THE CRIMEAN TATARS TRAGIC PAST March 2, 2014

David Marples and David F. Duke

The Crimean Tatars have sometimes been overlooked during the recent events in Crimea that have resulted from Russias decision to send military forces onto the peninsula, allegedly to protect local Russians. While ethnic Russians comprise a majority of the population today, the Tatars association with the region is lengthy and complex: they regard it as their ancestral homeland, albeit one with a lengthy and often tragic past.

The Tatars originated with the Golden Horde, which overran Crimea in the mid-13th century. Settling there, they displaced the mainly Slavic population and ruled through local governors, paying lip service to the Tatar khans based in the city of Saray on the lower sections of the Volga River.

By the late 14th century, the Tatar khans were seeking independence, a quest brought to a sudden halt by the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in the 1470s, though the Turks permitted the Tatars some autonomy over the following 300 years. Crimean Tatars took part in an active slave trade, based mainly on Slavic farm communities, one that incensed several Russian rulers.

The situation changed as a result of the waning power of the Ottoman Empire through the 18th century and the growing strength and assertiveness of the Russian Empire over the same time period. Under Catherine the Great in 1771, Russian troops arrived in Crimea and the Ottoman governor departed in haste. The following year saw Russias establishment of an independent Crimean Khanate under its supervision, an arrangement confirmed by the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, by which Crimea formally gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. This supervision heralded three more Russian invasions over the following decade.

Ultimately in 1783, Russia carried out the complete annexation of Crimea. By 1790, some 300,000 Tatars had left the peninsula and resettled in Turkey. The Russian government forced many of those that remained to leave their coastal homes and move to the interior. After the Crimean War of 1854-56, a further 230,000 Tatars migrated. By the end of the 19th century, the Tatars population was reduced to about one-third of what it had been prior to Russian annexation.

By 1917, at the time of the fall of the tsarist regime in Russia, Tatars made up about a quarter of the population of the Crimea. Beginning the late 19th century, there had been a significant national awakening among the Tatars in a movement led by Ismail Bey Gaspirali, who combined support for the Russian government with a program to establish Tatar national identity. Brought to a halt by the reaction that followed the 1905 Russian Revolution, the movement revived with the Young Tatar nationalists, who were considerably more radical in their goals.

In May 1917, with Russia suffering major defeats on the Eastern Front, nationalist exiles returned to their homeland and proclaimed an autonomous state. In October they founded the Crimean Democratic Republic, but within a few months Bolshevik forces eliminated it. Before long Crimea descended into anarchy, with a variety of armies operating on its territory in the developing Russian Civil War.

Once the war ended in favor of the Bolsheviks, Lenin introduced a new formulation: the Crimean Autonomous Socialist Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, allowing significant rights for the Tatars. Though the first years of this state were catastrophic, marked by starvation and mass deaths, in the 1920s the Tatars enjoyed a period of national and cultural revival.

That situation changed after Stalin took control over the USSR and began to Russify the peninsula. The Tatars were forced to use the Cyrillic alphabet, Tatar literature was declared to be anti-Soviet, and the NKVD removed Tatar political leaders, writers, and scientists in the purges of 1936-38.

When the German-Soviet war began, at which time the Tatars made up around 20% of the population (Russians comprised almost 50%, Ukrainians 13.7%), some Tatar leaders were not averse to the GermanRomanian occupation. But the collaboration should be seen in perspective. One historian has calculated that about 20,000 Tatars served in subunits of the occupation forces a figure that represented only about 10% of their prewar population.

In April 1944, when the Red Army recaptured Crimea, Stalin and his NKVD chief L.P. Beria decided that the Tatars must be punished for their collaboration. The NKVD arrested and deported over 150,000 Tatars to Uzbekistan and other regions by 1 July. The final figure may have been as high as 228,500. Perhaps 20% of the deportees died en route. A law issued in June 1946 confirmed that the Crimean Autonomous Republic had been abolished and Crimeas status reduced to a region of Russia.

The current imbroglio dates from 1954, when at the behest of Nikita Khrushchev, Russia presented Crimea to Ukraine (then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) as a gift to commemorate 300 years of Russian-Ukrainian friendship, dating back to the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav, formed against the Poles. The gift had little impact on politics prior to Ukrainian independence in 1991.

Over the following decades, the Tatars tried in vain to return. In 1967, the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a law that acknowledged the deportations were unjustified by being extended to the entire population rather than being restricted only to the alleged collaborators. But by the end of the following year, only 148 Tatar families had returned. In 1986, Tatar leader Mustafa Jemilev was released from a Gulag camp in Magadan, having served 15 years in camps and internal exile.

In July 1987, former foreign minister Andrey Gromyko headed a commission authorized by Mikhail Gorbachev to investigate Tatar grievances. In June 1988 it rejected demands to restore Crimean autonomy. By now, with the development of Glasnost, the protests only grew more raucous. Andrey Sakharov, the scientist and former dissident, was among those who adopted the Tatar cause.

In January 1991, the Crimean parliament held a referendum on the future status of the region, in which more than 80% voted to restore autonomous status. Ethnic Russians backed the motion because they felt that autonomy was preferable following Ukraines declaration of sovereignty six months earlier.

Yet in December 1991, 54.1% of Crimean residents also supported the independence of Ukraine in the national referendum, a figure that suggests general satisfaction with that situation even among ethnic Russians. Russian president Boris Yeltsin stated unequivocally in December 1991 that only Ukraine could decide the question of Crimea.

Under independent Ukraine, the situation reached crisis point as early as April 1992, when the Presidium of the Crimean Parliament resolved to hold a referendum on independence the following August. In mid-May it declared its independence from Ukraine. The Russian Federation also demanded talks, while the Russian parliament and mayor of Moscow both declared that the port of Sevastopol, the base of the Black Sea Fleet, was a Russian city.

The Ukrainian parliament responded quickly to proclaim the declaration of independence invalid. It eliminated a further attempt to inflame the situation after the election of President Yury Meshkov in

1994, the head of the Russian bloc. Meshkov had revived the concept of a referendum, but the Kyiv government once again stepped in and eventually abolished the Crimean presidency.

The Tatars make up one of three major ethnic groups on the peninsula and by far the most visible. Though the history of Crimea is complex, both the Tatars and Ukraine are significant actors and today they have common interests. About 75% of basic provisions and 85% of electricity there derive from mainland Ukraine. Under Ukrainian rule, Tatars have regained their autonomous status.

Moreover, the experience and legacy of Russian control remains for many Tatars a bitter one of trampling upon their cultural beliefs and language, deportations, and general lack of recognition of their territorial rights. Tatars have been active in protests in recent years. Most have been concerned with their status on the peninsula rather than in Ukraine. They should not be forgotten or overlooked during the current crisis.

The authors are history professors at the University of Alberta and Acadia University, Canada

The Ukrainian Civil War That Wasnt February 27, 2014

William Risch

Last week, world television stations featured horrific clashes with police and protestors in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Up to 100 died in shootouts on February 18-20. At the center of the protests Independence Square, commonly known as the Maidan the protestors main headquarters, the Trade Unions Building, burned to the ground. Then the violence suddenly stopped. After the political opposition reached an agreement with President Viktor Yanukovych, Yanukovych fled for parts unknown. Opposition leaders removed him from power and began laying the groundwork for a new government.

Ukrainians had real fears civil war would break out. In a poll taken in Ukraine January 25-27, up to 8 percent of respondents believed a civil war would definitely happen, 32 percent said it was a real danger, and 31 percent said it was a possibility; only 20 percent said they absolutely did not believe a civil war would happen in Ukraine (www.rb.com.ua). Yet there was no civil war. Nothing came of a February 22 meeting of separatists in the eastern industrial city of Kharkiv, a pro-Yanukovych stronghold. Over the next few days, elites from eastern and southern Ukraine ditched Yanukovych and announced that they would cooperate with Kyiv.

What happened? The fact that Ukraine is a centralized rather than a federal state is one obvious answer to this question. Ukraines armed forces and police forces take orders from Kyivs central government. The armed forces limited their involvement to general calls for unity and order. Kyivs new government returned Berkut, riot police, and other law enforcement to their barracks. Except for maybe a Berkut unit in Crimea, these forces have not shown opposition to the new central government. Oligarchs and other elites in southern and eastern Ukraine most likely stayed out of separatist politics because of financial reasons. Ukraines banking system, unlike its U.S. counterpart, is highly centralized. The system of electronic cash payments, rather than being run by separate clearing houses in private banks, is run from one central server in Kyiv. It would have been very easy to block the accounts of aspiring separatist politicians and leave them without cash in as little as six hours.

Yet I would like to suggest another explanation. Serious differences scholars have noted between western and central Ukraine (Western Ukraine) and southern and eastern Ukraine (Eastern Ukraine) over such issues as relations with the EU and Russia, language use, and historical memory might not have been as salient as predicted. This scholarly consensus drew me, a historian of Lviv, Ukraines more western other, to Kharkiv and Donetsk. I visited these cities January 7-17 to find out more about peoples attitudes there toward the Euromaidan protest movement, the EU and Russia, and Ukrainian politics. In addition to interviewing Euromaidan activists in Kharkiv and Donetsk, I collected written narrative responses to questionnaires from 10 people in Donetsk who were from their mid-30s to their 60s, and I interviewed 4 residents from the Donetsk area who were in their 20s and 30s.

My findings confirmed the numerous polls indicating Eastern Ukrainians lack of support for the Euromaidan protestors. While a few were sympathetic to them, most saw them as people who didnt work, were being paid by politicians, had no clue what they were doing, or were being manipulated by extreme nationalists. Two women in their late 20s and early 30s voiced similar perceptions. Yet almost all of them said that the division between Eastern and Western Ukraine was artificial, exploited by politicians. While criticizing some of the slogans made at Kyiv Maidan demonstrations and associating these with the far right, they seemed more concerned about protestors lack of plans for fixing Ukraines serious economic problems. While a woman in her late 20s saw Yanukovych as having been more effective than his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, she stressed that Ukraine lacked real leaders fit to be

president, and that it was unrealistic to remove Yanukovych from power. This woman also suggested that the Donetsk Regions skepticism about the EU did not mean greater affinities for Russia. She said that Ukraine faced a false choice between Russia and the EU and that it should look after its own interests.

Despite toppling Yanukovych, the Euromaidan protest movement has not won over the hearts and minds of Eastern Ukraine. Over the weekend of February 22-23, some Donetsk residents gave returning Berkut forces a heroes welcome. In Kharkiv on February 23, attempts to demolish its Lenin monument provoked a crowd to assemble around it and chant slogans like Fascism will not pass! One member of the crowd, pointing in the direction of the Euromaidan activists assembled around the Kharkiv governors office, said that they needed to go back to Western Ukraine and get out of here, even though nearly all of them were locals. Yet the police, under orders from Kyivs new government, separated both sides and kept the protests from becoming violent.

While the situation in Crimea remains volatile, Ukrainians across the regions are starting to establish some kind of dialogue. Kharkivs Euromaidan activists, stressing their support of European values, announced on Facebook on February 24 that they decided to call off the Lenin monuments demolition and put the idea up for public discussion. On February 25, members of Lvivs intelligentsia, citing the loss of life in Kyiv and calling for greater national unity, demanded more favorable government policies toward the Russian language. Lviv residents, in an act of solidarity with the south and east, launched a one-day campaign to speak Russian in public places. Donetsk Euromaidan activists in kind called on people in the south and east to speak Ukrainian.

The revolution may have only swept Western Ukraine. A serious economic crisis is on the horizon. However, these attempts at dialogue, and continued public pressure from Euromaidan activists to reform the state, could eventually bring about a government that addresses the concerns of all of Ukraines regions.

William Risch is Associate Professor of History at Georgia College and made two trips to Ukraine during the Euromaidan protests.

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| EuroMaidan, government, Russians in Ukraine, Ukraine and the EU

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Posted by ukraineanalysis Ukraine: Corruption Doesnt Capture It

February 24, 2014

Tatiana R. Zaharchenko

Since it became an independent state 23 years ago, Ukraine has been looted by its structure of government at all levels and those close to it. The word corruption is not adequate to describe present-day Ukraine, and in fact, distorts reality. Western listeners, often aware of corruption in their own countries, and certainly it exists everywhere else, shrug their shoulders and remain unimpressed. But what has taken place in Ukraine all these years, and accelerated rapidly under the current government, goes far beyond corruption. It is a policy of looting the country, transformed over the last several years into systematic and institutionalized extortion that reached all the way down into society, after not much was left to be stolen at the top.

This Texas-sized country of 45 million people in the center of Europe, containing expanses of rich, black agricultural soil, coal and mineral resources, an industrial infrastructure, a highly educated population, has been gradually sinking deeper and deeper into economic stagnation as those resources have been accumulated in the hands of a few.

To understand what led to the current protests in Ukraine, it helps to rewind the tape of history and to start with perhaps the most politically incorrect question for the West: how privatization took place in Ukraine (as well as in the other post-Soviet states) in the early 1990s and what role international institutions and Western experts played in it. I believe that, in its rush to shatter the existing centrally planned economy, to push free market reforms, and to make irrevocable the departure from socialism, the West made a fundamental misjudgment. It acted as if democratic societies can be built starting with economic changes even when institutional and governmental reforms are lacking.

The post-Soviet countries received a massive impetus from the West for the economic changes and reallocation of property rights reflected in privatization while they lacked the traditions and habits of accountable, transparent governance or any experience with grassroots democracy. In these conditions, privatization meant that state assets and natural resources landed firmly in the hands of those close to power, leaving the rest of the country in both financial and moral turmoil.

All that accelerated during the Yanukovych presidency, and was extended all the way down through the society. I was told in one government ministry that in each department, employees were forced to

contribute part of his or her monthly salary, the money flowing up through the pyramid to those on top. This became generalized through government institutions. Any small business owner in Ukraine who hasnt lost their company outright to physical threats or shady financial maneuvers ratified by corrupt courts, knows the necessity of paying large bribes to government officials just to keep the doors open.

It took time for democratic changes to take root in Ukraine as they now have, but also for a postprivatization fog to lift from the eyes of the people of Ukraine. It took nearly 20 years. Now, a new generation of Ukrainians in their early 30s, who grew up free of the shadows of communism, with opportunities for travel and study abroad, empowered by modern communications, has refused to accept what their country had become. I see this generation playing a crucial role in leading Ukraine towards a renewed sense of public morality and honor.

People came to the central Independence Square in Kyiv, known as Maidan, in November 2013 not only to protest their governments last minute rejection of the free trade and association agreement with the European Union that had been five years in the making, not only from outrage at riot police violence against dancing and singing peaceful demonstrators, mainly youth, on the night of November 30. They came to the streets and many have stayed there for 90 days to denounce the looting of their country that has been taking place in front of their eyes for years.

Perhaps most importantly, they came to reclaim their own dignity, which they were stripped off by becoming part of an unprecedented historical experiment of dismantling state ownership and creating private fortunes behind closed doors overnight, by accepting and living by the rules they did not establish and therefore becoming part of the system they despised. They came because one morning they watched TV, read an Internet post, heard the first- hand account of a friend and felt enough is enough.

For everyone who had the privilege, as I did, to visit Maidan last December, when it was commonly called EuroMaidan, the excitement of the proud, peaceful, friendly and creative people of all age groups and all economic classes gathering there during the day was contagious. Nor could you avoid a knot in your throat if you came to Maidan late at night when it became a male world of fires, comradeship and vigilance by those who had nothing left to lose.

More than anything else, Maidan signifies a moral revolution in Ukraine and a recovery of the ability to distinguish right from wrong and stand up for moral values. It is an uprising of people who are no longer blinded by the rule of money and the patina of glamour of the last two decades. It signals a maturity of

Ukrainian democracy because it demands accountability in governance, transparency in decision-making and honesty in politics.

This week, the balance suddenly tipped in Kyiv as members of President Yanukovychs Party of Regions deserted him, and the promise of constitutional changes and earlier elections appeared. It is too early to say what tipped the balance, what combination of the unbending courage of the protestors, increased pressure from Europe and the United States, fear among government supporters and Ukraines oligarchs that the situation was spinning out of control.

What is clear is that despite rhetorical support, the West did not act with resolution until too many people had been killed on the streets of Kyiv.

Given the protestors initial emphasis on European values and standards, even to the extent of naming their protest space in the center of Kyiv Euromaidan, the EUs apparent political and institutional impotence, its inability to exercise a coherent policy with regard to Ukraine, sharply diminished its standing in Ukrainian eyes. Lately young people who were ignited by failed association with EU to come to the freezing Maidan, as well as some Ukrainian press outlets, have been removing from their websites and Facebook pages EU flags and other symbols which adorned them for many weeks of the protests. In the endgame, EU representatives may have played an important role. But it came nearly 100 human lives too late.

When this complex and tragic chapter of 21st century history is written, the people of Ukraine will have many things to be proud of and to be remembered for. On their own initiative, without waiting for political leaders, they organized massive, peaceful and disciplined protests that shook the government and ended the climate of fear in the country. They survived Ukrainian winter, the charges of riot police, the frustration of seeing their demands ignored by the government, the threats, kidnapping, torture and killing of their comrades. The overwhelming majority of the protestors maintained the non-violent nature of their protest up to the moment the government declared war on them and started shooting people on the streets. And in the face of unleashed government violence, they demonstrated superhuman courage and stood firm. Their fortitude and courage will be just as necessary over the next several months to ensure that the agreed reforms are actually carried out. But they already changed their country forever.

Tatiana Rudolfovna Zaharchenko, PhD., is an international environmental lawyer with years of experience helping post-socialist countries reform their governance and laws. She is a Visiting Scholar at

the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC, and splits her time between the US, Europe and Ukraine. For more information, please visit http://www.eli.org/international-programs/visiting-scholarsbios.

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| corruption, EuroMaidan, Party of Regions, Ukraine and the EU, Yanukovych

Posted by ukraineanalysis UkraineDivided or Diverse February 22, 2014

Uilleam Blacker

On Wednesday, February 19, following the worst violence so far of the Ukrainian protests, BBC Radio 4s Today program, probably the leading radio news show in the UK, reported on Ukraine. The programs correspondent Daniel Sandford warned of the danger of a bloody civil war and of the splitting of the country. On February 20, the program spoke of half of Ukraine that feels more Russian and half that feels more European. On Wednesday, Today presenter Mishal Husain asked Robert Brinkley, former UK ambassador to Ukraine and Russia, about the prospect of war and a split, saying that after all, half the country speaks Russian. Recognizing the risk of further unrest, Brinkley nevertheless cautioned that talk of a split was exaggerated. The countrys supposed East-West split is not clean cut, he said, neither are its ethnic or linguistic divisions. Sadly, Brinkleys differentiated understanding of Ukraine is sorely lacking in wider Western commentary on Ukraine.

Talk of sharp divisions is not limited to journalists, but is also frequently heard from specialized commentators, for whom identifying Ukraines deep divide seems to the first marker of expertise on the country. Stephen Cohen, emeritus professor at Princeton and New York universities, commented thus in The Nation:

But every informed observer knowsfrom Ukraines history, geography, languages, religions, culture, recent politics and opinion surveysthat the country is deeply divided as to whether it should join Europe or remain close politically and economically to Russia. There is not one Ukraine or one Ukrainian people but at least two, generally situated in its Western and Eastern regions.

A similar message came from two other North American academics, Lucan Way and Keith Darden, in their blog for the Washington Post (albeit presenting a far more nuanced view than Cohen):

We should be particularly wary when the people referred to are the people of Ukraine. If 20 years of scholarship and surveys teach us one thing, it is that Ukraine is a country that is deeply divided on virtually every issue pertaining to relations with Russia or the West, with very deep historic divisions that continue to bear on contemporary politics.

This idea of a fatally divided state that can barely hold itself together because of political, linguistic, cultural and other differences is repeated so often that it has become a commonplace, and is widely reproduced in less specialized media coverage, as on the BBC.

Yet the BBCs received wisdom about Ukraine, and the statements made by Way, Darden and Cohen demand some scrutiny. Why should we be extra-careful when talking about the Ukrainian people? Why the quotation marks? Politicians and commentators the world over talk about the people of their countries and what it wants. No-one corrects them by pointing out that in fact the peoples they refer to are internally differentiated. Why is it necessary to establish overwhelming consensus in Ukraine in order to justify talking about the Ukrainian people?

Regional diversity is seen as the geographical basis for warnings of divisions, splits and wars. Certainly, strong regional political differences, based in historical, ethnic and/or cultural differences, can create fault lines within states: Northern Ireland is a case in point, separated from the Republic of Ireland and having autonomous status within the UK. Scotland is about to vote to separate from the rest of the UK. If one wants to talk about deep regional differences, the UK is a much more dramatic case than Ukraine. Ukraine has no strong separatist movements. There are no political parties who include cession of any part of the country in their programmes. There are no problems with separatist terrorist organizations.

Crimea, Ukraines most ethnically Russian region and an important site of Russian strategic interest, is the only place where some degree of separatism is really noticeable. The region, a small part of Ukraine with a population of around 2 million, has an identity powerfully distinct from the rest of the country, and enjoys a high level of autonomy. Rumblings are often heard about the prospect of ceding to Russia, but this has never really been seriously entertained, and voters overwhelmingly support Yanukovychs party, which wants Crimea as part of Ukraine. Any potential conflict in Crimea is likely to be caused by Russian-Ukrainian geopolitical relations, potentially similar to the conflict between Georgia and Russia in

South Ossetia in 2008, but neither side is likely to risk this scenario. Ethnic tensions or separatism on the ground are not strong enough to spark major unrest.

Compared to the UK, then, with Scotland and Northern Ireland, or Spain, with the Basques and Catalans, where threats of separatism are very real, Ukraines territorial integrity seems to be fairly safe. Nevertheless, Western observers see supposed regional splits as deeply threatening to Ukraines future as a state. At the same time, even the immanent prospect of the separation of Scotland from the UK and the continued terrorist activity in Northern Ireland, while of course causes for concern for many, inspire neither domestic or foreign observers to create a doom-laden discourse of political impossibility around the future of the UK.

Division is often drawn along linguistic lines as the question posed by the BBCs news presenter demonstrates. After all, half the country speaks Russian, doesnt it? Well, not exactly. In the country as a whole, the Ukrainian language dominates as the stated native language, though research suggests that actual language use brings Ukrainian and Russian closer. There are certainly regional differences the East is generally more Russophone but the geographical spread of the two languages is actually quite complex. Many people speak both, or mixtures of the two. It is often hard for an individual, even in the east, to define whether they are a Russian speaker or a Ukrainian speaker, never mind for an entire region. Anyone following the protests online will have noticed a robust mixture of Ukrainian and Russian voices in the Maidan camp.

But accepting that different languages are used across the country, with regional variation, is there any link between this and potential civil war and state collapse? One thing that is important to remember here is that in Ukraine (as in many other countries) language doesnt mark ethnicity. Only about onesixth of the population is ethnically Russian (and here its important to note that making any conclusions about Russians political views based on ethnicity would be hasty). There are more ethnically Ukrainian Russian speakers than there are Russian ones. Ukraine is not Yugoslavia (an analogy that is often cited) over 80 percent of its inhabitants share the same national identity, and there is no history of ethnic conflict between the inhabitants of present day Ukraine.

The Russian language is a mainstay of life in Ukraine, and can be heard in any region. Most Ukrainians consume Russian media, watch Russian movies, read Russian literature or listen to Russian music to some degree, and in this the west of the country is actually no exception. But there is little difference between this language-based affinity and that found among Irish people for British culture, or among Brits for American culture. These affinities may speak to certain overlaps in identity, attitudes, historical experience, but they are not omens of any future political union.

Linguistic diversity in Ukraine is much less of a problem than some outsiders seem to think: in everyday life, one might meet some resistance for speaking Ukrainian in Odessa or Russian in Lviv, but most people pay little attention. Ukrainians often hold conversations across two languages without really noticing. Surveys from the early days of Yanukovychs rule have suggested that the language question, so inflated by politicians around election time, is actually of little concern to ordinary people, worrying only around 5 percent of the population.

And yet again, Western observers often pick up on these differences as evidence of a flawed society that is heading for catastrophe, despite the fact that linguistic diversity is in fact the norm in many countries, and is something that is openly promoted by the EU as desirable and important.

In both articles mentioned above, and in numerous others, observers point out that support for the EU is another point that splits Ukraine. It is true that support is not uniform across the country, and there is no clear majority support for the EU: Way and Darden cite a survey that shows that 43 percent supports EU membership, and 32 percent membership of the Customs Union (the survey doesnt ask about the actual proposition of the EU trade agreement that was rejected by Yanukovych; it also suggests that of those willing to actually vote in potential referenda, 58 percent would favour the EU and 42 the Customs Union). But should the reluctance of a significant proportion of the countrys population to commit to supporting EU integration be seen as yet another fatal divide in the country? The situation in fact makes Ukraine typically European: Euroscepticism has become very strong in many European states. The UK may well hold a referendum on its membership. Polls suggest that support for EU membership in the UK is significantly lower than it is in Ukraine (only around 30 percent support for membership according to 2012 polls). Yet while this is fairly standard for some actual EU members, in Ukraine, where disapproval of the EU is lower and enthusiasm certainly more visible, division on the issue is seen as an insurmountable problem for closer ties with Europe.

All of this smacks of the most condescending kind of Western double standards. While political, linguistic, and cultural diversity seem to be desirable traits, signs of normal, tolerant, democratic European societies, in the Ukrainian case these traits are seen as signs of deeply threatening divisions in society. Whats okay for the rich nations of the West regional, cultural, linguistic diversity that is reflected in a varied political landscape is not okay for poor, chaotic Ukraine. The present unrest is seen as proof of this.

Yet it should be obvious to any observer that the unrest in Ukraine is not a result of any kind of ethnic, regional, linguistic or other split, nor does it foresee any territorial split or civil war: it is the result of the

disastrous rule of a corrupt and brutal government that represents the interests of small elite that is determined to hang on to its wealth and power at any cost. Any future violence will not be between different ethnic, regional or linguistic groups: it will be between the state and its opponents. That opposition may be stronger in some parts of the country than in others, but those who are less willing to protest are unlikely to take arms against Maidan supporters. No-one is willing to fight for Yanukovych, other than the thugs he pays to do so.

One wonders what the ideal scenario would be for Ukraine, according to those who lament its lack of unity. Putin managed to achieve an impressive level of political unity and stability in the country for much of his time in power (with some notable exceptions to the rule, such as the bloody secessionist war in Chechnia). Is this kind of unity a desirable scenario for Ukraine? Perhaps its time to recognize that Ukraines perceived divisions are in fact simply typical signs of diversity; they are not a liability, but a sign of cultural richness, and can, if harnessed and embraced, provide the foundations for the emergence of a vibrant and differentiated democracy.

http://www.thenation.com/article/178344/distorting-russia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/02/12/who-are-the-protesters-inukraine/

http://www.socis.kiev.ua/ua/press/dani-zahalnoukrajinskoho-sotsiolohichnoho-doslidzhennjamonitorynhu-ukrajina-i-ukrajintsi.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/nov/17/eu-referendum-poll

http://life.pravda.com.ua/technology/2010/04/12/46531/

The author is Postdoctoral Fellow, St Antonys College, Oxford