BRIEFING NOTE TO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT: TWO YEARS OF RUSSIA S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE February 25, 2016 National Office: 130 Albert Street, Suite 806 Ottawa ON K1P 5G4 Canada Tel: (613) 232-8822 Fax: (613) 238-3822 Head Office: 952 Main Street, Suite 203 Winnipeg MB R2W 3P4 Canada
2 Executive Summary Written by John E. Herbst and Alina Polyakova. John E. Herbst is the Director of the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. He served as the US Ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. Alina Polyakova is the Deputy Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. Remembering the Day Russia Invaded Ukraine Atlantic Council http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/remembering-the-dayrussia-invaded-ukraine Two years ago on February 27, Russia invaded Ukraine. On the heels of the Euromaidan Revolution and the vicious sniper attacks that killed 103 Ukrainians, Russian President Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity and ordered the military takeover of Crimea. The operation began when Russian military personnel, disguised as little green men in unmarked uniforms, and pro- Russian militia groups stormed government buildings in Crimea, including the parliament and the supreme court in Simferopol. Russian flags immediately replaced Ukrainian ones. Within forty-eight hours, Russian special forces seized Crimea s airports. By March 2, the Russian military, operating from its base in Sevastopol and buttressed by heavily armed troops arriving by air from Russia, had swiftly taken over the entire peninsula. The Ukrainian government, still shell shocked by former President Viktor Yanukovych s sudden ouster and advised by Western allies, ordered Ukrainian military personnel stationed in Crimea to stand down. The Kremlin threatened Kyiv with full-scale war if it resisted. However, Ukraine s concession was not enough to satiate Putin, who wanted economic and political control over Ukraine. As Russia annexed Crimea after a fraudulent referendum on March 16, little green men also began to appear in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. Russian troops and equipment poured into Ukraine s east. This time, the Ukrainian government had no choice but to respond militarily to stop the invasion of mainland Ukraine. Two years later, the Kremlin-manufactured war in Ukraine has cost 10,000 Ukrainian lives, displaced more than 1.6 million, and turned what was once the heart of the country s industrial base into an economic wasteland. Russia and its proxies now occupy 9 percent of Ukrainian territory. Russia s actions in Crimea revised European borders for the first time since World War II and broke numerous international treaties, including the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom agreed to respect the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of Ukraine. In exchange for this guarantee, Ukraine gave up its significant nuclear arsenal. The West responded to Putin s aggression by imposing economic sanctions on Russian officials, businessmen with close ties to the Kremlin, and their businesses. These measures have limited Russian banks access to much-needed Western credit. With oil prices remaining stubbornly low, the Russian economy, which is projected to contract by three to four percent in 2016, is feeling the pain. Sanctions must remain in place until Ukraine controls its eastern border and Russia no longer occupies Crimea. Despite a growing chorus of pro-putin voices in Europe, the EU must remain steadfast in its commitment to sanctions until the Minsk agreements are fully implemented and Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine.
3 But the West still needs to do more to counter the Russian narrative. Western leaders have shied away from calling the Kremlin s annexation of Crimea and war in the Donbas what it is: an invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation. While intervention or action may sound more diplomatic, they are nothing more than euphemisms that misrepresent the reality on the ground. Putin himself has publically admitted and even boasted about the efficiency of Russia s military take-over of Crimea outlining, in methodical detail, the invasion. He has also admitted that Russian soldiers are in the Donbas. It is time that Canadian, European and US policy makers and Western media take Putin at his word and call a spade a spade. Euphemisms only play into the Kremlin s version of events, undermine the international community s unity against Moscow s aggression, and make it harder to formulate a coherent Western policy against the Kremlin s revisionist ambitions. Background - February 26 marks two years since the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine. On that date, Russian troops moved into Ukraine s Autonomous Republic of Crimea and seized government buildings and airports. Sovereign Ukrainian territory in Crimea remains illegally occupied by Russia to this day. - In the months following this invasion, regular Russian army troops invaded the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. The war that Russia has wrought on Ukraine has cost some 10,000 lives with thousands more wounded and over 1.5 million people displaced. - Russia s illegal occupation of Crimea has resulted in a seriously deteriorating human rights situation. Valeriya Lutkovska, Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, has called Russian-occupied Crimea a peninsula of fear. - Murders, torture, kidnapping, persecution of journalists, illegal searches, fabricated criminal cases, restriction of religious freedom, forced citizenship, and severe pressure against anyone who opposes the Russian occupation of Crimea are part of the daily reality of life in Russianoccupied Crimea. - A joint report by the Atlantic Council and Freedom House stated, The Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea has unleashed an ongoing chain of human rights violations across the peninsula. The de facto government and so-called self-defense units have incapacitated Crimea s military and effectively cut off its citizens from the outside world. This approach has led to the detention and disappearance of dissenters, the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, the stifling of the media, and the forced nationalization of Ukrainian state property. Many of these abuses are not widely known due to the effectiveness of the occupying forces media crackdown and a Russian political narrative that masks the stark reality faced by the Crimean people. 1 - The Crimean Tatar People, the indigenous people of Crimea, population of about 300,000 people, have faced increasingly blatant repression of their political, media and cultural institutions. 1 http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/20150306-accrimeareport.pdf
4 - Crimean Tatar political leaders Mustafa Dzhemiliev and Refat Chubarov are banned from entering Crimea. On 15 February, the Crimean prosecutor formally moved to ban the Mejlis, the Representative Assembly of the Crimean Tatar People, in a blatant attempt to put pressure on the Crimean Tatar population to accept the illegal occupation of Crimea. - On 18 February US Ambassador to the OSCE Daniel Baer stated, that the Mejlis is guilty of no crime only of protesting Russia s occupation and repression of the Crimean Tatar people. [ ] let us not forget that Crimean Tatars face repression and discrimination in their homeland, with no representation and no recourse. Almost 10,000 Crimean Tatars have been forced to flee. Those who remain have been subjected to abuses, including interrogations, beatings, arbitrary detentions, and police raids on their homes and mosques. These brutalities must end, as must Russia s occupation of Crimea. TIMELINE OF EVENTS RUSSIA S INVASION OF UKRAINE On 26 February, movements of Russian Federation troops into the territory of Crimea began. Airports were occupied, and armed forces bases and headquarters of the Ukrainian armed forces were surrounded. The Kremlin denied that these were in fact Russian troops occupying Ukraine. They continued their denials until Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted in March 2015 that Russian troops had in fact moved into Ukraine and that he oversaw the operation. Similarly, Putin now continues to deny Russia s military invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. On 27 February, 2014, the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, occupied by masked Russian troops without insignia, in closed session, voted non-confidence in the Crimean Cabinet of Ministers and voted to hold a referendum on the status of Crimea on 25 May 2014. These decisions, passed by Crimean parliament were illegal and illegitimate, as they were carried out behind closed doors, with no press or witnesses, under the threat of armed gunmen in the Parliament. On 6 March Crimean parliament voted to join Crimea to the Russian Federation, and to hold a referendum in Crimea on 16 March. This decision violated the Constitution of Ukraine and Ukrainian legislation. Moreover, any referendum taking place in a country under military occupation about whether a territory will join the occupying country in question is a priori illegitimate, as there can be no hope for a free and fair expression of the will of the people. On 15 March the United Nations Security Council voted on draft resolution that would have reaffirmed Ukraine sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and declared that the referendum held on 16 March can have no validity. 13 of 15 members of the Security Council voted for the resolution; China abstained, and not surprisingly, Russia voted against exercising its veto, which means that the resolution cannot be adopted. The Prime Minister of Canada the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, in response to the referendum stated, This referendum is illegitimate, it has no legal effect, and we do not recognize its outcome. As a result of Russia s refusal to seek a path of de-escalation, we are working with our G-7 partners and other allies to coordinate additional sanctions against those responsible.
5 On 18 March the Russian Federation illegally annexed Crimea. On 27 March, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution (with only 11 countries voting against) in which the UN 5. Underscores that the referendum held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on 16 March 2014, having no validity, cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea or of the city of Sevastopol; 6. Calls upon all States, international organizations and specialized agencies not to recognize any alteration of the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on the basis of the above-mentioned referendum and to refrain from any action or dealing that might be interpreted as recognizing any such altered status. 2 UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CONGRESS Contact: Orest Zakydalsky, UCC Program Manager 130 Albert St, Suite 806 Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: 613-232-8822 Email: orest.zakydalsky@ucc.ca Website: www.ucc.ca 2 http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=a/res/68/262