Russian Aggression. Reluctance to call things as they are threatens Ukraine and the world – Gonchar

Sunday, 15 January 2017 17:30
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Uncertainty in relations with Russia complicates the situation in Ukraine, does not allow to form a strategy, to establish an honest dialogue with society and clearly to state that we may not talk about the issue of returning to "normal relations" with Russia in the coming years, if not decades, - said in an interview to "Radio Svoboda" the expert on energy security, the president of Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI" Mykhailo Gonchar.

And we started our conversation with the question of what Russia is today: a partner in bilateral and multilateral relations or military aggressor, and whether it is needed to be determined.

– Yes, of course, it is necessary to be determined because a lot depends on the definitions. And identification of the neighbor not just as a neighbor or partner, but as the enemy is now the most appropriate. It is a real enemy which made an act of aggression and continues this aggression against Ukraine. So here, if we're talking from an expert point of view, there is no need to invent different euphemisms like, to say, on the one hand, yes, there is a hostile action against Ukraine, but this is, they say, a neighbor, a partner, and the like.

This is just what Putin's regime wants: that there would be no clear identification. And this is what he has achieved to a considerable extent. Part of the political elite with all the understanding of what is really going on doesn't express such public identification. And as for Western politicians, then we see there a continuous desire to avoid calling a spade a spade.

- What should help to identify these relations? Is this the war that is now going into the background, or the need for economic cooperation with Russia? Even if we can see that economic ties in recent years have been significantly weakened and the main component of these relations – the energy one – is almost not visible?

– Yes, because a return to economic relations in the form in which they existed in the prewar period is just impossible. Actually, it is not necessary and to idealize what they were then. Numbers of billions of dollars of foreign trade, even tens of billions of dollars, didn't actually reflect the real situation. These were asymmetric economic relations with a negative balance for Ukraine and in the last prewar years with a huge negative balance due to the high gas prices. The Ukrainian economy went to the bottom. What happened in the last three years is almost zeroing of gas imports from Russia and minimizing of gas dependency. But for us it was the Achilles' heel of the economy as the result of excessive "gasification" of GDP.

But for Russia these asymmetrical economic relations with Ukraine served as mechanism of political subjugation and in this context Russian approaches have not changed. On the contrary, the fact of launching the campaign of the invasion into the territory of Crimea with subsequent occupation shows that the Kremlin chose the variant of shifting its policy towards Ukraine to a new state - to a state of war, as economic methods didn't provide for necessary effect.

– Humanitarian sphere. How tight were the ties that still, in spite of all the problems, they continue to exist, people continue to travel to Russia, continue to communicate with their friends, relatives ...

– Many issues remain somewhat outside the consideration, including this humanitarian block, where traditionally the government acted and, unfortunately, continues to act as, " this somehow will be settled by itself." In addition, we clearly understand that one of the specifics of hybrid wars is that the enemy - in this case Russia - operates not only from outside, but mainly from inside the country trying to maximize the internal potential for conflict that exists in any society, in any country. And if to srir it up, then, strictly speaking, the task of achieving strategic goals for aggressor becomes easier.

In this case, of course, there will be a lot of speculation through the propaganda channels that, they say, the Ukrainian government break off relations with Russia, and the relationships between family members who are in different countries, on different sides of the border, will suffer, and so on ... We are familiar with this propaganda. It was successful in Soviet times, when, in fact, the collapse of the USSR was happening, when new independent states appeared, and then, if you remember, there were also a lot of concerns of, so to speak, the "propagandist nature" about how families will be separated and so on.

And no catastrophe happened. But Russia has consistently used these arguments and, obviously, will use as in the context of the statements of the so-called "compatriots" beyond Russia (that is used as an intervention mechanism) and in the context of a reverse mechanism that, they say, not all citizens of the former Soviet Republics have such freedom to meet with their families, friends in Russia. Because, they say, regimes that exist in these countries, particularly in Ukraine, do not contribute to this. But they don't mention the fact that actually Russian aggression hinders that. So it was in Georgia, so it is now in Ukraine.

– How do you see the next year in context of relations between Ukraine and Russia?

Probably, it will be determinant not only in relations between Ukraine and Russia. The issue is that some interesting fundamental tectonic geopolitical breakdown of the entire world order, especially in Europe, is happening. Russia provoked the breakup of this world order, and did it purposefully, relying on achieving the result of becoming a winner in the context of dictating the new rules of the game for everyone. In the end, the West will sit down at the negotiating table, "Yalta-2" will take place; everything will again be divided into spheres of influence, responsibles will be appointed. And there will be a new multipolar world order.

Despite the fact that a lot of things didn't go according to the scenario, which was designed in the pre-war period in the Kremlin, however now, at the end of 2016, we see that the strategic bet of the Kremlin was correct. Because the reference point for Russians was just the end of 2016, linked with the presidential election in the United States, with a change of the government there, with that that this is the period of opening of window of opportunity when you can do a lot, given the fact that the US is in a certain transition period regardless of who would win - Trump or Clinton.

We just see now that Russia actively uses this from the point of view of what is happening in Syria - a tragedy in Aleppo -, and Russia sees, in parallel, that reaction of the West, in principle, is not different from what it was before – between concern and deep concern. Therefore, it fuels the appetite of the Kremlin. And I think that in 2017 the Kremlin will be ready to go as far as it wants to.