137 JOINT 16 E
JOINT
137 JOINT 16 E
Original: English
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
92nd rOSE ROTH SEMINAR
UKRAINE-NATO INTER-PARLIAMENTARY COUNCIL (UNIC)
SUB-COMMITTEE ON NATO PARTNERSHIPS (PCNP)
SUB-COMMITTEE ON TRANSITION AND DEVELOPMENT (ESCTD)
SEMINAR REPORT
UKRAINE’S TRANSFORMATION IN A
TROUBLED REGIONAL CONTEXT
Kyiv, Ukraine
14-16 June 2016
2016
This Seminar Report is presented for information only and does not necessarily represent the official view of the Assembly.
I.Introduction
1.Despite a formal ceasefire, fighting in Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk is intensifying, and Ukrainian soldiers are killed almost daily. As Moscow continues to fuel the conflict and ignore its most basic obligations under the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian government is now urging its Western partners to understand that organising elections in Donbas that meet international standards would be impossible under current circumstances. Instead, Western governments should increase pressure on Russia to withdraw all its forces and allow Ukraine to reestablish control over its entire border. This was one of the key messages communicated at the 92ndRose Roth Seminar held in Kyiv from 14-16 June 2016.
2.The seminar, entitled “Ukraine’s Transformation in a Troubled Regional Context”, was organised by NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) in cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Kyiv based NATO Information and Documentation Centre. It also engaged members of Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council (UNIC) and of two NATO PA SubCommittees (on NATO Partnerships and on Transition and Development). The event brought together over 160 participants, including almost 80 members of parliament from 25 NATO member states and partner countries.
3.Canadian Senator and UNIC Co-chair Raynell Andreychuk opened the conference making three key points. First she told her colleagues that the West needs to be consistent with Russia and should not remove sanctions unless the terms for their removal were met, including an end cease fire violations, a complete withdrawal from Donbas, the restoration of control over all Ukrainian borders, the release of political prisoners and only then could free and fair elections be held in the east of the country. She noted that the full removal of sanctions could not take place until Crimea is returned to Ukraine. She also expressed full solidarity with the Crimean Tatars who have suffered serious violations of their human rights under Russian occupation.
4.Secondly she called her European colleagues to be patient as Ukraine’s institutional overhaul poses a serious challenge to country that has been saddled with a burdensome Soviet legacy and decades of poor governance. She suggested that reforms were beginning to bear fruit but that the complete overhaul of the Ukrainian state would take time. International support throughout this process would be essential.
5.Thirdly she urged Ukrainians to create the political conditions for national solidarity and genuine reform. Political bickering has needlessly slowed essential change and has also undermined international good will. The Ukrainians need to overcome their differences and keep their eyes focused on long term ambitions.
II.The Situation in Donbas, the Minsk Agreement and Sanctions
6.Throughout the seminar, Ukrainian officials rejected Russia’s portrayal of the conflict as an internal Ukrainian issue, highlighting instead that so-called separatists are led by regular Russian army officers fully integrated in the Russian chain of command. The seminar’s keynote speaker PatCox, former President of the European Parliament, described the situation in Eastern Ukraine as little more than a hybrid peace and warned NATO legislators that the country will continue to require international support, urging them to avoid the pitfalls of “Ukraine fatigue”. 1.8 million Ukrainians have been displaced as a result of the war and over 200 soldiers and 6,000 civilians have been killed. More than half of these have been killed by land mines. The separatists report that more than 2000 killed although it is not clear how many of these are Russians.Two hundred and eighty-six servicemen have been killed and 350 have been injured since the ceasefire ostensibly went into effect. The level of mistrust is extraordinarily high and Ukrainians have little confidence in the Minsk process at this juncture. Cox suggested that more international effort is needed to reanimate this process and to build up trust so that everyone “jumps together” to create a strong framework for peace.
7.The Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy told parliamentarians that Ukraine is holding up its end of the Minsk agreements but confront attacks on a daily basis from Russian led forces. He stated that these attacks were clear violation of the Minsk agreements and suggested that the current Russian leadership only understands force and will stop its aggression only if compelled to do so. He said that the Ukrainian government’s formula for an enduring peace would include the full withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory and the full restoration of border control to Ukrainian border guards. Only at that point, he and many other Ukrainian speakers said, would the government be prepared to move on elections in Donbas.
8.Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro Atlantic Integration told the parliamentarians that there are as many as 30-40 shellings launched from Russian positions each day and many Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives. She noted that the Russians have blocked prisoner exchanges and noted that many Ukrainian political prisoners are still held in Russia. It is not possible for independent actors to monitor conditions in Donbas. Journalists take great risks moving through the contested region and cannot see with their own eyes what is transpiring there. Ukraine acknowledges that the Minsk agreements were a sacrifice and recognises its responsibility to meet the commitments it has undertaken, the Vice Prime Minister said. But Russia needs to do the same and so far has failed to meet its obligations. That is where the problem lies. Elections in Donbas, she argued, would mean nothing under current conditions, and would be akin to the fake referendum held in a Crimea crawling with “little green man”. The Minsk agreement explicitly states that the elections have to be based on Ukrainian law and conducted meeting OSCE standards with the Ukrainian media and political parties fully engaged and present in those territories. The expelled Donbas population should also be entitled to vote in such elections. None of those conditions today are possible.
9.Days before the EU was due to decide on the extension of sanctions against Russia, Ukrainian officials and independent experts speaking at the seminar urged Allied lawmakers to maintain a united front with regard to Russia. Lifting the sanctions would be seen by an “armed and very dangerous” Vladimir Putin – in the words of prominent Russian-Ukrainian journalist YevgenyKiselyov – as an invitation to intensify his aggressive policies. Olena Zerkal, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, urged Allied governments not to trade Western values for “apples and prosciutto”, while Edward Lucas, Senior Vice President at the Center for European Policy Analysis, noted that “the price of our appeasement of Russia is being paid by Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine”. Iceland’s former Foreign Affairs Minister OssurSkarphedinsson said that it might even be necessary to expand sanctions further by expelling Russia from the Swift bank transfer system if it fails to do what it has agreed to do in Minsk. Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, also urged the international community to maintain sanctions until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is fully restored, noting that distinctions between Donbas and Crimea were unacceptable. Many Ukrainian speakers expressed their deep regret over the recent resolution passed in the French Senate to lift sanctions on Russia. They do understand, however, that the resolution is non-binding and that the French government has distanced itself from this vote.
10.Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze also cautioned that cancelling the current sanctions regime without winning concessions from Russia would be an invitation to that country to act with impunity. An aggressor will only embrace peace when it confronts a solid and united international front. She also suggested that Russian propaganda is designed to convey that Europe is paying a high price for these sanctions. This is simply not the case, Klympush-Tsyntsadze argued. The cost to of all EU for sanctions and countersanctions is 0.13 percent of GDP. In France, she noted, GDP has suffered 0.05%. This is hardly an unbearable cost. The estimated costs to Russia range between 1-2% of GDP, so sanctions are having a real impact and are effectively exacting a toll to add to the cost of Russian actions in Ukraine. Unfortunately Ukraine itself is paying the highest price for this war and occupation and the toll maybe as high as 20% of GDP.
11.The Lithuanian Ambassador to Ukraine Marius Janukonis warned parliamentarians not to show fatigue in their commitment to Ukraine and in their willingness to pressure Russia to comply with international law. Indeed, governments need to be prepared to take further measures in the face of any deterioration of the situation. He said it is critical to protect Ukraine’s civilisational choice and to help it reinforce its democracy and the rule of law.
12.Iryna Gerashchenko, First Vice-Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, President’s Envoy for Conflict Settlement in Donetsk and Luhansk Region discussed the ongoing effort to make peace in Eastern Ukraine through the Minsk process. She noted the Minsk working group dealing with the humanitarian aspects of the conflict has met 40 times. While a ceasefire is formally in place, Russia continues to bomb Ukrainian positions and is testing new weapons. The number of those killed in fighting has declined, but the conflict persists and civilian areas are often shelled. Ukraine is constantly repairing infrastructure in the region only to have it destroyed again by Russian shelling.
13.On the other hand there has been some progress in freeing political prisoners. Some 80 have been freed including three who were held in Russia. That said, there are still at least 112hostages being held by the militants, according to Gerashchenko, and some are in very poor health. All the keys to prison cells are held in the Kremlin, she asserted, and Russia sees these prisoners as a tool for blackmailing Kyiv. Like other Ukrainian speakers she indicated that elections in Donbas could not be contemplated until Ukraine had regained control of the eastern borders. She said even then, an international police mission in Donbas would be essential to restore security there.
14.Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine opened his remarks with an assessment of Russia’s intention of restoring a kind of federation among former Soviet Republics and suggested that this has become a kind of Monroe doctrine for the Kremlin. It rejects Western engagement with these countries and this is a view that was already evident 15 years ago although few in the West were paying attention at the time. Russia has sought to put enormous pressure on these countries to deepen integration often on terms that are not in the least beneficial to them. The aggression in Crimea was simply an extension of an old policy by new means. The occupation and illegal annexation of that Ukrainian region had been planned for a long time as had the occupation of the Donbas.
15.Russia seeks to ruin public trust in the government of Ukraine and to weaken the public will to resist. Ongoing shelling in Donbas reflects this goal and there should be no mistake that Russia is running the military operation there. Elements of its regular and Special Forces are the key military actors. These forces are using modern means and capabilities that Russia supplies, and Donbas has effectively become a testing ground for Russian equipment including new artillery systems. It is also a terrain for the training of Special Forces and a battlefield where the Russian military is trying out new tactics. Russia has also deployed three new divisions near border and is establishing a presence that could be designed for military occupation or large scale military actions. Lytvynenko suggested that this is why Ukraine feels so strongly that it needs international support.
16.Ambassador Roman Petrovych Bezsmertnyi, a former member of the Minsk Group, said the illegal annexation of Crimea and the Donbas occupation are elements of a global, regional and domestic Ukrainian conflict. Ending this complex conflict invariably demands changes to the global, continental, regional and domestic Ukrainian security orders. He suggested that Russia is challenging stability on all of these fronts and he likened events in the Donbas to what occurred in the Sudetenland prior to the Second World War. What is transpiring in Belarus and Kazakhstan are very much part of the same phenomenon.
III.The Warsaw Summit and NATO-Ukrainian Relations
17.The coming Summit of NATO Heads of state and government in Warsaw was due to include a special meeting of the NATO Ukraine Commission and endorse a comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine. Verkhovna Rada Chairman and co-chair UNIC, Andriy Parubiy, noted that Ukraine’s priority in relations with NATO was to deepen cooperation in order to prepare Ukraine for eventual membership, adding that no outside power should dictate Ukraine’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration. Parubiy also told participants that Ukraine is in the midst of building a viable national security state and has no choice in the matter given the conflict in the Eastern part of the country. Greater international support including weapons and access to intelligence would obviously be very helpful. Parubiy hopes that by 2020 Ukrainian forces would be entirely interoperable with those of NATO.
18.In June, the President of Ukraine signed a strategic defence Bulletin which maps out Ukraine’s military strategy and lays the foundations for long-term defence planning. This critical document has long been needed, but crisis conditions had made long-term planning a luxury given the immediate threats with which the country has had to cope. Implementing a more coherent set of plans informed by a strategic vision should go far to improve the country’s security posture. Ukraine’s forces are in a much higher state of readiness today than in the past, but Ukrainian officials feel that they need to be better prepared to rebuff any surprise aggression.
19.The Bulletin covers the full cycle of strategic analysis and planning and provides a vital framework for defence reform. It also touches upon issues like strategic communication, science, and critical infrastructure. The goal, according to Ivanna Klympush-Tsyntsadze, is to provide a roadmap for fundamental defence reform, a process that she sees as linked to closer political and military relations with NATO. Ihor Dolhov, Deputy Minister of Defence for European Integration reported that NATO has been of great assistance to Ukraine as it develops a broad and workable concept of national defence. He said that the document is a roadmap for fundamental defence reform while laying out the critical requirements for new national logistical systems, military education, capabilities upgrades and achieving greater interoperability with NATO. Dolhov said that Ukraine “has a clear vision that without defence reform, it will not be possible to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”
20.With British, US, Canadian, Polish and Lithuanian support, Ukraine is developing a capacity for Joint Multinational Training. It is now training full scale battalions. The goal is that by 2017 Ukraine will be positioned to train troops up to NATO standards and an effort is also underway to ensure that the Ministry of Defence itself is also operating at NATO standards. The Bulletin makes democratic control of the military a central priority.
21.Alexander Vinnikov, the Head of NATO Representation to Ukraine and Director of its Liaison Office, told the seminar that NATO has been significantly more active in Ukraine since the Russian aggression. The importance of this relationship, he suggested, will be given concrete expression at the upcoming summit when the NATO-UkraineCommission (NUC) will meet at the level of heads of governments. This will provide a critical opportunity for assessing the state of cooperation between the Alliance and Ukraine. It is expected that the Alliance will adopt a comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine covering the entire scope of cooperation and it is expected that Heads of government will endorse this. Heads of government will also assess lessons learned since the so-called annexation of Crimea.
22.NATO has launched trust funds in: logistics and standardization; command, control, communications and computers (C4);cyber defence, military career transition and medical rehabilitation. These trust funds have garnered much attention in Ukraine, but the relationship goes beyond these programs.