Ukraine's Emerging Security State

“The increasing vibrancy of civil society had become a serious political threat to the authorities.” Ukraine’s Emerging Security State SERHIY KUDELIA U kraine’s Euromaidan Revolution has become, in official discourse, a defining moment in the country’s modern history. The revolution, which ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, is now marked with numerous government-sponsored commemorations. Ukraine’s major cities have streets named after the Heavenly Hundred—revolutionaries killed during clashes with security forces—and memorials honor their sacrifice. The date when the revolution began in 2013, November 21, has been designated as Freedom Day. The government has presented awards to many who participated in the uprising and pays stipends to families of the slain. The museum of the “Revolution of Dignity” will be housed in a massive new building in the center of Kiev. For the average Ukrainian, though, the gains of the revolution appear minuscule, and its legacy remains hotly contested. In most surveys conducted since 2015, at least two-thirds of respondents have said the country is moving in the wrong direction, with a majority pointing to persistent corruption and declining incomes. Trust in the leaders and parties associated with the revolution has declined precipitously. Many of Ukraine’s closest allies in the West have become increasingly disillusioned with the pace of reform, the government’s poor human-rights record, and the lack of accountability for elites. Popular discontent has been somewhat tempered by the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, in which more than 10,000 have died, and the continuous security threat emanating from Russia. The perceived vulnerability of the Ukrainian state, which became particularly acute following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the emergence of two separatist-controlled enclaves in the Don- bas region, acts as a restraint on any serious antigovernment mobilization in the streets. Similarly, fear of Russian aggression and concerns about Ukraine’s stability help the authorities retain the support of Western allies despite Kiev’s reluctance to implement reforms. Russia’s armed intervention in Ukraine has also made Moscow a favorite scapegoat of Ukrainian elites for a range of other problems. None of the numerous assassinations of prominent figures, occurring more frequently in Kiev and elsewhere since 2014, have been fully investigated. Yet the Ukrainian authorities often point to them as evidence of Russian subversion. While the war remains the top national problem for most Ukrainians, ruling elites have shown little urgency in seeking a diplomatic resolution. Increased military spending, which in 2018 amounted to five percent of the country’s gross domestic product, has offered a new and abundant source for rent-seeking schemes. Security needs have also become a convenient excuse for the authorities to limit democratic freedoms and expand the coercive apparatus of the state. There have been attempts to regulate the flow of information, impose official historical narratives, and introduce language quotas. However, formal institutions remain weak and are continuously subverted by informal norms of elite behavior. Despite its expanded constitutional powers, the parliament has exercised little influence over the government’s policies. It has largely acted as a rubber stamp for decisions made by President Petro Poroshenko’s inner circle. The president consults only with select leaders from the ruling coalition. One of their policy priorities is a nation-building effort based on ethnocentric ideas aimed at producing a more homogeneous Ukraine. This stems in part from the view that local participation in the armed separatist movement was mainly due to the Russified character of Don- SERHIY KUDELIA is an associate professor of political science at Baylor University. 264 Ukraine’s Emerging Security State • 265 bas. The government’s nation-making strategy There were also concerns among many in the became a de-Russification campaign, which has southeast about the possibility of a radical antilimited the use of the Russian language in the meRussian turn in domestic and foreign policies dia, restricted access to books in Russian, banned that could threaten minority rights, sever fammany Russian artists from entering Ukraine, and ily ties, and limit economic opportunities. Porochanged educational policies to limit primary and shenko’s landslide victory in the first round of the secondary teaching in Russian. May 2014 presidential election demonstrated how The government’s campaign has succeeded in quickly the public had unified in the face of Russtrengthening national loyalty, increasing daily sian military aggression in Crimea and the rising use of the Ukrainian language, and instilling in the specter of secessionist conflict in Donbas. Still, the public a shared view of Russia as a hostile power. record-low turnout suggested a widening sense of However, it has also compromised democratic alienation. freedoms, empowered extreme nationalist vigilanPoroshenko’s rise to the presidency was as rapid tes, and alienated minorities. For the ruling elites, as it was unexpected. He was known as one of the it has become a politically convenient substitute country’s wealthiest businessmen and had served for a state-building process that would have reas foreign minister under Yushchenko, among quired enhanced accountability and restraints on other cabinet-level roles. He was an unlikely leaddiscretionary action. er to emerge after the revolution since he had also Poroshenko’s attempt to balance the imperaserved as economy minister under Yanukovych tives of power consolidation with demands for just two years earlier and sold some of his media institutional development has not worked. Ukraiassets to the president’s loyalists. nian society has emerged after Poroshenko’s campaign capfour postrevolutionary years as italized on the dearth of policy a more cohesive national unit competence among the revoluPoroshenko in a sense has centered on the ethnic core. tionaries, the delegitimization unified eastern and western However, the failure to improve of all political forces associatUkraine by becoming equally the quality of governance made ed with Yanukovych’s regime, unpopular in each region. the public even more resentful and the acute existential threat of the political establishment from Russia. His prior governand skeptical about the prosment experience suddenly bepects for reform. Elections remain the only formal came a distinct strength. His business credentials mechanism offering a peaceful path toward cleaner made him a consensus candidate for oligarchic government. But ruling elites, fearful of the costs groups determined to maintain their power. This they will personally incur if they lose power, have ensured favorable media coverage and left other perverse incentives for subverting the democratic candidates short of funding. process in the name of national security and politiPoroshenko campaigned on promises of ending cal order. the conflict and transforming the system of governance, but the gravitas and relative freshness of SUDDEN SHIFT his persona mattered more than his slogans. His The abrupt power transfer from Yanukovych to quick rise to the top obscured a lack of organizathe opposition elites when he fled the country in tional resources and competent cadres capable of February 2014 left Ukraine even more polarized sustaining his presidency. His early appointments, along regional lines than it was after the Orange meant to compensate for these deficiencies, had a Revolution in late 2004, when Yanukovych lost a decisive impact on the rest of his term. second runoff to Viktor Yushchenko. One reason First, he drew his ruling circle mainly from the for this polarization was the sudden manner of Yaranks of his business partners, managers of his cornukovych’s extraconstitutional exit, forced from porations, and family friends. Poroshenko’s partbelow by a movement that drew its support priner in a media business, Boris Lozhkin, became marily from western and central Ukraine. Another the first chief of his presidential administration. reason was the ideological diversity of the protest He promoted his protégé Volodymyr Hroisman to movement, which included liberals and more conspeaker of parliament and then prime minister. A servative national democrats alongside nationalfamily friend, Yuriy Lutsenko, served as head of ists and groups on the far right. Poroshenko’s parliamentary faction and later as 266 • CURRENT HISTORY • October 2018 prosecutor general. This personnel strategy reoly on the use of force. Soon afterward, Russia’s vealed the president’s determination to establish annexation of Crimea exposed the inability of the control over rent flows and channel them through state to defend its borders from external aggressome of his businesses, perpetuating the same sion. In April–May 2014, the defection of many type of corrupt politics practiced by Yanukovych. local law-enforcement officers to the side of armed Second, Poroshenko could build up organizaseparatists in Donbas left multiple competing tional resources and govern more effectively only groups claiming control over the same territory. by creating a loyal political force with a substantial After becoming president in June 2014, Poropresence in parliament and regional administrashenko thus faced two crises. The first was the critions. To that end, he called early parliamentary sis of Ukraine’s statehood, which manifested itself elections and formed a new party named after in the rise of secessionist movements in the east himself. Personalization of the party was both a and the proliferation of armed groups outside of claim of political ownership and a way of fully state control. Another was a crisis of governance, subordinating the interests of the party to those of which resulted from the collapse of the power the president. “vertical” built during Yanukovych’s rule around Third, Poroshenko’s small support base in the the office of the president, the dissolution of many parliament meant that he could only govern in a regional clientelistic networks that had ensured coalition with others, such as the faction of then– smooth implementation of Kiev’s policies, and the Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. A new inforimplosion of public finances, which strained the mal coordination mechanism that involved reguauthorities’ ability to reward compliance and suslar meetings between Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, and tain a prolonged military mobilization. These two a handful of their closest allies was also intended simultaneous crises reinforced each other. The escalation of the armed to address the deficiencies of conflict in the east precipitated Ukraine’s constitutional design, a plunge in industrial producwhich distributed executive The government’s nationtion and intensified capital power between the president making strategy became a outflows. A sharp currency deand prime minister. This incende-Russification campaign. valuation increased the public tivized intra-executive conflict debt-to-GDP ratio and slashed and had proved highly destareal incomes, further suppressbilizing during Yushchenko’s ing consumer demand. Lack of funds made it presidency from 2005 to 2010. more difficult for the authorities to co-opt local Although Poroshenko gradually acquired more elites, while rising utility prices risked adding weight in this power-sharing arrangement, the coto popular discontent. The crisis of governance alition remained stable throughout his first term could not be resolved without first ending the cridue to the mutual dependency of key actors. Since sis of statehood. Poroshenko failed to establish sufficient control The initial set of reform initiatives launched over the parliament following elections in Octoby the government was in direct response to the ber 2014, he could not form a single-party governtwo crises. A decentralization plan was intended ment. At the same time, a sharp drop in popular to reconfigure the relationship between the nasupport for Yatsenyuk’s party meant that it risked tional and local governments, empowering the being permanently excluded from power if the latter with additional fiscal resources and the coalition collapsed. This resulted in the first stacapacity to set their own spending priorities. It ble party duopoly in the history of independent became an important institutional element in the Ukraine; it survived the replacement of Yatsenyuk bargaining process with local elites whose loyalwith Hroisman in April 2016. ties appeared suspect. Decentralization also offered an alternative narCRISIS MANAGEMENT rative to the calls for federalization that drove the The Euromaidan Revolution triumphed by anti-Kiev revolt in Donbas. While the government overcoming the state’s coercive power. The withstrongly rejected all demands for a federal system, drawal of security forces following several days of it agreed on the need to delegate more power over street clashes in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in revenue allocation to the regions. The government February 2014 called into question the capacity of also expected to shed some of its fiscal obligathe state to preserve order and maintain a monop- Ukraine’s Emerging Security State • 267 tions through decentralization. For Poroshenko, though, it became a pretext to seek greater consolidation of his own power over the regions. He demanded authority to dissolve local assemblies and appoint local representatives who would be directly subordinate to the president. These proposals, however, did not receive sufficient support in the parliament to become law. Pushback from parliamentary factions stalled decentralization and resulted in only partial implementation. Even the key feature of the reform, the amalgamation of smaller territorial units, has progressed unevenly in different regions. Only about three percent of raions (districts) had fully completed the process as of mid-2018. Delegation of responsibility for financing schools and hospitals to local communities often resulted in underfunding and lowered the quality of public services. Overall, decentralization has reordered centerregion relations primarily in the financial sphere, leaving some critical issues related to the content of cultural or educational policies in the hands of the central government. STALLED REFORMS Other reforms followed a similar trajectory. A police reform was supposed to result in a major turnover of officers and introduce new standards. However, it failed to make inroads in critical areas of law enforcement, such as criminal investigations. In general, police performance remained dismal as crime skyrocketed in major cities. Another reform was intended to recruit new judges into the court system. However, most long-serving judges, including many with questionable records and integrity, kept their positions. Energy reform brought utility prices in line with their market value but failed to take the next steps needed to demonopolize the energy market and allow for competition, which would have undercut the position of oligarchs close to the government. Subsidies to offset hikes in gas prices became a source of additional rents for a few exclusive energy suppliers to power plants. The National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission set unreasonable formulas for determining energy prices, generating windfall profits for oligarchs such as Rinat Akhmetov. It has also adopted regulations that benefit the regional gas-distribution companies that act as intermediaries between the state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz, and consumers. Most of them are owned by another oligarch, Dmytro Firtash. Finally, anticorruption reforms produced a myriad of new institutional acronyms but little progress in ensuring greater accountability for the governing class. In the three years since the National Anticorruption Bureau was created, only three lower-level officials have been convicted and jailed for violating graft laws. The few officials or political figures investigated for corrupt activities, like Yatsenyuk’s key donor Oleksandr Martynenko, were released on bail under pressure from the ruling parties. Numerous media reports on malfeasance in Poroshenko’s inner circle have been largely ignored by the new anticorruption bodies. Journalists have uncovered evidence of coordination between the heads of these agencies and the president’s entourage. The courts have impeded the few corruption cases involving minor officials that prosecutors have filed. As of April 2018, courts had failed to begin proceedings in about a third of 127 cases submitted for review. Poroshenko’s party has blocked legislation to create a special court with exclusive jurisdiction over cases of government corruption. Laws requiring civil servants to disclose their assets have had little effect, since there is no penalty for inaccurate reporting. WINNERS TAKE ALL What explains this meager progress on reforms? In a 1998 article, the World Bank economist Joel Hellman flipped the conventional wisdom about the sources of resistance to comprehensive reforms in postcommunist states. He suggested that it was the net winners in the transition process rather than the net losers who were more interested in keeping reforms partial because that enabled them to maximize their short-term gains. A similar dynamic has occurred in Ukraine in the aftermath of the Euromaidan Revolution. The early winners were a group of pro-Western elites who gained political power by promising to usher in a far-reaching political and economic transformation. They received Western financial assistance to stabilize the economy and support reform initiatives. However, comprehensive implementation of reforms would have threatened the privileged position of these early winners by diluting the major sources of their power, such as control over the police and judiciary and the subordination of regional governments. It also would have severely curtailed their access to rents, particularly from energy provision and management of state enter- 268 • CURRENT HISTORY • October 2018 prises. Some reforms, including the empowerment of independent anticorruption institutions, could have threatened them personally. Western donors had to weigh progress on reforms against the geopolitical imperative to support a country that had become a target of external military aggression. Between 2014 and 2017, the West gave over $12 billion to Ukraine, most of it in the form of low-interest loans and other assistance—largely from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but also from the European Union and the United States. Ukraine became the largest external recipient of EU macrofinancial assistance. Since 2014 it has received more US military assistance than in the previous 23 years since independence. Although the IMF stopped its disbursements in the second half of 2017 due to the slow progress in implementing reforms, Kiev continued to receive funds from other Western sources. Countering this scrutiny, the government introduced a series of measures that exposed nongovernmental organizations to pressure. One required all civic activists to disclose their income and assets in annual public declarations. This gave the authorities a lever to threaten activists with prosecution for any mistakes in their disclosures or discredit them by highlighting their wealth. Another set of measures led to restrictions on the media. The authorities banned the use of social media sites registered in Russia, initiated criminal investigations of several critical media outlets, and pressured the owners of two independent television channels to sell them to Poroshenko loyalists. Journalists faced surveillance and pressure from law-enforcement agencies to stop covering specific topics. The host of the longest-running political show on Ukrainian television lost his work permit. Others encountered intimidation and physical attacks: one prominent reporter, Pavlo Sheremet, PRESSURE ON CIVIL SOCIETY was killed by a car bomb in the center of Kiev in Setbacks in the implementation of institutional July 2016. Evidence that he was under surveilreforms were accompanied by lance by the Security Service of major backsliding on political Ukraine (SBU) days before his murder was dismissed by invesfreedoms. The Orange RevoluUkraine’s closest allies tigators, and the case remains tion of 2004 had produced a in the West have become unsolved. real democratic breakthrough increasingly disillusioned. Attacks against journalists leading to a series of free and have often been carried out by fair elections, the introduction various right-wing groups unof media freedoms, and enforceder the pretext of fighting Russian influence in ment of political rights such as freedom of associaUkraine. In September 2016, the Kiev headquartion and assembly. The Euromaidan Revolution of ters of Inter Channel, the country’s most-watched 2014, by contrast, failed to improve the quality of television network, was ransacked by a group of democratic governance, elevated the role of vioanonymous activists who accused it of spreadlent actors in the political process, and led to the ing Russian propaganda. In December 2017, the closure of public avenues for debate and protest. The most significant reversals of democratic studios of another television station, NewsOne, freedoms occurred in two spheres. One was the civowned by an opposition member of parliament, il society arena, in which journalists and activists were encircled with barbed wire by activists with were subjected to harassment by law-enforcement ties to the presidential administration who deagencies and militant groups with ties to the govmanded that its broadcasting license be terminaternment. Another was the domain of citizens’ civic ed due to its alleged anti-Ukrainian bias. The lack and political rights, which were curtailed and often of any police response to these incidents points to severely violated on national security grounds. possible coordination between the protesters and The increasing vibrancy of civil society had bethe authorities. come a serious political threat to the authorities. Anticorruption activists exposed the involvement RIGHTS REVERSALS of the interior minister’s son in the embezzlement The second major reversal in Ukraine has been of state funds. Investigative reports revealed the in the arena of human rights. The United Nalavish lifestyles of the president and other top govtions Office of the High Commissioner for Huernment officials despite attempts to conceal their man Rights (OHCHR) has issued regular reports detailing evidence of arbitrary detention, torture, expensive vacation trips to exotic destinations like harassment, enforced disappearances, and extrajuthe Maldives and the Seychelles. Ukraine’s Emerging Security State • 269 dicial killings perpetrated by the SBU and nationalist paramilitary groups across Donbas and outside the region. In a March 2016 report, it concluded that “authorities are unwilling to investigate allegations of torture particularly when the victims are persons detained on grounds related to national security or are viewed as being pro-federalist.” Since 2014, the OHCHR has documented 93 cases involving credible allegations of human rights violations—nearly half (43) occurred in the first five months of 2018—and alleged that the Ukrainian government was responsible for most of them. The increasing frequency of abuses despite international monitoring suggests that the security services have received guarantees of impunity from political authorities. In addition, militant far-right groups have often acted in cooperation with law enforcement to detain and interrogate individuals suspected of separatist activity. One such group, National Corps, established an armed wing, Azov Battalion, with a military base near Mariupol; another of its units, the National Squads, engages in community policing. While Azov was brought under the formal control of the Interior Ministry in late 2014, it maintains operational autonomy, relies on its own funding sources, and continues to display neo-Nazi symbols. Deputy Interior Minister Vadym Troian was previously a long-time activist in far-right groups and an ally of Azov commander Andriy Biletsky. This co-optation of extreme nationalist groups allows the authorities to use them as proxies in campaigns of harassment and intimidation against civic activists and political opponents. In return, these groups are allowed to commit crimes with impunity. In a June 2018 joint letter to the interior minister and prosecutor general, international human rights groups noted “a significant increase in physical attacks, threats, and intimidation against LGBT activists, women’s rights activists, and other human rights defenders and journalists,” with little response by the authorities. Days later, an extreme nationalist group, C14, attacked a Roma settlement near Lviv, killing one person and injuring several others. Earlier the group had received close to $45,000 in government funds to provide educational activities for youth. One key question for Ukraine’s near future is the capacity of the authorities to restrain the nationalist groups they have cultivated since 2014. While electoral support for nationalist parties remains low, they have accumulated organizational and financial resources and established a visible public presence. This potentially opens extralegal avenues for them to compete for power through mass mobilization and intimidation campaigns and increase their influence in governing structures, particularly in the security sector. DRIFTING INTO ILLIBERALISM The strengthening of illiberal patterns in Ukraine became possible for three interconnected reasons. First, the ongoing military campaign against Russia-backed armed separatists in Donbas created a favorable environment for the establishment of a security state. The government has used the armed conflict to justify increasing surveillance of Ukrainian citizens, human rights violations, and media restrictions. It advocated for illiberal laws, particularly in the realms of education and historical memory, by citing the need to consolidate society around shared ethnic heritage and nationalist symbols. Ironically, these actions mimicked many Kremlin policies that accelerated Russia’s slide into autocracy in 2000s. They also provided plenty of fodder for Russian propaganda outlets constantly seeking to sow divisions within Ukrainian society. The second reason was the relative indifference of the West, particularly the United States, which prioritized technical aspects of Ukraine’s reform process over commitment to liberal values and democratic principles. The UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have offered the strongest criticisms of the government’s human rights violations and its discriminatory policies. However, they do not have the type of leverage necessary to change the Ukrainian authorities’ course. Third, waning popular support for the ruling coalition led it to rely on authoritarian methods to minimize risks to its power. A number of prominent government critics were either jailed or expelled from the country. The former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, who received Ukrainian citizenship from Poroshenko and was appointed governor of Odessa but later organized a popular movement to unseat the president, was deported to Poland in February 2018. The Ukrainian military pilot Nadiia Savchenko, whom Poroshenko honored with the highest state award, Hero of Ukraine, for the courage she displayed in Russian captivity, was later accused of trying to organize a military coup and imprisoned. While Poroshenko’s predecessors also engaged in politically motivated prosecutions, the free hand that 270 • CURRENT HISTORY • October 2018 the security agencies have had under his rule is unprecedented. Despite its coercive capacity, Poroshenko’s power structure rests on a fragile foundation. Ukraine’s constitutional model constrains his ability to control the government and requires him to ally with other parties to form a governing coalition. His coalition partner, the People’s Front, is among the least popular parties in the country. Public approval ratings for Poroshenko’s own party dwindled from 22 percent in 2014 to about 7 percent in mid-2018. The president’s party remains organizationally weak and ideologically hollow; its cohesion is dependent on Poroshenko’s personal standing. His approval rating, however, has remained consistently low with a little over 10 percent expressing trust in his leadership. He trails former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and a handful of other potential challengers in the polls, including a comedian from a popular television show. The dimming of his reelection chances will inevitably lead to internal splits and defections within the ruling coalition as elites seek to align themselves with a likely winner. Poroshenko’s authoritarian policies have not obliterated the political space for opposition activities. Despite his attempts to control news coverage, the media landscape remains fairly diverse; a broad range of views is still aired on television and in the press. While the concentration of wealth among oligarchs, most of whom are close to Poroshenko, gives the president a substantial advantage, it is not enough to overcome a major deficiency in popular support. Unlike autocratic Ukrainian rulers in the past, he does not have a firm administrative hold on any large region. In a sense, Poroshenko has managed to unify eastern and western Ukraine by becoming equally unpopular in each region. The few tangible achievements of his presidency—like the introduction of a visa-free regime with the EU and the strengthening of the military—are too far removed from the needs of average voters to win many over. Even though he managed to stabilize the economy and reduce the threat of state failure, the current stability remains precarious. The conflict in Donbas is still viewed by a majority of Ukrainians as the top national problem, while inflation and unemployment are among the most pressing individual concerns. The Minsk Agreements between Kiev, Moscow, and the separatists helped to reduce the intensity of violence in the East, but failed as a roadmap for conflict resolution. As a result, skirmishes persist and the casualty count continues to rise. The Ukrainian government is unwilling to implement provisions of the agreements that would grant Donbas expanded powers, but offers no realistic alternative that could end the conflict. An economic blockade imposed on separatist-controlled areas in the spring of 2017 only increased their dependence on trade with Russia and intensified the alienation of local residents from Kiev. Meanwhile, pervasive graft, cronyism, and ineptitude undercut public trust in the institutional capacity of the state—not only in Donbas, but across Ukraine. Ultimately, the forthcoming elections will have only a marginal effect on the evolution of state institutions. They will either hasten current illiberal tendencies, turning them into a new political doctrine, or partially reverse the drift in that direction, offering a temporary opening for reformers. But the pattern of elite turnover in Ukraine has shown that shifts of power from one established elite group to another never produce major breakthroughs for improving institutional performance or changing the norms of governance. The Ukrainian state’s arc of modernization is long and steep. It will require concerted efforts by many domestic and international actors before it bends decisively toward securing genuine democratic freedoms. !