Ukrainian state, the shape of Ukraine’s economy, the status of the legal system, the country’s membership of international organisations. This is a legitimate political argument, and ultimately it can only have a political solution. And, in the end, this is why you should treat those dramatic photographs with caution.
This is not a war, or even a conflict which either side can win with weapons. It will have to be solved through negotiations, elections, political debate; by civic organisations, political parties and political leaders, both charismatic and otherwise; with the participation of other European states and Ukraine’s other neighbours.
The thugs, riot police and men bearing arms may be part of the problem right now, but in the very long term, they won’t bring about a solution.
Anne Applebaum is a writer and historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Her latest book 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe’ (Penguin) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £9.99 + £1.10 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk
