The Kharkiv Agreements: a springboard for Russian aggression

Exactly five years ago, on April 27, 2010, the Verkhovna Rada ratified the so-called Kharkiv Agreements, which were a key step towards the occupation of Crimea by Russia. In the context of the Kremlin’s continuing influence with some of today’s politicians, it is important to understand the consequences of such steps.

While most of Kyiv’s rented “protesting miners” are rattling their helmets against asphalt roads, the situation along the frontline in the Donbas keeps deteriorating. This deterioration is expected and cyclical, but, as militants themselves admit in direct talks with me on social networks, they only await orders for a decisive strike. Oleksandr Zakharchenko has promised his bandits that should such an order fail to arrive, he would order an offensive himself. The militant who tried to convince me that Russia had nothing to do with the fighting has inadvertently revealed by this statement that it is Russia that calls the shots with them strategically. Why is it delaying the offensive, then? The delay is due to the fact that Russia has not inflamed the situation enough in our rear areas, even though permanent attacks have turned Shyrokyne into an almost total ruin, and Pisky has suffered the same fate. Thus, Russia is trying to foment this rear area flame.

Those who see protecting Rinat Akhmetov’s business interests as the only reason for the so-called “miners’ revolt” err by unfoundedly cutting this person out of the general system of Russian influence in Ukraine. Fortunes like those that came to be owned by many oligarchs during the primitive plundering of capital could hardly be obtained without the Kremlin’s control, especially during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Of course, the 200-hryvnias-per-day miner imposters do not make an army, but they are a destabilizing factor still. They cannot scare Kyiv, much less open a second front in the rear area. However, they may become provocations’ object. Some people are destabilizing Kyiv, not just blackmailing it. Moreover, they are staging it as a dramatic event (well, they always do), which should involve two sides. The other side may certainly be made out of hotheads full of patriotic sentiment. In their just indignation, they can be led into taking unwise steps.

The government, on the other hand, should be aware that its profoundly mistaken social policies not only undermine the economy but create the basis for a strong protest movement as well.

More generally, Kyiv is like a theatrical Mecca, full of diverse performances, some of them held in the open. Now, how can one fail to appreciate the farce in Independence Square, ostensibly designed to draw attention to Oleksandr Yefremov’s trial? The speakers’ posters rightly remind people of the need to convict the Party of Regions (PoR)’s leader and former head of Luhansk region. All would be well had I not noticed that some persons in the square are former provocateurs from Volodymyr Prystiuk’s team, the latter being another former PoR member and Luhansk governor. In general, the arrival to Kyiv of many controversial gentlemen who are now earnestly fighting Yefremov and show their distaste for him by shouting at court hearings, is seen by me as a sign of another detonator being primed for some unsavory developments. I remember very well March 2014, when we heard about weird “assaults” on the Luhansk Regional State Administration’s building by some “patriots” who shot at it with traumatic weapons, thus giving a formal pretext to gather hysterical crowds willing to protect the city from the “Banderaites.”

On May 1 and 9, Kyiv will host not just Communist gatherings, but those of the PoR as well, with the latter to be held in Podil district. Their Walpurgis Night will last for at least a week, reaching its climax on the Victory Day. The PoR has some liking for Podil in general, as the district serves as their nest and includes residences of many notorious persons as well. These gatherings will be well-attended, including by some seemingly inconspicuous officials who make a whole pro-Russian layer in eastern Ukraine now. They have not been subjected to any lustration, they have not left their hometowns, and even those who are now “retired” openly declare that they only await the coming of the Master of the Sabbath. They wait for him and, accordingly, do everything to bring the coming of their Lucifer, I mean Vladimir Putin, closer. All these details and episodes can result in a single destabilization system emerging.

What is the PoR’s role in the nationwide destabilization system and triggers for confrontation, both local and nationwide, is common knowledge. Here we return to the Kharkiv Agreements. Signed on April 21 and ratified on April 27, 2010, they extended the Black Sea Fleet’s stay in Crimea until 2042 in exchange for a gas discount of 100 dollars per 1,000 cubic meters. Some even perceived them as a victory then, saying that expelling the Russian fleet was an unrealistic prospect anyways, while a discount on gas was a nice thing to get. In fact, it was the Kharkiv Agreements between Viktor Yanukovych and Dmitry Medvedev that allowed the Russian fleet to stay in Crimea for nearly half a century for a nominal fee instead of starting its planned withdrawal. The Kharkiv Agreements were actually the blueprint for the future occupation of the peninsula using the Black Sea Fleet’s base. Four years after their signing, Russia denounced these agreements unilaterally following the annexation of Crimea.

Andrii Parubii recalled these events on Facebook recently: “It was then that the Kremlin launched the mechanism of war which Ukraine is fighting now, through a criminal, treacherous vote of its agents in the parliament of Ukraine. Putin himself recognized it lately in the propaganda film Crimea: The Way Home, which shows him boldly and cynically describing the key point which was necessary for the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea. These agreements opened the way for the Putinist Russia’s further steps that were intended to end in an occupation of huge chunks of the Ukrainian territory at least. Their full implementation was intended to eliminate the Ukrainian independence itself, to destroy our nation.”

When commenting for The Day in the events’ wake in 2010, Yevhen Marchuk remarked: “What happened lately looked like a backroom deal. Even what Yanukovych is saying about reducing gas prices is, in my opinion, not relevant to the issue of extending the Black Sea Fleet’s stay in Ukraine. These are different things: the issue of renting land and extending a military base’s lease should not be seen as equal to the issue of energy prices,” and added: “has the current government given a thought to the likely domestic political consequences of its actions?”